Speechless Tuesday

Enamorata

My love letter to Nooksack, WA, for dear friends and memories cultivated in that fertile northern land. The song is by Swell, and if you listen carefully at about the halfway point you can hear a sample from Drew's News. I'm enamored of VideoSpin, superior freeware to cut your editing teeth on.

Don't Forget My Number

Recently transferred a bunch of home video onto DVD and have been playing with Live Movie Maker to unearth some hidden gems. From back in the day when your telephone plugged into the wall not out of some Luddite urge but because you had no choice. Like, the 80's, dude. Tubular. We had wonderful answering machines to field and screen our calls. How else would you know who was calling? The dark ages, indeed, but not entirely without charm. Making the message for your answering machine became a kind of Outsider art form, created by folk from all strata of life. I remember doing a temp job calling Nordstrom customers and coming across these hilarious messages across the nation. Though I'm sure people are creative with cellphones, I haven't come across any that show the same level of creativity. The above is a message I made with my college roommates that proved so popular we'd get calls at all hours of strangers just wanting to hear what the hubbub was about, which is why we made the video. Don't go thinking I did this for every message!

You Know What You Are?

Remember Fukushima

(photo: Paula Bronstein)

Speechless Tuesday

Speechless Tuesday

Building a Better Locomotive

Taking breaks from editing the manuscript is a dangerous indulgence, eleven times out of ten resulting in complete derailment. This has been the case going on years now. Indulgent and dangerous, that's what my little columbarium plaque will read if I'm not careful. Lately I've stumbled on a remedy. It may yet prove temporary, as others have in the past, but so far so good. I find that modifying an image on Picnik keeps my creativity on track and enables me to come back to the real and arduous task of editing with concentration intact. Perhaps it has something to do with work/play balance. I hesitate to be too analytical, gratified to be productive and playful and leave it at that.