Friday, July 29, 2011

Video poetry by Swoon: 'Welcome to hard times'


direct link: Welcome to hard times

What a haunting, evocative video poem... the footage quite perfect, it contains the emotion, buried in black seawater and suffused, washing up to the shore like an oil spill, an edge of threatening, and we must imagine the events as they occur in their surreality. Poem by Howie Good and reading by Nic Sebastian, amazing of course.

Swoon wrote (in response to my comment above, with his permission):

"It was a struggle to make though... I couldn't get the atmosphere right at first. Too much... In the end I stripped down a lot and stayed with only the 'washing' tides, the washed up seaweeds and stuff and the wood. I kept the 'foggy footage off course, that was the first idea."

Which caused me to elaborate a little:

Nic's reading is understated, and your video is understated, but wow, the emotion spills out in ways it wouldn't if the video were a more dramatic enactment of the poem. I think you've caught the dreaming, imagining mind at the crux where the river flows into the ocean, where emotive images become part of a thought-process, and the visual and verbal metaphors continue to work at that subliminal level after the video is over.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Stone #78

Our tongues fork into each other. The undersides of clouds splatter slithers of rain meandering down the panes.

My back-up hard drive, 1Terabyte LaCie fried

In a state of shock. My LaCie 1T external hard drive is dead, fried, the data irretrievable (in my budget range), and it was my back-up. I've lost all of my original files for video poems, Final Cut files, Garageband files, Photoshop files, music, I am too numb to remember everything that was on that dear drive.

My cheap drives are all doing fine. Maybe a message in that?

I have it in to a repair shop. The drive, even in another casing, attached to another computer, is not turning. Dead. Like, in the spirit world. Likely the data is still on it, but unaccessible. It would cost a lot to retrieve it (and that shop doesn't offer that service).

And I nearly did Backblaze a few months ago, or CrashPlan, I can't remember, but I am an anti-credit card type, and they don't accept any options to pay cash.

C'est la vie. I've lost so much stuff over the years as computers have died or I've moved and lost all my emails with a service provider, so....

On with the new.

The Science Behind Dreaming: Scientific American

"...participants who exhibited more low frequency theta waves in the frontal lobes were also more likely to remember their dreams... This finding is interesting because the increased frontal theta activity the researchers observed looks just like the successful encoding and retrieval of autobiographical memories seen while we are awake. That is, it is the same electrical oscillations in the frontal cortex that make the recollection of episodic memories (e.g., things that happened to you) possible. Thus, these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake."

"...dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories."


The Science Behind Dreaming: Scientific American

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Stone #77

out of the continual hum, I grasp my fragmentary words, speaking, momentarily, before they slide into the murmur that is everywhere

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Stone #76

Slow, meticulous cutting of patterns, sewing. Each second is a stitch; each hour a finished seam. Our lives are the garments we wear.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Stone: #75

In the Annex's wealthiest areas, the streets are empty. No cars, no porch-sitters, no children, no-one out watering their front gardens. My dog and I walk. Unencumbered silence.

Dream: July 25, 2011

An empty apartment pool, high up, maybe the 20th or 22nd floor. The building is thin, constructed of whitened concrete. Light from the slits of windows shines on the water. My ex makes me swim naked. He is in a bathing suit. He is in his late 40s; I am more like my 20s. It's okay because we are alone. I swim in the blue chlorinated water around the bend. The pool is shaped like a half moon.

Then we walk down the street, where, again, I am naked and he is dressed. I don't like this, am embarrassed.

I rush back to the building, trying to hide my body. We are in the elevator rising. On the screen in the elevator I try to edit the YouTube video. I want to put on the clothes I am carrying. Only I can't. I have to go to the YouTube studio to do that.


Daphne Becoming-Tree


Daphne, 20.5cm x 20.5cm, 8" x 8", dip pen with India, acrylic and fountain pen inks, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4. (Click on image for larger size.)

I hand wrote the words with a dip pen under the image today.
I lay in the park sketching the tree; though invisible to the biological eye, she was there. Neither did the lake exist, nor the rocks. It was sunny and yet I found a sliver of a moon and a star on the paper. The child in me saw her. She is like a paper cut-out, drawn as a child would draw; she is Daphne. Look at her laurel crown. Her arms are turning into branches with leaves. I found her ghostdrawing her myth in the green dreaming imagination of the woman drawing in the book on her lap.

This Daphne is caught, perpetually transforming, as night falls. Apollo, the god of light, long gone. No sign of Cupid's arrow, if it ever flew.


Sunday, July 24, 2011

Stone #74: Daphne


Daphne, 20.5cm x 20.5cm, 8" x 8", dip pen with India, acrylic and fountain pen inks, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4. (Click on image for larger size.)

I lay in the park sketching the tree; though invisible to the biological eye, she was there. Neither did the lake exist, nor the rocks. It was sunny and yet I found a sliver of a moon and a star on the paper. The child in me saw her. She is like a paper cut-out, drawn as a child would draw; she is Daphne. Look at her laurel crown. Her arms are turning into branches with leaves. I found her ghostdrawing her myth in the green dreaming imagination of the woman drawing in the book on her lap.

This Daphne is caught, perpetually transforming, as night falls. Apollo, the god of light, long gone. No sign of Cupid's arrow, if it ever flew.

_
According to Greek myth, Apollo chased the nymph Daphne. From Ovid's Metamorphoses:
...a heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breast, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy. Only her shining beauty was left.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Stone #73

Rain pounding, my sticky heat-riven body wet-soaked, like the laughing people passing by. Water criss-crosses the drought-white grass.

_
The style here a little 50s, I thought. Post-Joycean, hyphenated word pairs.

The Dancer with the Full Moon in her Throat (sketch 2)


The Dancer with the Full Moon in her Throat, sketch 2, 2011, 20cm x 28cm, 8" x 11", India, ink, graphite, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

Before coffee this morning I got out my Rotring EF pen, the one in which I now use KOH--NOOR's 'Fount India - drawing ink for fountain pens,' a beautiful find. You cannot use permanent India inks in fountain pens because the enamel in the pigment will cause them to clog. Finding one specially formulated for a pen gives you something that will not smudge or blur when you brush it with coloured inks, or washes of oils, acrylics or other media.

The little drawing of the Woman Dancing the Dance of the Full Moon in her Throat is coming along. I like the imperfections in the pose, the slight awkwardness of mismatching. I think I will lengthen her legs, and then see where the sky can go. Round it off a bit better, and then either keep making more lines or brush some sort of colour in the drawing. Who knows.

That's the best part about drawing so freely. You let the pen in your hand take you along. One thing suggests another and off you go.

The Dancer with the Full Moon in her Throat, 2011, 20cm x 28cm, 8" x 11", India, ink, graphite, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Stone #72 (The Dancer with the Full Moon in her Throat (sketch 1))


The Dancer with the Full Moon in her Throat, sketch 1, 2011, 20cm x 28cm, 8" x 11", India, ink, graphite, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

Instead of watching a movie, Fellini's 'Satyricon' on the burner waiting, saw it years ago, I drew. Been busy the past few days, and I should sit back, but I don't relax too well. From my Moleskine Sketchbook... hopefully finish in the morning. Or maybe stay up... the full moon needs to go in, I think she is dancing a dance of the full moon, and that means a dark sky, and lots of ink... the full moon is in her throat, I see it now, and in the night sky.

She is reaching for her throat, for the full moon.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Stone #71

The plum, dark purple skin, pearl yellow flesh, firm, a sharp juice, releases sweetness to the tongue, like swallowing the moon.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Stone #70

Wherever I am touched, light summer dress, underwear, couch, skin on skin behind knees, head under braided hair, I sweat.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Stone #69

The species will come to an end; perhaps she is the last radioactive woman

(today's frenzied drawing)

skinbones

(click for larger size)
skinbones, 2011, 20cm x 28.5cm, 8" x 11.25", India, acrylic and fountain pen inks, watercolour pencils, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

I'm thinking that this did not turn out at all, but I suppose I should let it sit for a bit. I was inspired by the show of plastinated bodies, which I did not see, but have poured over images of. This image broods, however. Maybe it is about illness, or the aging process. Or some kind of horror film. The background is a 'scribble' cursive, and I had hoped the white ink would have a 'graffiti' look, but I don't think anyone else would get this association. She had one arm raised but I covered it over. The species will come to an end; perhaps she is the last radioactive woman. A dark piece, whatever it is.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Stone #68

The sky has too many blue patches where the sun shines through for the promised thunderstorm to drench and cool. We wait, wilt.

Configure It


Sketch, 2011, 19cm x 25.5cm, 7.5" x 10", India and acrylic inks on Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

Words: CONFIGURE IT

A little sketch I just did, sitting here, sweating in Toronto's heat wave...

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Stone #67

I stare at Inca stonework. We carve away at sections of ourselves, until we fit, until you couldn't drag a knife through us.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Stone #66

Like a nymphaea, a water lily, lazing on the thick surface of river water in this heat wave of fan wind blowing across my skin.

White Petal


direct link: White Petal

After recording a few ad-lib voiceovers, and being unable to leave this project alone, finally I wrote something along the lines that I'd hoped for. Which was a discussion of relationship, reminiscent of Annie in Woody Allen's 'Annie Hall (1977)' or Cristina in his 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008),' or like a Wong Kar Wai character who simply can't commit, simply can't, like York in 'Days of Being Wild (1990).' The character Birkin's description of relationship in D.H. Lawrence's 'Women in Love (1920)' before he marries, along with Lawrence's writings of the sexual electricity between people was an influence. There's a little Germaine Greer here too, I think ('Female Eunuch (1970).' And all those women who became nuns during the centuries so they could gain an education and could write, paint, compose outside of the confines of marriage and having 16 children. Some of us dance to our own music. (Said with the grin of a Cheshire Cat.)

Don't forget that 'Faded opulence. Over-the-edge-of. Yet floral abundance. The flowers are the stars—beauty, that edge of fading.'

See also Erica Jong's article, 'Is Sex Passé?'

People seem generally to prefer no poetry voiceover with one of my creative movement/yoga dance videos, so I have, instead, written something that is more of a narrative, that has enough of a story and a philosophy, but is I hope embodied in the movement of the woman who's on the edge of.

I wrote a story that I hope is captivating, whether you agree with the point of view or not. There is a push/pull here. The flowers are like a visual refrain, a chorus throughout the piece. The beauty of flowers, the garden, the hidden utopia of Eden within the garden, the garden of sensuality that draws us in and then becomes a way to control women, the way matrimony can be. The text written (after waiting weeks for it to emerge) to discuss something far more serious - women's creativity, and for my generation at least, it remains problematic. Eros, creativity, a life force, arising out of eros (the body, passion), I believe an artist needs this. A woman's muse is not entirely the same inspirational configuration as a man's, and surely each is again differently configured across generations, cultures, ethnicities, sexual preferences, life experience.

_
In the video footage, experimenting... always learning! Trying this and that with the clip. Having fun, and it shows in the humour of the piece.

There are sections to this video: doubles (video itself a type of mirror or reflection of the world), single, layering, shifts in colour and style as the yoga dance continues.

Who are we? Repetitions of ourselves. Our memories create us in our fragmentary identities. I fold into who I was or who I will become. Uncertainty is confusing. People flee from my uncertainty.

White Petal

Look into a dissolving mirror
bones, skin, neurons

the self-image.

This poem is not neat as intact
petal veins, mysterious as garden
fossils.

The poem writes,
rises from ruminations, dried
flowers on my spine
bursting seeds.

_
Danced, videoed, edited by Brenda Clews; background music by Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors, from an old favourite, Initiation: gabrielleroth.com/

_
The words spoken in White Petal:


I live in the city in a small apartment - a doorway and shelves covered with fabric. I want to see myself dance before it is too late.

As I dance through the years I reflect on who I am. Every incarnation of love in my life remains with me and carries me to the next immersion, the next wave.

I don't seem to have lost any of the great loves of my life, yet I am a woman who prefers to remain alone. I am a recluse, a very private person, master of myself.

I've been married twice. The first time, a five year relationship in total; the second time, fifteen years, but we had children. Both times, that feeling, imprisoned, denied. Not them, but the nature of legal union. Owned. Like being throttled; my creative and intellectual freedom threatened. It was a struggle to stay and I kept ending things, unable to find my footing, my self in the annihilation of coupledom.

Was I there to be a foil to his light, to support him in his work and dreams? Did I feel this nurturing love reciprocated? Each time, I'm not sure why, I began to die, and I need to blossom.

Women blossom in their creativity.

Some of us find deep comfort in the continuity of nuptial relationships. Others find themselves choked out in the garden of marriage.

I am not a relationship type. I love, and love deeply, but go in fear of being caught, being hitched.

Every incarnation of love in my life remains with me, carries me to the next immersion.

I am sensual, but have spent vast stretches of my life alone.


When you touch the Tantric nerve, sweet pleasure moans. Do you remember?

It's like a saxophone and you wonder if everyone can hear it. The music, sinewy lightning.

Once the pleasure grabs you, the nerve pounds in your blossoming. Helpless, this vortex. Sink, this magnet's circuitry is on. The cells murmur.

Grind, lubricate. Thrust. Push yourself into infinity. Lose yourself in the moment; lose all moments.



I find it hard to dance with anyone else. My rhythms never quite fit, my movements an outer expression of an inner drama being realized through the dance. I dance for my muse.

My muse captivates me endlessly. My muse is demanding. My muse insists without respite until I do. My muse drags me into this dance and makes me write these words of my life. My muse keeps me half-hidden while revealing a vision in my art. I endlessly seek what moves inspiration into artistic form.

I seek the pulse, the core of mystery, the orgasm of the flower.


My life is a vision, of loneliness, love, dry deserts and blossoming oases. My drum is tribal and I dance shamanically with my gliding, writhing, undulating body of passion.

_




Each of those boxes is a video layer - 
to give you an idea of the complexity of the construction of the piece. 

Friday, July 15, 2011

Stone #65

On my walk tonight I saw men flying sideways through the air in overcoats and bowler hats, graphite pencils gnawing on their shin bones.

_

(I did! But they emerged from 'The Master and Margarita,' a Russian masterpiece by Bulgakov that I am listening to as an audiobook, an image in his book that became a sort of Magritte drawing-in-process in the sky, though a little more demented than Magritte ever was. :)

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Stone #64

Her foot in a cast, they take the streetcar. They don't reach the door in time for their stop. The crowded streetcar continues on.

Daphne Becoming-Tree


20.5cm x 20.5cm, 8" x 8", sepia ink, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

A whimsical drawing of Daphne becoming-tree drawn in the park in late spring.

(Click on image for a larger size.)


Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Stone #63

Today I lay under a tree laden with seeds, her arms of wood nurturing sun and rain, her roots, the earth. Her leaves shaking like hair in the breeze.

I lay under a mother tree.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Stone #62

Baking in a humid heat wave with a 425° oven in a small apartment is trashed; instead, we politely eat tea-dipped store-bought donuts.

Memories of Flowers

My spit of a backyard has no water, the main reason I haven't planted anything. It's like an extra room in the summer though!

Pierre-Marie's comment at Facebook about my patio, though flowerless still a city oasis, reminded him of his vast garden, set me off remembering my various abodes - a downtown house with a deck, and a cottage for 10 years... so I created a post of memories of flowers.

At my house at Queen and Spadina on our deck we hung many bags of Impatiens from the fence, planted two Cedar trees (that are quite huge now, I see them over the fence when I walk by), a small Weeping Pea Tree with yellow blossoms in the spring, indigo Iris', white Trilliums, pink Bleeding Hearts and Tuberous Begonias - oh wow, those colours, I still remember them - and two bushes of Weigelas, both bought together, yet one quite pink and the other more white with differing months of blossoming.

The cottage, on Georgina Island in Lake Simcoe, a Chippewa Reserve (we rented the land), which we had from 1989-1999 (sold after our marriage dissolved), was built on fill since it was a swamp (that dried out in the autumn). We had a forest of Silver Maples on one side, and the sun porch we glassed in and turned into an all-year dining area faced it. Simply beautiful, and private. My ex used to strew bags of wildflower seeds out back and so we had an array of flowers, but way too much 'sneeze weed' (Ragweed, Mugwort, probably Goldenrod and Queen Anne's Lace) for him and his family's allergies. I've included some photos from those years.

Now I have a wee spit of land out back, and for an apartment in the city, it's a gift. I haven't planted anything due to the lack of water, and it would not be a good idea to lug watering cans with my knees.

Today my mother and brother are coming for cake and tea, we'll sit on lawn chairs, enjoying the privacy outside. They both live in apartments with balconies. It's not the same. When I moved into my apartment in 2007, I was told the little yard would be mine when the upstairs neighbours moved (that apartment also has a balcony, mine doesn't). A year later they moved. It was such a surprising gift, and I had no idea a little patio was attached to my apartment when I signed the lease.

I'm thinking, if the hot dry weather keeps up, to make myself take paints and a small canvas out, and see if I can do something other than write and lounge about out there!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Stone #61 -a short video of my patio oasis in the city


direct link: Spit of a Backyard Spills Bliss

My meditation today was cleaning my little patio - raking, scraping caked leaves and dirt, sweeping and dragging the paper garden recycling bag that I had filled to the curb. In between I sat back and contemplated the green ash, enjoyed my dog, and, after finishing the clean-up, gazed at the canopy of leaves above me for uninterrupted hours.

_
A spit of a backyard spills bliss into hours, yes it does.

Especially during a heat wave - 32°C/90°F and a humidex of 38, which doesn't describe the vapour pressure and inferno of heat Toronto was today.

A little bit of earth, connected to my apartment by a short walk, can offer lovely rest and contentment on a hot summer's day. A nice place to serve tea and cake to family and friends. Or to write, and I did get some writing that's been hard to do done this afternoon! Last year I put a hammock up, but rarely used it, so this year it's the chaise longe for resting, contemplating. My oasis in the city, and we do all need our oases.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Stone #60

In my fluid relationships, every incarnation of love in my life remains with me and carries me to the next wave, the next immersion.

A Pulsing Imagination - Ray Clews' Paintings

A video of some of my late brother Ray's paintings and poems I wrote for them. Direct link: https://youtu.be/V8iZyORoU9E ___