Playing with an Animoto slideshow...

Does it work, or not? Doesn't matter. Just playing. Animoto mades a video out of whatever photos you upload, and adds whatever music (in this case an .mp3 of a poetry recording I did some years ago) to it. It's a 30 second freebie. The slideshow video is here (if there's any problem with the embedded one below). The poem, Whorls of Angels, of which there is a snippet, can be found here. Hope this posts alright!

Happy Cupid's Day!

´ ¸.♥¨) ¸.♥*¨)
(¸.♥´ (¸.♥´ .? *¨* ¯¨*´¸
`*.¸.*´* .• *¨* ´¸ .`¯¨*•´
¨*• *´HAPPY CUPID DAY!!!!!¸
¨*• .*¨¸ ¤.¸ ´•.¸ * ´¤.¸ ¸.
.¸.*´¤ ¨.*• ¤.¸
¨* *.¸.*´*¸ .• *¨* ´¸ .`¯¨*•´
¨*• .´ *¸ .• •**”˜˜”*°•. ˜”*°•♥•°*”˜ .•°*”˜˜”*°•.
♥-:¦:-•*'''''*•-:¦:-•:*♥*:

-•:*'''''*:•-:¦:♥
(¯`v´¯) (¯`v´¯)
*`•.¸(¯`v´¯)¸
★ º ♥ `•.¸.•´ ♥ º♥.•*¨`*•♥.•´*.¸.•´♥


(gotta thank Carmen Colmenarez for an extraordinary explosion of happy punctuations!)

DVE Course trailer assignment

Looks innocent. Yet this little 2 minute 'trailer' for my Digital Video Editing course took, well, an all-nighter and then some. First I spent many hours cutting it up into tiny 'best shots' sub-clips, 35 in all. Then I took some still photos of backgrounds to try. Then I started to put it all together. I think I got into bed at 6am for about 2 hours. And it wasn't finished.

In class last Monday, where we got an extension of 2 weeks, whew, I realized that what I was doing was a 'mini' version of the story, and that's not what's required in the 'trailer' assignment.

So, begin again... (or finish this and begin again)

Final Cut Pro (in class) and Express (what I work in at home) is drag and drop, and ooh la! I think trying to line up a snippet of a scene with the layers I like to work with and with dissolves in and out would take minutes rather than an hour if it were all done with a time line, with numbers. But I am told once I get used to the drag & drop interface that I'll find it very easy to work with. I haven't crossed that threshold yet, still being stuck somewhere on the learning curve like Sisyphus.

Music in the Morning

coral breakers in the sky this morning,
waves of luminous red

Jamendo blog, playlist: Valentines 2009 (quite listenable, enjoyable, especially since it's a list put together by someone else, just sit back)

The Octaves

Melt into the edge of the room. Eyes shut; no-one can see me. Slide along walls, over chairs, until the table. Where I was going, I realize. Varnished wood, thick, old, probably Walnut. Carved in a carpenter's studio, perhaps. Legs spun on spindles. I imagine the tree who was stripped for the table, sawed into planks. Centuries old, sap running through limbs, leaves drinking rain and sun, rooted in earth. I hug the table, in the dark of my closed eyes. My chest to the tabletop, beating, then turning over, until my back lies flat. Reaching forward and down, from the safety of the wood, fingers groping air, the unknown. I cannot touch floor. It is the end of the world, the emptiness of the universe, nothingness. Only the wood holds me here.

The octaves. I am a child on a swing, flung out past the boundaries. My long-silenced throat clears, a tiny AUM. Louder. A simple scale, up and down.

I hope the others in the room, for we all move with our eyes shut, dancing our internal dramas, aren't irritated by my sudden child-like joy, the octaves.

I release the table, roll on the floor, light laugh,
humming.

Graceful and majestic, lyric and epic, intimate and panoramic. Very beautiful.

Ai!R, Waxworks.

Comment I left: This music uplifts and takes me to places I haven't been before. It mirrors my experience. Gentle and majestic. The intimate and the massive vision of the panorama. Very Russian! Heaven in a grain of sand, or eternity in a wildflower [Blake]. You can feel your own pulse in Ai!R's music, and the expansion and contraction, the heartbeat of the galaxies. In this flowing jungle of orchestral electronic ambient alternative music. Beauty. Longing. Gracious love. Strong bonds of the heart, warmth.

Highly recommended! Kudos! You honour us, Ai!R, with your music! Thank you....

(I posted a link to this site last month, but it had only two tracks then, the entire album has since been added.)

Flying Earth

Authentic Movement workshop this evening with Gennie, amazing expressive witnessing releasing deep painful joyful wisdom powerful.

Gennie was wonderful, witnessing, giving us her responses, the woman is a seer, a poet, she is. We got into some pretty deep stuff, some of us. Yeah - I sorta was rumbling by the last set! Authentic Movement is a beautiful process. I'm always amazed at how deep everyone can go with it.

It felt strange, for me, who is so private, to cry before others, and yet I did, and I was grateful for the 'river of life,' healing, survival, continuance, profoundly so for love, loving, and then out to torrential rains, wet-through by the time I reached home, and a fresh umbrella and a 2km dog walk, she in her leaking red nylon dogcoat, my boots leaking near the end when we came to the park, both of us waterlogged, the rivers pouring from the sky...

Post the little pastel I did after the middle set, which I won't get into, but, ahh. Well. I literally had to force myself to go to the workshop, held in my area, so close by, I've been cloistered and very withdrawn of late as I come to terms with everything that's happened.

The nearly four hours we spent together, the small group gathered, the facilitator, her perceptions, compassionate, non-judgmental, helped.