Videopoem-in-progress: Niagara Falls, First Project

A friend treated me to a trip to Niagara Falls- so beautiful! I took some footage. I started on something last night, and this is the little video in process. I decided to try some parallel editing with the clip. I'm uploading the video before I add a poem and music - which I haven't written or looked for yet. Blogger now offers video again, so it's a good place to post works-in-progress (in hugely decreased size) before the final upload to YouTube (which doesn't allow edits in the same url spot). I find seeing a video I'm working on online helps me to figure out what needs to be done or where it should go - and I like sharing the process of making something, too.

I'd like something slightly noir in this videopoem, but so far no images have come. So I search through sites, music, films for a hook, something that will unravel a poem.

Not that I believe poems lie in wait to be born, but already this one is forming itself in the footage and I have to whittle it out of the thundering mist.

The Falls are magnificent, though the town of Niagara has become, with casinos, haunted houses and wax museums everywhere, the Las Vegas of Canada - in a quaintly Canadian way.



Videopoem-in-progress: Niagara Falls, First Project from Brenda Clews on Vimeo.

Because I initially tried to upload a file too large for Blogger's service, and it didn't take, I turned to Vimeo. Though I later figured out my error with Blogger's file size limits, Vimeo certainly offers a better resolution.




Still from the video. As a filter lady, yes, I did add a little something. Not telling what though! ::Smiling::

_
Later, nah, I'm not a gangsta writer, but noir, or neo-noir, can be a mood, a tone:

Tones of Noir

Numinosity
     washes the sky.

Poems rise
     out of thundering mist.

I think it is a crime.

She rushes by.

The water, 
     the power in falling.

Begin when it's in motion
and stop before it ends.

Mystical crystal spikes
     of sun.

He waits.

We walk quickly
covering ourselves against the watcher.

                                          

Poetry birthday present...

Thanks to an early Christmas present, my computer has a new hard drive -albiet a cheap Western Digital. After 6 months of constant freezing of programs, requiring turning off and waiting an hour, it's a phenomenal relief to be able to use my iMac again. No idea how I produced as much as I have with an ailing computer.

In celebration, I burned a CD today of Starfire - mostly the whole album of my love poems, though there are a few I haven't yet done... for a birthday present.

Now that everything is working again, hopefully I can finish the album and get it uploaded to Jamendo in the next few months.





                                          

How to create a custom YouTube video player for your blog or website

A selection of my videopoems. As a painter and poet, I, like many, are drawn to the video medium, where I experiment with delighted abandon.

After a fruitless hour of searching for and trying out widgets, and then discovering YouTube itself offers the ability to create a custom video player for your website -though you won't find this handy feature in any of the drop down menus at your YouTube site- I created this one for my website!


This is how you create one of these neat players:


1. Sign in to your YouTube account.

2. Paste http://www.youtube.com/custom_player into the browser.

3. Create your embeddable player. Note: you can create a 'playlist' selection of your videos for use in this custom player, or use any of your other playlists, or simply include everything you've uploaded.

To create a custom playlist, I backtracked. I clicked on the videos I wished to show in my player one at a time and added them to a new playlist that I called "My Videopoetry." Then I returned to the custom player page and made that playlist my choice for what videos to show in the player.

4. YouTube will create the html you can embed in your blog or at your site. Copy and paste.

5. Later, when you want to find that page again paste http://www.youtube.com/my_players into your browser.

Currently using these urls is the only way to access this neat feature of YouTube - so be sure to favourite them for easy access in the future.




                                          

Silently Censored!

First I laughed, then I became livid.

Look, the process of creation begins with lovemaking. Conception occurs deep within the woman when her precious egg accepts the fertilization of a man's sperm. Lovemaking is a man's only bodily pleasure in the process of creating new life. It's all he's given.

The woman's body takes over. Pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, these are only her experiences. He can never know what these incredible processes feel like. He is shut out of the deepest mysteries of the beginnings of embodied life.

Personally I think this is one of the most unfair aspects of existence. I regale against it.

But it's reality. Perhaps those unsubbers are into artificial insemination for everybody? What a dry life that would be!

My lovers illustrate the beginning of the story. The story of the maternal body, of the birth of new life.

So I've lost a couple of subscriptions. Really I don't care, but my current art project, to have some paintings of the beginning of the process of birth, is clearly misunderstood.

What I've decided is to remove the posts with the images, though I will leave the album intact at Picasa. I may make it findable only if you have the link, I haven't decided. I may upload new drawings or paintings here for a day or so, and then remove them, not sure.

Incensed is what I am.