“I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them that they don’t own me. If I die, I wanna still be me.”
“I just can’t afford to think like that.”
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The night before my cousin’s wedding, I sat down at my mother’s computer and received an email from a spiritual friend in Vancouver which contained a video of the Little Grandmother of the Tribe of Many Colors. I have to say, this video was kinda tripped out, but still intriguing for me. Little Grandmother’s sincerity was powerful enough to keep me watching he talk till the end… which is where she mentioned our “star brothers and sisters“. She said they exist among us, but are hiding themselves in a place we will never look, “our mentally disabled“. “They are here simple to hold a very high vibration for humanity. It is a lesson for each of us. `How would you treat someone who looks so different from you?`”
This part of the message stuck with me. Easy to judge her as crazy? In this world, sure is… yet the point remains valid.
The next night, at my cousin’s wedding, I was looking forward to dancing. As always, I had to wait till more people got boozed up enough to dance. I usually find it difficult to throttle back. It’s all or nothing. Either I just sit down and have more cake, or bounce around like a monkey till my shirt it soaked. That is when I noticed the man with down syndrome. He was break-dancing on the dance floor.
I joined him. We battled and inspired each other to do things we hadn’t done before. He did some popping and I did a backspin. The rest of the people didn’t exist. Though brief, this was some of the most fun I have had dancing in a long time. I didn’t feel like I was “pushing” myself, but I certainly was going beyond whatever I had tried in the past. For the rest of the night the family was pushing us to break it out again, but we couldn’t because it wasn’t about us anymore, it was about a show. Putting on a show has a totally different vibe. A vibe that doesn’t contain as powerful an energy.
I guess Little Grandmother was right. This particular star brother existed… and he taught a valuable lesson that night.
So yesterday I ran into an old acquaintance that I haven’t seen in 10 years. She recognized the name of one of my friends who used to throw parties, about 10 years ago. I told her that my old buddy is now living in Australia and that I missed his inspiration.
When I returned home, I started looking up animation stuff and came across a short animation with Batman, which lead to this great Javascript driven website which has inspired me to use JavaScript on my current project.
I went to bed shortly after reading an email from a life-coaching friend who stressed the importance of working collaboratively. “…life is a team sport and to get to the Superbowl we need a lot of support from many different avenues.”, she said.
In my sleep I thought of my buddy in Australia… and, little did I know, at that same moment, he was typing up an email. I haven’t heard from him in about 3 months, yet the next morning, I read his email where he was asking me to help with a visual effect he wants to do, which is practically identical to an effect I have been playing with for months. This was the day I planned on diving into 3D to tackle it. His email has provided me with additional motivation to get things moving again.
As a cherry on top, he finished his email by tagging it with “Batman” as his signature. Heh.
Last night was a late night watching horror movies with the roommate and his lady-friend. They started with Hackers and eventually moved onto Night of the Living Dead and finished up with The Fly, starting Jeff Goldblum. While they were on the couch, I was in back of them on my computer, looking at Boardgamegeeks.com for a specific boardgame, and local store locations where I could find it. One store was mentioned as a great place to find deals. They said it was next to a store I frequented quite often. I thought, “Well, if I’m in that area, I’ll definitely stop in.” I gotta get my boardgame fix sometime soon, and Fury of Dracula is calling my name.
The next morning, I headed downtown to take care of some errands.
While walking across the street, in search of a cheap electronics store, I saw a familiar face. It was not someone I knew well, but definitely someone I had conversed with. Judging her by her dreadlocks, I assumed I knew her from 10 years prior, when I used to drive up and party in this city. I locked eyes and she had a look of, “Can I help you?” in her eyes.
When I reached the other side of the street, I walked up to her and said, “I know you.” and she said, “Oh yeah?”
I immediately recognized the voice.
I through out some names and when I mentioned a specific artistic individual, she immediately lit up and replied, “Didn’t they throw parties a few years back?”
Haha! I knew it! We did know each other!.
She was on her way to the Occupy gathering and I told her I was looking for Futureshop. She told me that we were going the same way, so I asked if she wanted to walk together and chat. We were an odd couple, her with her dark skin, dreads, and BMX bike, while I was clean-shaved, wearing a button up with cuff-links. I mentioned how I liked that the Occupy movement was not setting any demands. I told her that I recently have been trying to give up labels and definitions and that it has opened up so many more possibilities. She had differing thoughts, but we had a great dialogue.
I had mentioned to her that my neighbor had a terrible accident and that she might have heard about it in the news.
“She was your neighbor? Really? I know her! She was my teacher!”
I laughed and said something silly, like, “It’s a small world.”
Eventually we reached a point where we had to travel our separate ways.
As I continued my path, alone, I thought of our conversation. After a few minutes, my thoughts were distracted by some toys in a store window. I took a step back and… what? “Wait? This isn’t supposed to be here, I thought it was on the other side of town.” I thought. It was the store I had been researching the night before. As it turns out, the store that it was supposed to be nearby had two locations. I popped in and found the game I was looking for, and it was significantly cheaper than anywhere else I had looked up online.
Perfect.
Last night, while walking home from dinner with my roommate, I noticed a pile of stuff outside of our loft building. A box, full of National Geographic Magazines had a special issue of “Water” peaking from under the box flaps. I picked up the issue and underneath was another issue with a woman, wearing a brightly colored outfit, on a bike, in the middle of the desert. “Burning Man!” I thought, and picked up the issue and immediately opened it. Inside, is an article about the Chauvet Cave in France. In the last few days, I’ve had a few people recommend I see, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which was recently released and is about the Cauvet Cave. I’ve been wondering what this was all about, and looks like I have a way to find out. This August 2001 issue of National Geographic had a photo on the cover from Burning Man as part of the article inside about public lands going public.
Ok, this wasn’t inside Burning Man, but just outside, while getting some gas. The double-toss / double-receive.
Jerry Levitan, creator of I Met the Walrus, directs this new animation with Yoko Ono narrating. Watch My Hometown for an inspiring message about directing positive energy in order to improve communities, whether local or distant.
From the creator’s of Coraline, LAIKA presents ParaNorman. Looks like this could have benefited from a Halloween release. Oh well. It seems that we’ll have to wait till August.
Spent the last two weeks at a wedding in India. The travel was quite challenging and many fell ill. I ended up with a fever that triggered some nasty stabbing neck pains that subsided only days before my return to Vancouver.
While being laid up in a hotel bed, I did manage to catch this amazing performance by Blaize on Channel V’s Footloose show. My jaw dropped.
Bryan posted some photos from our trip to Burning Man. It’s about time that I posted a link to these babies.
http://joneseybones.smugmug.com/Bryan/Burning-Man-2011-Rites-of/
We’ve pulled our RV off the road for a nutritious meal at McDonalds, somewhere in Oregon, and now I’m uploading my entry to the Houdini Cook-Off contest. Although my submission could be better, I don’t have the CPU horsepower, nor the time to re-sim or re-render. Oh yeah… and I’ll be in the middle of the desert in a few hours.
The brain pulsing will be slowed down and I would like to have roto-scoped her fingers, it looked like it was IN her hand, not around it.
All visual elements created by myself.
SynthEyes used for 3D camera tracking.
Modeling, shaders, animation and compositing done in Houdini.
Sound recorded and edited using Audacity.
Ok, not really a “farm” but it’s doing the job.
This is what I got, so far.
Hoping I have time to render some effects. Here’s the notes that I just took at lunch. Thanks to the waitress for supplying the scrap paper and pen.
Here’s a screencap of the 6 layers of audio. Was fun to do a few different zombie types… and, of course, the eating sounds.
“BRAAAAAAINZZ”
Not sure how I’m going to be able to finish my Houdini Cook-Off entry, but I’ll try.
First, I have to purchase some last minute items for Burning Man and then visit my storage to get a few more.
I just put up some of my photos from last year’s burn. Check em out.
An unplanned move had me out of my tiny little apartment in Parkville on Aug 1st, which has left me floating around a bit before my trip out west.
I am attempting to continue work on my Houdini Cook-Off entry, though not the easiest thing to do from a laptop, though I’ll be dropping a lot of the dynamics to make things more workable.
I have entered the Houdini Cook-Off challenge and will be hosting the images from my blog, as it will allow me to insert them in-line at the forums, plus it’s nice to have a local sketchbook of my progress. I’ll spare everyone any technical details, but if you’re curious, just go checkout the SideFX website for more details.
Amon Tobin’s newest live show is a stunning musically driven live projection celebrating the release of his ISAM album. Below is an extended trailer via Vimeo.
Though it is no longer downloadable for free, the ISAM album is still available for preview on SoundCloud.com (including commentary).
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