Occasionally, the videos I post here are mine. I’ve been waiting to use my camera’s interval timer since I acquired the Nikon almost two years ago, but I didn’t have a reason, until Friday.
Feel free to share and enjoy!
Credit where credit is due, thanks.
Blizzard2016 (aka Snowzilla, SnOMG and assorted others), taken in the DC metro area.
Credit: Betsy Marks Delaney / Hawkeswood Productions: www.hawkeswood.com. All rights reserved.
Time lapse video shot with my Nikon D5100 over the course of the storm.
Got a slightly late start, had a couple of instances where the battery ran out and I needed to replace it, and had to move the camera about 3/4 of the way through because of moisture outside the window.
The ghost at the left of the frame is me, working on my computer while the camera went off.
Total accumulation here: 19″ as measured by me off my back deck.
This is the one and only repeat video, because I just couldn’t resist. Now with new and improved second link!
Viral video responses to real world events. They’re a thing. And particularly appropriate, given last night’s Alberta Clipper in the DC region. Schools delayed or closed over the equivalent of two inches of snow, because we were too busy preparing for #SnOMG!, the 2016 edition.
Honestly, you’d think people would remember that this is what happens when El Niño is active, but no. Not so much.
So here’s today’s installment, viewed over 14 million times. Accept no substitutions.
Bread and Milk
But wait! There’s more!
Bread and Milk – Part 2
Now go forth and conquer the grocery store. Hurry. Before it’s too late!
It’s so easy to get distracted by the things in life, just in general. As I’ve gotten older, it seems there’s some new thing to deal with every day, and some new reason to move away from established habits. I’ve let this blog slide because of that, but today’s Twofer Tuesday selections come in direct relationship to the discussion of #YesAllWomen, #NotAllMen and #AllMenCan, the three hashtags accumulating their current fifteen minutes of fame.
I would like to think that the discussion will outlast the next few weeks, and that we will continue to explore our views of sexuality and violence as they relate to gender and equality, but I think Ingrid Michaelson got there first.
I don’t even remember how I got turned on to the first of these videos. I may have mentioned before that when I was a kid and MTV still played music (a statement that dates me instantly) I watched everything, and Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” appeared in heavy rotation back then. I disliked the video, even as the music caught my attention. I’ve included Palmer’s original for reference, so you can see shot for shot, how well the director pulled this off.
Now that the distraction has become an extended discussion about the foundations of communication between men and women, this seems most fitting of the videos I’ve collected in my playlist, so I’m presenting it to you for further comment.
It’s likely that there aren’t a lot of people today who remember the noise and furor surrounding the publication of Playgirl magazine, the first porn magazine directed at and for women. Reading the Wikipedia page tells you nothing about the handwaving that surrounded the publication. Chippendales, with a sordid history of violence, bankruptcy and legal issues. Objectification of men just doesn’t happen all that often, so when videos like this one come along, they’re eye openers.
(Here’s Robert Palmer’s original, for reference.)
Now the thing about YouTube is, if you watch one video, you’re often presented with similar videos to watch that follow up on the subject matter, the artist, or the action in the video. So I watched this follow-up and liked it a lot, because it’s much more real than the first video. It speaks volumes about the difference between seeing someone as a whole person and seeing only what you want to see. It’s sad that people don’t check the entire package before buying for the pretty wrapping outside.
I’ll note that the first of Michaelson’s videos has reached viral status. The second has under 150k hits. That’s a shame but not a surprise.
A few months ago, while exploring Time-Based Media options for class, I came across these videos produced by DeFrees Productions. generated with a couple of [Sound and Video warning] GoPro cameras and a LOT of time on the road, Brian DeFrees created these videos from around 200,000 images.
I’ve wanted to do something like this for years, but from inside the car. Been pricing out GoPro cameras, thinking that might be the way to go. I dunno, but these are awesome, particularly since Brian hit a lot of the highlights I’ve seen.
Roadtrips were a staple of my family life from the time I was around 8 years old until I settled in my current area. I’ve started taking them again because I miss travel and because for me it’s much more about the journey than the destination. I like the concept of camper travel (never did it as a kid – we were all about car camping then) but the cost of gas makes me think it’s not practical. Maybe if I could get someone to back me for it…
Well, while not precisely history, there’s a lot of history behind the sights and sites Brian visited.
Having just completed a class in Time-Based Media, I have a much better idea of how this video was constructed, but the mechanics aren’t the point. Watch how women are represented in art as we slip quickly through five centuries of artistic representation. Notice how often the woman’s eyes are downcast, and notice how shape, color and texture changes.
Art is an idealized form. Even in photography, especially with the tools available through Photoshop and similar editors, truth is often elusive. These are the ideals of the eras, or the truths viewed through the lenses of their artists, most of whom were men.
This Mother’s Day, consider how often we try to reach for the ideal and wonder whose ideal that is. We don’t live in an ideal society. We live in the real world, and our connection to that reality is manipulated all the time.
If you’ve watched this video before, watch it again and consider the filters through which you view your own life.
So, normally this space is reserved for embedding YouTube video, but today I’m highlighting a show that you can watch on broadcast, cable, and streaming online.
When Carl Sagan’s original series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage originally aired on PBS, I was hooked. I already thought of the Strasenburgh Planetarium as my favorite place in the city, growing up in Rochester, but here was a trip to places unseen and science made so clear and easy to understand, I didn’t miss an episode, rewatched the series every time it aired, and eventually bought the DVDs.
Neil deGrasse Tyson returns to Sagan’s exploration of our universe, but adds dimension and knowledge gained since the original aired almost 35 years ago. His series should serve as inspiration for learning more about our world.
Sadly, there are places where the concepts he talks about are considered sacrilegious, and not everyone sees the broadcast.
If you’re in a place where censorship has taken away the free broadcast, there are other options. I watch the show on both Fox and on Hulu. You can also find it on National Geographic Channel and Netflix Streaming.
It’s Feel Good Friday, and just like that, I’m back.
Really, though, this is an attempt at feeling better, knowing that there’s a whole lot of awful stuff going around today, especially in my personal Facebook feed.
It’s hard to think of a reason to smile, which is why these posts exist. Thanks for sticking around – classes are just about over for me and I’ll probably include a couple of my own pieces in the coming weeks, when I think about it.
Ephemeral as it is, YouTube has a wealth of information. This video’s making the rounds, but there’s only one original and it belongs to Margaret Hutto. (Hint: It’s the link below.) Accept no substitutions.
Okay, so this is another throwback (might be that way for the whole week, at this rate), but Paula Abdul’s dance is infectious and the animation for her performance partners, The Wild Pair (originally credited as MC Skat Kat), the video employs a technique similar to Gene Kelly’s Anchors Aweigh and Invitation to the Dance.
It’s one of my favorite music videos from the ’80s, because of the animation and the dancing.
My musical tastes spring from late ’60s Motown, R&B and folk, ’70s psychedelic and classic pop & rock, and the ’80s New Wave movement. I’ve liked some of the newer stuff, but not much.
There are a few artists who transcend time and style, who produce classics that defy pigeon-holing when describing their work.
Cyndi Lauper made hits like “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “She Bop” popular in the clubs, and yeah, they’re fun to dance to when you’re out in a club or at a party, but they’re not substantial like these two pieces.
True Colors and Time After Time both have a smoky quality and more heart than a lot of the music that came out of the New Wave. The video shows she went there long before Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Björk.
This video began to make the rounds in my feed shortly after the 2012 elections. I’m sorry it didn’t start to circulate before the election, but now that 2014 is on us, it’s time to revisit the subject, especially in light of Robert Reich’s new feature, Inequality for All.
If you don’t have the time or the patience to sit through a full-length documentary, here’s a summary (not directly related to the movie) that should spell it out for you.
I encourage you to watch the full-length movie, though. It’s available online through a variety of sources, including Netflix streaming, which is how I watched.
I’ve been howling about Trickle Down economic policies for decades. Here’s why.
In 1994, Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland wrote a book called, simply, How We Die.
On March 3rd, Dr. Nuland died of prostate cancer. This week, Krista Tippett featured an earlier talk with Dr. Nuland about his various books and his views on spirituality in her weekly NPR show, On Being.
Until this week, I didn’t know of the book’s existence. I still haven’t read it, because I’m presently swamped (as you may have noticed from the erratic way in which this blog is being populated at the moment). Based on the radio show, which I listened to this morning while trying to adjust my internal clock to the new Daylight Savings normal, I’ve decided the book needs to rocket to the top of my reading list. And, I think, perhaps for my friends as well, as this has been a bad week for a number of them.
The majority of my friends are older (in the vicinity of, or over, 50), and most are dealing with the aging and illness of parents and their siblings, but one of my friends just lost a battle with H1N1 and pneumonia at only 43. It’s not clear to me from this obituary whether I will agree with all that he writes, as I believe quite firmly in speeding up the process if the person is ready to go and wants to exercise the option, but I found his words this morning to be worth further investigation.
Here’s a TED talk featuring Dr. Nuland on the subject of hope rather than death. I recommend listening to both this and the On Being show as well. Expect more of these over the coming months. I’ve found many of the TED talks intriguing springboards for further conversation. I don’t think I’m alone.
In the movie Back to the Future, Part II, Marty McFly fast-forwards to 2015. Seemed like a long time into the future, back then.
Fast forward to today (for real) and the video below that hit YouTube on March 3. In just five days, the video has accumulated some 11 million hits. Sadly, if you visit the Wikipedia entry for the BTTF II Hoverboard, you’ll see it’s the hoax I expected it to be.
Sad? No, not really. The video gave me a smile.
Just don’t be that gullible maroon who thinks this is actual science. It’s not. It’s just movie magic.
It’s one-hit-wonder time today, with Kajagoogoo‘s Too Shy, a video I liked a great deal when I used to watch MTV (back when they showed, you know, music).
I always wondered what happened to them, because I knew there was something that happened. Limahl broke away (well, not really, according to Wikipedia), and eventually made a hit out of the theme for the movie version of The NeverEnding Story.
Ah, well. The backstory is seldom as nice a read as the art produced.
Yeah, I know. You’re probably sick of the song now. I’ll try to make this the last time (for now). But I couldn’t contain myself when Adele Dazeem…ahem…Idina Menzel herself sang on Sunday night’s Academy Awards show. (Made me wonder whether it was just a simple mistake, an amazing parody of herself, or a brilliant marketing move for the producers of If/Then.)
But I digress…
I mentioned earlier that there are in excess of 213k in parody or tribute links to the song Let It Go on YouTube. I’ll give it a rest after this, but you need to see these, just because.
First, the current Broadway cast of Avenue Q congratulate their co-creator, Robert Lopez, who co-wrote the song with his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez:
Then, there’s Alex Boyé stellar Africanized Tribal cover of the song, with the ) Ft. One Voice Children’s Choir. Holy cow, can that kid sing!
Finally? What you’re all probably thinking. And if you haven’t swallowed yet, do yourself a favor: Put the coffee down.
Ordinarily, I’d be posting a video for History Monday, but not today.
Today I’m posting the link to the 2014 Best Picture Oscar Award-winning 12 Years a Slave. I’d post a link to the movie itself, but I’m certain it will return to theaters in the very near future, and I encourage you to go see it.
12 Years a Slave is a tough watch because it presents the terrible, cold, hard, unshakable reality of slavery. Solomon Northrup’s story is Roots for today’s world.
Movies like these bring home the truth, whether people want to hear it or not. It is important to tell these stories, especially today, when people like Arkansas state representative Jon Hubbard can be so remarkably unclear about the cost that they can suggest slavery was a “blessing in disguise” and sites like Save Our Heritage (which I refuse to link to – you can go find this one on your own) post the sort of revisionist history that would have you believe being a slave isn’t so bad, and that we ought to return to those times.
You can complain about reality all you want, but you can’t alter it. That’s why it’s reality. It’s what happened. And what’s happening now, today, here in the US and abroad. That’s how I dedicate my Mondays this year: To recognizing the truth.
[Revised to add…]
So, because I haven’t got a live link to either 12 Years a Slave or Roots, I give you a different documentary, entitled Slavery and the Making of America. Yeah, it’s long. It’s also important. And I’m adding it here after the initial posting date, because I found it after I posted.
I had hoped to find this piece for today’s entry, but when I looked yesterday, it wasn’t where I expected to see it. Today, magically, I could find the film, but be warned – it’s likely to go away again, so see it while you can.
How does Mr. Hublot fit into Spiritual Sunday? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the viewer. All I know is it touched my heart. Would have been my choice, if I’d been allowed to vote. (Yes, Get a Horse! was awesome, but while it was funny and technically spectacular, it wasn’t moving.)
Unfortunately, the full version of the video is gone from YouTube. You can find more by going to this link to the official site.
Taking advantage of the camera’s viewpoint and some exceptionally creative and athletic perspective adjustments, LEO, the brainchild of Montréal actor and director Daniel Briére, based on an original idea by Tobias Wegner, asks the question. For more about LEO and other works, go here: http://boatrockerentertainment.com/
Yesterday’s parodies of Bohemian Rhapsody have inspired me to post the reason why I think Frozen will take at least one Oscar come Sunday. Let’s face it – there are few songs from movies that achieve such lofty status in such a short period of time. The Disney movie hit screens on November 27, 2013. Since then, there have been (as of this writing) some 213,000 parodies of the song Let It Go, written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, performed by Idina Menzel. If that’s not a guarantee of success for Original Song, I don’t know what is.
I already mentioned Let It Go once, but once clearly wasn’t enough. I guess I can’t let it go. And, as I said yesterday, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Here are three parodies for your Feel Good Friday pleasure:
First, there’s the tip of the hat to Batman’s Mr. Freeze. (Vocals not ideal, but then I don’t think of “Ahnold” as a particularly musical actor.)
Then there’s the literal version, which ought to get a lot more exposure than it has, because it is, in fact, awesome. High notes and all.
And finally, Cincinnati WKRC Traffic Man Bob Herzog’s exquisitely performed Traffic Man parody, which leads to the inevitable “I wish winter would end” feeling I’ve got, knowing there’s yet another winter storm on the way.