Poem for Or

My first thought posting this now is that a year ago, at the time when this video was first released into the ether, I was falling in love. I was falling ungracefully, full of doubt, questioning it the whole way down, very unlike what I imagined the whole thing might feel like. But I was falling and here I am now, in the love jar, and it's great in here and I think I'll stay. 

I find it a bit ironic that this video takes me back to that whole experience because this piece of art feels like heartbreak. It also feels like separation, like distance. People are quick to tell you that distance either kills love or strengthens it. I'm not close with either person in the video, though I've been a longtime admirer of one of them, but in this case, it seems to have done both. 

I want to say more but I feel like I shouldn't, so here, watch the magic thing, and feel what you want in the space between the two.

Sila Sveta, Digital/Physical

You'd be hard pressed lately to make it through a week, maybe even a single day, without running into the relevant (but, can I say it, tired? to me at least, it's right up there with talking about the weather) and passionately discussed issue of technology and how it is influencing our every move (often with a negative bent). 

No one's wrong. But what I find more interesting --than the conversation about how technological advances are just one more way in which millennials will ruin our weary, polluted world-- is the intersection of creativity in technology and in the arts. Again, some bad, and some good, but I think change is often the challenge an artist needs. Creativity begets more creativity, said Maya Angelou and a million other people, and it applies. 

Take, for instance, the below video. I like it as a conversation starter. Because it is beautiful, like something out of a dream, and a strange visual illusion, like the stairs that go up and down in a never ending circle. And here is my question. That is a gorgeous, human mover. Are you watching him? Is a harmony, between digital image and (a)live performance, achieved?

Have a Look: Batsheva and Bob Dylan

There is a game that is played, in different variations, wherein two competitors are given a set of significantly dissimilar objects, people, or ideas, and must race to connect them to a center point, usually via Wikipedia. Clementines and the Empire State Building. An Achilles Tendon and Jennifer Aniston. The color Magenta and the River Nile. 

I think, in certain cases, you'd be allowed to modify the game and use your imagination in lieu of a computer. Let's try it now?

One:

There's not much to say about the first video clip except that it makes me BELIEVE. 

Enjoy this electricity: 

Two:

The next thing for your eyeballs is a clip of Andy Warhol's 1965 Screen Test of Bob Dylan. Maybe what's really got my wheels, once I finish taking this all in, is the question of where exactly we go when we know we're being only-sort-of watched? It's a tricky thing to record someone in their natural state, but humans are adaptable, this is a fact. How long then before we forget that we are not alone?

And also, to bookend the week, see how much actually gets done in the pursuit of doing nothing!

...while we're on the topic of ANDY W. and his Screen Tests, we might as well (read: should definitely) watch this:

Start your engines and connect these dots why don't you? I think I will too. 

Fred Astaire: On Being Upside Down, Whenever Possible

I grew up in a big, airy house, with tall ceilings and an abundance of windows. To this day being in a small space with no natural light makes me feel a touch claustrophobic. This is somewhat problematic because I spend an average of three days a week working in a box office. (But I digress.)

There was a game I used to play as a child, by myself, that I called "walking on the ceiling." I would hold a mirror squarely between my hands, face up, peer into it, and walk.

That's it. It was incredibly simple.

The mirror, and my forward motion, was all I needed to defy gravity.

Fred Astaire took a different approach.

And so I'll share with you the following, something familiar (I hope!) but never tiresome, because every now and then we should lose, for a minute, our sense of up.

Also- last note I promise-- BUT:

“Everywhere that beauty goes, you are.”

— You're All The World To Me, Royal Wedding

SWOON. Enjoy.

Inspiration Board: Screaming With An Inside Voice