english fourfourteen

He walks briskly toward the corner as I take the first step from the porch of this dilapidated edifice. Its walls are crumbling and its floors are not sound, yet they make music when the weight of the world walks upon them. His hands are in the pockets of his dark jeans and he stares at the concrete, expressionless. I imagine his trodden stride would strain the wooden strings of the house, an instrument at best.

I have managed to leave on time for work this morning. Usually I am late, and then get scorned for being late, but only sometimes do I actually feel guilty. I wonder where this boy is going. He is the only other person I can see starting his day right now. I am surprised that my day is even starting right now—on time, that is—because there is so much alcohol in my system. I do not even remember last night, but it was probably like most other nights. Should I even bother going to work? What have I got to look forward to? My life has been falling apart ever since it was constructed, just like this house, nothing like a home.

Truth is, I only work because the law requires that I send Lucy’s mother money every month. Lucy is seventeen now. Her life is mostly a blur to me, but that is certainly my fault. I am not allowed to see her too often, and even though there are these restrictions already, she wants to see me even less. See me… she will never see me, in fact. When Lucy was three years old she fell and crashed into a table that had empty beer bottles on it—my empty bottles. One of them tumbled down and shattered, blinding her for the rest of her life. I was passed out upstairs.

That is how I woke up this morning, passed out in the upstairs of this place. I doubt anyone lives here. Only druggies and hookers make up the life of this house. You would think waking up across the room from an eighteen-year-old strung out on the latest drug would actually wake me up. Well, I did wake up from his jittering, but I mean wake up. I am thirty-some years old—half of the way through my life, half of the way to my death.

My watch beeps as my sluggish feet plunk plunk onto the next step. One step at a time, maybe that is how I need to do things.

I smell like death, and I bet I look the same. Maybe my first step should be to have some pride in my appearance. I have half an hour to get to work. Where the hell am I? I squint to read the street signs on the corner. Fourth and… Prospect? Really? This could be a sign, right? I mean it is a sign, maybe I should take it as a sign. Prospect, I like that. Or maybe it is just ironic for this decaying house to be here.

No. This is my sign. I am three blocks from home. I have enough time to get there and clean myself up before heading to work. Clomp clomp. I land on the last step.

I hear a screeching of tires a few streets away. Someone else must be excited to start his new day too. Maybe things don’t have to be so bad. I can do this. I still have half a lifetime to get things right.

This boy is just standing on the corner now. He doesn’t look any older than Lucy. I watch as he pulls a piece of paper from his bag. His vacant face shifts and swells quickly with tears. I feel very uncomfortable, but I am frozen on this last step. He walks to the middle of the street and gazes. I turn my head to see what he is looking at, but there is nothing. I see a calm, plowed street and trees blanketed in snow.

I hear the screeching again from the car a few streets away and it interrupts my attention to the boy. Whoever that is should really get that fixed. It sounds louder this time, though. The car is probably heading in this direction; maybe I'll get a look at the state of the car. Maybe it does not have the prospect of improvement.

My attention is once again on the boy as he lifts the paper in his hand to eye-level. His view is of whatever is on the sheet, not the street. I take my last stride and land on the concrete. I begin walking down the sidewalk. If the boy has moved the paper away from his face, I am surely in his view now. I turn around to see if this is the case, but it is not.

The pat pat of my feet on the pavement loses itself in the screeching of that car. It has turned down this street and is heading in the opposite of my direction—it is heading toward the boy. The car is going all too fast. I turn around again only to see the car strike the boy, but this time I hear no screeching of the car’s brakes. I run to the child who is face down now. Blood is everywhere. I turn him over and on his chest lies that paper. “Remember your father always” is written in what I assume is his mother’s handwriting. I turn it over and see that it is a photo of this very street… almost identical to this day. But it has become stained from the blue dye of his jeans mixing with the slush from the street. And from the top of the photo his blood begins to soak toward the center and become one with the scene as his life is ebbing away.

I hold the boy as he takes his last breath. Who was that sign for?

VIEW THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGE:

Posted by colleeny at 10:39 PM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2008

 FINAL PROJECT: TRANSLATION #1

SONIC --> VISUAL (movement)

this video is part of my final project. the idea was to see how one form (form i will leave open-ended instead of limiting it to "form of poetry," "form of art," etc.) can translate into another. in this case the base (sonic) was the song "bad bad levi brown" by portugal. the man. the goal was to translate it into a video (moving visual). in a sense, the form gains a dimension--almost like going from 2D to 3D. while a video only uses one sense (sight), just like a song does (hearing), a video in its own way seems to have a depth to it that sound alone cannot achieve. i believe it to be because we as humans rely so much of how we interact with the world around us on our sight.

the idea behind this project was to give this song/sonic/sound a visual equivalent. the outcome--"the translation"--is one in which only i could have achieved because it is spoken through the language of my imagination... which is something that is unique to everyone. that is to say, this visual equivalent is not the "correct" translation. there is no correct translation.

essentially, given limited resources and limited knowledge of computer programs (and having never made a video ever before), this video is the outcome to how i imagine "bad bad levi brown" might take on a visual form. i do not wish to call it a music video. i want for it to be called a translation.

a translation also changes the entire framing system of the form.

how might a song be framed? it is clearly unlike a photograph or piece of art that can be held in a black, wooden, too big, perfect fit, unseen, etc. type of frame. a song, because it is something that cannot be held or even seen, is framed by one's imagination, one's experiences.

so here it is... my translation of a sonic form to a visual form, titled "if i were a bear." the background music is indeed "bad bad levi brown." but it is only present to show how the two translate.

Posted by colleeny at 06:32 PM | Comments (1)

March 11, 2008

 changing the frame

VISUAL COMPOSITES

JANUARY


FEBRUARY

how do these composites change the framing system through which each photography would be seen if they were shown individually? by layering the photos, new details can be noticed and appreciated.

Posted by colleeny at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2008

 double view - a poem with different framing

Posted by colleeny at 08:49 PM | Comments (1)

January 22, 2008

 the opah city (moonfish, moonfish)

so today we talked about layering photos and seeing the points where they line up; i started a photo-a-day project for the new year (located: here) and imported the photos i've taken thus far into photoshop. for the first image, i layered the photos so that the first photo i took is the very first layer (below the rest) and the most recent one is the last layer (on top of the rest). for the second image, i reversed the order of the photos. for both, i applied an opacity to each photo, then edited the file so that the colors show more vividly. the results are the above. i very much enjoy them. any thoughts?

Posted by colleeny at 09:30 PM | Comments (4)

January 08, 2008

 symmetry!

Posted by colleeny at 08:22 PM | Comments (1)