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October 31, 2007
learning something new everyday
so.. I finally seeked out why the leaves change color in the fall, and I finally found out why, see for yourself here. Anyways, now that I know how to do this nice little feature that can map you anywhere I have went, I might have to play around and get a little more risky with it. So.. I will lead you to more cool places in due time.
Posted by maxell at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2007
untitled poem
I remember him, every day less and less, but I remember him.
He is found in my dreams, and his name is scrolled across objects that he labeled when
labeling was something that mattered to him.
His voice resonates in my ears as I sift through crowds.
My heart continued to beat when his stopped. And my life continues to move
as his does somewhere I can't see with my eyes.
Sometimes I think he's still waiting for me when I come home for short breaks that
become less and less as my age gets harder and harder to represent with candle sticks on birthday cakes.
They say that increased time numbs the pain, and it does exactly that; it is faking it all the time
Constant layering.
what lies underneath has never changed, only festered
and to suction what tends to leak out every now and then
feels like knowing something is wrong with you and never trying to fix it.
It has now become a part of you.
Sometimes I speak of him in the present tense
and words used to describe him funnel out like rapids from my lips
for fear someone might catch verbage that signfies no longer (the hads, and was's)
I avoid it entirely, this goes back to layering, and numbing, I have perfected it.
And for those that catch the hads and was's,
I hope they have the decency not to ask because articulating
that he has passed away amplifies the sting, and instantly the good job
I have done numbing it has spilled its remnants(evidence) all over my face, digging deep into my gut.
It's like being that sad painting you stare at and feel hurt, yet I am living and breathing.
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Posted by maxell at 05:06 PM | Comments (1)
unfinished work..
To begin.. I have not completed or feel even close to completing my mapping of The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. I was planning on using the motion software to extend its meaning through technology use but have not quite had a chance to tamper with it, or rather map out my thoughts on what I want to achieve with motion. For now, I still have what I have created with Imovie, but have still more to contribute. I just want to be able to explain why I chose to map this poem, and in particular one line of the poem "So much depends upon..". To explain my Imovie, I chose to do this mapping on the season of fall in conjunction with the line "So much depends upon". Fall is an incredible season, marked with so much change, sudden change in fact. And to me, I find myself changing subtley with the leaves. Every year this season comes and goes in a blink of an eye, and I remain here to watch it as it watches me. I depend on Fall, so much depends on fall, not just fall alone, but change, and time that moves in a direction that tends to have meaning to each and everyone of us wherever we may be. I think anyone one could assign meaning to the line so much depends upon, as long as they can explain the value of what that may be. If I may continue, I have spent many weeks thinking about this poem, this line in particular, and its relationship to me and my surroundings. I have been drawn to these leaves more than I have ever been in my many years observing this season and find so much of their characteristics to share meaning with my life. So much depends upon this season, this time that has a life span of merely a few months, unfolding out of summer, and rushed into winter. It symbolizes many things to me. For example, many things have happened to me during this season, I have suffered greatly during this time, I have lost a loved one during this time, and each year, I keep compiling memories on top of memories to this season. It now has so much meaning and value attached to it that I feel it connects me with myself and how I fit into this life. I depend on it so much for growth, inspiration, a new beginning, and a time to sit still and think about how I have found myself in the big picture. A part of my Imovie I took picture of the fall leaves in a graveyard symbolizing how I have found fall to meet death in several ways. The beauty of the leaves and the season still find growth in a place of sadness and death. This shows me that life and death are adjacent to one another, they are connected in a way that we neglect to notice. So much depends upon fall to occur so it makes life move as it does, it is almost watching a lifetime pass us by in the scale of a trees leaves. Each and every one of the leaves on the tree has lived a lifetime, their life is on a different scale than ours. It begins in spring, and ends at the end of fall when they get that two month change of majestic and mystifying colors that remind us of nature's magic and eternal beauty. Before they fall from their host, to the ground they still get another 2 or three weeks to keep its resilient colors until they dry up and crumble. Disintegrating slowly into the wind doing their last dance until they have disappeared. This is a short lived life they have, yet they always go out with a bang. I have noticed them and value you them deeply. It is a constant reminder that I am still here, and that the world is tangible and existing. Time is merged somewhere within the cycle of seasons, but I no longer look at the seasons as time going to fast, because in actuality time never changes its pace, it is one of the constants we have that can be measured. What seems to make the seasons cycle through so quickly is the pace that you are changing at, and how you see yourself unfolding within these rhythmical cycles.
I have written a few poems about the season.. they may not seem to match entirely my reasoning behind the map, but it stands as a sign for how I have watched these leaves and how they find their way into my thoughts and fester away in my mind until I quickly scratch down what they have managed to do to me and my thinking.
Somewhat mirrors the format of The Red Wheelbarrow
I. So much depends upon
Fall Leaves
Stealing time
beneath your feet.
II. Fall leaves
adjacent lives
whisper secrets
Decoded by
withered souls.
III.
Fall..
fall leaves dance in the wind
a twirl pool of autumns colors
hypnotizing me as I walk briskly
with faint goosebumps; a welcomed chill
a morning where dew finds a home on the
crisp green grass
soggy tennis shoes yield damp socks
rolled shoulders provide extra heat
diverse leaves find a home with each other on the ground
skipping across sidewalks
others matted in gutters
Scurrying squirrels search silently
Trees behind schedule stretch across the sky
emphasizing the patches of gold found like skin pigmentation
A mere bystander making my trek..gazing at the beauty that
I discovered this morning, just like I do annually, always oblivious to when
the first leaf hinted that it was about to change like a chameleon
making life move as it does..
nostalgia for past falls and how quickly it slips through my hand
as quick as I told my mom not to hold my hand in public
and how new lovers find my hand to grasp
as we meet sidewalks
that bare a new home for cold leaves
covering the ground like moss
giving lovers walking something to notice at their feet
as they move in sync ..
underneath the harvest moon's glow
IV.
His four seasons
My memories of him are woven within the works of my mind
Spiraling in my heart like fall leaves rise and twist when the wind changes direction
Sometimes I am strong enough to reminisce
But most often times it hurts my heart to much to think deeply about him
Because it still hasn't hit me that I will never see his face again outside of pictures and dreams
Nor hear his voice say "Okay baby" muffled because death has chosen him to suffer first
Tears flood in and squeeze my mind
He was the only man in my life that loved me unconditionally
And told me I was beautiful when I had seemed to forget
And told me to slow down when I am in a rush because being so hurried can
get you in trouble
Giving me those lessons of life through passing seasons and repetitive car rides where he
lectured loud because he was wise far beyond his years
as he would say "I've been around the block a few times, I know what I'm talking about"
and back then I took those priceless sermons for granted reading signs outside windows of cars that took us through the passing years
The color of his words painted my mind and sculpted works of art, and damn he was proud of it
And eternally I will harvest the roots of his existence that stay anchored in my heart
and anyone who knows me can know him too.
Posted by maxell at 03:55 PM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2007
My mother ( poem)
my mother
In hours we are programmed to sleep, my mother is awake. When I have suspended my mind into a dream forgetten when my eyes open She is racing between strangers who depend on her and her heart.
Her veins, pulsing with strain that packs in heat from working 40 years 24 hours a day 7 days a week--her back throbs, head pounds, and she carries baggage under her eyes. This is my mother on a good day.
She learned how to cope with these pains because she has no other choice-quitting is a route that doesn't exist for her.
While I read to transition into sleep, she reads thermometors and removes soiled sheets.
As I take swigs of water, she pours water for others besides herself.
Heel toe, heel toe. She moves at a pace my heart races at.
I wonder how a human can be built to withstand year long storms of destruction and still wait for that day of sunshine.
Her routine is programmed internally scaring me like children fear the dark.
While hot water splashes across my face in a shower I own in the night hours-she washes her hands with hot water to wash away the bacteria from impatient patients.
Her day ends when it's suns turn to seek and nights turn to hide.
She knows one thing, and one thing only. Work hard, sheet metal hard, depleting your life expectancy hard.
Deliberating about what she does everyday makes her feel sorry for herself so she doesn't think at all -just does.
She plunges in icy cold water day in and out dreaming of the day or next lifetime she can waste wading in warm sand bars where she sinks tired feet into silky sand erasing years spent standing
Here she never has to fight to breathe.
What working hard builds is hope that never dies.
Posted by maxell at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)
More thoughts about mapping
After mondays class I got to thinking about everything with maps, and went back through my notes and wanted to record what I wrote. I was very intrigued about the dead end comment. What defines or marks a dead end? How do we know it's a dead end...?
Interpretations of everything are very different depending on who's doing the interpreting-but that is what makes maps have the ability to occur-oh so many directions we can take-our life-our world-our universe was meant to be a map that never ends-infinity in all directions displacing and mergin time and everything that exists within it. That's why dead ends don't exist. "Everything is everything." Why can't we map brain activity to words to interpret what is happening in our heads in fractions of a second that make the big picture occur? I wish we could because I can't possibly record it myself. I am excited to see the art and brain symposium, two things that intrigue the most about life. In fact, they are everything. Art, and the brain..why didn't someone think of this sooner? Here's a quote I really enjoy. "There is no future that is not now, no past that is not now, time includes every moment."
Posted by maxell at 07:14 PM | Comments (2)
October 21, 2007
some images that grab me..
I find that I have been spending a lot of time on you tube. I happened to come across this video, I was searching under Erykah Badu since she is one of my favorites. Well, I love youtube for the fact that you can watch anything on it. Her live performances are captured, as well as videos that people create with her music playing in the background. Here I stumbled upon a video playing her song "Sometimes." This video has given me some good ideas about how I want to create future poams and so forth. These images and the pattern they flash in are really quite interesting. It's like almost mapping something in a sense. These images also elicit beauty all around us. But sometimes we can't see images like this unless they are taken for us. THe shots done up above in the clouds are amazing, and shows a city setting at night and how it looks like a road map. It really grabbed my attention, and then the video ends with the images of cartoon bears? Why the publisher did this? who knows, but take a look and see for yourself. I found that the author maybe mapping something of her own.
Posted by maxell at 07:56 PM | Comments (1)
Finally.. i have begun the journey
I must say, this has been quite an experience trying to map an allness of the poem The Red Wheelbarrow. I have started the journey and hope that you all will take time to view what I have done. So much depends..upon.. I have only begun this journey and hope to keep adding to, exploring, and extending the allness and volume to this poam. I am just getting started with this whole youtube. video poam making, and just learning how to export, import, and share this video was a work of its own. I'm just glad I actually figured it out. Now maybe the next time won't be so difficult.
Posted by maxell at 07:37 PM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2007
pre mapping thoughts
Before I begin this journey mapping the poem The Red Wheelbarrow I want to document a mapping of my thoughts before I begin producing actual 3d and 2d figures. I picked to do this poem because something about it strikes me. It's ambiguity extends so far and yet at the same time can be so direct. I have been thinking about the line "So much depends" and I think I can do so much with that phrase. It holds so much depth, and I can closer relate it to a lot of things in my life. At this moment in time, the weather and season affects me greater than I ever thought it did. Not until this year, this particular time in my life did I notice the season of Fall with so much detail. I have submerged myself completely into this season and have found that for me it depends on so much. It is a part of me, and who I am in this season. I have wrapped my thoughts around this season on my many walks to and from class, or drives. Everytime I step outside, I notice every little thing. The shadows casted by these trees, the fire found in some, and not in others. And the way they seem to fall to the ground, and how they remain on the ground but are constantly changing location depending on where the wind blows them. The colors that invade this leaves are all very different from one another. I can say that not one leaf is exactly like another. The way their life or color gets sucked out of them when they dry up fascinates me as well. They all have a life expectancy of beauty and then they turn into this brown crunchy paperbag like material. When this occurs, I will never know. But they remain at my feet, and then I continue to walk through, hearing the crunch, and still stuck staring at the way these colors have landed on these trees. Never have I stared at trees so much in my life. And now I have noticed how many types of different trees there are. This has been an ongoing thought in my head.. How can I map this season out, and map it through the poem The Red Wheelbarrow. I have been thinking critically about this, but already I feel like I have begun my map. The thought process that has been lingering in my head about this season and this mapping has framed my thinking thus begun my journey with producing this map. This is my first piece of evidence of the mapping. I finally transfered some of it out of my mind onto print, or shall I say online blogging. Here we have a 2d sample of what is going to occur as my mind continues to unfold its ideas.
Posted by maxell at 12:41 PM | Comments (1)
October 18, 2007
blogs attached to blogs
I have attached another blog site that links up my poetry and other thoughts I jot down..hopefully this is like posting my original work. I welcome and appreciate all feedback and thoughts.. I can use all the feedback I can get
Thanks!
Posted by maxell at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2007
My lingering thoughts..
After class, I had lingering thoughts about what took place in class in conjunction to my own thoughts on life in relation to what we are studying in this class. When you spoke about the toy stove.. it really got me thinking about artifacts or objects in my life that have meant so much to me, and contain soo much volume that I can't even begin to express what it means to me.. it's like trying to capture everything all at once. Like taking in the grand canyon at once.. too much, and too little means of expressing it in a way that can deliver its significance adequately. But in my own opinion, it doesn't necessarily need to be an object that is of great meaning. People, family members, friends, moments, interactions... really it is up to the person defining or exploring the value of something that has been involved with them.
This goes hand in hand with how you have said we never stop learning, questioning, wondering, and growing and that is why you allow us to add to our blogs, and can continue to add and revise. I feel this is soo necessary, sometimes we aren't ready to write something that is within us that in time will be able to be expressed. Just as you said about the toy stove, you didn't begin expressing your feelings about it, or reflecting the atmosphere it created for you until many years later. THis way it has had time to digest itself in relation to your life, and it also finds a way to interact with everything else that has touched upon your life. This weaving process is something that happens with time, and it happens when we don't even think about it. Like the leaves change color for fall.. how do they know when to change, it just does, it just happens, just as our thought processes occur, they just do.
Here's a quote that has to do with time and how it intermingles and flirts with the present and future.. its sloppy, you can always find traces of the past in the present, and the future. Truely a magic trick. Here's a quote on this "There is no future that is not now, there is no past that is not now, Time includes every moment"
Just some of my lingering thoughts.. what i am currently listening to that follows this thought is...
Posted by maxell at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2007
Forms..and my thoughts on poam's
His Poetry
Distinguished curls that frame
His emerald green eyes
Hinting that he would be different
Curious of mixtures that produce
His emerald green eyes
Native American, Black, German
Curious of mixtures that produce
Humbled, yet full of words that reached corners of
Native American, Black, German
Be this! Be that! Do it Melissa, why not?
Humbled, yet full of words that reached corners of
My mind artistically assimilated; abstract
Be this! Be that! Do it Melissa, why not?
Because realistically it’s never gonna happen
Our minds artistically assimilated; abstract
Because I’m not good enough to make it
Because realistically it’s never gonna happen
His words drowned my thoughts long after his departure
Because I’m not good enough to make it
Enlightening me with his passion
His words drowned my thoughts long after his departure
He discovered the beauty that was always there
Enlightening me with his passion
He painted the sky for me, and encouraged me to touch it
He discovered the beauty that I never saw
Forcing my dreams to become realities
He painted the sky for me, and encouraged me to touch it
Pushing my limits to be limitless
This is a poem I wrote for a friend with the form of the villanelle..after learning about the POAM concept, it excites me to get started on transforming my 2d poems into poams. It sort of overwhelms me at the same time though because I don't know if I will be able to create pieces that I can be proud of, or if i'm technologically capable of doing what I envision myself doing. I could transform this poem to include more of my emotions and feelings that go along with this person. Images that merge and sounds I hear when he comes to mind can be artistically assimilated to this poem*. I hope to do that eventually. As far as creating poams, I am eager to get the images from my digital camera into workshop.
As a person who invests time into writing down thoughts in a journal and writing poetry for myself, I have always been invested in the weather, and how it is constantly changing over time. Here in Michigan we are based on the four seasons cycle. I was born here and have always lived here, so I have been observing this cylical change of seasons for 20 odd years. A lot of the poems and thoughts I write down are related to the season and how that manifests into my daily thoughts and life interactions. I hope to be able to make something of these poems and transform the volume I feel they have into a product poam. Just like Professor Moss loves ants and as she did an entire poam on them, I love the seasons. I have been taking many photographs of the leaves and how they look at different times of the day, as well as the changing of their colors. I find this process very interesting, it almost occurs before I even realize it's fall. Time is present here, it is proof that time is passing. Furthermore, I am also very intrigued by shadows, just as I read that you are from some of your work. Reflections and shadows that show you are existing here are quite abstract images and welcome unexplained thoughts. I could write poems on this, and possibly make poams out of it. Our surroundings are full of ideas and art we pass by due to being trapped in our routines that govern what we think we need to do. To undo this it is very difficult and sometimes to be even aware of what and who we are as we continue in our life routines we need to stop and think and be existing and in tune to where we actually are in this world, and on this earth.
Music runs my life as well.. I really love the artist Erykah Badu, and this song she did, it's an older song of hers has always been a favorite. This particular week it has resurfaced in my mind, and on my ipod playlist. I also love the music video. I could watch it over and over. Music videos are also a form of poam to me. Watch it, it makes me stop and think...the lyrics, the style, and the mood :) ENjoy
Posted by maxell at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)