Will wonders never cease? You can now listen to a nice, friendly computer-generated lady read my blog out loud in the form of an mp3 file. You can even subscribe to a podcast if you like. Although since my blog these days consists mainly of photos and video, I can’t imagine why you’d want to. Maybe you need material for your next postmodern audio collage. If so, by all means, have at it! :-)
As for Ms. Talkr herself, she’s pretty good for a computer-generated voice. Her sense of rhythm is as comical as you’d expect, but at least she pronounces most of the words right. Except for the title of this blog. That always comes out wrong. Maybe I should have spelled it “Runghy Chunghy” instead!
Sorry for the late notice… I keep forgetting that I can also use this blog to announce stuff that’s going to happen, and not just stuff that’s already happened.
To wit: a couple of my photos are in an exhibition at the Brickhouse Cafe in San Francisco’s SoMa district, right by the ballpark and the train station. The opening is tonight from 7-10pm. Swing by if you’re in the neighborhood! Details below the jump.
Continue reading photo opening tonight! →
I was walking down Tire Beach today, when one of the homeless folks who lives around there suddenly shouted out “we were burned up in a fire!” with a cheerful grin. I laughed, not sure if she was joking.
She was not joking.
Apropos of my godson Leo’s video debut, check out this crazy stuff! Some folks from Japan have been making animations using sequences of long-exposure nighttime shots using flashlights to draw each frame. Some of the cycles are really impressive, especially considering that they have no way to compare one frame to another– they just have to draw each frame in space, freehand, and hope for the best. I mean, holy cow, a walking quadruped! They also did a short film (with a great percussion soundtrack) that was entered into the Ottawa Animation Festival. Rock on! There’s lots more info on their main site: PIKA PIKA. One particular quote from the blog makes me just want to hug these people:
We got all sorts of friends in different fields together to work on this project. During the process,they got to know each other and discover new things. This is also about “communication”. People can meet new friends as they create a piece art very easy which brings every one happiness. We spend a very enjoyable evening at the workshop and the party through this animation.
This is just such a joy to see. The collective live animation aspect reminds me of some of Lorelei’s stop-motion parties: there’s something really fun about seeing a dozen different people animating simultaneously, even if the results are total chaos. Also related: the amazing bullet-time light-graffiti spinarounds by PiPS:lab, and the lightpainting alphabet made by Juan Buhler and me.
Cassidy Curtis's splendid display of colorful things.