Blimix

When I climbed Crane Mountain this fall, I raced ahead of the group to have a secret part of the summit to myself. I recorded a short music video, which is now on YouTube and Instagram.

It consists of a bit of showing off: I sang three harmony lines in one recording, so that the track could be played over itself, offset, to combine the harmonies. Normally, anyone accompanying themselves would have digital assistance such as a backing track or looping, to hear what they're singing with. I included a long shot of my recording it, to help show that I had no such tools.

I made a video. This is a sympathetic love letter to all my chronic illness / rare illness / zebra friends.

Zebra at the Doctor

I appreciate those doctors who listen to their knowledgeable patients. If you find one here*, they're a keeper.

* One guess which country this takes place in.

(Also, insurance companies ensure that doctors have no time to listen to you. We need single payer health care yesterday.)

I finished the video I've been working on! It's the first in a series about wearing (or not wearing) masks in public. I hope it'll give you a chuckle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XelseEtdy6Q

(Content note: Rhetorical discussion of suicide.)

Why do videos always take me so long much longer than I think they will? (Besides inertia, perfectionism, scope creep, free time/energy, and the planning fallacy?)

My friend Amalia and I have just shot three — count 'em — three (!) music videos about golems. In one gorram day!

If you're unfamiliar with them (except possibly from D&D), note that golems originally come from ancient Jewish tales of rabbis creating them from clay using Kabbalah magic. They were automata (unthinking artificial people) that never spoke but that could do heavy work. A word inscribed on the forehead (or sometimes on paper inserted in the mouth) would activate them, and the word could be removed to deactivate them for the Sabbath (which Rabbi Loew forgot to do one week). One tale involved a golem defending a Jewish ghetto from the army of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II. That should be most of what you need to know to enjoy these videos.

I Had a Little Golem

Do You Wanna Build a Golem (horizontal format)
Do You Wanna Build a Golem (vertical format)

Frosty The Golem

We recorded the audio recently at a great studio (with Scott Petito, sound technician extraordinaire), and shot the videos today.

This all started two years ago, when Amalia told me, "I'm giving you a homework assignment. I have one line of a song: 'Golem, golem, golem, I made it out of clay.' Write it." So I did! We collaborated to refine it. (If it looks and sounds like a cheesy 70's children's show, that's intentional. Amalia gave me the stage direction, "Imagine you always wanted to be a serious musician, but instead here you are on this lousy show." I'm no actor, but I got the empty smile by thinking, "My life is meaningless.")

I sounded out the chords to "Do You Wanna Build a Golem," but it just didn't sound right on guitar. So I got my MIDI setup (from 30 years ago) working for the first time in twelve years, then figured out and reproduced every note of the original. We brought my recording of that to the studio, so Amalia could add her vocals.

"Frosty The Golem" had some more involved recording. My garage sale bass, that I had never touched since I had bought it and replaced the missing string, turned out to have a rattle that we couldn't trivially fix. Scott lent me a bass guitar with flatwound strings, which I didn't even know were a thing. I had literally never figured out, let alone practiced, a bass line for the song before I started recording. So I had a crap first run, but got it okay for the second and third takes. We lucked out for percussion: Amalia wanted something that sounded like a sleigh bell, and unbeknownst to her, I had a sleigh bell!

I've done my own sound editing, but I'm far from a sound engineer. Scott was playing back the mostly completed Frosty as he made some minute changes. I commented, "I kinda want some dynamic range compression on the bass."

He replied, "That's what I'm doing right now." Vibe! So that felt good.

After we shot these videos, Amalia did the editing for all three on the same evening!

(If it looks like we're not being pandemic-safe, don't worry: We're in a social bubble. We take safety seriously.)

Some time ago, I posted my thoughts on what makes something poetry, and got some feedback/critique. A high school classmate, Eric Bernadin, had his own thoughts on the subject, and proposed a discussion over Zoom. He recorded and posted it here. As one might expect for a Zoom call, it is 40 minutes long.

I had some comments and self-corrections to make after watching it, but couldn't post them in comments on the video itself. So they're ( behind a cut. )

I just performed at a comedy open mic, for the first time.

See it here.

As long as I'm on a roll...

Here is some test footage from when I first got the dash cam (and was still driving the old black car).

This is one of my favorite alternate routes in the Albany area. If you're going between southern midtown Albany and anywhere west of Rt. 155, a typical route might be to take Rt. 85 to I-90, and then either Washington Ave. Extension or Central Ave. (via I-87). Instead, consider taking Krumkill Rd. west from Rt. 85. At the end, Normanskill Rd. and Wormer Rd. will connect you to Rt. 155. It's a much prettier drive than the highway (as evidenced in the video), and doesn't take as long as you might expect. (Bonus: Wormer Rd. takes you past this place.)

I hit a deer at low speed last night. It and the car were fine.

Also, I have a dashboard camera. (Warning for a bit of language.)

My green belt sword form video. It's finally public! ( Why did it take a year? )

Coriolanus was brilliant. Great acting, direction, and sound design. I particularly appreciated the silent and comic "straight man" expressions by minor characters when the lead characters behaved unexpectedly. This was my first time seeing a National Theatre Live production, and I love the concept. It's way cheaper than seeing a live show, and the cameras get the best seats in the house (so we do too). (Thanks to cluegirl for gathering us to see it!)