This will be the first performance that SRL has done since the move from San Francisco to the new location in Petaluma. Both the Running Machine and Big Arm will be making a grinding appearance along with some other surprises.
Me (keys, guitar and live mixing), Steve Watkins (two drum sets), Mr. Where (noise guitar and yellow gloves), and Jason Mullins (AM radios).
I took the output from everyone, routed them into my rig and processed them in real time. I think I had Steve’s snare triggering Mr. Where’s noise guitar and then had it bounce around. Jason had three AM radios he kept spinning the dials on. I then would trigger some manually, had one triggered by steve’s kick, and another via his toms. We also played to backing tracks, but I wanted a live show. I know we opened with “Spoons, Forks & Knives”, played “White Light”, but I’m not 100% certain of the rest of the set.
Meg Lee Chin was headlining and she asked me two days in advance if I wanted to open. The lineup for 5000 Fingers until that phone call from Meg was just me.
I am so glad that my friends were able to join forces with no rehearsal and pull of one of the best shows 5000 Fingers ever did.
The much loved photo app for the iPhone, Hipstamatic, is one of the first apps I booted up when I got the new iPhone 4. Sadly, I ran into some problems right away. What should be black & white pictures come out with odd blue swaths (like in this extreme example) in the darker areas. The other problem seems more serious: The first few times I took pictures it froze just as the shutter went off. I took some time to look into both of these problems.
The new camera on the new phone is impressive. Most of us have read the tech specs, but in use the 5 megapixel camera really goes all out for a phone. Impressive low light response, nearly instantaneous click & shoot, the ability to click on the screen where you want to be focused, HD video, and a built in flash.
I would love to be able to choose, in the application itself, what resolution I want to take the next picture. I have frequently wanted to just get a quick snap shot, but then wanted to take a picture that I could use as a high resolution piece of artwork. The resolution and processing is there, I just think they have to take the opportunity to use it.
It turns out that this built in flash is what causes Hipstamatic to crash.
The process that I used was quite interesting. “How do you go about editing a video with probably a couple hundred edit points all in time to music that doesn’t yet exist?!?”
How the filming came about
You might want to read this after you have seen the short film. There are some spoilers below.
With the right kind of eyes, you can almost always find artwork surrounding you.
The artwork of photography is knowing when the happenstance of beauty is upon you so you can put your eye in the right place at the right time, taking scissors to reality and grabbing a moment.
I posted the image of L’Enfant Plaza I took at the DC Metro stop for multiple reasons. For one, I took it with my iPhone’s camera. It wasn’t taken with an exceptional camera. I really wish I had a DSLR at the time, but I was still able to take a picture that I still find to encapsulate the beauty I saw at that moment. Is it a bit noisy? Sure thing! In the end what matters is that I have an image I’m still proud of, encapsulates a moment, and I find beauty in. The artwork of photography is knowing when the happenstance of beauty is upon you so you can put your eye in the right place at the right time, taking scissors to reality and grabbing a moment.
Do your best to look at the world around you through alien eyes; pretend that everything around you is new and you may see something that should become a photograph.
I spent my evening taking night time photos. Starting off in Montara and ended up in the park I grew up in taking pictures late at night, like the picture below of the rose.
When I got to Beresford Park, I could hear all the way accross the park the rat ti tat tat of teens in the muck of something they probably shouldn’t be doing once the park was closed, let alone if the park were opened.
It was 1AM and I was curious, so I wandered over, while keeping my distance to see if they were doing anything interesting. Perhaps I would say hi.
It was two guys and two girls clearly with beer in their hands and beer in their stomachs. As I walked near by, then walked away down another path, I could hear something akin to, “I’m not sure…it seems a bit sketch…”
Rose in the middle of the night
I wandered over next to the community garden and took a few snap shots. I was on the park premessis, but only for a short period of time. I could hear the loud kids head from the shelter down to the swing set. Once they got to the swing set I could hear the girls yelping in what I hope was excitement and the creaking of the swings. I ended up walking down the sidewalk next to the park and wandered in 20 feet because I saw a rose bush I wanted to photograph. In the distance I could hear the kids reveling in their midnight excursion.
I noticed a car coming by slowly behind me just as I heard the kids, who were clearly not trying to be subvert in any manner, say “Yeah, that’s a cop!”.
I grew up working with clay. I remember the first thing I ever made as a young child: a thumb bowl. I am sure my mother still has it somewhere. I kept working with mud in various forms from thumb bowls in grade school to bust sculptures in college. Somewhere in between, about 20 years ago, I tried my hand at throwing bowls. I was not very good at it. My parents have the only mildly successful piece I ever made; an eight inch wide, five inch tall planter. It is a planter because I breached the bottom of the pot making a nice hole for water to seep out . Not the intended result, but makes for a fine planter…I can only assume this is the case since it has never actually had a plant in it.
This all changed very recently. With Jon Singer as my sensei (先生), I was able to throw three bowls.
In the middle of the night I brought my point’n’shoot out into the garden and took some pictures. I purposely left the flash on and used it to my advantage. For example, I put the lens into the nose of a flower and let the flash’s light come in through the petals.
There seemed to be a fair amount of garden spiders out mostly hanging around the porch light so they can snag some yummy moths. There is conveniently a bamboo “bush” right under it making droplets of dew for the morning to come.
Jon Singer taking me to the Indonesian Embassy for the first time.
I have probably done my last gamelan performance for the time being in the DC area. It was what felt like an impromptu lesson/performance at the embassy for a day when many embassies in DC were having open houses. It was great fun. Of course, I played an instrument I had never played before…once…and during a performance.
Continuing our ongoing celebration of the arts of Asia, the Central Javanese Gamelan Ensemble of the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C., (an ensemble of nearly twenty musicians led by Pak Muryanto on kendhang drums) will present a casual concert of classical Javanese gamelan music.
. Sadly, I ran into some problems right away. What should be black & white pictures come out with 
