Erg.. Long time no talk, eh?
Let me start by summarizing: life kinda sucks, and never, ever do any business with A.R.P.A.E.
Now, for the rest, but I warn you: it kind of sucks.
Continue reading Digital Life suffers under the Tyranny of Idiots
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I haven’t got a really good habit for writing. I do it in fits and starts, mostly squirrelling away ideas in the big, hollow shell of a mind that I carry around in my pronounced cranium. What I have written has always been in feverish one-pass sessions, followed by disbelief and loathing on the second day, with occasional edits. Well, that happened again, at the beginning of this month. Every Photo Tells is a podcast from a friend of mine with the excellent challenge: here’s a picture, now go write something about it. I looked at the picture in the morning of June 1 and, later that night, a ~3K word story appeared. They’ve just done a reading of it and posted it. I think they did a great job at this dialogue between characters. Next month: I want to challenge myself to write an actual story, not just an extended dialogue.. This time, I’ve remembered to post the text..
The album art is a typical street in the old port area. I believe this is looking southeast along Rue St. Nicholas. (Decided to try an outdoor recording. Must find that setting on my H2 which automatically zooms on my voice, turn it off for more ambience.) Theme song is “Things That Keep Me Up At Night” by Beatnik Turtle from the albums TheSongOfTheDay.com and The Best Of TheSongOfTheDay.com As suggested in the recent episode of Wandering Out Loud, I can conceive of three types of photograph: those taken to capture a moment, those taken to capture a vision, and those taken to be a photograph. The latter category often contains things which are inspiring, which can move others to ideas and creations beyond the edges of the photograph. I know this, as it recently happened to me. The Every Photo Tells podcast and blog takes this idea and runs with it. Each month, they publish a new photograph for inspiration, write a couple of stories about it from the two hosts, and invite others to write stories about them too. They publish around 4 episodes a month – readings of these inspired stories. Mine just went up! It’s a story called “Convers@ion” (originally misspelled “Convers@tion” by me.. whoops!), and plays on episode 14 of the podcast. It’s an odd story (do you expect anything less from me? Oh: and how could I resist this picture? There are 2 tasty coffees and 2 tasty laptops in it!
Theme song is Things That Keep Me Up At Night by Beatnik Turtle from the albums TheSongOfTheDay.com and The Best Of TheSongOfTheDay.com
I’ve been carrying my camera with me everywhere since I arrived. It’s actually a practice that started for me a long time ago, long before I even knew that I might go to France. It began with my cell phone.
I’ve neglected posting anything to this point simply because I’ve been busy, first with travel and then with getting myself set up, with various lacks of Internet connection in there contributing to the delays as well. This is only a quick post, but at some point (soon!) I hope to write up the amusing trip so far. I call it “amusing”, because although it was a little stressful, I couldn’t get this stupid grin off my face for most of the trip.. I’ve started posting pictures up on my Flickr page. I went ahead and bought a year of “professional” account status to make this easy — sure, I could rebel and find a place to put my pictures up for free, perhaps even here, but I just don’t want to bother. That’s something I’m trying to hold on to: to not bother so much. To do less, and enjoy a little more — and thereby, do better work. Coming here has already changed me a little, although I can feel old patterns reasserting themselves, old, bad habits that I have to overcome. First: I’ll be spending a lot more time outside here, and going out a bit more (although funds are limited). Second: that I will take more time to simply sit and relax. Third: that I work harder than ever before, and keep more record of that work. More will follow, but at an unknown schedule, with unknown content. I make no claims, assert no schedules, here.. Not sure if I’m referencing melancholy or the cloudless skies containing some brilliant sun, but this episode is all about blue…
Sometimes, you need a short, snappy tune to really set the mood — other times, like now, I prefer longer pieces that are free to either fully explore their space or meander a bit, like someone in a new, exciting city taking a leisurely stroll to just “see what’s out there” instead of following a regimented map of the stars.. So, travel on my mind, here’s some meandering long songs. Enjoy!
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Copyright © 2010 Mark Kilfoil - Encaffeinated! - All Rights Reserved |
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Hear me muse about looking at the sky, being in France, and the balance of utlity vs esthetics..
), but it was fun to write, and came strangely easily. After the month is out (to give time for the podcast episode to have first run rights), I’ll post the full text of the story here.
A very echoey bonjour from France! I needed to get back into the recording habit, so here are a few thoughts about differences in France, and the three types of photographs.
So.. I’m in France!
