Posts Tagged ‘Photos’

Second Movie

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Among the roster of free music apps available for download to iPhone is a rudimentary matrix sequencer called “TonePad.”

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As described at http://www.tonepadapp.com/, this plaything is quite user friendly: “Create songs by simply touching the screen and seeing notes light up.” (This reminds me of what Stanley K. said about a different pleasure: “Having them colored lights going.”)  TonePad allows you to create a short (about 4-second) snippet of music that repeats hypnotically. You can then build upon it with new tones and rhythms, mimicking the accretive style of composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass.  After some practice, what’s you’ve mastered is a kind of dime-store minimalism, except you don’t need to cough up even ten cents.  Since I needed music for the soundtrack to my second iMovie, I decided to give TonePad a try.  The result, available on YouTube and Vimeo:

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Mouse Musketeer

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

While walking the dog this morning I came across a cute bit of sidewalk art:

 cavalier

 

I wonder how the child artist knew to place the cavalier’s sword in what would be the mouse’s right hand?  If the artist himself (let’s assume it’s a boy) was right handed, wouldn’t he be inclined to place the sword on the right side of the figure as we see it, since that’s how the young artist sees his own reflection in a mirror, and his own shadow on the sidewalk?  Or has he, after watching many a cartoon about cavalier adventures, formed an image of the sword naturally fitted to that side?  (Notice too the bent left arm, hiding the left hand behind the back, lending the figure a distinquished air.)

Some cell phone photos

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

My prior cell phone, an LG, could store 20 photos.  My iPhone can store, what, tens of thousands?  Here are four from 2008. 

1.  First up, a photo that could be titled “Museum Dog.”  A couple of years ago, while visiting the Getty Museum in LA, I saw a woman on a Segway roaming through the galleries.  From time to time she would pivot and halt in front of a painting that caught her eye.  I said to myself, “Now this is a museum with an enlightened admission policy; they’d never allow that back East.”  Well, here’s evidence that when it comes to disabled visitors, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC does “enlightened admissions policies” just as well.

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2.  Although probably not as museum-worthy as a Klee or Miro, the bold, primitive rendering below has, I believe, an equal claim to be trimmed with an explanatory label, like this:

Figure with Small Companion, created 2008, anonymous child artist, colored chalks on concrete, approx. 36 by 36 in. (destroyed 2008, by rain).”

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3.  Moving on to sculpture, in October I myself took a stab at carving Dick Cheney as a Halloween pumpkin.

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The day after his first night on the porch, Cheney suffered a cruel fate: extraordinary rendition into the paws of  ravenous squirrels.  Nibbled beyond repair, he had to be put down.

4.  Lastly, a photo of a parking garage at night.  In the corner rests a seductive red sports car, as if awaiting the start of her starring role in a film noir.

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