Heather as Falinian - Photoshoot Results

A bit of catchup from early December.

My friend Heather Cossette of Flam Chen was gracious enough to sit still for while and paint herself white for a special photoshoot.





This photoshoot was for gathering material for an online launch of my science fiction novel, Children of Falin. The novel has been a long, ongoing project for me, and the core manuscript was finished around two years ago. I've been meaning to publish it for a long time now, probably through self-publishing.

Well… since self-publishing takes money, and money is something I am not in great supply with, I've decided to do an even more alternative route: online publishing. Since I'm a web designer, a website is not something I need be in short supply of.

The plan is to release the novel online, with the greater 2/3 of it completely free and open to be downloaded and read. The last 1/3 would be a small fee for download—something like five bucks. And no restrictions on sharing it.

Of course the logistics of all this is something to be worked out—but I plan to be making print material for marketing. My dream is to even have a viral marketing campaign here in Tucson and the various events that travel beyond Tucson. But first, I needed some raw material to work with.

The novel focuses around a race of humans in the far future who are entirely female (sort of) and live in a very strict, theocratic
society. It's actually a big critique of institutionalized religion in metaphor—but visually, I'd like to think the novel is kind of striking, ala Avatar. The "Falinian race" as they're called, are noted for their pure-white skin and for tattooing their "sins" as visible symbols on their body.

I might be a little jealous of James Cameron's funding. But not to worry! I have my own tools at the ready: my camera, and Photoshop. Here are the results of the shoot with Heather:



There will be lots of versions of these, but this is the first step to the artwork which will ultimately exist on childrenoffalin.com (there is an ancient website I built there already). But I thought I'd share this first step, as I was rather pleased with it.

I'll keep updating with the progress of photoshoots like these, and with the project of publishing my novel in general.

First Fusion Bomb Test Recordings Found

Another newsflash courtesy of Wired. Apparently, a retiree cleaning out an old safe at a geological observatory found recordings of the first fusion bomb test, which was carried out by the US in 1957. It would be the second fusion explosion in the solar system—the only other one being the one that started the sun.

The article is here.

The recordings, after the right permissions and phone calls, were declassified, and are now on YouTube, spreading through the world.

Not quite sure what to expect, I decided to watch the video.



I was eating a plate of spaghetti at the time, and stopped chewing mid-video. And here I am now, posting this entry. The fact that this is actually real, and is nothing more than a camera pointed at a building with a 10-Megaton bomb in it, gives me chills. I am totally against nuclear proliferation—but at the same time I can't understand how my country would ask other countries to get rid of their nuclear capabilities (i.e. Iran), while we refuse to get rid of our own. Sure, it's completely politically incorrect, especially for foreign policy matters—but out of principle I can't sit with us instructing the world to do something we won't do ourselves.

Frankly, it is frightening to think that any country could have this kind of capability—and that their first instinct would be to weaponize it. You would think that it would have been much more comforting or exciting to find decade-old videos of the first fusion-powered car or electric generator in some old University safe somewhere, rather than the same mechanism incarnated as a bomb. It's a shame that such a pioneering effort would also have to be so terrifying.

Thoughts on Negypt

I saw Negypt twice this weekend. I made it a point to do so, in fact, because it took me two times to actually collect my thoughts on it. The first time I sat in the front row, the second I sat almost at the back, so that I could see others' reactions.

While I'm not a dancer and am not really well-versed in all the trends and schools of thought that dance is composed of, it's impossible to think that, even without a background in dance, I might have nothing to say about Negypt. One things for sure: whether you liked it, hated it, thought it was interesting or walked out of the show (I think one or two people did on Saturady), it's impossible to walk away from it without a reaction.

Personally, I really enjoyed it—even though I doubt many people would say the piece is not "enjoyable". The movement was a lot of convulsive, repetitive motions, highly emotive yet silent, and usually self-defeating. Hence the kind of movement Negypt is composed of, as it is self-described: "Deletist".

Some might find the idea to be pretentious or overthought. For me, such movements have their time and they place, and, when properly placed, can have great meaning. I appreciate it in that way. There were certain sections of the piece that I found to be downright peaceful. There is a certain place in the mind that is full of emptiness, and a simple state where one accepts that there is a profound lacking—and certain sections of Negypt evoked that place, which I know in my own mind as part of that which harbors the Muse. Negypt brought these hidden places to life in a palpable manner, palpable enough to remind me what it actually was like to exist in those places, and to absorb their reality.

However, there is a point where Negypt stops and does not go beyond. It visits that place of emptiness, that kind of nihilistic angst and the fact that the emptiness will not go away—but it stays there. I would dare to say that it wallows there, and is so introspective that its own angstiness, as beautifully expressed as it is, shows another kind of lacking—a lacking of redemption.

This is where people's various stages of personal growth and belief come into play. At a certain point you can't judge another person nor their work if they or it is nothing but honest—and Negypt certainly was. But, to use an analogy, if one is to truly embrace Taoism, for example, they can't just stay in the black/ying, they also have to venture into the white/yang. Negypt embraces the dark, but is so shocked by that embrace that it can't let go of it, and in forgetting to let go, refuses to grow from and beyond it. At a very deep and subtle level then, I would venture to say that it's imbalanced. You can't just gaze into the abyss—the abyss will also gaze into you. The pain that is in Negypt can be healed—at least, I believe it can. But it takes a certain measure of acceptance of that pain—and not the kind of acceptance that embraces pain as all that there is, and that's the end of it. It stops short of moving beyond the pain into the world beyond the abyss. If one is to be truly detached from this world, they have to be detached from detachment (it's not the same thing as attachment). That's the paradox of enlightenment—at least, what I've learned from it (I wouldn't claim to be enlightened). To be normal is to be enlightened, to be enlightened is to be normal. After awhile, it looks no different.

If Negypt's goal is to show the nature of enlightenment, according to Taoists and Buddhists (and darkness is part of it), it only presents half of the paradox. But as an intermediary step, a step into the initial darkness before the dawn, it is brilliant and beautiful. It truly does evoke the primal womb, and I would gladly stay there in those spaces if I could—it evokes the khora.

It's just necessary to remember that khora is a creative force as much as it is a destructive one. The movements in Negypt may be futile and self-defeating—the irony is that they have a great potential for peace and healing as well. Unfortunately, this isn't followed through with in the piece. Too often in such angst other side of nature is forgotten—and often it becomes only another form of blindness.

Seeing Negypt Tonight

My good friend and… very happy to say, significant other, ;) Natasha of Lunarius Graphics is performing in a psuedo Butoh piece tonight called Negypt. She also designed the promotional fliers for it, which in my opinion came out lovely. I've got one complimentary ticket, so I'll be seeing it on its first of three nights this weekend. A number of the rest of the Flam Chen family are involved as well, even though the piece is not Flam Chen. Aurelia Cohen, Barry Hatchel, and Katherine Tesch are all part of it (and others). The piece is written and directed by one Brandon Kodama.

From what I've heard from the rehearsals the piece promises to be intense and very conceptual, if not a number of other adjectives. If you're in the Tucson area and are looking or something that will probably jar your psyche a bit, it's playing at the Zuzi Theater tonight Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday night as well.

Feel free to check out the Facebook event.

I will look forward to writing my responses to it either tonight or Saturday. My apologies for the lack of blogging lately—the month of December, and January for that matter, have been so busy that I've barely had enough time to finish all the work I've made for myself, much less document it for others to read about. But there is a lot of great stuff to catch up on, so you can expect to be seeing it shortly—from new years in Bisbee to photoshoots to help promote the publishing of my SciFi novel (more on that later), a lot of good stuff is up ahead.

Happy 2010!

Wasabi-Lemon Spinach and Room for Growth

The need for vegetables and a late snack tonight led to yet another strange creation of mine via the sauteepan, but one that I think is worth writing and repeating and—yes—even sharing.

It may seem a little crazy, but trust me on this.

Ingredients:
Baby Spinach
Green Pears
Lemon
Yellow Onion
Yellow Squash
Pesto Seasoning (or equivalent, something like oregano or thyme)
Wasabi sauce (this is the trick—I found a pure wasabi sauce you can squirt out of a bottle like ketchup. Good luck finding the equivalent, but if you can find this or something that will give the same effect, it's awesome).

Directions:
Dice onions and pears. Put a 1/3 of the yellow squash in the pan in thin slices. Put onions and pears into sautee pan with olive oil and with a good helping of spinach. Sautee it all until the spinach cooks where it's got that sautee-d spinach feel. Take 1/4 of a lemon and squeeze it into the pan in the last minute or two, with one slice (or two, depending on the serving size, mine was pretty small, snackish size) in the pan itself. Finally, squirt a good stream of the wasabi sauce over it all, depending on taste, and mix it in. Normal wasabi would probably work fine too.

If all goes well, the pears should have begun to caramelize a little, the onions and squash should be lightly cooked, and the wasabi is all mixed in. The taste is fruity, yet also spicy with a wasabi kick. I added some black pepper at the last minute.

Recommended drink: I had a Guinness with this, and it was great. It almost brings out a fruity side to the Guinness—who knew there was one—and the deep taste of the stout contrasts well.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be expanded. For a full meal, get either brown or Jasmine rice (I use brown for the health reasons, but Jasmine would be excellent for taste), maybe add some garlic, and it's still vegetarian. For meat, I think a light fish would be good. Chicken is a little too hearty and it starts to loose that wasabi-and-pear-dancing-on-your-face feeling.

So yeah. Try it out and mix it up. You might be surprised what comes out.

Nudging Space and Soleri's China Exhibit

Arcosanti's Today@Arcosanti Blog is really work checking out this month of December. They've just uploaded a whole bunch of fresh renderings of Paolo Soleri's Nudging Space arcology. Here are some re-posted.




Nudging Space was always one of my favorite arcologies that Soleri designed. More than the Hyper Building, which is too familiar as a skyscraper—Nudging Space has that more classic apse feeling. I always thought the design was especially dynamic. Yet it was never transferred into anything but a paper model that lay in Arcosanti's cafe—which I would nonetheless stare at and try to imagine at 5000x the scale. Obviously Young-Soo Kim (whom I used to work next to in the office) has been hard at work—and it shows! He does an amazing job of transferring Paolo's designs into virtual models that reflect the scale of the actual theoretical complexes.

These renderings were for an important exhibition in China that happened on December 4th. The slew of blog posts on the Arcosanti site for that week are worth looking at. I had heard rumblings of this exhibition when I was working there, and if I was still there now, I probably would have been helping out on it. While Fate had other things planned for me, it's great to see that the exhibition appears to have been a success.

Now I only hope that they can upload some higher-res renderings of this model, as they deserve much more glory than 400x200 pixels.

Congrats on the show, Maestro Soleri and fellow Arconauts! Hopefully the Chinese people will take notice, and we may see Lean Linear City and Nudging Space as yet more than just 3D models.

First Performances

Yesterday was kind of a whirlwind, and unexpected, but awesome nonetheless. Two of my first performances (not officially in a Flam Chen faculty, they're more like "appearances") in a row, first on silks, then on stilts at the Ensphere warehouse show.

And there's a video to prove it!

The silks bit was for the Rhythm Industry performance review—a sort of open house when all the cooperative groups and artists of the Rhythm Industry center show the latest that they've been working on. Because Flam Chen was at Angel Ball doing their showtime thing, only some of the beginner/intermediate students were available to show the latest. Kelsey and I volunteered to do a silks piece as representing Flam Chen.

It's a work in progress, and it's obvious that I've got a lot to work on (point your toes, keep your legs straight, etc.). I'd like to video myself now on silks to actually see where the strengths and weaknesses are. It'd be great for training. But I'd like to think that this, for all its imperfections, is not too bad for two or so months of training.

Video of me and Kelsey, thanks much to Clencovision, who was kind enough to put it on Youtube so quickly:



Kelsey did really great.

Forgive the cheesy swinging of the silk on my part. When properly executed, that will send the flyer into a tight spin while in the hipkey. It seemed to be an easy thing to do while I was hanging there, and kind of came out lackluster. Oh well—another thing to work on.

The other appearance on stilts was late last night (or really early this morning) at the Ensphere warehouse show. My first time being a shadow walker—I didn't have the arm stilts to go with it (you can only tie so much aluminum to your backpack while biking through town), so more like a psuedo-shadowwalker. But the effect wasn't lost on people. It was interesting seeing people's reactions—from shock, to flirtatious (no comment there, aside that the costume is skin-tight, white, and more or less androgynous), to fear. I actually chased one girl around a car while she tried to take a picture of me. Of course I hugged her and told her my name later on.

The costume is half the battle, but the other half is being the shadow walker. The costumes are really powerful, even though they're simple in their construction (it's like walking around with an elastic bedsheet on you), but actually performing as an otherworldly creature is actually what makes it all happen. People's reactions suddenly go to this pure, more neutral area where typical human body language identity is lost and anything can happen. Some find it elating and amazing, some find it ominous or frightening, and yet others don't know how to interpret it, and just get angry, as if this walking bedsheet is some sort of social threat.

I'll be scanning the intarwebs for picture-proof of this. There were multiple times I posed for cameras. They have to show up on Facebook sometime.