About a month ago my husband asked if I needed a watch repair. It was on his list of errands. So I gave him two that had stopped running for battery replacements. Off he goes on the errand running, and I forget all about it because I rarely wear a watch (I just look at my mobile phone).

Today, more errands are happening. Usually he tells me where he’s going in case I need anything from there too (see above). But today not so much, which I thought was very mysterious, but nothing to be concerned about. So I’m minding my own business when hubby bursts in and presents me with:

The Starkist 25th Anniversary 1961 – 1986 Charlie Tuna Watch

I think I got this watch by sending in a bunch of tuna labels or something. In 1987 I wore it every day on a month long tour of England, Scotland and Wales, along with my normal watch. My normal watch was set to local time wherever I was, and Charlie always told me the time at home. So I have odd associations of comfort and home attached to this otherwise silly branded item.

Evidently the watch had to be sent to Hong Kong to get a new movement put in it. I have no idea how much this cost. I hope it wasn’t much, but these days, it probably was much.

Love

Today I can’t think of anything sweeter my husband could have done than have this stupid thing fixed because, even though it’s stupid and silly, I love the thing.

Thanks, honey.

We’re doing this in the park in the center of Clarkdale, Arizona. The funny thing – after we finished a curious woman approached us. She turned out to be an anthropologist who specialized in human recreation. She really wanted to know what we were doing! After we told her, she explained that children in nearly every culture invent games to alter their state of consciousness. She just didn’t expect to find adults doing it in her local park.

Last year I decided to stop celebrating birthdays, and instead I decided to start celebrating whenever I grow and become a better person.

But my mom instigated a surprise birthday party on the occasion of my fortieth trip around the sun. She got my six closest friends and my husband to keep the secret and meet up at a roadside diner in Rock Springs, Arizona. I thought I was just going to meet my mom for lunch. Instead a whole bunch of wonderful happened.

And I feel like a better person than I did yesterday. Sometimes your friends and family have to remind you.

Thank you.

Especially you, Mom.

When I was a kid, I sang this just the way they did on Hee Haw or whatever show it’s from. Horrible country twang and all. And since singing the tune stuck in my head is the only way to get it out, well, I sang it just like I did when I was a kid. I haven’t thought of this song in years and years. This is all Heath’s fault.

Last May I attended Transmission Asia-Pacific to teach video activists how to use WordPress with Show in a Box themes and plugins to distribute their video content online. Sungmi, one of the filmmakers participating, shot this video of about half of us on the bus from Jakarta to our campsite. I didn’t shoot much video there – too busy talking to people – so I’m embedding this one from the Engage Media site. If you’d like to see work by the filmmakers who attended, a few are listed here.

Here in Phoenix, back in 1954, a man who loved making people laugh created a TV show for kids. The show ran in one form or another for 35 years. It’s most commonly known as the Wallace & Ladmo Show.

The man’s name is Bill Thompson, and he created all kinds of entertaining characters for his show, but he mostly played the straight man. For most of his show’s life he worked with two core partners as well as other cast members. He appears here as Mr. Grudgemeyer.

The man in the top hat is Ladmo. That’s the name of his character, and he eventually legally changed his own name to Ladmo. Ladmo is the everykid, who just wants to have a good time.

Ladmo and Mr. Grudgemeyer are constantly at war over their favorite park bench. Slapstick always ensues. This is one of many “Mr. Grudgemeyer” episodes I’ve saved. Yes I accidentally left ten seconds or so of black at the front. Oops.

When I was a kid I watched this show every weekday. Even into high school. Almost everyone who grew up in Arizona did. If you meet people from Arizona, and find they have a similar, rather bent sense of humor, blame Bill Thompson.

Do you remember when commercials were a minute long? And when they gave kids prompts for how to sell the item to their parents? (It won’t make a sticky mess in the kitchen.) Do you remember Funny Face Drinks? My favorite: Rootin’ Tootin’ Raspberry. What was yours?

Since that time I’ve notice more and more vehicles come with fog lamps. I have to believe the auto dealerships are ordering them that way because the cars are a few hundred dollars more expensive with them installed. I mean, this is Phoenix we’re talking about. I’ve lived here my whole life, nearly forty years, and I can count the number of times I’ve seen fog in Phoenix on one hand. In fact, I can count the number of times I’ve seen fog here on one finger. That’s right. In forty years, there has been fog in Phoenix ONCE. For about two hours.

Yet just about every idiot on the road whose car is equipped with fog lamps turns them on every day. Apparently because they can. Either that or they’re all suffering from some kind of fantasy delusional fog inside their cotton-brained heads. It bothers me on a lot of levels, but mostly because they hurt my eyes. It’s not as bad as having your brights on, but it’s close.

Who’s more mental, them? Or me? Either way, it’s really satisfying to finally get that off my chest.

Tim Tams in hand, you brew up your favorite tea or coffee. Take a Tim Tam and bite off two diagonally opposite corners. Seal your lips around one corner, dunk the other corner in your hot drink, and suck the liquid up through the Tim Tam. As soon as the liquid hits your tongue, slam the Tim Tam in your mouth and savor the melty chocolaty goodness.

Repeat as often as necessary.

This video was shot and edited entirely in my Xacti HD1A camera, my new favorite method for getting video up quickly. I have not been compensated by Arnott’s, but if they ever want to pay me in Tim Tams I’ll make all the ads they want. Yum!

Challenge!

I will mail a fabulous prize to the first person who can correctly identify the original song title and recording artist of the music I abused to make this video. Based on my knowledge of my friends’ music tastes, I think probably only Markus Sandy has a chance. Or maybe MissBHavens (who can forget Lake Titicaca?). But I’d LOVE someone to surprise me!

It’s probably not especially clear what’s going on in the video. My mom wants to attract Mary, but has no means to do so, so she goes next door and steals bird food from the neighbor’s porch. They come outside to see what’s going on and give Mary some bread so that she’ll come closer. You can hear some of the conversation. It’s just a little slice of small town life.

1. it reminds me of good times with old friends (the cast)
2. it’s black and white
3. it’s in a really pretty part of the desert
4. it’s 16 mm film
5. it’s silly, or otherwise playfully creepy (playing with stereotypes)
6. with no dialog, anyone can understand the story

The film was created for a Cinematography class. The assignment was to tell a story in one shot (so we could view them in class without editing), and I chose to shoot it all from one point of view. I bought enough film to shoot multiple takes from each of the cast members’ POV and then use the best one to present in class. But I was in film school to learn editing, so my ulterior motive was to have footage to edit in Portfolio Editing the following semester. Cinematography grade: B. Editing grade: A.

This was my second time shooting 16 mm. The first time was on a wind-it-yourself Bolex. This time was using a Canon Scoopic. My one disappointment for this digital version: my edits are actually a lot better than they appear here. When I up-res’d and exported the project from Avid, something went wrong, and the edits printed to tape about 13 frames off. There’s nothing I can do about that now without going through a big hassle, so it runs as is.

Here’s a slideshow of photos from the shoot:

Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

I created five Lumiere videos between June 27 – July 22, 2007, in response to encouragement from fellow vlogger Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen. It was fun. My videos, along with those of many others, were linked to from videoblogging.info.

In August 2007, Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen and Brittany Shoot published the Lumiere Manifesto. I wish to publicly state that I disagree with most of the manifesto content, and that my Lumiere videos should not be construed as an endorsement of the manifesto. I am not interested in engaging in a conversation about the manifesto’s relative merits, or what I view as problematic. I simply wish to disassociate my work from it.

Original Post

This is a 60-second excerpt of an 11-minute Independence Day Parade, July 4, 2007 in the little town of Clarkdale, smack dab in the rural-ish Verde Valley in central Arizona. Welcome to SmallTown, USA.

I wish I could show the entire parade! It starts with the Color Guard of WW2 and other veterans, and then come the children. Oh! The children! They are so cute, haphazardly throwing candy at the spectators, then greedily picking half of it back up for themselves. Then there are the cyclists, the dogs, the homemade floats set atop Radio Flyer wagons. And then the ancient fire engines! Somewhere in there are the town dignitaries, but everyone knows it’s not about them. What you do at the parade is, you wave at the kids and shout how great they’re doing even if they can’t march along in a straight line. It’s all about the kids.

Remember, Lumiere videos have no audio, so play your own patriotic tune as a backdrop. I hope this still counts as a Lumiere, despite the fact that a four-year old jostled the camera while lunging for a piece of bubble gum thrown from the parade ranks.

Oh, and warning – the AppleTV version is now huge (960×540 pixels) with the recent update of QuickTime and the H.264 codec.