User:Koyaanis Qatsi
warning: you are entering a POV area. I do try to keep my POV out of articles I work on, and decline to edit some articles out of suspicion I wouldn't succeed at being NPOV. This is my user page though, and here I say what I like. :-)
Wiki vitae:
pix:
graffiti (the 2nd one), wisteria, amaryllis, honeysuckle, push printing, angle of view x4, perspective distortion x4, pansy violet, algal bloom, pistachio, almond, Spanish moss, rust, Wandering Jew, shrimp plant, marigold, coleus, depth of field x5, color temperature, cattail, canna lily, kiwifruit, cumulus, spiderwort, dragonfly, and Moebius strip. Also the emphatically mediocre photos at Uxmal and Palenque, taken with a point-and-click camera in Summer 1997 and not the slightest idea of how to take a photo beyond "point, and click," as well as the bad aerial pix at Los Angeles, California--which were taken with a camera whose focus ring was slipping, at a non-perpendicular angle through a dual-paned dirty window of a descending plane, and then went through the rather strong X-rays at LAX not once but twice before being developed. All in all, not a good day for the Nikon. I've released all the pix above (good, bad, & mediocre) into the public domain because I think copyright is commonly abused to stifle creativity and/or free expression, both of which I value more than money. Google images likes some of those pictures too.
articles I've contributed to considerably:
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (cannibalizing the DVD commentary), The Man Who Wasn't There, Salam Pax, Sid Davis, Six O'Clock News, Time Indefinite, Henriette Roosenburg, Mark Jonathan Harris, film noir, Dziga Vertov, color temperature, foley artist, Dave Brubeck, Ingmar Bergman, Joel and Ethan Coen, digital video, The Thin Blue Line, and Spider-Man.
All of my contributions are of course completely open for revision, refactoring, removal, replacement, etc., and if you can improve them then please do so. Chat with me here or use the "email this user" link at left (that works only if you're logged in also and have provided your own email address). :-)
I lament Eldred v. Ashcroft:
An English folk poem, circa 1764:
- They hang the man and flog the woman
- That steal the goose from off the common,
- But let the greater villain loose
- That steals the common from the goose.
watching
- Following, Christopher Nolan's first. Good stuff, though using the non-chronological approach twice in a row seems gimmicky.
- Stop Making Sense, the DVD commentary. Best concert film ever?
- Enemy of the State typical Bruckheimer stuff: decent premise, at least 2 places that strain credibility past the breaking point, ham-handed ending.
listening to
- Emmylou Harris -- Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town
- Nick Drake
- Don Williams -- I Believe in You. I've always loved this album.
- Fatboy Slim -- Halfway Between the Ghetto and the Stars
reading
- The Talisman -- by Stephen King and Peter Straub (prepping to read Black House
- Censored Hollywood: Sex, Sin, & Violence on Screen. Interesting bit of work--praised by both Jack Valenti and the ACLU, go figure. rich with trivia.
movies I should watch again for some fun writing
idea warehouse
- Opening shot for a movie: zooming in from off planet, through the atmosphere, to a city, into a city park, coming to a stop on an ECU of a leaf or something, which blows away, or maybe there are bugs on it. Perfect for a naturalist or existential piece. It's probably been done before?
- Premise for a film: Pinocchio 2: Revenge of the Donkeys
- New camera technology: Why don't cameras measure light and color separately? Is it possible to set up something more like the human eye, with its rods and cones?
- The Ring, pt. 2: same girl, slightly mollified: the phone rings: "Seven decades"
- A trickle up theory, which explains why the middle class is vanishing in the U.S. while the lower class is expanding rapidly
- Bacon Grease for the Soul, a collection of sordid and disturbing true stories
- A mockumentary in the style of an experimental film: e.g. something like Baraka but about a fictional subject.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street, part 21: Freddie has been dead for 61 years, and his spirit has developed a case of acute rheumatoid arthritis. After years of seeing himself increasingly unable to dispatch the descendents of the Elm Street lynching mob, he has taken to more philosophical pursuits, and concluded that his endless vengeance is unproductive and shameful. He spends his time canning goods in the kitchen, and uses the gloves to help get the jars onto the top shelf, as standing on tiptoe is painfully impossible. However, when Nancy's grandson proves to have narcolepsy, the temptation is too strong and he goes back to business, albeit inexpertly. Fun for the whole family! Rated PG for severe facial burns which may alarm young children.
- A photo montage recreating M.C. Escher woodcarvings, in color. e.g. Relativity would take about 10 main photos and a few spares, and with some fair amount of Photoshop skill, could make something convincing & mindbending.
- A program to convert video into music. e.g. there are some images which are almost universally considered beautiful, such as waves lapping a beach; you could take a video of that, indicate the number of instruments, section off the image, assign instruments to pixels within each section, and use luminance for volume and changes in color for changes in notes. The less adventurous would want to limit possible notes to certain scales. Controls to allow the user to change scales in each section, select a new random pixel to assign an instrument to, rotate instruments at certain points etc. Not sure how useful it would be, though it would be interesting. Highly compressed video would yield less sophisticated concerts than DV.
- For a film: a chase scene through the subways of New York City, using the music people play in the subways for tension, release, etc. as they're playing it. Would require a bit of choreography, and probably has been done already.
- A story retelling the events of the Bible but from Baal's point of view: Lucifer and God are planning war on Baal but can't agree on how to split the spoils; an argument ensues and Lucifer is cast out of Heaven; God declares war on Baal without wider support and has almost completely won.
funny links
('cause I'm angry in general these days, though in unrelated news DRUNKEN FRAT BOY DRIVES COUNTRY INTO DITCH, Starts War to Cover Up)
- http://www.ruben.fm/format.html (DJ Format video. 27MB .mov file)
- http://bekow.free.fr/vroom/index_eng.htm (stop motion revisited. several formats, from 5 to 10 MB)
- http://www.poundy.com/wwcards.html (horribly misguided recipes)
- http://www.totalobscurity.com/mind/flagstore/ (nationalism and consumerism, two great tastes that taste great together)
- http://web.mit.edu/munch/Public/humor/elk (How do I get my dogs out of this elk?)
- http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/ (a classic)
- http://www.spinnwebe.com/a1/?3 (caption your own photos. love the Medusa one)
- http://www.redvsblue.com/bloodgulch.shtml (making short films from video games)
cool links
- http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/061203A.shtml (Bill Moyers' informative & thought-provoking speech on "the unholy alliance between government and wealth")
- http://www.freemaninstitute.com/nightearth.htm (Earth at night)
- http://www.infinitewheel.com/infinite_wheel.html (dub generator. good mindless fun)
- http://club.pep.ne.jp/~hiroette/en/facemarks/index.html (Japanese emoticons)
- http://www.naimark.net/projects/zap/howto.html (blinding a surveillance camera with a laser pointer, and how to decipher the image afterwards)
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3046791.stm (a sculpture which makes water appear to flow uphill perpetually, a la M.C. Escher)
- http://www.kittyspit.net/erik/mp3/linkpage.html (mp3 pages galore)