Out of a Forest

Out of a Forest

I have no idea if I've shared this animated video before. If I have, I apologize. I just love it too much not to share. This is Out of a Forest, the bachelor film from Tobias Gundorff Boesen. The song is Slow Show by The National, a haunting song that gets in your head and stays there. The animation is so incredible that I go back again and again to watch it. I'm in love with the style. This film made me a fan of The National, made me buy this song, and made me watch this little scene over and over. Tobias just recently created a blog and it looks like he's sharing a bunch of other work. I'm excited to see his other films.

Warning: This video might be a tad too scary/sad for small children or the sensitive. Like me. But I still love it.

Plunderers

I woke at 4 am this morning. With the windows open any outdoor noise wakes me up, although I don't think that's what got me. I woke from a horrible nightmare with a start and then, only then, did I notice the odd thunking sound. It sounded like someone pounding on my fence. I stood up and glanced out the window to see plunderers attacking my bird feeder. Two raccoons decided to make a feast of my seed and were practically pulling the feeder off the shepard's hook. I hissed at them from the upstairs window but they didn't even bother to look up. I woke Jeff up who had the idea of going downstairs and trying to scare them away from there. He flipped the light on and off, opened and slammed the door and the bigger one didn't even bother to jump off the fence. It was only when he went outside (not ten feet from them) that they scurried away. But they were back within seconds. He finally went out and collected the feeder before they went away.

It was eerie, standing there watching them. They don't seem mammalian. Or at least not the type that I'm used to. And they were big. Bigger than I expected. I've only had one other run in with a raccoon before and that was way too close for comfort. I didn't get a good look at its body as I backed away hurriedly from the bushes it had been hiding in. I just remember screaming. Raccoons will not hesitate to go for the eyes if they feel threatened. So I had forbidden Jeff to go outside last night. He didn't listen and I'm very thankful. They would have easily ripped the hook down (it was loose this morning) and destroyed my feeder. The cat, wisely perhaps, chose to watch from the safety of the upstairs window. They easily had a good 20 pounds on her.

I tried to get pictures but none turned out. If I had been thinking (it was 4 after all) I would have just turned on the light and clicked away. Instead I tried to get shots with and without the flash, none of which turned out. After the feeder was in we went back to bed, only to be woken twenty minutes later by a woodpecker who was trying to break through my neighbor's metal gutters. It's become a daily habit with the stupid bird. I hiss at him and he goes away but is normally back within half an hour to try again. I'm not sure how well his tiny little brain is working. Or mine. I'm beginning to think that the feeder might not be such a good idea.

Folds

It's been quite a while since I last wrote about an artist I'm interested in. That used to be a weekly feature but since I've been posting only twice a week or so I've been cutting them out. So today I thought I'd share the utterly amazing work of Simon Schubert.

I found Simon's work through Lines and Colors, a blog that I have been in love with ever since I found it. Simon works in the medium of paper. Or more to the point he folds paper. He creases, he smoothes, and he creates intricate architectural masterpieces on single sheets of paper. There are no lines drawn on the paper above. That is all shadow and fold.

I love how he creates these architectural scenes that are all so structured yet he's also playing with perspective. They look vaguely 3-D. It's breathtaking in it's construction and elegance. They look so much like drawings, yet the are done one painstaking crease at a time. I wonder how long they take to created. And how often he has to take a step back to look at the full sheet. He manages to make a very simple medium, incredibly complex. If I haven't mentioned it, I'm in awe of this man's work.

Simon also does sculpture although I would say that it is not for everyone's taste. His sculpture has an interesting mix of disturbing and intriguing though. It's the kind of thing that I want to examine closer but I know I'll have nightmares later. If you like oddly creepy sculpture check it out. Otherwise, you need to see the rest of his elegant paperwork at his website above.

Down Memory Lane

I received an email this past week from a good friend of mine in high school. She had managed to track me down using the marvels of Google and had taken the chance to email me. To make this feat a bit more amazing I've undergone a name change (last name and nickname) and my friend lives in Japan. I was a bit shocked that she found me and even more excited that she remembered me.

This friend was an exchange student from Japan and we became good friends almost instantly. I have some fantastic memories of the time we spent together. But I didn't remember everything. When she sent me a second email and mentioned some of her memories, it sent me scrambling back to my old yearbooks. There were things I had forgotten. So for the last two days I've been looking back at old pictures and reliving my high school years. I'm shocked at how porous my memories of that time have become (then again it was 16 years ago). I feel a bit old lately.

I was not a particularly popular kid in high school but I had a couple of good friends. I am remembering lunches spent with a candy bar and a notebook. The faculty trusted me enough that if they caught me out of the lunch room and in the building they left me alone. I'm remembering awesome days listening to 8 Tracks in the Journalism Room while laying out a newspaper. I'm remembering driving friends home and to events (I was one of the early ones with a car). I remember the hallways and the choir common room where I spent a ton of my free time watching MTV. Mostly I've been remembering friends who I haven't thought about in a long time.

The city recently remodeled the high school and it looks nothing like the school I went to almost two decades ago. The last time I drove by I didn't even recognize that it was the same school. And in a way that makes me sad. I realize that probably very few of my favorite teachers are still there, but I kind of want the halls to look the same.

It's been a bittersweet couple of days. I've been reminded of some of the amazing times I had in high school. I've been remembering old friends and old teachers. I've been reminded a bit of that passionate youth I used to be. And at the same time I'm reminded that I've gotten older and that nothing has stayed the same. But I have to thank Fumiko. I would never have gone back to those old yearbooks. And for that doumo arigatou gozaimasu.

Nerd Strong

I've read Doonesbury for years. I love both Trudeau's characters and his great political satire. I've saved a couple of the good ones over the years and bought a couple of the books, but there's one that's tacked up on my bulletin board at my desk and I thought it was finally time to share it.

I'm a nerd, a geek, an oddball. I've been so all my life. In middle school I was called every name in the book. By high school I worried a lot less about the names. I was just happy doing my own thing. By college I was comfortable enough with my oddness, and now I downright embrace it. One of my coworkers this week called me a "super crazy geek" and I took it as a compliment. I have no idea if he meant it as a compliment (I actually think so) but that's how I'm going to take it. I'm a bit different. And I'm not worried about that.

So this comic strip about Nerd Strong resonated with me. I've started using the phrase myself. I'm impervious to insults. I'm comfortable being called a geek or nerd. I revel in my oddness. I find myself hanging out mostly with geeks and nerds. I find it makes life more interesting. And I think most adult geeks do the same. I think deep down we're all a little odd. It's just a matter of how much we let it show.

P.S. If the image is too small to read, you can always find the original here.

I'm Late, I'm Late

The White Rabbit by Sir. John Tenniel

I'm a huge Alice in Wonderland fan. I've read the books a couple dozen times and wrote a post about the Annotated Alice which Keith (one of my wonderful readers) had recommended. So I could think of nothing better to kick off this post than the white rabbit's mantra. I'm so late at getting posts out that it's not funny. I'm falling behind. I keep worrying that my posts aren't perfect so I don't post a damn thing.

So today that changes. I'm going to post crap some days. Be warned. These last three weeks I haven't posted because I am feverishly reading children's books and young adult novels. Several years ago my mother purchased the book 1001 Children's Books that You Must Read Before You Grow Up. So I'm trying to read them. So far I have about 200 under my belt. And I apparently want to finish the other 800 this week. I've made five trips to the library in the last two weeks. All of them (except one) have included more than a dozen books. I read a chapter book today.

Now I'm not likely to finish anytime soon. Many of the books are international stories that might be a bit tricky to find. But I'm going to try. I like having a goal. Even if it is a bit on the outrageous side. But I'm going to try not to let this take me away from everything else. "Everything in moderation." A lesson I still haven't learned. I'll keep you posted.

PS. If you haven't managed to read Lewis Carroll's brilliant but odd Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you need to find a copy. Start tonight. Then let me know what you think.