For those who cringe when I get into the long, loopy, self-loathing-because-I-lack-the-guts-to-do-what-I-want-and-remain-a-desk-jockey entries, I am gonna allow you to avoid it. For those who can tolerate it, I will deliver.
Below you will find a video my friend Kevin made. It may feel like it lacks context when you watch it, but that is because it is incomplete. Kevin built an awesome rig in which he put a remote shutter in the sole of a shoe so that with each step, a camera harnessed to his chest would take a shot.
The plan was to walk the city of Los Angeles, east to west, and then animate the shots so that one could see the entire city at sidewalk level at a very condensed clip. If I recall correctly, the way it was designed would allow the entire east to west walk would be able to be condensed down to 14 minutes or so.
As it turned out, the only portion that was shot was walking from the eastern border on Whittier Avenue in East LA to downtown. My job was to keep up with Kevin so that when a memory card filled up he could stop in place, I would take the full card and give him an empty one, he'd start from where he stopped, then I would take the card to the car, upload it onto a drive, then catch up with him to repeat the process. That really was my only job at the time, and as I recall, we really were seeing if the technology arranged for the task would actually work (we wanted to use an iPod to hold the files, but the f'ing iPod automatically renamed the files in such a way that they were different from the camera which - for reasons I don't remember - fuct things up.) I am not sure that the intent was to actually film the finished thing right then. At least I thought the day functioned more as proof-of-concept.
Rough and undone as it is, I think both the idea and the little bit of film he had is cool. I wish there had been a way to finish it. The camera we used was borrowed from a friend of Kevin's and he (rightfully) decided he didn't want us to kill his shutter with 10,000 clicks a day, so we only went out this one day.
This has no sound, and since the idea and project was Kevin's, I don't know what sound would have eventually been on it (I love listening to Charles Gayle & Rashied Ali's Touchin On Trane's cut A - I would sync them for you, but this is Kevin's work, not mine.) It doesn't need sound to enjoy it; I think the proof-of-concept is tight. Kevin was nice enough to send it to me and let me post it. This is actually a few years old now (summer 05), and it really wouldn't have made too much sense to post back then in the pre-YouTube days since the tech sucked. YouTube makes posting video so easy to do for weblogs, and since I have used some of the videos posted by others recently, I decided to try putting something original up there.
Now, if you likes a lot of misery, read on...
The existence of this project re-entered my mind because the only thing I can think about right now is my upcoming surgery (hang in there, I can tie it back.) On one hand, I gotta say, my shoulder & neck feel like they are getting worse every day. Something is very very messed up. If I hadn't gotten in with the surgeon and was still just walking around, I would be losing my mind over having things continually getting worse when I don't actually DO ANYTHING! Of course, I got the surgeon because it got worse to the point where I was barely functioning. The long sleep of late I AM POSITIVE relates to the degraded condition of things. The cuerpo is shutting down. It isn't normal for someone under 40 to sleep 12 hours a night, night after night. I have been passing out at my desk too. Like I said before, each time I get approved for surgery I am already way way way down the road with misery doin' the drivin'.
Stupid as I know it is to do this, I am letting myself think about what might happen if I got some quality of life back. Danger Danger Danger. Surgery has never really done this for me. It has helped things stop denigrating. It has reversed things a few clicks, but I never actually made that big leap back towards normality. I never really got free of being Mister Ill & Not Loving It. I may seem to endlessly complain on this point, but I assure you, I am grateful to the doctors who have done my surgery work. I wish I could get to them sooner, but there is a whole drama involved that makes things difficult. I literally could write a series of books trying to explain the psychology of asking doctors for more. Gathering one's thoughts, picking the time for doing it, and honing the pitch are huge huge undertakings. High Anxiety. These people are gods of sorts - they certainly hold my life in their hands - and you are desperate but cannot seem so. A very fine line. Again, I can't fully explain it here without writing something book-length; moreover, it is a tangent mostly. It matters because getting to the slab takes time and puts hard miles on the soul. What is happening with me is that I hear such good things about my doctor that I think I might finally be able to make that big leap back toward normality (or what passes for that with me.)
Last time, I just assumed happy days were here again and that I could loose myself and make up for lost time. I signed up for eHarmony. I bought furniture. I did stuff like hang out with culturally aware friends, in this case Kevin, so I could just be around creativity and people who would consider a self-expression spree to be a good way to get caught up on the life clock.
I am now doing the "I was just thinking" thing about what it is I have been missing and what I want to do if I get to really live again, thus, I looked for this project and decided it really needed to be posted. Indeed y'all, no matter how you perceive this line of thinking, I know it to be dangerous. I know it to be dangerous because I could end up getting from this episode no more than what I got before - a slowing of the pace at which misery visits. I will be happy if I can get that; I don't want to seem an ingrate. My point is simply that I am getting caught up in imagining that I might get more. I won't break out the Joy Division albums if I don't get more, but that's because the success of the operation will reveal itself slowly; after the physical therapy, the follow-up appointments, and the testing of the shoulder once the immediate pain from the procedure passes. In my heart, I know I am taking a big risk by even thinking about what I might do if things go really well (I am not even taking into consideration the possibility things could get messed up worse in surgery! It does happen sometimes.)
It will be difficult to sustain the sympathy of anyone if I keep going on about this stuff, I understand that. That is why I gave you the warning about what was coming if you continued reading this past the jump. I gotta watch it. How could it mean anything to anyone but me after a while? For those in fine feather, there is no frame of reference for what this is all about. I am glad of it! The fewer, the merrier. At the same time, this is the bulk of what my stream of consciousness offers up to my brain for consideration anymore. This is the diet my melon has been given, I live in my melon, and there really ain't nowhere else to go. Ask me how I am doing and you are gonna be in trouble chum! Sorry bout that. If I had anything else, I would be happy to share it.
Tick tock tick tock. I can't wait and yet I fear it all. Round and round it all goes. For now, I am still gonna let myself imagine that a bionic me will be out and about this summer making movies, taking pictures, and doing writing that I like. When normal people do that it is called "staying positive". I worry that my doing would be called "setting myself up to get mowed down".
Posted by rudayday at April 14, 2008 01:49 AM