Alcohol

Length: 1:42

Just smile and nod and pretend that it's still Videoblogging Week 2008. It'll all soon be over. 6 of 7.

Dessert

Length: 1:11

Every day is Videoblogging Week 2008 if you just believe it in your heart. Number 5 of 7.

Box Lunch

Length: 1:17

Missed a day due to a self-inflicted eyeglass injury and utter exhaustion. So for me this is Day 4 of 7 of Videoblogging Week 2008.

Sandwiches

Length: 1:57

Day 3 of 7 of Videoblogging Week 2008.

Salad

Length: 1:45

My testy relationship with food continues.

You may note the clock in the background. The one whose batteries I should have removed before shooting. You may also note it was late in the evening when I made this. Turns out my wireless RF mic messes with the satellite TV reception downstairs where my in-laws are staying, so unless I can figure out an alternate plan I'll have to wait each night until they're asleep.

Day 2 of 7 of Videoblogging Week 2008.

Green Bell Pepper

Length: 1:39

Yeah... I don't like 'em.

Day 1 of 7 of Videoblogging Week 2008.

Stack

Flashless? (Click to view.)

Length: 0:38

This week the boy discovered the falling baker from the early years of Sesame Street. He's learning well.

Comedian (Mirror IX)

Flashless? (Click to view.)

Length: 1:59

Practicing a few comedy fundamentals in the mirror before heading off to bed.

One of the reasons the boy's extended family and friends initially had trouble understanding his autism assessment was his impish sense of humor. It's not something that's seen in the forms of autism typically shown on talk shows and news programs (what I like to call "TV autism"), but the spectrum is both broad and mysterious. Christa's doing a fantastic job chronicling the particulars of the boy's special spot on the spectrum in her new blog.

He has always loved making us laugh, especially during the evening bathroom ritual. (See here and here for relevant examples.) Of course, he still needs to work on that whole making himself laugh while he's doing it. Not everyone can get away with what they got away with on the Carol Burnett show.

Dent Numa Numa

Length: 1:06

The boy and his cousins sing a spontaneous version of "Dragostea Din Tei" (the "Numa Numa" song) while goofing off with Photo Booth effects. We may have a YouTube minihit on our hands.

Just Plain Big: Minnesota State Fair 1988

Flashless? (Click to view.)

Length: 12:51

Nineteen years ago, Christa Dahlstrom--a college sophomore and Minnesota native--rented a VHS camcorder and brought it and two friends (Ted Johnson and Brian Glenn) to the Minnesota State Fair. Back at school she spent weeks learning the dorm's linear video editing system, with the help of her film-major boyfriend (i.e. me), and cutting together this irreverent and loving overview.

Food-on-a-stick, Ye Old Mill, beauty queen butter sculptures, tractors, and bull semen.

We're now married, Christa and I, and we're about to head back to MN to visit the family. This year with luck I'll get to attend a day of the fair (after all this time I've still never been). In anticipation I finally digitized this classic from our younger days. The tape has degraded quite a bit, so I have done a tiny bit of cleanup, and removed a couple of minutes entirely (not that would be missed).

But looking back at this now, I am reminded that she has always been funnier than me, and a better filmmaker. Secretly I'm hoping this will encourage her to make movies again.

Oh, and this one's © all rights reserved.

Blaming America First

I thought I'd contribute to the conversation.

In the least helpful way I could.

Length: 0:52

Flashless? (Click to view.)

Vlog

Can't wait to meet people next week.
I the meantime I'll do my best to annoy them.

Length: 2:05

Flashless? (Click to view.)

Quote: Ryanne Hodson

Quaint Peoples from Other Lands

A remix class assignment from (yipes) fifteen years ago.

Most of my peers attempted to create some kind of music video or formal motion study out of this uninspiring travelogue footage. Me, I'm unimaginative. Or is it constrained by convention?

I grabbed a microphone and the vinyl record of the Elektra Library of Dramatic Cue and Mood Music, Volume 3, and played it straight down the line.

Tape flutter due to age. Titles added digitally in this century.

Length: 2:12

Flashless? (Click here.)

A Man Sneezing

Shot on Super8. Silent. Submitted as a class assignment in the category of "Documentary", because I was that much of a smartass. Ostensibly a tribute to Edison's early Kinetoscope of his assistant Fred Ott. Transferred rather roughly to DV, and tightened a bit in the timing, because iMovie allows a bit more experimentation than a chopping block and tape.

Starring my older brother Tim, whom I grew up loving in part for his willingness to hurt himself if it meant the bit would be funnier.

Length: 2:01

Flashless? (Click here.)

puyddiG

I'm sick to think of the children the boy's age killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. They could number in the dozens. Or worse.

And the total loss of life looks to be in the thousands. What a nightmare.

Today as I post this I wonder about the Hayward Fault killing us and this video surviving us on the internet. As videoblogging spreads around the world it's inevitable that somebody's going to die with their videos still online. I haven't trawled the discussion boards enough to find out whether people are thinking that way in the context of OurMedia's pledge to host files "forever." To whatever extent their pledge is true all of us could be dead with our videos still online.

Which returning to the context of today, the start of September 2005, perhaps some of the dead in Louisiana and Mississippi have left behind text blogs, or flickr albums, or other kinds of web ephemera that persist even if their houses and all their belongings have been submerged or simply swept away. I'm sure examples of this will emerge in the coming weeks, drawing out the grief of those of us who spend too much time looking at a computer screen.

But it's not any more tragic than the death of someone who'd never sat at a computer, let alone posted anything online. And given the economic dimension of this disaster there will likely be a large number of those.

I'm sick to think of it all.

Oh, the video? It's kind of funny. I think he even knows it.

Length: 0:58

Flashless? (Click here.)

Science Vs. Nature #19

[Creative liberties taken.]

Another episode in the neverending debate.

Length: :40

Flashless? (Click here.)

Coming Attractions: VP

Apropos of The Product, a premise in search of a video.

Length: :20

Flashless? (Click here.)



[Creative liberties taken.]