The Robin LeBlanc

The marvelous, beautiful and very talented Katelan Foisy sent me this stunning package containing a release from ABEARICA.  A wonderful compilation featuring some fucking amazing Spoken Word (including a track by Katelan herself, which is marvelous).  To be honest I’m kind of amazed she sent this to me.  I mean, I was incredibly honoured that she was going to send me a CD but this is in an absolutely beautiful package with some wall-hanging pieces of beauty.  Really.  This is wonderful stuff.  Thank you, Katelan.

The album by my pal Taphead is out now and available for streaming and free download.  Spooky dark ambient music that makes walking on the street alone at night just a little bit more scary and sitting in front of a computer with the lights off just a little bit more awesome.

Go.  Listen.

My second time back in this photography workshop and I keep being reminded on why I love shooting with SLRs and developing the photographs myself.

…not to mention that sometimes I can’t help but feel like a private detective while in the darkroom. You know, developing pictures I took while snooping.

So a dream last night got me thinking about something and after getting some opinions on said dream, I’ve been thinking even MORE about it.  To start with, I’ll first tell you what happened in this dream.

I was getting romantically involved with this girl whose breath smelled of gasoline and who lived in a house full of mannequins.  Anyways, we were walking down some road at night wondering what to do when she recalled that my friend M had her thing tonight.  “I hear her topics for this week are going to be really good” she says.  I smile and we start heading to M’s.

When we get the the two-floor apartment building we find that there are already a number of people outside on the street.  Some are talking to one another, most have a bottle of something and all of them are hanging out by this one specific area outside the building that has about six LED marquee lights put up.  Suddenly, the light in one of the rooms turns on and we see M, not even paying attention to the crowd outside.  The sounds die down and the twenty or so people look up intently.  The light turns off and the only illumination from the room is a computer monitor glow and a small desk light.  We can still see Mara, but she’s looking down at her computer, which we cannot see.

Music begins to play.  Sort of a dark ambient sound.  And then the LED lights begin to scroll words.  As M is typing, they project on these lights and all of us read.  We’re barely paying attention to the music, just reading what she has to say.  The topics are broad, each one leaving us something to think about.  Like all concert situations, some people break off from reading to discuss the previous topic.  But most just read.  When it’s done the LED lights turn off and M turns off her computer.  That’s it.  The crowd begins to scatter away, discussing their experience.

Wouldn’t this be just an interesting thing to see?  Perhaps get a bunch of well-known bloggers to shoot out on to these LED screens either a raw or pre-written piece of writing?  Hell, hook up another monitor and one could, at certain times in the post, display an image or even a full screen video clip. The ambient music would be a nice touch, since it would make the people standing there reading feel a little less like complete gits (thinking on it, I’m pretty sure the music playing in my dream was Taphead and almost definitely part of this preview track that he put out. ALSO, the entire album is available for download on the site). But most of all, this would be taking the concept of the blog and making it less accessible.  Hell, more or less turning the act of blogging in to a concert experience.  Both of which wouldn’t be a horrible thing to see.  Hell, sort of giving it that “reading them live is different then reading them on their site” kind of thing (ESPECIALLY if the words are shot out as they write them).

While there would be some excellent writers who I would love to see write on their own (Warren Ellis, Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton to name but a few) I really see this as something that could do well with multiple writers typing up different topics.  If the folks at Boing Boing, Lifehacker or Coilhouse each set up an event (or hell, even went on tour, which would be doubly weird and awesome) I think they could seriously get a good audience out of it.  What would make the experience more interesting was if this was something that will NEVER be seen officially on the writer’s site after the concert.  Perhaps at the end a piece of paper with the completed piece would be handed out, but that’s it.

Anyways, just thinking out loud on this one.  I’ve got to admit the idea of taking a specific medium and turning it in to a different kind of presentation with a somewhat same result would be fascinating and the thought of starting up one of these is really tempting me.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll find someone with a couple of LED lights and the technical know-how to set it all up and get one going.  Either way I certainly hope someone does it.  It would be great to go to one.

To celebrate the day MKULTRA was launched, the fall of Constantinople and….let’s say the Great Chicago Flood, I have decided to turn these horrendous moments in history and turn them in to good things just for you!

From today until the 13th of May I will let you go to my flickr account and choose ANY photograph taken by me and I will give you a 4×6 print of it for $5!  That includes shipping.  $5.  ANY photo I took in my flickr account.  At your door.  Hanging on your wall.  For YOU.  Because I love you.

This will also include any new photos I put up on the flickr during that time (and trust me, quite a few new ones will be on their way).

Instructions:

1. Go to my flickr account and pick out an image or images that you love and want to own and perhaps call George (It’s okay, I’ll wait).  As a default this will take you to a set with the actual artistic photos. For the more casual photographs just meant to document something, there’s always the full photostream.

2. Click on this button here:

3. Click on “add special instructions to the seller” and write in the title of the image of your desire (or even better, put in the link). NOTE: if you want more than one photo, you’ll have to repeat this.  For now it’s only hooked up for one item.

4. Do the usual paypal stuff

5. Wait for that wonderful bit of photo to show up at your door.  When you get home from work/school/huffing paint thinner with your mates, it will be there.  Waiting.  To sex your eyes up.

For those who purchase and/or spread this post around, thank you.  You’ve really helped out ina  big way!

NOTE: there may be some photos that, for some reason, I may not be able to print out.  If this is the case I will e-mail you to let you know and you can choose either to pick a new one or demand a refund.

Tracks, originally uploaded by ~EvidencE~.

Beautiful shot. Must make it a point to go down there one night…

Good lord, I am quite talented at dropping off the face of things.  I haven’t given a proper update on here in a while.

A few things have been happening.  Right now I’m just finishing up an editing gig for the video material for a quiz show.  Most of it has required working in After Effects, a program that I touched once in college, so the experience was an educational one.  I’m also working on an online comic with the INCREDIBLY talented artist Neil Struthers.  This is a project I’ve been trying to get off the ground for a few years and I feel so incredibly fortunate that Neil has agreed to join in on the fun.  Of course, any updates including the comic episodes themselves will be up here once we finish off a couple of them.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, check out Neil’s Flickr.

Now here’s some things from other people…

- My friend, the very talented Miss Veronika von Volkova recently got together with the wonderful Katelan Foisy and they got up to some wonderful photography-based sexy fun.

- Big Sexy, the comic anthology I mentioned a while ago that explores the many facets of sexuality, is finally for sale and you can get it here.  At$6 for 92 pages I would consider you a fool NOT to purchase it.

- MOON8 created the entire Dark Side Of The Moon album by Pink Floyd in 8bit.  And they’re giving it to you for free.

- An Assortment of Underachieving AT-ATs by Tobias Lunchbreath:

- Mentor and photographer I adore, Lex Machina is having a special Print Sale on one of the photos she took of the League Of STEAM.

- I really can’t wait to see Micmacs, the new film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie and City Of Lost Children) Check out the trailer here.

- I REALLY REALLY want a print of this from talented Duchess Caroline Harrison (via her Flickr)

And that’s all for now.  I’m off to bed for a well-deserved trip in to Dreamland.