Category: Videos

International Women's Day: Celebrations and Protests

3/8/2019

Female soldiers participate in the changing of the guard ceremony at the Quirinale, the presidential palace, in Rome on International Women's Day on March 8, 2019. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Female soldiers participating in the changing of the guard ceremony at the Quirinale (the presidential palace) in Rome on International Women's Day on March 8, 2019. I love that cape uniform!

I think it's interesting that International Women's Day is so different in various places. In some locations simple subtle nods to women, in some great celebrations, in others protests.

There was one quote in particular that caught my eye in the Google Doodle for International Women's Day 2019: "Wings are freedom only when they are wide open in flight. On one's back they are a heavy weight."

(Graphic design by Yai Salinas)

It's a quote from Marina Tsvetaeva who is a Russian poet.

There's something about this quote that really speaks to me. I like the way it places emphasis on the importance of spreading your wings and embracing your strengths, your brilliance. The importance of doing what you're meant to do, what you love to do, what you feel called to do, your freedom.

This year for International Women's Day I would like to encourage everyone to join the Shimmy Mob!

It's a "flash mob" type of event and the largest belly dancing event of its kind. It's been held for eight years in 44 countries with over a thousand teams and more than 10,000 participants!

The goal is to create awareness to end domestic violence and support victims of abuse around the world. Shimmy Mob is volunteer run and a portion of the registration fees goes directly to local shelters.

Anyone can join! Men, women and children. No experience necessary. It's held around the world, and if there is no local group you can create one!

The Registration Deadline is March 31st.

Practices start in April and the Shimmy Mob will be Saturday, May 11, 2019.

For more information, visit www.shimmymob.com

And yes, I’ve signed up! I will be part of the Shimmy Mob. :)

If you need some inspiration, check out this video:

Sometimes YouTube auto-play finds the best stuff for me! Great belly dancing moves to Tribal in a pretty glittery costume. Yes, Google you know me well, you knew I'd like this. :) Not that I've ever watched anything like this before, but good guess based on my interests!

0 Comments

Casual

2/16/2019

1 Comment

I've been feeling this song lately. I love the broken speaker intro and the lyrics.

Lines that resonate:

"Let me in, don't shut me out
Don't tell me you love me if
That's not how it really is"

"You don't need to paint me a sweet fantasy
...Say what you feel, don't just say anything"

"If you wanna lay with her, why don't you just stay with her?"

"You say you don't want a girlfriend
But when we are in person
You always act so different
You make it all seem perfect
You hold me when we wake up
Say you like me with no make up
I'm trying to be patient
How am I supposed to take it?"

And of course the chorus:
"Is it casual
Or are you tryna spend your life with me?"

I guess this is kind of my anti-Valentine's day post? Maybe an expression of a bit of my frustration with my experiences over the last year? Some of my other posts allude to this, I've had some not so great experiences. :(

It's also sharing a good song I like. :)

Oh, and I want that bikini top she's wearing! I don't know when I'd ever have a good reason to wear it or if they make it in my size, but oh, so pretty. I want one!

1 Comment

Crystal Method: Live Oct. 2018

11/23/2018

0 Comments

I wanted to share a nice find, Crystal Method doing a live set at the Lab LA last month.

I have a special fondness for Crystal Method. I loved the use of the Dark Crystal samples in Vegas. And I love video games and N2O is a lot of fun and I played it a LOT. I also got a chance to see the Crystal Method live at a private party I went to in Cali.

When someone said they were wowed by the Nvidia party this year with it's huge array or food and drink, I agreed the food and drink selection was great, but I felt like I'd been to more amazing SIggraph parties and I mentioned the Crystal Method one. :)

It was a lot of fun! I guess I like to dance more than eat and drink? Or Crystal Method trumps an open bar with more alcohol than anyone should consume...though actually the club where the Crystal Method played had that too! LOL

Someone I know recently mentioned that the mere idea of clubbing was tiring to them. I thought, wow, I don't feel that way. If it's a club with good music, I'm in. I love dancing!

0 Comments

Story Behind the Song: MageDog

11/9/2018

0 Comments

This is MageDog by CLAWED.

This piece was inspired by some great little barks and chirps I captured in my building one day from a small dog in the hallway while waiting for the elevator. When I reviewed the audio capture the samples I caught were crystal clear, so clear you could hear the ring and echo of the walls and floor.

This piece is pure musique concrète in that it only uses samples that were captured with my DAR (Digital Audio Recorder). Though the work itself is probably best described as drone music. It does change slowly over time and is meant to be meditative and trance-like. This piece, like many of the pieces, includes healing frequencies as well.

The video is a visualization of the sound, so you can see the changes in the music as well.

0 Comments

Green Tea for Halloween

10/26/2018

0 Comments

My blogging pattern is all out of order now, but I know I haven't posted any music videos in a while so I thought that would be good to do this week.

Awkwafina x Margaret Cho. NSFW, but fun! The video even has "Ring" references just in time for Halloween. :)

0 Comments

The Story Behind the Song: Chatter

9/2/2018

0 Comments

This is Chatter by CLAWED.

Chatter is another work that was created using DAR samples. For this piece I used a number of environmental sounds I recorded in downtown Toronto. I often take my recorder out with me on walks, just to see what sounds I run across in the city soundscape. I've found when I don't have my recorder on me or don't have it running, I'll often hear something and think, wow, that would be great in a piece! So I've found the best way to capture is to simply capture a LOT of material, then review it later and work with the bits I think have the most potential.

Chatter is meant to evoke an experience. I had an odd, ghostly experience at the Winston-Salem graveyard in North Carolina in the USA.

I've been to various graveyards before and never had anything like this happen. Most graveyards seem really quiet, like parks with stone markers. :)

Winston-Salem did not seem that way at all to me. I heard voices. At first just a couple, but then LOTS, like a buzzing. I got a very quick onset migraine and asked to leave.

It was very odd. I could just explain it away as some kind of strange migraine aura, but I don't know. It felt weird. It felt like ghosts trying to talk, way too many of them...

That's the experience Chatter is trying to express. Ghostly voices, trying to talk.

The video is a visualization, so you'll notice the imagery is very reactive to the sound.

0 Comments

The Story Behind the Song: Enhydris Enhydris

8/23/2018

0 Comments

This is Enhydris Enhydris from the first CLAWED album.

It's made entirely of heavily manipulated and processed sound samples. I used samples from the Large Hadron Collider and recordings from my DAR (Digital Audio Recorder), mostly of a professional plumbing company snaking the drains in condo where I lived. :) Fun fact, there are no human voices in this piece!

The video is a visualization, so you'll notice the imagery is very reactive to the sound. I like the way it looks like waves in water and includes a spectrum of colors as that matches the themes in the song.

People often tell me my works sound "cinematic", like soundtracks to a movie they're not seeing & yes, I think the pieces do paint a picture. I often do have a specific scene or sequence in mind. For this piece, in my mind it's a fantasy/sci-fi scene of a strange rainbow water snake ritual (thus the name Enhydris Enhydris) being performed by monks in robes (human? alien? who knows, robes!) with metal singing bowls. :)

Oh, I should probably also say this piece intentionally has "healing frequencies" included in it. So if you're actually listening to the full resolution version with speakers than can reproduce the frequencies (20-20K Hz), then it can have an affect on the body. I'm particularly fond on the low "cat purr" frequencies which have been studied and apparently can help heal bones fractures!