I'm riding across the country this summer (my bike + art blog)

Utah? I'm Tah-ler...

2007-11-23T02:00:00.000-06:00

July 8, 2007

I woke up feeling existential and tired. After reading Life After God I couldn't say if I felt things differently. But I took a picture of the sunset, believing the one for that particular morning meant something more than any of the others thus far. We left and it basically flattened out completely, but not completely. First, there was passing through by the reservoir and then what looked like an expanse of unnaturally green and perfectly in-place gold which you assume are those amber waves of grain they rave about. In reality, it's all rolling, and cut through by channels and irrigation canals, and somewhere in the distance is a rise, which you assume is the last mountain you'll see for a while, but really it's just an ellipsis before the next series of geological features. The road was a lengthy camel humpback over deep washes and atop these expansive fields. At the water stop we spotted a fan man, someone piloting an enourmous fan strapped to his back attached to a parachute. In the last town before leaving Colorado, we spoke to a man and his wife who raised horses. We missed the town's relay for life by a day, but he was a cyclist and was enthusiastic about what we were doing. I made it a point to stop at the state line, and we did. It was a sign advertising all that Utah had to offer: red rock arches, skijumper from the 2002 winter olympics, and fresh white powder. Nick and Alex climbed the sign and we documented it.

Utah was welcoming, the stretch of highway we were on was tree-lined, like a parkway for at least a part of it, with a view of a single mountain rising in the distance, and the town we were heading towards, looming invitingly ahead. And there was also the road construction. And the truck traffic. I willingly went off-roading to avoid colliding with them. I wish the best of luck to anyone riding that stretch of the Western Express before they finish up construction, it was not fun. The day's ride, like the week of rides before, was a relatively short 60 miles, so we go to the stayover church before services were out. The parishoners were welcoming and one lady offered to let us use her shower. She told us about how the Mormons basically ran the state and were exclusionary to those who weren't. And she railed against the environmental protections that were placed on the public lands around the community, the Clinton administration, and how negatively the media portrays the war on Iraq. And for however much I disagreed with what she said, I still listened with respect. This was really my first taste of exactly how conservative folks in the midsection of this country are. Everything she said was fascinating because it gave me some idea of how people different from me think. The church was starting vacation bible school the next day, so we helped out by blowing up oversized, inflatable sports paraphenalia. It was a good test of lung capacity and the benefits thereto that we had gained since May 25th. I missed my chance to have ice cream by blogging in the church's radio station. Being in that studio made me miss listening to NPR.

I woke up and rode out to this.

I could never climb something like this Utah sign

I gathered that their bible school was sports-themed. These took about ten minutes to inflate

July 7, 2007

2007-11-23T01:18:00.000-06:00

July 7, 2007

We left Telluride in the cold, in the shadow of the alpine valley, in the damp mountain altitude. We left behind the cozy storefronts and tourist-speckled streets and started the ultimate climb out of the Rocky mountains, spread out before us to admire for the last time before parts unknown, down the long, sloping expanse of western Colorado. I miss it now and I loved it then, passing by the gates in the road they close shut in the winter because it gets that much snow, and the reflection of the chalet next to the bluest lake near the top of Lizard Head Pass. On the other side, we passed through tiny Rico with it's drive-through coffee shop in a shack with free internet. I shot the breeze with my teammates before heading down the road with Drew and Sehee in tow. We ended up at the library in Dolores for lunch and the routine of staying in touch with the world through the series of tubes. I was excited that the Tour de France had started and jumped to finding results, a habit that I wouldn't kick until it wrapped up near the end of the ride.

The Ponderosa Restaurant in town generously fed us dinner. There Jon met a gentleman who lived in town summers named B.J. Mormon who gladly offered his time to be interviewed for the portraits project. Mr. Mormon, who spends his summers in Dolores, is from Lubbock, Texas and was a Frito-Lay long-haul trucker. He was fortunate to find out early that he had prostate cancer and was able to take care of it without much trouble. His story attested to the quality of care he was able to recieve and the importance of checking on your health regularly. I was glad to have sat in on his interview and hear his story defeating cancer.

The First Baptist Church put us up, and like all the churches we stayed in, there's always interesting reading material. In this case, I read Life After God by Douglas Coupland in one discontinuous stretch. The premise drew me in - what it's like for a generation of people like myself to be raised without religion, something I can relate to. I sat. and read. and helped Mark finish off a gallon of chocolate ice cream. and continued reading, without regard to the fact that I would lose sleep in the matter. Needless to say, I had a spiritual moment, but not necessarily a religious moment, in that the author illustrated how we need God in our life, Substance, something to Fill a Void, I fell asleep feeling cathartic.

The most beautiful morning imaginable involved seeing this.

A return to the blogosphere after a hiatus

2007-11-23T01:12:00.000-06:00

Keroauc wrote On the Road on a single roll of paper in what was probably a drug-crazed 33 hours. Reading wikipedia, it was more like 3 weeks.

The least I can hope for is completing something before Thanksgivings break ends. It's not impossible. I did ride 4000 miles from coast to coast.

So let's do this thing called finishing up a reflection of what I did this summer

Hiatus

2007-07-28T16:13:00.000-06:00

To the readers of whatlaudelikes:

Unlike Allison, I haven't been able to catch up on blogging, so bear with me while I try to fit updating my whereabouts here in the hectic daily cycle of eat, sleep, and bike. Thank you for your patience!

Laude

(Read Allisonacrossamerica.blogspot.com in the meantime)

In Lieu Of Words, Images

2007-07-08T21:37:00.000-06:00

Entering another state and another whole new world of wilderness and people. I realize this picture is out of order in the narrative, but nonetheless it's a nice illustration

Rocky Mountain High, Colorado

2007-07-07T13:31:00.000-06:00

After all the excitement of the previous day's celebration, we left an hour later than usual, down a long, gradual slope into a beautiful mountain reservoir surrounded by sheer cliffs, distant rises, and the sight of unfamiliar, young rock formations in the sense that they had only been carved out in the past 12 million years rather than 100 million. We stopped beside the water's edge, which is to say, a 30 foot climb down a cliff that Nick and Mike traversed to go into the lukewarm water above. Above, Andrew spotted mountain goats living on the bare fringe of those brown-reddish cliffs that I could barely make out, but they were up there, doing what goats do. Before long, I left to wind along the reservoir and stop at all the scenic points to take photographs and remember all the vistas that amazed me. And then the water stopped at a tall dam and behind it, a long, deep canyon that you could barely make out from the roadway, which slipped around the mountains in yet another marketing-worthy "S" that tests your downhill handling skills. The bottom was a scary confluence of a rocky stream and a rock wall that shrouded the roadway and gave little in the way of a shoulder. I had a Pop-Tart and courage and rode up along the part of this route that has the worst sight lines and most curves, but reaching the top gave me yet another roller-coaster descent to spin wildly and catch bugs in my teeth. And then I was still going downhill when my front wheel felt sluggish. I had front flatted, something I feared but when it happened, wasn't all that freightening except for the fact that it was a straight shot down rather than a twisted slope that would otherwise cause your wheels to slip out from under you and launch you into a tangent or a guardrail. I took off what I could and waited for the Alex and Keith who were behind and had a frame pump for me to borrow. With everything repaired, we soldiered on at a terrific pace to our lunch stop in another "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" town. I remarked to Anish that this is where we originally planned on stopping, to which he pointed out just how large the town was. And he was right, it was a single gas station / bait shop surrounded by giants bespeckled with shrubs, equal in majesty to a city sky line lit up at night. And so we left on the highway, out of one major "urban center" for yet another one, at least 8000 feet up. At the end of another exciting downhill was the real city of Montrose, the first town since Pueblo whose population exceeds its elevation. Brandt and I found the church on the outskirts of this sprawling burg, among the freshly platted streets and orange traffic cones and took naps on the concrete before Pastor Frank showed up and let us in to the cool air conditioned sanctuary. The team arrived and with my items in hand, I intended to go the aquatic center to swim or at least shower but instead went to the bike shop to buy a new tire to put on my front, which despite being all together, had seen better days over the course of 2500 or so miles. They had Gatorskins at a good price, so I bought one. The wrench there told me that the LeMond I ride is one of the best descending bikes he's ever ridden and I agreed with him. At the library I blogged about my fourth of July, believing it to be more worthy of a quick write-up than try to recreate my days since Eads, but I stopped before giving up and being distracted by a woman watching Linkin Park music videos on one side, either screening them for content for her daughter who was watching the same exact thing on the other side or making some attempt to better connect to her daughter's taste in music. It's been my experience that people on computers spent an excessive amount of time on MySpace or playing whatever games are popular now, leaving cross-country cyclists little time to blog and take care of other things, like informing their parents that they are in fact, alive. The wind had picked up and made the ride back a little slow. And then it picked up some more, blowing our plastic dishes and drying laundry around the playground behind the church while I ate macaroni and hot dog and broccoli and cheese, which was oddly satisfying. Earlier we had learned that the Johns Hopkins 4k for Cancer was in town at the same day we were, and I kept thinking that for every one of us, there has to be at least one or two of the same person on their team, and what their Keith or Anish, or better yet who their Mark would be, because they would want to discuss philosophy and then wrestle each other, and I would not want to miss out. At first, we were going to send over a small delegation of Illini 4000 riders to meet them, consisting of just our team leaders and Sehee, but instead everyone who was present in the church left, giving us a good representitive sample of who we were and more manpower if we would have to fight them. It was like looking into a mirror, the baskets of food stuffed with bags of cereal and bananas, the multitude of bags and sleeping gear spread out across a gym floor, the up-turned bikes resting on one side of the room, and the team car so packed that apparently the axles started bending (fortunately NOT the case with our van). They all have the same model LeMond which were bought wholesale from the manufacturer and which made their heads turn at the sight of Nick and my LeMonds, which despite being older and more steel-er, probably have better components. They also need two vans to haul around 27 peoples' worth of gear. Most notable was Arun's twin-sized inflatable mattress, something that would not fly on our team. I got the impression that we ran a tighter, more disciplined ship with our hour-long get-out-the-door sessions compared to what one of their members said lasted two hours and then some just so everyone can get packed, but they can do that because of their six-plus years of experience, longer-term relationships with hosts, and 4:30 wake-ups. In comparision, the Illini 4000 is the Spartan team to the Hopkins 4k's rich Athenian corps, but in the end, we both conquer a power that is greater than all of us. Alex, Sehee and I spoke to Alice, who had suffered some injury the first week of the Appalachians and had her knee wrapped. None of the riders were compelled to train beforehand and had to raise 3500 dollars which included the team bicycle. And so we all had a good time comparing scrapes and adventures when Michelle broke out some sprinklers to celebrate the the fourth of July a day late - their team collaborates with hosts to do mail drops and recieve packages with friends and family - which in her case included fireworks. I could go on with comparisions, but the only people close to a dopplegaenger were Sehee and their Korean rider who also came from Seoul. It was dark and after a viewing of their presentation and getting a complimentary H4k T-shirt - which was really, really nice, we left in the dark, only illuminated by the head and tail lights of Zach and Alicia's film car. Anish apologized profusely for making us ride in the dark and vowed that we would not do anything as dangerous again. We will not be riding in the desert at night and will have to make do with the early and late hours of sunshine. We will have to get used to getting up early and with all the excitement of the evening and meeting our peers, we begin tommorrow.

Friday we got up early to congregate with the Hopkins team at their church and eat our breakfast there before embarking on a joint ride towards our respective destintations. They took longer to pack and longer to eat, not surprising with a larger team, but had methods to keep together in the morning, like counting off in succession or their team ritual. In the morning they circle up and make the day's announcements before holding hands and making a team dedication. Today, they invited us to join us in their circle and together, the Illini and Hopkins teams made their dedications to family and friends, to the victims and survivors of cancer, to gracious hosts and folks met on the road alike. And then a long moment of silence to reflect, only punctuated with a long clap that increases in tempo before someone shouts "Where are we from???" to which the chorus is "Baltimore!" (or New York!) and "Where are we going???" to which one shouts "San... Francisco (Diego)!" This is repeated in succession until someone says "How do we get there???" and the response, something spirited to lighten to the mood, like "on the back of an elephant!" After that, we grouped together with members of their team and left with the intention that we would ride in groups of 3 to 4 with their groups of 4 to 6. I lost my group and went tandem with one of their riders who was interested in film and poetics and was also reading On the Road like I am. I'm surprised I didn't ask what his name was, but we ended up huffing and puffing up a hill to our first joint water stop a while before reaching the summit. They had a lot of food, more than the basket full that sat on the gym floor, like three baskets full, and enough for everyone to munch on at every water stop. After seeing this, our team made a lot of successful efforts in getting food donated like they do. I left with the gunners, those who don't like to take their time getting places, and it was like cycling with four or five Marks, folks who set a ferocious pace up and down and across and all points in between. I kept up for only so long and climbed up the day's pass, the Dallas Divide, and a paltry 8900 feet, alone and in lower gear. It was the steepest of the ascents we had done yet in Colorado, but it was rewarding to bomb down the other side into a V of a valley of tall pines where both team cars were waiting for us with lunch. It seemed like this was the time of day for tourists and middle aged day-riders alike to come by on their loaded down rigs and their multi-thousand-dollar titanium bikes alike. One couple apparently gave Allison two hundred-dollar bills as a donation for food alone, so this was the perfect place to stop. It was a sight, two teams swarming around their respective caches of food and mingling alike in the cool mountain air. And then the waiting game began as the anticipation of the caboose groups to arrive and eat spawned games of Throw-The-Rock-At-The-Rock. We departed happily down a lazy 30-mile-per-hour slope before they went forward to be concealed behind a rock face and we turned left, up the rapids of the San Miguel river. It was refreshing to ride with other people and above all, see how our compatriots live and work together. It inspired the six of us going up the mountains again to sing "Down by the Bay" and think of words that rhyme with Anish, Dan, Sean, Sehee, Keith, and Jon, which got tiring as the slope winded up through some brialliant red sandstone cliffs and narrowing, harrowing roads. Apparently the state D.O.T. decided to focus their construction efforts on the day we would be going into Telluride, so we waited in a queue, next to large pickups and even larger semis to be waved through one lane, squeezing between a rock and a hard piece of mechanical equipment. I made it out first, playing a game of Get Out Of The Way Of The Truck Baring Down On You Going Uphill And Weave Through Traffic Barriers, something my days of break-neck, white-knuckle fixed gear riding prepared me well for. I stopped at a scenic overlook into the Uncompaghre Forest and collected my teammates to wait for the lane of traffic in our direction to stop so we would have the road to ourselves. It would help, as the traffic was thick, and it helped that there was a null-traffic bike path going into town to avoid the logjam that is highway 143 into Telluride. And what a town it was with its European alpine charm and traffic circles and boutiques and family-friendly ice cream parlors and high-class dining and Victorian architecture and its liberal leanings, all surrounded by towering heights of green on all sides with a waterfall to the east and punctuated by clear-cut ski runs bare in the summertime, except for the skeletons of ski chairs that seem to go for an unusally long distance. The church we stayed at had to have been furnished by Williams and Sonoma or Crate and Barrel, it was cozy and extremely liveable. A couple from Texas who were guests of the pastor made us a spaghetti dinner and to say the least, they put avocado and organic dressing on the salad. I had died and gone to Telluride. Andrew and I wanted ice cream so we wandered the busy pedestrian main street for a hot and noisy ice cream parlor that managed to melt Sandy's ice cream before she paid for it and sent us packing to a grocery for something more timely and cost-effective. I resisted the urge to assuage my long-unsatisfied taste for organic soy milk but ended up buying a pint of Ben and Jerry's which, at a higher calorie density, I hoped would get me up tommorrow's climb. We then went to the gondola station to ride up the mountain. As a form of free public transportation, it had to be the most spectacular and the most terrifying, especially when the car slows to a stop, suspended one hundred or so feet above the ground, swinging back and forth before lurching forward again. At the mountain village I saw a map of the ski slopes and knew they made the slopes I've gone down in Michigan and Wisconsin seem paltry. Andrew said he had never skied before and I told him he wasn't missing much, just like we weren't missing much in the now-summertime ski resort that provides a lot of fresh, cool air, or Objectivists' conferences to celebrate the 50th anniversy of the Fountainhead. We spent little time in the village. At the summit I looked down at the village and it was an amazing sight to see that little resort town nestled in the receding light of the early night. We wandered into the visitor's center of a exclusive resort/restaurant/community and for some reason there was an empty executive desk in the lobby which Andrew sat down at and started asking me "so why do you want to be a part of this club?" I gave the classic Groucho Marx response, that I wouldn't want to be a part of any club that wants me as a member. And then we shook hands and agreed that twenty thousand a year was a reasonable offer. I really wouldn't want to have that high of an altitude lifestyle and am perfectly content with the open road and an expensive collection of road bicycles - for now. After the ride down we went to a Western wear store and tried on hats. I had joked ever since entering cow country that I wanted a Stetson. After seeing the price tag, I realized I should wait a while, or figured I would ruin it by packing it or wearing it while riding. Plus I really just wanted to try one on for size. After getting glared at by the saleswoman, we left into the cool mountain night, satisfied with our adventure through this all-season tourist haven.

Losing the war against Blogger and free public internet access (or) What I did on July 4.

2007-07-05T17:04:00.000-06:00

Wednesday we got up an hour early and despite the best efforts to actually get out an hour early, we left at 6:30 or something, which was perfect because there was a fine chill to the air as we started out towards the west, towards our biggest climb yet. I was tired and sluggish from the early wake-up, but the mountain air and the moving bike got me awake real quick. It wasn't bad starting out, I started out 39x19 and figured I would save my gears for when I needed them and tough it out at a good cadence at lower altitude, where I figured I wouldn't be gasping for whatever thin air is at altitude. We were given horror stories about altitude sickness at last Saturday's team meeting, but I did everything to keep my climb from becoming one; I drank plenty of water, I went at a sensible pace and I stayed as alert as possible. It would turn out fine and I got to the top alive. On the way up I was dropped by Mark coming off the foothill, then caught up to Keith and paced him a few miles before I dropped him and Dan where the 6% or so grade and the right-hand climbing lane began. The view was stunning, being up close to those mounds of rock that from a distance, have the most foreboding shade of gray or purple or green or some combination thereof and then looking back to see it fade into the distance. And up I went, a white line down the middle, a precipitous drop or rock face to the right and traffic to the left. I dropped down to 39x21 and stayed there until the top, keeping a steady rhythm in my head by replaying some dance track in my head with a heavy bass beat, the same one that I did a climbing exercise to while spinning back in February. It stuck with me and I knew it would be my climbing anthem. A mile or so from the top, the hot, wet drip of blood fell from my nose, onto my stem, my rain jacket, my handlebars, and on the mountain. There were some mountain bikers literally climbing onto the road with their bikes and I asked them for toilet paper after ruining one of my bandanas. I guess my nose started bleeding because of the altitude. Or the lack of moisture in the air. In any case, it dried me out a bit, but I was soon on my way, passing both Dan and Keith who had gotten a jump on me in the five minutes I stood road-side. And then the road ahead, instead of a rock face or a wall of trees, revealed only the sky above and I knew I was soon at the top. And there I was, at the top of the world. There was a gift shop and an expansive parking lot full of motorcycles and mountain bikers headed every which way. I raised my arms above my head and let out a cry of joy. I had climbed up Monarch Pass, 11,312 feet above sea-level, I had crossed over the continental divide, a line on the map so much less arbitrary than a time zone or a state line, something with tangible geographic, topographic, economic, political, existential, etc. meaning. To the East, the Mississippi, that highway of water I had passed over weeks ago and eventually the Atlantic. To the West, the Pacific and a large body of water that I plan on diving into when I'm close enough. I was the second to the top and watched as everyone trickled in triumphantly, something we collectively had overestimated in difficulty. We stuck around for a hour or two and took it as a massive photo-op and rest shop visit. The mountain may have taken my blood, but I defeated it in the end.

Eventually we had to come down from such great heights and I left with Andrew and Mark. Almost immediately out of the parking lot, you could feel gravity pulling you down. Behind us was a pickup pulling a camper. It wouldn't pass us until well after the grade became less so gracious. I bombed down the mountain, tucked as low as possible above my drops. I only managed 39 miles per hour for only a few moments due to a stiff wind off the mountains, but kept at the posted limits of 30 or 35 around the curves. It was exhilarating to say the least, going so fast for so long on roads they film car commercials on; that much can be said about a lot of the Rockies. Andrew and I had a close call with a truck coming into our lane passing a car in the other lane, but I thought little of it, and reacted quickly enough, I was running that high on adrenaline. When it all flattened out, I kept a good speed all the way into Gunnison after catching up and pacing with Mark. In all, the day's worth of riding was perhaps the most memorable of all my days so far. In town, we gravitated towards the grocery store and the stores of food that would nurture us in ways that a van miles away couldn't. It was a scene repeated in my head and in these days over again, the click of cycling shoes, the lonely, tired wander past aisles of foods that are tempting and delicious and expensive, and a single loaf of wheat bread in hand as I wander back and forth in front of the cold cases, considering which of meat, cheese, and milk to sacrifice and wishing I were a Safeway member. I decided not to get cheese because if it's cheap it's made of fake stuff and if it's more than halfway edible, it won't meet my high calorie-per-dollar requirements. And so I sat down in front of the grocery with my teammates and downed a plastic turkey box worth of sandwiches. And yet, I'm getting by quite well in America. We traversed the streets of historic Gunnison to get to the parish center of the Catholic church and I laid down on a rug and either slept or read cycling mags until being group interviewed by Zach with Andrew and Dan, where we all said heartfelt things and worded them badly because it was meant to be spontaneous. I helped de-bone raw chicken and felt sick. During dinner, everyone smelled something strange and saw that one of the flourescent bulbs were smoking. As a precaution we vacated the building and Jon made an emergency call. And then the sirens of the town task force descended upon our building and it seemed like at least half of the town police and fire ladders came out and blocked off the street. There were fireworks to be seen and the setting sun and the orange-red clouds sufficed, but I still left with Zach and Alicia to the town park to see one of the only fireworks displays I can remember not being in Illinois for. But wherever you are, you can be assured that there are massive crowds and entertainment to be had beforehand. We caught the tail end of a bluegrass band as dusk settled on the scene and as Zach and Alicia spread their Chief Illiniwek blanket on the grass. And then I stood up as a local music student sang the national anthem, and another first as those explosions in the sky lit up as the rocket's red glare was recited and the report reverberated off the moutains in the distance. And then skywards, a beautiful display to highlight one of the most patriotic summers doing one of the most patriotic things you can do and that is see the entire country from up close, in that moment was a microcosm of Being Surrounded By People You'll Never See Again and Experiencing The Same Thing And The Same Feeling At The Same Time. And when all was said and done, I re-encountered my teammates on a walk through historic Gunnison and was renewed by the sense of how I spent the fourth of July.

Winning the uphill battle into Colorado

2007-06-30T15:09:00.000-06:00

Friday we left Eads for another short, quick ride through the high plains with little to see and stop by, the exception being tiny Arlington, which comprised of two occupied houses, a Post Office in a barn, and a traveler's outhouse which is frequented by a lot of cyclists going along the TransAm. route. It was a nice outhouse, complete with lights, flowers, reading material, and a guest book that went back a few years. I felt I was adding to history by signing my name and our team info. The lady who lives across the road came out and talked to us, apparently she had resided in that house for the greater part of her life and had helped build the outhouse. I pointed out amazedly a tumbleweed blowing across the road and she showed us an entire yard full of them, as well as a cactus or two. I had anticipated seeing both of those during this leg of the journey and I was overjoyed to finally see the two plants that, in my mind, define the western part of this country. We up and left after my teammates got yelled at for playing a rousing game of "throw the stick at the stick." I wasted no time going the last 20 miles having been told by the lady that the mountains were "just around the bend." I didn't see anything and only strained myself speeding and squinting trying to see something far beyond the horizon. Sugar City was once the home of the National Sugar Company and once a lively town that in its heyday had brothels across the street and next door to the church we stayed at. The factory burned down 30 or more years ago, leaving behind a stone fence and gate and unfortunately lacks the excitement and immorality of its former self. It's now a quiet little burg with an air-conditioned church that I quickly took a nap in. I woke up to see Rory, the Irishman from Wednesday, who joined us for our spaghetti dinner which was provided by some parishoners and was also much appreciated. I drank too much iced tea and had trouble falling asleep that night. Before that, one of the ladies invited us to use her showers and while waiting I saw broadcast television for the first time since standing outside of the Today Show more than a month ago. Bob Saget is now a game show host and the quality of television had not improved much.

Saturday I woke up feeling less than rested, but enjoyed a breakfast of biscuits and gravy that again one of the parishoners had provided. It was the most satisfying, hearty, and filling breakfasts I'll have all trip. Rory and some other cyclists he stayed with the next town over joined us for breakfast and we ended up seeing them in Pueblo. This would be the last time we would see Rory and we wished him the best on his next set of adventuring. The ride was quick and the terrain changed from flat to speckled hills rising out of the Arkansas River valley. As we got into Pueblo I first had a glimpse of the mountains, having not noticed the low and only slightly darker-than-the-sky-around-them rises pop out of the distance until turning my head to the south and west. And as they grew, I remembered back to my childhood when I would imagine that the clouds in the distance somewhat resembled mountains. Within the hours, I knew I would see them up close. Someone flatted behind us, so Sehee, Sandy, and I stopped roadside to wait for them. I tried to take a picture of a praire dog but they were both too scared and quick to come out of their mounds. I threw rocks down their holes and didn't feel bad about it; according to the lady in Arlington, they destroy the soil which tears up the thin grass which is the literal basis of the ecosystem. I got into Pueblo, got lost, regained my bearngs, waited for the van, and rather than assuage my hunger, replaced my rear tire which I discovered in the morning had warped near the valve. By the afternoon it had not only warped but a tear was propagating through the tread; the inner threads were coming out. I had a bone to pick with the Schwalbe corporation for making a tire that lasted me only 700 miles, so I bought a more durable Continental Gatorskin which, to stay in budget, means I can't eat for the next five days. That done, I biked through the town's historic downtown district to get to the library and was impressed so much that I figured we should make the town a rest stop. At the library I finally ate and blogged for two hours and only made it up through Eads, I was that far behind blogging. It's the second Sunday after Pueblo and I'm still not finished. Sheesh.

I carried my full messenger bag back from the library the 20 or so blocks to the episcopal church we stayed at. Pueblo being in a river valley, the ride was uphill and good practice for the days ahead. Also it made me miss my fixed gear even more. Some of the guys on the team bought a guitar and I thought the whole situation was non-sensical given that we had just gotten rid of stuff and still had a packed van, but I kept my mouth shut. As a compromise, the ride leaders made them give up stuff to send home. Zach and Alicia were kind enough to make us a dinner of make-your-own burritos which were delicious and the least they could do for letting us tag along. There were supposed to be fireworks in the evening and I wanted to go, but ended up falling asleep post-dinner and cursed myself for not staying awake. I figure there would be more fireworks to come.

Sunday I didn't have to unpack breakfast with Sandy as per my day's assigned chore, one of the parishoners provided us with juice and fresh fruit and I reveled in having cheerios with whipped cream. Our ride out of Pueblo was complicated by some street closures due to a criterium that was taking place in downtown Pueblo. A few of us felt that Pueblo being a big town and hosting a bike race the same weekend we arrive should be a rest day, but we would get one tommorrow. The ride took us up and out though the city zoo and the sleeping stone and terra-cotta roofed neighborhoods to the west, further towards the majesty of those ever-increasing rises. It started out innocently enough with a lot of rolling terrain and deep washes where once a mighty flow cut through the rock but only now is reduced to a trickle. The shrubs and cattle increased in proportion to the decline of humans, save for the recreational traffic and tiny villages that if you blink, you miss them. I had taken my time and been cautious enough not to overexert myself but managed to do so over the highest, steepest rise yet that would nearly convince me of the difficulty of the day. I stopped too suddenly halfway up and nearly blacked out and probably did momentarily. I walked to the top or at least where it leveled out enough so I could build the momentum to clip in to my pedals without falling over. Jon was riding with me and was worried about my state, and I just continued in silence, telling him I had to save my breath. And then I was surrounded on four sides by steep walls of douglas fir and cedar and whatever other evergreens grow on the side of mountains around 7000 feet. I was plunging right into altitude and was feeling the effects of a misguided breakfast and struggled up something that farther away looked so benign and inviting but up close tells you to slow down a lot. Relief came half-way up the day's peak altitude and I sat down, drunk on mountain air, lightheaded, and containing an appetite just enough to enjoy a peanut butter snack, but not a sandwich. I consumed a lot of water and knew I had to and as such was willing, which was a good sign that I hadn't been completely consumed. And Drew and Zach scrambled up a rock face as I left to find a rhythm that would find me alive at the top of the climb, and it worked. It became manageable, I enjoyed the sights and crested the top of 9200 feet and had a "WOW! Gee Whiz!" kinda moment as the snow-capped sight of the Sangre Christo Range unfolded in front of me and then the road dropped dramatically and winded down at a steady pace, and around a bend, a large mound to the right and an unfolding collection of buildings coming closer to the front. And in those moments, I felt the most elated out of any of the days in that oxygen-starved sense of the feeling. The downhill lead me through the tourist-supported facade of a closed-down silver mine town and brought me right into another sunday-afternoon-in-the-mountains town where we would be staying the next two nights. I stopped at a cafe with Mark, Allison, and Mike and treated myself to a BBQ pork sandwich and milkshake, I needed something filling, not necessarily economical. I settled into the Westcliffe Baptist church outside of town and read Keith's Discover magazines to pass the time. We're on our own for dinners, so I purused the local supermarket for the most nutrionally dense foods for under five dollars and my search came up with a loaf of 99 cent wheat bread, single-serving deli meat and a half-gallon of chocolate milk. Despite my earlier misadventure with half-gallons of milk, I both suffered and enjoyed 64 oz. of the stuff. And then the sun-set time of night rolled around and I wandered into the park with its expansive view of the mountains to the west stretching north and south and to the east, the distance range I saw from up close doing the same. And there I was, in the saddle of a wide, green valley, on a park swing still clutching my jug of milk while Alex read J.D. Salinger out loud. And then the combination of darkness and a day of climbing wrestled with my stomach, itself fighting my taste for milk.

Monday I woke up under a table and decided to go running for the first time in a while. I had promised myself I would run in the mountains, at altitude, just for the experience. I got yelled at for not closing the door quietly and went into the morning, down a dirt road by the park with the sun peaking up in the east, illuminating the mountains in a way that made sense and kept me chugging along. It wasn't a long run and it wasn't a flat run and all the memories of running for years came back to me and all those long ascents up hills that pale in comparision to the landscape I was now looking at and thinking it would be cool to climb. I stopped too quickly and found myself on the ground, looking skyward. I stood up, hunched over and seeing black. I walked back to church and after eating my remaining slices of bread, fell asleep for a few hours. It was an overall satisfying experience. At lunch, wandering the supermarket aisles, mouth agape at all the food I take for granted, I bought enough to make turkey and cheese sandwiches for my afternoon and evening meal. It was back in Kansas when I determined what my budget was that I began recording personal food purchases and their caloric merit, and my meal was consumed by this process. For dinner I would end up buying a gallon of kiwi-strawberry punch, which at 99 cents, had 1760 calories of sugary goodness. Jon told me that was sick in his half-serious way, but I would get approximately 1600% of my daily values of vitamin C, whatever that means. Before our evening team meeting, outside, with a dazzling sunset and series of foreboding cloud formations to distract us and make me forget what the meeting was about, we took liberties to the church library and watched Iron Will, the Disney pic about a boy's struggle against the odds and a dog-sled race, the stuff that helps inspire us on our journey. I hadn't seen that film since fifth grade. That's pretty much how my rest day was spent.

Tuesday morning we left our rest stop for a long stretch of mountain travel, which fortunately was downhill for the first few moments. I vowed to finish my gallon of juice by breakfast, but would end up dangling it off of my handlebars for the first few miles of the day. I hit a pothole at a good pace and it knocked one of my water bottles filled with precious amounts of Gatorade, which spilled onto the road. I would later suffer a lot of bottle malfunctions where the cap would fly off and the liquid inside spill out. I avoided bombing down a particularly steep stretch of road and a rock or something flew into my jersey. At the gas station at the bottom of the grade I felt a biting, itching sensation and opened up my top to unleash a bee, which had stung me six times on the shoulder. Luckily the bites did not swell up like the time a bee flew into my face in high school and caused my left cheek to swell up. We had insect sting relief and a headset wrench to loosen my stiff steerer. And off I went, up U.S. 50, up along the rapids of the Arkansas river, surrounded by high canyon walls and faces of cut-away rock. And somehow, they managed to put a rail line on the other side of the river. The road made some impressive bends on its gradual uphill travesal, the kind that, again, would remind you of car commercials. Before a water stop I was tempted to ride a child's bicycle sitting at the side of the road with a "free" sign in front of it, but it had no pedals or a seat. A lot of folks have been finding souvenirs at the side of the road, and yet I have managed to not pick up a thing up to this point. We spent a few hours at our lunch stop in Salida for various reasons. It's a neat little town, like all the mountain towns we've been in, with its boutiques and historic downtown districts. For me, it was the library, the computers, the stacks of books and magazines about cycling which I read long after the van left. I made my way to the town park, which is situated right in front of the Arkansas and a perfect place for Kayakers to float on top of the cataracts in the river or for a tired cyclist to take a dip. Tufts of white were blowing from the cottowoods along the bank and some of my teammates went to climb the hill embalzoned with a gigantic "S." I went to the bike store with Sehee to look at the bicycle museum there, and all of a sudden a fascination with mountain biking came over me because this part of the world is the place to do it. I then went back to the park to regroup and get people to join me to our destination five miles away, but instead we met a cyclist who graduated from Bowling Green, which we had passed by a month ago, with his father and brother, who it seems has had everything bad happen to him - dehydration, sunburn, black outs, etc, all things to look forward to in the desert. I was hungry and left to yet another mountain town, except this next one was smaller and luckily finding the church was not too difficult. I got to the Christian church of Poncha Springs and sat down to a viewing of Castaway, where Tom Hanks loses 50 pounds and learns to survive in the wilderness. I'd like to think that I haven't lost that much weight but have learned much about survival in that reduced-means sort of way. The young pastor and wife made us hamburgers and they must have been marinated in something, they were tasty. I had about five. They also invited us to their house next door to take showers for the first time since the truck stop in Eads. And through their living room window, casting light onto a stuffed wolf, another stunning mountain sunset putting to end the day and casting light on the next stage of the Rockies.

High Adventure on the High Plains

2007-06-27T15:46:00.001-06:00

Last Wednesday (computer access has been just that sparse, that or I missed my oppurtunity to blog on Saturday, but I'll get into that) we finished up our rest day in Girard, KS by taking a dip in the local pool and crashing on a picnic dinner hosted by the Bible church. They were more than happy to feed us and kept the grill fired to satisfy our taste for hotdogs. We mingled with the locals, tossing the pigskin and playing volleyball as the sun went down. We unfortunately missed the en masse tossing of water balloons, but we had already spent our time in the water. The walk back from the park gave us time to appreciate the expansive, painted Kansas sky at dusk and a preview of what it had to reveal to us. Back at the church, we watched Adaptation and I finally appreciate it having seen it for the second time. The movie screening set me back a few hours so I fell asleep on a pew without getting much done.

Thursday we got out of Girard right quick, and by then my warm-up had consisted of 20 minutes of fast spinning to get my legs going and then keeping on from there. It was easy to hit 20 mph, even on the slight uphills, it wasn't draining to keep up momentum. Some people managed to leave gear back at the church, but the group and the van pressed on. Having learned that, it was a good reminder to get things packed, ready, and accounted for before saddling up. I ended up in front with Dan and Brandt and a route detour dumped us onto a busier highway than expected, so I charged ahead for safety's sake. The inclines got longer, but not much steeper, and it became a draining up-and-down affair had it not been for an intermediate stop in Chanute, KS. I fueled up on sugary drinks expecting to have to go immediately after, but I stuck with the van, and we ended up waiting for Nick and Mike who had left stuff at the church and for a reporter who stepped out of the newspaper bureau we had parked in front of. We had a long, friendly chat and he pictures. He also mentioned having family members affected by cancer and a nationally recognized, oversized, mobile colon meant to raise awareness for colon cancer. I knew immediately I would have to check out the Colossal Colon once I got internet. We high-tailed it out of there and the break I was in ended up doing an echelon, which is a quick double paceline in which riders in a faster line fall off into a slower line as soon as their back wheel is in front of the next, slower person's back wheel. It was a rush, so to speak, and got us to lunch only so much quicker than the following group. I had sliced meat for the first time in a while. Sehee got fascinated by an oil derrick, or whatever you call the things that tilt up and down to get oil out of the ground. I gave some passing cyclists a bike salute by lifting Drew's bike above my head and giving a lot of encouragement. As I could tell, they were carrying a lot of stuff on really nice Bianchi touring rigs. As the smaller group I was in continued on, we ended up lost on some gravel roads which is never a plus and after some instructions from a UPS driver, ended up in the right direction. We went through some of the more "forgotten" parts of Kansas, extremely rural, wooded and overall secluded country lanes. And the landscape had still not flattened out like I expected it would. We ended up passing the cyclists I saw at lunch. From what I gathered, they were heading out to Page, Arizona, so they had a ways to go and many a mountain to climb up. Our destination was a state park outside Toronto, KS, but Dan, Drew, Sehee, Brandt and I went to town to fuel up and see the sights, which consisted of a short, wide stretch of Main Street, a smallish grocery, and a charming little cafe run by a diminutive lady. Brandt and Drew satisfied their tea fixes and seeing Dan's chocolate milkshake get made seduced me into getting one of my own. It was a sight to see, four smelly, tanned cyclists sitting at a lace-covered table sipping out of tea cups. We stayed long enough to avoid having to set up camp. We took our time getting to the campsite, and cresting the hill past the unguarded welcome booth, the park below opened up, woods and reservoir and beaches in all. I set my sights on the water and waded in after a necessary change of clothes. The water was muddy and warm, and I only went knee deep before having a change of heart and a badly needed warm shower. Dinner was cooked over a fire pit. We really were "roughing it" for the first time except for the semi-indoor bathroom facilities. Dinner consisted of the now-usual beans and corn meal mush and a treat of boiled brocolli and melted cheese which I had the pleasure of watching simmer over the fire. In between there, the leaders called a team meeting to more or less discuss protocol and ended up in discussions of meta-democracy and the suggestion that we should vote to see if we should vote on things. At that point, they gently reminded us that they would take suggestions and polls into consideration but the ultimate decision would rest with them. That said, I think the discussion should end there as there is not much to be discussed about how things should be run. Gripes now aside, I sauntered down a bank of fallen tree logs and crushed rock to the shore and watched the sunset. As it dipped below the trees, I felt happy and uncomplicated for a few moments and for the first time in 24 hours. I also began to smell like rotted oak from the driftwood I was sitting on. I tried to skip rocks, but unlike the Lake Erie shore, there are no smoothly polished pebbles from thousands of years of the lake lapping at the foot of the land. In the scheme of things, the Army Corps of Engineers had only dammed this lake yesterday and the crushed brick at the shoreline was still just crushed brick. So, in my final attempt to throw a stone across the water, it made a satisfying "ker-plop" and just sunk straight into the water. I walked away not so disappointed. Rather than packing, I inisted on lifeguarding for Alex, who had designs to swim in the lake after dark. There was enough light from the glimmer of the sunset and the moon above, but it was not enough to justify going in safely. Instead she pointed out all the stars which for reasons for optical correction or perception, I just couldn't see. I came to the conclusion that I have bad eyesight, despite the years of eyeglasses and visits to the optometrist. I then fell asleep on Alex's sleeping bag perched on the edge of the slope going into the lake and too tired to get up and lay on my own sleeping bag, fell asleep. I ended up going to the tent I put my things in after scaring Alex into thinking some stranger had fallen asleep atop her things, but it was only me, too exhausted to get up.

Friday we de-tented and got out with a quick start. I was with the lead group for the first 20 miles before our water stop. I filled up and didn't stop until Rosalia, another 20 away. There was no van, there was nothing in town except a closed convenience store with a pop machine and Dan, Mark, and Brandt waiting in front. I popped in three quarters and tried my darndest to get a can, but my first few choices were sold out, in true sparse, rural fashion. I settled on a Sierra Mist and its paltry 150 calories per can and no caffeine. By this time I had run out of on-the-road snacks and normally wouldn't drink anything carbonated, but during this trip alone I've already drank more soda than I have in the past five or so years. It also looked like rain, but it didn't end up that way thankfully. I left my worries in Rosalia and pressed on. The group I was in decided to take advantage of a great tailwind and all of a sudden cranked up to 25 miles per hour, leaving me behind and trying to catch them at a slightly slower pace. By this time, we were also traversing what is known as the "Flint Hills" region of Kansas, which by the standard with which we compare terrain, Pennsylvania, is still pretty flat. I caught them and we arrived in Cassoday, KS, which to our delight had a lunch buffet, and a good one with that. I loaded up on sauerkraut and breaded pork chops among other delights. After an hour of so of gorging, we settled into the city park we would be staying at and after a long nap on the grass and the myriad of biting insects, I took a longer nap in the park gazeebo. Having been thoroughly napped and lost my hunger satisfaction, I tried sitting on the park swings to alleviate my boredom. We lounged around without a clue in the world where the van was. It turned out that the leaders had decided to stop in the town by the first water stop to get things done at the library, buy things in the shop, maybe have a tan by the swimming pool, leaving us oblivious and unsupported for about five hours. All was well when I was able to get out my sleeping pad and laid myself down on inflated surface. For dinner, Nick broke out the camp stove and yeah, we were really roughing it for the first time, no quotes about it. There were not adequate bathroom facilities but a smelly, fly-infested outhouse. The trees were thick and plentiful instead. We ate pasta and passed around the last bits of the noodles and ate one at a time in a contest to see who would eat the last noodle. Instead of deciding a winner, the ride leaders apologized for not informing the group before departing during yet another team meeting. It was worth the wait. We met some college-aged cyclists who were heading east and warned them about Pennsylvania and the Ozarks. They were travelling relatively light and long - they said they would be in Virginia in 11 days, no small feat given it had taken us 31 at that point to get from NYC. I made the decision to camp out in the park Gazeebo with Andrew, Alex, Keith, and Drew, thinking that I would wake up easier with the sunrise. I left my bags inside a tent for good measure. Feeling safe, I fell asleep in the dark to the chattering of my non-tent mates.

At three in the morning Saturday there was some commotion as my non-tent mates all started packing up. There was a foreboding look in the sky and the wind had picked up. I thusly knew I needed to pack. It was a walk of the waking dead back to the tent I had put my things in, and rather blind except for someone's headlamp. I made it to the tent and threw my sleeping things inside just as the drops began to fall and quickly got in, knowing others would follow behind. We had not set up enough tents for everyone, so in come Sehee and Alex with her soaking wet sleeping bag. The drops increased and I curled up in my bag. I woke up tired. Minutes later I would be tired, wet, and indignant having to weather the outside. It was cool, moist and windy and going along the ever-flattening landscape, the sky had that familiar stretch of grey directly above and far beyond, stretching across my view, and somewhere to the south, the black streaks that only mean rain. We would be dry and ended up going through Newton, KS as the sky broke open to reveal another medium-sized Kansas town complete with it's wide boulevards, churches, car-wash fundraisers, charming retailers and those familiar national brands. I was with Mark, Mike, and Allison and we resisted the urge to stop at T-Bell. We sped along to the lunch-stop town and they went ahead and ate inside a diner, and I had my subsidized lunch of peanut butter and jelly and bananas oustide. I buckled down at the sight of cheap cones of ice cream and had strawberry. I also finished their unwanted leftovers. We left into the hot afternoon and I would soon run out of water having expected running through a town with services, but they weren't close enough along the route to bother visiting. I took a quick nap in the shade before seeing everyone congregated together. So we would then enter town in procession. And so we entered Hutchinson, lured by its attractive salt mine and cosmosphere with Omnimax theatre and strips of retailers that could only mean a large town. Our mission was to stop in at the library where Anish would be advertising for the American Cancer Society and trying to collect stories from those affected by cancer. I was a little skeptical about that last part and trying to approach strangers and stick a camera and a recorder in their face rather than through some congregation like we had been doing. I went into the library and instead used the computers. The wait was long and I was given a pager that vibrated when my time was on, so I left after checking my e-mail. I should have blogged then instead of letting the days accumulate like this, it's just that tedious of a process. In the wait to leave for our destination I read yet another book about Lance Armstrong and his cycling and non-cycling achievements, like beating the cancer that had metastacized to his brain and lungs. The church we stayed at was just down the street, so we settled in quickly before hearing reports of a dinner pizza buffet which most people agreed on as appropriate. Everyone headed out, some via bike, some stuffed into the van, but all enjoyed their pizza buffet. I gorged and had four plates and numerous glasses of sweet tea, knowing full well that I would have a long day ahead, despite having miscalculated the route distance when drawing up the route for the group to copy. Instead of packing I watched the Big Lebowski which Mark had rented for others to appreciate. I promptly fell asleep using the Sprint water bottle a representitive thereof had given to me as a pillow. It was rather uncomfortable as a pillow.

Sunday we headed out of Hutchinson and stopped at an exotic animal farm and bed-and-breakfast along the roads to look, fascinated, at their ostriches, which are rather large and dumb animals that will try to eat the food off of your hand even if you have none. It's definately somewhere to stop by the next time I'm in Hutchinson, along with the salt mine and the Cosmosphere. We stopped next in the middle of nowhere, nothing but wheat, fallow stretches, and tiny bullfrogs jumping across the road. The route would be changed due to a road closure and instead of a long stretch of nothing, we would be on a long stretch of something and thusly have more services availiable to us. We took it upon ourselves to stop in a gas station to fuel up and sit around for about an hour. It took a while to get out, leaving us the last to arrive at our lunch stop in Great Bend. I had a few sandwiches and napped. It was a tiring affair to get up and go the last 32 miles with Brandt and Andrew, but it all flattened out in a familiar Kansan style. Nothing was open at our destination and I had a craving for milk. The town was smaller than expected despite the map's indication of full services. Our arrival increased the population by 10% to say the least. I napped. A lot. I ate the familiar beans and corn meal mush and laid down again. I was undernourished and not doing much about it because there was not much to be done. I still managed to get up and pack and got frustrated at the bugs and the general lack of skin unbitten or clean despite the earlier hose shower.

Monday would be better - or worse. A shorter jaunt into the next town that began with a slow procession that I dropped quickly and sped off to meet the next town. And finally the high plains of Kansas with its long stretches of nothing. To put it in Truman Capote's words, "The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them." At the penultimate stop 60 or so miles in, I finally had my milk, a half-gallon of whole, vitamin D, bovine growth-hormone induced milk. I drank it over the span of half an hour or so as the others filtered in to do the same, but with more sensible ingredients. I thought it would be a good idea, but it wasn't. To say the least, I suffered a lot of gastrointestinal distress and had to leave the group to go ahead. There was a lot of farm equipment on the road being that it is harvest time, and wheat trucks carry behind them their oversized green John Deere combine harvesters that either honk at you, go around you, or given no choice, will cause you to temporarily become an off-road cyclist. And worse yet, I was on an empty stomach. I made it into Scott City to our destination church, the Holy Cross Lutheran, to be greeted by pastor Warren, who was good natured and humorous. Like the pastor in Girard, he suggested sleeping on a pew, and in the evening, turned on the lighted cross that stood behind the lectern, giving the sanctuary a glow that would either remind me of vegas or the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible motif, but I'm only familiar with the latter. I ended up sleeping in an extra pew in the basement. I still had stomach distress for the next series of hours, but made it to the pool with Keith and Dan where we played H-O-R-S-E with a local kid and met a cyclist named Ken who was biking the TransAm. trail and had started from Astoria, OR. I was impressed by his rig, which was a nice Surly Long Haul Trucker. I've actually been taking photographs of all the loaded rigs I've seen along the way. This is high season for touring, and the number I've encountered has increased noticably. When we got back the pastor had fired up the grill and I would end up eating numerous cheeseburgers despite my stomach. We also encountered another cyclist who sort of wandered into the church and introduced himself as Xiao Yu (sp?). He was following along the same route as the fellow we met in the pool, had even ridden with him for a stretch and would end up leaving in the morning with him too. He's a sophomore at U. Mich. and was by himself, which I was impressed by, and was carrying a mere 70 pounds versus the 110 that Ken had said he trudged up the mountains. That made my supported efforts feel weak, but it's inspired me to do something similar for sure. After dinner we headed to the county hospital where we met a terminal cancer patient, who after her third bout with intestinal cancer and third round of treatment had accepted the fact that it would take her life. It was an emotional moment hearing her story and even more so that she was in good spirits. Mark promised to send her a postcard from the Grand Canyon which she said she had never seen before. I left the hospital with a renewed sense of purpose in what I'm doing this summer. My stomach didn't hurt nearly as bad either. The pastor invited Xiao Yu to stay the night and we were happy to have company. I rather envied the fact he presented, that at Michigan, engineering students don't have to choose a major until sophomore year. We also welcomed back Zach Herrmann who had ridden shotgun our first weekend in May to film his documentary about us. He brought along his girlfriend Alicia who is also his legal-issues advisor, boom mic operator, driver, among other things. The group has become one big, dynamic, constantly-changing family.

Tuesday I woke up to the smell of bacon and sausage links. The pastor had made us pancakes and other delicious breakfast meats for our devourment, it was wonderful and generous and the best hot breakfast I've tasted in what felt like years. We departed into more of the same stretch of familiar plains with decreasing patches of green and more of the sun-burnt yellow that you would associate with western Kansas. At 11 o'clock Central we crossed into 10 o'clock Mountain time at the last county border we would cross in Kansas. I proceeded to do the time zone dance and realize that this system of time is even more arbitrary than state borders which also "just kinda happen." However, we gained back an hour, which shortened our day's trek in a technical sense. So we entered tiny Tribune, in honor of Horace Greeley's eponymous newpaper. Apparently it was Greeley who had coined the phrase "Go West young man! and grow up with the country." This part of Kansas must have loved him for the fact that he lured many into some of the loneliest parts of this country. The first attraction was the town gas station where I met the umpteenth retirement-age cyclist coming from Astoria, and later, two younger folks who biked over Monarch Pass, where we will be heading in days. From there, the county library where I managed to check e-mail, take a nap, and compile grocery numbers for people to call rather than make actual calls due to Nextel having the worst rural coverage out of any cell carriers. And in contrast to their road-level hate of abortion is their love of community swimming pools, a paradise for the sun-drenched cyclist. The showers were freezing but manageable and free. An Australian family was there, Mum and teenaged son on their own bikes and dad and younger son on a tandem. Doing something like this must take a lot of patience, but as they exhibited, it's possible. We ended up in the Presbyterian church in town which despite not having a DVD player, had a ping-pong table on a stage in front of yet another lighted cross, which together made for hours of active enjoyment. I took a walk to the local grocery store with Keith and Drew who were doing research on the cheapest, most nutrtional foods. Since we are on a limited budget, it's up to us to come up with dinner-time meals that are cheap and nutrtional. That or we can feed ourselves or make up for whatever goes over budget. I suggested lentils and rice once and should probably volunteer to cook dinner. As I discoverd, the most cost-effective on-the-bike snack food are store-brand toaster pastries at about 800 calories per dollar, so I bought two boxes and some Gatorade powder which is eminently cheaper than the bottled stuff. I no longer have to starve on the bike or have odd cravings for milk and then suffer the consequences. I figure I can do this every week and stay in budget. Brandt cooked dinner and made brown rice and brocolli soup mush with chicken which was filling, and with a little pepper and salt, surprisingly tasty. Before falling to sleep, I picked up my copy of On The Road for the first time in a while and just read, which was relaxing, equally so as Drew playing a long, forceful piece on the sanctuary piano before playing "Hotel California."

Wednesday we left Kansas, and only a few miles in did the landscape gain that semi-arid look when it changed from wheat and grass to low-lying shrub. Other than that, it still looked like Kansas, but that's the high plains for you. In a town called Sheridan Lake, named for the pond that it sits next to, they finally built a gas station. The gasoline pumps aren't there and the convenience-store goods are in the auto parts store next door, mayonaise and paper towels sitting nicely next to the motor oil, but they finally have a gas station. This is the meaning of desolate. The county it sits in and the county to the west, however, have established the Prairie Horizon Trail corridor along this section of the Trans Am. trail to encourage towns to support passing cyclists, which with the "share the road" signs, I thought was pretty neat. I ended up racing Keith and Drew into Eads and ultimately won. I treated myself to a sensible amount of chocolate milk before heading over to our home for the next two nights, the Kiowa County Fairgrounds building, a bright, sterile warehouse of a building with that smooth beige coating over concrete floor. It had a nice kitchen where we prepared our subsidized peanut butter and jelly. Outside, Zach, Alicia, and Alex were talking to a cyclist others in the group had seen before and we would see again. Rory O'Callahan had to be no more than 35 years old, had come from Ireland, became an Australian citizen, visited 38 countries, biked across the Sahara and some Arctic waste, was a soldier, fought mixed martial arts, had some money saved away for motorsporting, wanted to get into base jumping, got divorced, and was on his way to Oregon, trying to figure out where his new homeland would be within limits of his U.S. visa. And I just sat fascinated at all of his adventures. Yet as much as I want to live a life pursuit, I have to wonder how all of this is financed. In the scheme of things, I probably won't get an adventure until I'm retired. And yet, for folks like this, this is how they make their living. I went to the library knowing I'd have to come back when I could stay for longer than half an hour. Some local churches hosted a potuck dinner at the fairgrounds and we mingled and ate. I spoke to one of the pastors who had survived multiple bypasses as well as a lady who had lived with polio and spoke enthusiastically about all the attractions in town. And then we all stood up and introduced ourselves, team, cameraman, camerman's girlfriend, Rory, and all. The act of sharing a meal and sharing our stories was the least we could do to express our gratitude towards the town. After dinner the older folk went to the pub with Rory, leaving me and others to sort through our things to see what we could leave behind to save our poor van the weight through the mountains. So I don't forget, here's a list of what I left and if I hit myself later, the rationale behind that particular decision:

black fleece zip-up jacket. It was bulky and took up space in my second bag, which I shouldn't have anyways. I have a rain jacket to keep me warm or failing that layers or my sleeping bag.
brown polo shirt. At all these events I've just been wearing the Illini 4000 t-shirt, so there's no need for appearances.
second saddle. I wasn't using it, and I discovered it's not all that comfortable anyways.
pair of olive drab pants. Heavy, hard to wash, and as I discovered, I packed a pair that wasn't any of those. I only need one pair of pants
brown leather belt. It goes with the pants.
black Malaika run t-shirt. I need only four shirts and the black one goes because, despite its ability to hide stains, is unbearable to wear in the sun.
long tights. I'm told it's not going to get that cold.
two pairs of non-bike socks. I only need one pair.
The copy of Life of Pi Brian lent me. Sorry Brian, but I wasn't finished with On the Road. Plus Jon guilted me out of it, which he's pretty good at.

So I had all my stuff in the world, laid out in a geometric grid, and saw that it wasn't all that much. I sat in a metal chair outside the building watching the lightning in the distance. It didn't come anywhere near us during the night. Except for that one night in Cassoday, the plains had not and would not drop a single drop on our heads.

Thursday was our rest day, and it started with Mark making unlimited chocolate chip pancakes for the price of one dollar which I paid for in leftover change and numerous pennies. I ate more than my share of bacon too, but they made a lot of bacon. Drew, Keith, and I went to the local art gallery across the highway from the fairgrounds and Eads, as it turns out, has a vibrant artists' collective called "the Artists of the Plains." And, as you would imagine, their subject matter revolves around the landscape. One such subject is the Sand Creek Massacre, an event in pioneer history that the U.S. finally lived up to after 143 years. Outside of Eads, the National Park Service erected a monument to the massacre in which a calvary general basically attacked, killed, and mutilated a large number of natives. The general was appropriately disgraced, but the event went unmemorialized until last April, so a lot of the newer works of art depict the Sand Creek and the dedication of the memorial. I had decided it was time to get a hair-cut, so I went at myself with a pair of clippers and cut it down to a 2. I left a stripe of hair down the middle of my head at its original length just to try something different. I was told it looked "nice." It will be very nice to have shorter hair when it gets hotter out. After that debacle I went to the grocery to feed myself and the library to blog. I think I overstayed my visit there, having been told a few times that I would be bumped near the tail end of my three-hour visit despite the fact that no one else besides my teammates were there, also blogging or checking e-mail. It soured my mood, but I was also eating at the computer station, so it wasn't completely unwarranted. So I only got up to halfway through Scott City and had to wait until Pueblo to finish my Thursday blogging and it's Saturday and unlike Eads, these have software time limits. For dinner I ate a lot macaroni and cheese that Alex had made and scoured over the maps and wondered where, and how high I would be going in the next few days. To give you some idea, into the Rockies and up to 11,312 feet. I'll see you there.

yet another picture post! and rest day number four

2007-06-20T16:10:00.000-06:00

I'm still trying to figure out where we're going, or how to rotate photos 90 degrees so blogger will make them actually appear to be rotated 90 degrees

Our campsite on the grounds of SIU-Edwardsville at dusk

This is as close as I got to St. Louis immediately east of it. Also my last view of a major urban area (read: population > 100,000) until Pueblo, CO.

Crossing over the Mississippi outside of Chester, IL

A box turtle that wouldn't come out of its shell, so Andrew and I spirited it safely across the road.

The scenic overlook in the Ozarks and the penultimate climb out of the mountains

Ash Grove, MO: Railroad Town USA

James after his last ride before leaving. Because of his departure, he's disqualified from the beard-off leaving just mike, nick, and me

Time Out Pizza in Ash Grove, MO serves up a mean pineapple and canadian bacon pie. The Ash Grovers were very friendly and hospitable.

SeHee was fascinated by the farm equipment

This cow was the first thing we saw in Kansas, it was very mooooving. And I still can't rotate these photos.

Today I woke up in a pew in the Baptist Church, the pastor himself said it was a good place to sleep and it was, except I didn't have a pillow. I pretty much lounged around all day and finished off Mike's book about the Tour de France, about 160 pages of light reading. Breakfast was french toast and eggs and lunch was donated Subway sandwiches. I'm really loving this library, it's only a block away from the church, this computer has iTunes so I'm listening to NPR and everything that Ira Glass and Garrison Keillor has to say. Later we're going to a park to eat hot dogs courtesy of the Bible church. I guess I'm savoring this rest day above all others, we don't get another one until we reach Colorado a week from now, so in the meantime, flat land and endless fields of wheat. And hot dogs.

"On the road again, goin' places that I've never been"

2007-06-19T13:16:00.000-06:00

Thursday I woke up and proceeded to suit up for the first time since Sunday, having sipped some cough syrup and popped some non-drowsy no-pseudophedrine nasal decongestant. I also wore my new gel-padded shorts and reveled in their comfort. And so it began. Adam left that day to start his job in the city, so we were down to 16, and Keith would not only have to take him to the train station but also stop by a bike shop in Edwardsville to get everyone's stuff, so we would ride the day unsupported. Through whatever process and convoluted detouring and bridge closures, I ended up in front with Dan and neither of us had directions. And we were in East St. Louis; from my experience, the urban areas immediately east of other major urban areas are always lovely in that dilapidated, run-down and seemingly empty sense of the word. To the west I could eke out a view of the city skyline and its familiar Gateway Arch. It all turned into countryside pretty quickly, which was surprising as we were supposed to be winding along some kind of river. It turns out I was going east and about 10 miles out of the way, so we had to rendezvous on course before we could all proceed. I had done, at that point, 40 miles at the 25 mile mark.

That put me back a ways as we headed along the bluffs that line the the floodplain of the Mississippi. This was an extremely rural area, just tall stalks of corn on one side and a wall of rock and trees on the other for 40 miles. I ran out of water, which was not too great for my congestion and overall fatigue from the morning. So collectively we all suffered until we came upon a feed store/weighing station along the way to fill up. And then we suffered some more until reaching Prarie Du Rocher, IL where I basically gorged myself and downed a pitcher of lemonade. And so it went, eventually up into the bluffs and around some rivers until we reached Chester, IL, the home of Popeye, a mental institution and medium-security prison. I had yet to see the Mississippi River. We stayed in the gym of a Lutheran primary school, which meant more contiguous days with hot showers.

By Friday morning we had Alex back with us and cheerful as ever. It would be a good day to return if you like climbing. Coming down bluffs, the river presented itself and crossing the bridge into the hazy Missouri morning meant crossing into the west, going in the direction of those explorers who crossed the mountains and plains and valleys seeking whatever they sought. I don't think I had seen the river before, but having done so, it stands out in my mind as a milestone on this journey. It means that the only direction we traverse until Colorado is west and up. After a stretch of floodplain we climbed up into the Missouri-side bluffs and a world of hurt. It didn't flatten out like you think it would in Illinois, the hills and the inclines didn't stop. Keith remarked that we had entered Pennsouri, but I like to think of it as Missylvania. Either way, the state is more or less a series of hills. Outside of Farmington, MO a lady gave us tickets for free Taco Bell combos and told us they were redeemable everywhere, but I insisted to everyone that we should find the T-Bell now and read the fine print about it only being valid at one specific location. It would turn out that I was right, so if I ever want a free T-bell combo I have to go back to Farmington. Instead for lunch we ate in a state park and everyone threw rocks in my helmet. On the way to our stop, my legs got tired so I sped ahead, which if you think about it, doesn't make much sense. In Ironton, MO I spotted a deliberately vague Civil War mural painted on a building and I couldn't make out who was firing the cannon and who was being bombarded, the Confederate or Union soldiers. This question would plague me throughout my venture through the state, as well as the larger question of whether or not Missouri could be considered part of the South. At first I considered it "southern" in the way you would think southern Illinois is "south," but the Confederate flags, obsession with Civil War history, the evident antebellum leanings, and the delicious sweet tea were a dead giveaway, that yes, this part of southern Missouri could be considered the South, giving our route that much more geographic variety. We stayed at the First Church of the Nazarene in town and we were hosted not only by the pastor but a group of young locals. I started reading "On the Road" for the first time since I lost my original copy and felt good about it again. I also replaced my saddle having realized that it made no sense to use a harder saddle.

Saturday was the worst yet in terms of challenging climbs as we headed into the heart of the Ozarks and its many winding rivers and national scenic riverways, which are just fancy words for tough uphills and roller-coaster downhills. I hit 45 miles per hour one time and the second time I had a rear-tire go flat on me, and had to ride down on it until I could slow down on a flat. Fortunately it was only a pinhole leak and in my rear tire, but it was my eleventh tube-tire emergency by official count and I was stuck in the middle of scenic nowhere without a frame pump. As it would turn out, however, I was ahead of everyone by a long shot so borrowed Mark's awful pump when they passed by. I managed to get into town underinflated, but nothing ruins your momentum like a flat. I longed for a slushie, something cold and sugary. I ended up at some gas station in Eminence, MO and asked for directions for sixth street, but got directions to US 63 instead, so went along into the other part of town that wasn't full of vacationing mountain folk. It would appear that the town is like the Wisconsin Dells of the Ozarks, with tubing and swimming and canoeing and hunting and fishing and basically everything related to the Jacks Fork and Current Rivers but without hordes of midwesterners or an indoor water park. We stayed in the gym of Eminence High School, which was new as of two years ago and downright suburban if not for the fact that it was in its own building and also contained the cafeteria. We shot some hoops, played with the automatic ball return machine, and after attempting to put quarters into the Coke machine to only see them get spit out again, I had a Yoohoo for the first time in multiple years, which was delicious. I remember eating trail mix and not much else, having napped for a lot of my "free" time.

So I woke up hungry Sunday and did what I could with peanut butter and multiple slices of bread. The last of the dreadful climbs came about and it was worth the scenic overlook we stopped at with the hills far and wide below us and the green of the Missouri softwoods behind a veil of morning haze. It flattened out insomuch as the hills had shallower inclines, but were nearly as long, but merely blips on the overall feeling of the day. I picked myself up with a mountain dew slushie and didn't realize that most of it was injected air as I put it in my water bottle to drink along the ride. At 70 miles I had no water left and stopped at a church along the way to fill up. The folks there were nice enough to not only give me ice but an extra bottle of cold, Sam's choice water. I was grateful to them and for once in my life, Sam Walton for making such delicious water. My delusions ended there, but I recall seeing one incline that winded up and to the left and thinking it looked like the Great Wall of China, and climbing up it, Jerry Lee Lewis started singing "goodness gracious Great Wall of China!" before banging on the piano. I made it to Hartville, MO alive. No one could tell me where the Church of God in town was, not the folks at the gas station from where I bought a gallon of sweet tea that I would ingest over the next few hours, nor the girls at the corner Subway from where I bought two footlongs. I was a hungry fella and had to make up for yesterday's lack of alimentary relief. The manager of the Subway told me a team of cyclists had been through a couple of weeks back and had camped out in front of the courthouse across the street. She also let me use the phone to call ahead to the church, which suprisingly was just behind the courthouse. I know we had trailed along the Johns Hopkins ride back in Ohio, but it would appear that their route through MO is north of ours. It's a comforting thought to think that there are other teams doing similar work for different causes. I could imagine the camraderie or madness that would ensue if two such teams crossed paths and inhabited the same town at the same date. It started raining, so I tiptoed as fast as I could in my cycling shoes to the church. There pastor Lowell greeted us and showed us the church. And then a blur of Subway sandwiches, sweet tea, teammates arriving, a glance at the first in the "Left Behind" series, more grilled cheese sandwiches; I fell dead asleep.

Monday it drizzled. Then it poured. I broke out the rain jacket for the first time and felt cozy but sticky inside from a lack ventilation. It was necessary to keep the legs moving for fear of cooling off or just losing that edgewise momentum, but I made the necessary stops for what little water I consumed and my usual rations of granola bars ever 20 or so miles. At a gas station in a town outside my stop, I found out my rear tire had gone flat, making it number 13 and potentially stranding me. Number 12 was Sunday, when it went flat all of a sudden at a gas station and I patched it up and managed to break one of my Park Tool levers. For this I buckled down and decided I should not only get a slew of new tubes but also a new rear tire. Back at the gas station, Anish showed up and saved me from the inevitable doom of having to wait it out at the gas station, but it started to pour like nothing else so I bought Hostess donettes and 80% of my daily values of saturated fat for a 2000 calorie diet, which is clearly below my required amount. We left and once again, I biked into our destination underinflated. Our stop had been moved closer, to a bigger town. We were originally slated to stay at the extensive city park in Ash Grove, MO, but ended up with accomadations at the First Christian Church. So we showered at the park after I tried to finagle people into racing me arond the 350-meter or so concrete oval in the middle of the park, but it was relatively unsafe for high-speed sprints. Also everyone was clearly tired. After getting settled at the church, we walked over to the local pizza place where the owner had dinner and a long table waiting for us, which was extremely generous and delicious, especially their pinapple and canadian bacon. So, if you're ever in Ash Grove, MO go to Time Out Pizza on Main St. James became the second of our ride leaders to leave the ride, but much unlike Brian, he will return with to us in Pheonix to finish off the adventure he helped to start. I mounted my new tire and hope like crazy that Schwalbe won't fail me until California, it can fall apart on the beach for all I care, I just want it to last. It became apparent to me during lunch when I had a Big Bopper (Cheeseburger and fries with a cherry Coke and other people's onion rings) that I am going to run out of money if I keep spending it like I am. Especially if my equipment keeps breaking and I keep eating out instead of drinking gallons of chocolate milk and calling it a day, I figure I'm going to run broke somewhere in Arizona, when I had previously expected to go broke just before San Diego. So I proposed to spend no more than 3 dollars a day or better yet, spend nothing at all to ensure that I won't have to eat my seat cushion on the airplane back to Chicago.

Today I managed to not spend anything yet, but I still think some chocolate milk would be delicious. Missouri never stopped having a lot of rolling hills until 30 miles to Kansas when it was finally generous enough to flatten out. That and Kansas kind of just happened, no signs, no signals that we were in another state other than changing road signs and newer asphalt and road markings, so we took a photo-op moment in front of a big, fiberglass cow outside of a radio station just over the border. We stopped for lunch in Pittsburg, KS and I napped more than I ate. I'm now in Girard, KS and have been blogging for about 2 and a half hours, it's just that long of a process. I'm hungry and there's a public pool somewhere in town that would be nice to shower at. This is also our fourth rest day stop and first one since Champaign last Monday, so I will probably put up photos tommorrow.

Another picture post!

2007-06-13T21:12:00.000-06:00

My sister is a really amazing person.

Everyone, especially Nick is sad that Brian is leaving us

Dan caught this freight train, so we rode it into Springfield

Article from the News-Gazette

2007-06-13T21:09:00.000-06:00

This is linked from http://news-gazette.com/news/print/2007/06/11/quick_stop_at_home/, but they archive things after a while, so for posterity's sake before the copyright police crack down on me, here's the article for you non-east-central-illinois residents:

UI cyclists stop in Urbana on their way to California
By Anne Cook
Monday June 11, 2007
URBANA – Cyclists who are a fourth of the way through their cross-country ride said Sunday the lengthy trek through Pennsylvania was the first shock of the trip.
"Pennsylvania was a problem – 400 miles of hills," said University of Illinois senior Nick Ludmer, who signed on for the Illini 4,000, a 4,000-mile bicycle ride to raise money for cancer research, with his roommate, Anish Thakkar, a key organizer. He's one of 18 participants, most UI students or alums, making the 65-day trek that will end Aug. 4 in San Diego.
"But we got over them," said Ludmer, who stopped with the group Sunday for a reception at the Campbell Alumni Center. "Now we have the Rockies to look forward to."
Thakkar, who graduated in May, said he and Jonathan Schlesinger, also a UI student, spent more than a year organizing the trip, which started May 25 in New York.
He said his work at UI laboratories sparked his interest in cancer research.
"Most of my work at the UI has been related to early detection," said Thakkar, who earned a degree in electrical engineering. "What I saw is there's not enough funding for research to be done. There are amazing things going on in laboratories, but projects live and die by their ability to secure grants."
He said he and Schlesinger started lining up students for the trip and earlier this year, everyone started working out on stationary bikes at Campus Rec Center East. After spring break, the cyclists moved outdoors to train for the trip.
"We encouraged everyone to bike 200 miles a week," Thakkar said. "This project requires a big time commitment."
Riders signed up sponsors, and they've been collecting money along the way. So far, they've collected about $40,000, and Thakkar expects the pot to grow. Some money will help the UI start its first Camp Kesem this summer, for children whose families are affected by cancer, and the rest will go to the American Cancer Society earmarked for research, he said.
"I'm amazed to see how we made an idea grow and how doing something like this can affect people in a positive way," Thakkar said.
He said riders are also interviewing people in the towns where they stop along the way who have been affected by cancer and taking their pictures for a display they will make and post at Provena Covenant Medical Center, a major trip sponsor. Other major sponsors include Champaign's That's Rentertainment and Hendrick House.
Allison Heim is recording the ups and downs, literally, on her blog, which focuses on food and hospitality, at www.allisonacrossamerica.blogspot.com.
She said one highlight was the end of a 160-mile day in the rain when she discovered cocoa was waiting for the riders. A day she'd rather forget was a 90-mile ride through the hills of Pennsylvania.
"I was crying," said Heim, who will next attend the University of Arizona to pursue a doctorate in marketing.
"I put emphasis on accomplishing goals," she said. "I care about making a difference."
Ludmer and Thakkar said the group carries camping gear but has only had to use it twice because churches and other organizations invite them to stay over, treat them to meals and donate to their cause. On rest days, leaders try to locate places in advance.
Ludmer said when the group ended up stranded one day in Hawley, Pa., a woman named Florence Brown invited everyone to stay at her brother's home, and Brown cooked pasta.
"The first day, we had a blowout on the support vehicle," he said. "The minister of a church knew a tire guy. The tire guy replaced it free and donated $400 to us. Total strangers have been incredibly generous. "
Junior Sean Laude said he's had nine flat tires on a bike he bought on eBay. He christened the bike in Lake Michigan and will do it again in San Diego.
"I'm looking forward to dipping my front wheel in Mission Bay," Laude said.
Ludmer also plans to end his journey with a splash.
"There's been a running gag that I'm crossing America on a Big Wheel," he said. "So at the end, I'm going to wear a cape, a leather pilot's hat and goggles and ride a Big Wheel off a pier in San Diego into the ocean. I have to live up to the gag."

An end to off days already? Only time will tell.

2007-06-13T19:37:00.000-06:00

So I spent three hours in the undergrad. THREE. It was a long time writing, that is for sure. I putzed around campus and ran into Dan Walsh again and we had a discussion about whether or not the traffic rules apply to bicyclists, and in taking opposing sides, I agree with the sentiment that bikes are vehicles and have to abide by the rules of the road, especially stop signs. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty reckless on my fixed gear, but when it comes to octagonal red things and 4-way intersections, it's a wise idea to at least slow down. We parted ways at Green Street and I stopped at the one and original Basil Thai for some piping hot peppery Lad Nar with beef, my comfort food in times of sickness. I realized I started a trend when a lot of my teammates stopped in to eat. I ended up sitting with Geoff, Mike, and Allison and ate what they didn't. It was satisfying. I putzed further and made a pilgrimage to Allen Hall where I got nostalgic and left for Anish's before it got messy. I then half-slept and half-helped Praveen, one of the Spanish House residents, finish up his fixed gear construction. I miss my fixed gear and its grand total of one speed and no freewheel. I said time and time again that I would ride it across the country, but it would be more than awful for climbing. I'll save that for another cross-country journey.

At this point in the narrative, I was extremely fatigued and feverish, and finally having realized it, took off a few layers of clothing and took some ibuprofen. Then somewhere in there I managed to eat, sit in a meeting asking everyone to speak up, being called "grandpa" because I asked people to speak up and was speaking loudly myself due to my congested head, and watching the Eddy Merckx story.

I woke up Tuesday feeling the same, sore throat, lightheaded, and with a hint of eagerness to move on that day and sadness that I would not depart from home again on two wheels. This would be the first leg of the journey, in my mind, that takes us West, and not just in the cardinal direction. We took the same route out that we trained on endless times, and it would have been great to take it the endless-and-first time but with the intent of ending up someplace else, far away. Instead, I drove it and chalked it out for the riders behind, sometimes only seconds behind. The chalking didn't go unappreciated and I was praised for my efforts. I also got my iPod working and thus the soundtrack of my day could commence.

Brian Albrecht left us at the first 15-mile stop, so it was a tender moment for all of us. He wrote me a nice note and I'm very grateful for his words. Wherever you are Brian, I hope you're doing well. And if you're reading these very words, then hello from Lovejoy Library at SIU-Edwardsville.

A cyclist hit me, that is to say, I was driving on the left side of the road to pass my teammates after leaving the sag stop when I registered that a cyclist was coming towards me, and slowing down as much as I could, I avoided swerving to the right and hitting a teammate, and the lady managed to get by, but I heard a metallic scrape and a thud against the car. I immediately stopped, got out, and saw that thankfully she was okay. She said she had tried to unclip from her pedals, but unsuccessful, fell onto the van. It managed to bend her left aerobar, and due to the poor ductility of aluminum, I managed to break it in an attempt to bend it back. It was sheepish moment to add to the situation, but she said not to worry. I offered her water and use of our tool kit and gave her some bandages. In the end, her and I were able to part ways with our lives and vehicles in working order, but it was still a frightening experiencing. I should have offered her my aerobars, but it only slipped my mind afterwards that I do, in fact, have aerobars. I should have also yelled at my teammates for not moving over and not making it apparent that there was a cyclist up. What bothers me is that these county lanes are less than the width of my driveway, and yes, you are legally entitled to ride two abreast, but as a courtesy to me, the support vehicle driver, and other potentially clueless drivers, ride in single file on narrow or busy roads!

45 miles out Dan joined me in the car due to his aching back. He had hoisted Sehee on his shoulders taking one of the many photo-ops in front of our sponsors' locations and torqued it somehow. Needless to say, that's a good way to end a day of hunched-over riding. So I had a co-pilot. And managed to get lost, and have to backtrack to help folks. The route was lost in translation or better yet, in the cornfields, but I went on chalking and figuring out the way. We stopped for lunch in Niantic, IL and I downed a liter and a half of Lipton Green tea and attempted to relieve my throat somehow. I also recieved my dearest sister Amy who drove down for the day. She not only visited me, but brought a pair of bike shorts, a copy of On The Road and new cycling gloves. It was really the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me, so thank you Amy!

The route out of town followed along train tracks, so Dan and I chased down a freight train and nearly caught up to engine. The cool part about it was the 12-minute track in the middle of the newest Of Montreal album that made awesome pursuit music. It was a moment to remember and photograph, not to mention a few words online. We managed to traverse the busy roads of Springfield after a few choice wrong turns and end up at U of I Springfield to unload the van. Mark was there waiting, having not only gotten lost, but gotten there two or so hours ahead of time. I jumped back in the van to find the riders, give them relief, and chalk the route. I ended up not doing the first two very well, but I did the last one pretty darn well. So everyone got home and whaddya know, their stuff was waiting for them there.

We stayed at the Lincoln dorm at UIS, and their rooms are remarkably better than what I'm used to at UIUC. It has to be the furniture or the carpeting, or the spacious floor lounges, or the 2-room shared bathrooms, or the newness/sterility of the place that impressed me. I would live there if UIS weren't in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, we had mattresses to sleep on. Jon Schlesinger was my roommate for the night, but we avoided butting heads or hating each other in the end. For dinner I ate a lot. Let's just say I had a hamburger that had fries and cheese piled on top of it. I still didn't feel to great and was reduced to hand gestures and grunts, it hurt that much to talk.

Wednesday I woke up feeling more or less the same. I woke up with my sleeping bag drenched in sweat, so I still may or may not have a fever. I got in the car for the second day in a row, and for the third day without having biked. I wished for it to end, but I was still violently forcing phlegm out of my throat and painfully gulping down copious amounts of water. During our stops, I napped and Dan, who co-piloted again in the morning, drove in the afternoon. In a big confused mess and after touring the beautiful industrial parts of Monroe county, we all got to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville successfully. The campus is a lot like UIS, with shiny, new buildings surrounded by rings of roads and parking lots, but is a lot bigger, more bucolic, and has stuff on campus that would otherwise make you want to stay on campus, like a Sonic Burger. We're camped out on a hill next to a lake which is next to a swimming pool, so everyone took a dip before sunning off and biking out to eat somewhere. I ended up turning around because not only could I not yell at the folks to slow down, but I was in sandals, which don't do much in the way for forward motion on SPDs. I biked back to camp and broke out the mess kit for the first time, a plastic tupperware container that once contained cookies my sister donated, and my hobo tool, complete with detachable fork/corkscrew and spoon/knife/other-sharp-thing-that-can-be-used-to-gouge-things. For once, I was "roughing it," eating leftovers from a cooler sitting next to the van while listening to my iPod. I would say I could hear crickets, but I'm still rather congested in the ear/head region.

Tentatively I plan on biking tommorrow. Tentatively. If you're reading, wish me luck!

A long-awaited picture entry!

2007-06-11T10:52:00.000-06:00

Huzzah, huzzah, here's some photos to enjoy from the past few days:

This was taken on 57th Street beach in Chicago. I'm dipping my back wheel into Lake Michigan, with the intent that I dip my front wheel into the Pacific in San Diego. Yes, this journey actually started in New York, but there was no convenient entry point to either the Atlantic, or the Hudson, or even the East River on Manhattan. Since I come from Chicagoland, I figure it's appropriate that I "christen" my journey here.

The lakefront path along the Shedd Aquarium

The bean and my adopted Millenium-Park family of Chris Juby and Rachel Levine, former Allen RAs.

The very amazing Schlesinger family and their welcome in Chebanse, IL

The welcome at the Alumni Center. This was an incredible moment and even more so for Jon and Anish who had dreamt of this moment over a year and a half ago.

The Laude Family paving stone outside of the Alumni center. If you're reading this, hi Family!

Come on feel the Illinoise! and other Sufjan Stevens-related audiology

2007-06-11T09:04:00.001-06:00

Thursday night I managed to lose my digital camera and jogging through my memory, had thought I left it at the Y in the afternoon. After much effort and scrambling, it was in my sleeping bag. Some other belongings were a different case. Packing up Friday morning, I discovered I lost both a pair of bike shorts that I had supposedly left out to dry on a stack of folding chairs and my copy of On The Road. The inconvenience in losing the shorts is now having only two pairs, which gets a little tedious having to constantly wash them, or a little smelly from reuse. The book, however, is a bigger loss to me because of its sentimental value. In a gesture of good faith, Brian lent me his copy of Life of Pi for me to read instead given his early departure. So I grumbled for the first few miles of the ride and otherwise feared for my safety given the busy, pock-marked roads we biked along. At first it was scenic with the wooded lake shore and otherwise rural charm, but quickly transformed into oil refineries, steel mills, gaming casinos, and Gary. Through the latter part of things, the definition of "rust belt" became apparent, with crumbling urban streets, boarded up storefronts, and not a single person awake or on the sidewalk. Indianapolis Blvd. through Hammond became a long tunnel with a light at the end, the Illinois state line and an instantly inviting environment, with paved bike lanes and tree-lined residential streets through some otherwise quiet south Chicago neighborhoods. It all ended up on the lakefront path and led to Jackson Park and 57th street beach where we spent some time hanging out and waiting out the time before our arrival in Millenium Park. The view was fantastic, and unseen in my eyes. I usually only see the skyline from the west or north, but from the so it all seems to open up and stretch out before you, touching upon the lake. It was really wonderful to be back in town.

We ended up biking up Michigan Avenue at a familiar, crawling pace. Apparently it was Blues Fest that kept traffic more horrendous than usual. And this is why the bike is superior on the urban streetscape. Past the fountains with the enormous faces we were greeted by the applause of friends, family, and other Illini 4000 supporters, which was wonderful. In procession we climbed up the steps to the gigantic metal bean and had hours of photo-ops and snacks provided by the Schlesinger family. Then the convoluted part of getting our bikes to Homewood ensued. After miles of confused wandering, we discovered that the van was indeed underneath Millenium Park and not in the Grant Park garage further away. So, after a badly needed shower in the bike station and a lot of hustle and bustle, the van and the Ludmer-mobile spirited away our velocipides and we were given all of an hour to hang out before riding the train back to Homewood. Brian, his girlfriend Mackenzie, Brandt and I stuck together and got confused by the Metra Electric Line and its many branches, having ended up on the wrong train which fortunately was only 30 seconds ahead of the correct one. We walked around town and spotted the hordes of cicadas which otherwise taken over the trees and the park fountain. And the buzzing, the buzzing was ethereal and non-stop. I savored the experience given the last time this happened I was 3 and the next time I'll be 37, just to put things in perspective. We ended up being the first to arrive at St. Paul's and had firstsies on the tons of food that had been donated to us by local eateries and the Albrecht family. My mom, dad, and sister came to visit me, which was nice. They are my biggest sponsors and equipment providers and I am ever grateful for their generosity in helping make my participation on this adventure possible. I would post the picture of the four of us, but my boxers were clearly showing, so I'll have to postpone it or photoshop it so it looks like a nice family portrait. My day ended when I decided to lay down, spelling death to my productivity.

Saturday I woke up at 6 in the morning, despite an irregular 8:30 wakeup. I changed out saddles, thinking a harder one without the gel cut-out would be slightly less uncomfortable. We got a late start due to the ride-along. That day we would have three extra riders who would be joining us from the train station. And so we began the trip to Champaign, which normally would take me 2 and a half hours, but would take so much longer but be so much more worthwhile and fulfill a desire to get back to school on two wheels. We stopped in or went through all the little towns that the I-57 exit signs list that you would otherwise forget about or just use as markers towards a bigger destination. I joined the head paceline for a good, fast ride through that familiarly flat Illinois corn- and soy-scape. I flatted out almost imperceptibly despite the apparent lack of road hazards, which was strange. In Chebanse, IL we were greeted again by Jon Schlesinger's family at the Zion Lutheran Church. They had arranged a dinner to end all dinners by firing up the grill and satisfying our taste for Italian sausage or soy burgers. I made the mistake of lying down afterwards, which ended my night quickly.

Sunday we snaked along the I-57 overpasses and through more small towns, which would turn out to be death for our schedule. Geoff, one of our sponsors and biggest supporters joined us on his titanium Merckx and made good company. Again, it was strange to stop at all the gas stations and see all the exit ramps from the Frontage roads that you would stop at or just drive by. My delight in the landscape ended when I went into neuromuscular fatigue and we had to get into Rantoul by a certain time that would necessitate a fast pace. Someone remarked that my saddle was too high, which it was, but hadn't bothered me since. It was also then that I realized my new saddle was just as uncomfortable as my old one, so there is little use in keeping both. In Rantoul, we were greeted by the Alumni association with Gatorade and by the Dustheimers with snacks, which were sweet relief for my sore legs. We would also be escorted into town by the Prairie Cycling Club and other supporters. It was great to see some familiar roads again, the same ones we had taken months before on long training rides, except now we would be much more fit and hardened by consecutive days of cycling. Riding down Lincoln Avenue reminded me of the many Critical Masses I had ridden with and I knew I was home again in that place where I spend a significant portion of my year, even for just a small part of my life thus far.

At the Alumni Center, we had a warm welcome from supporters, alumni, and the press, and I instantly commenced with the eating and the photo-ops. I spoke to a reporter from the News-Gazette and related to her my take on the Illini 4000 and the stories of the day, like when Nick Ludmer passed over 1000 miles on his odometer, he threw out M&Ms from his bike to the adoring masses, or the rest of the group as we stopped for a rest somewhere along the way. I passed over 1000 miles the same afternoon but to little notice and celebration as we were rushing to meet a time schedule. I asked the WPGU folks to play a Sufjan Stevens song in honor of one of my teammates, Alex, who couldn't make it out to Champaign with us due to her grandfather's passing. It was "Decatur, or Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!" which I had been singing since Ohio for some reason, and won't stop until we pass through Decatur itself. My friend Kim visited me and I road her full suspension mountain bike, which was fun. Then my other cyclist friend Henry showed up looking for Keith who had gone back to the Illini 4000 Orbital HQ, where I ended up in need of a shower and change of clothes. I ended up going to Dorca's, the other Korean restaurant in town I hadn't been to, with Drew, Keith, and Adam and managed to use the little Korean phrases that Sehee had taught me. At this point, my throat began to hurt and I was phlegmatic, if that's the right word for being phlegmy. On the walk back, I ran into four of my friends in the short stretch between Starbucks and Cold Stone and remarked how despite the surreal emptiness of town, I had managed to run into a lot of people I knew. Back at HQ, I felt progressively
worse until I fell asleep.

Today I woke up at 9 with a worse sore throat and took the only thing I had in my possession that would help me, Cepacol throat lozenges. It seemed to do about 50% of the trick as I still feel awful. I went into campus to pay off my student bill and now find myself in the Undergrad. Library where there is, again, this surreal emptiness. It's otherwise bright and the trees are fully green, something I wouldn't appreciate by not being here in the summertime. It's taken me a couple of hours to do this and keep updated among other things, so I best end now. Thank you for reading up to this point.

There's more than corn in Indiana...

2007-06-07T18:40:00.000-06:00

There's soybeans too!

We woke up to a Winamac sunrise, inside our tents and content that the next step would be easy, a 60-miler up into Chesterton, IN. Jon had spread the news that we would have a tailwind and the weather.com reports of 30 to 40 mph winds from the south with gusts up to 50 confirmed that. It would be a great day for heading north. Not so for heading west, however, with near unmanageable crosswinds. It seems that trucks, semi-trailers especially push a lot of air, and depending on their direction of travel relative to your travel, will either blow you off the road or suck you towards the vacuum they drag behind them. So needless to say, it was hard to stay balanced on a two-lane state road with little margin that just happened to be designated a bike route for some reason. Luckily the corn stopped and the little bit of longitudinal travel ended quickly.

We got into Valparaiso around 11:25 our time, literally we could see the ominous tower of some building at the University there rise up into our horizon, and we figured that our route shouldn't be on US 30, a six-lane busy highway. So we stopped at a gas station on the corner and realized that somewhere in our travel, we had gained an hour having passed the invisible line that divides rural Indiana from civilized, Chicago-ized Indiana. We were hungry, so Dan, Andrew, Drew, Keith, Brian, and I waited outside of Wendy's until 10:30 when it it finally opened and feasted to our newly gained span of time. It being 11:25 again, we headed into Valparaiso proper and did not stop for long, figuring we would make it to our destination right quick, and we were right, speeding as fast as our legs and the wind would push us in the general direction of Lake Michigan. The six of us were the first to arrive at the New Life Wesleyan Church in Chesterton. Upon the arrival of the rest of our team, one of the pastors gave us the choice of piling into the church's 15-person van to take us to the Indiana dunes, which the lot of us accepted with great enthusiasm.

The water was cold, the sand was coarse, hot, and abrasive when it blew, but the beach in general was excellent. Jon chased me up a sand dune and running up that pile of sand made me more tired than I had been in a while, so in other words, it felt great. Later I took a nap in a hole someone had dug and first was covered in sand by the wind and then my teammates, who revelled in taking a picture with my disembodied head in the sand. So I was covered in sand and probably had swallowed a bit, not to mention it being in my eyes and ears and nose and over the bike shorts I hadn't changed out of. The pastor then took us to the local Y so we could shower and otherwise not be covered in sand.

I'm very excited for tommorrow, we're actually biking into Chicago, ending up at Millenium Park, but first have to go through some of the lovelier parts of Northwest Indiana along its lakeshore to get there. And there's a constant headwind. And our preparation for tommorrow and getting our bikes and belongings ready is fairly convoluted but simple enough if you sit down and think about it, which no one has time for. So, for all these reasons, I'm excited.

Rainy Day Cyclin' Part 2 + What I make of Indiana.

2007-06-05T10:55:00.000-06:00

We left Grand Rapids, OH Monday morning with a large order on our plate - 115 or so miles into our next town. Oh, we thought we'd be ready with the flat terrain and beautiful, clear weather, but that seemed to change for the worse as things went on. At our lunch stop in Paulding, OH we ate at a small pizza chain store that was serving up a buffet for 2.99. It was too good to pass up and I nearly passed out from the sheer volume of "Chicago-style" slices I managed to stuff down. On the way out, it started raining, and stopped again, but without getting rid of that foreboding look in the Ohio skyscape. James got a flat, the route took a detour and Indiana didn't give us a welcome sign of any kind except for changing road signs and gravel roads. A postman driving in the passenger seat of his station wagon gave us candy and directions, and we got into our rest stop later in the afternoon than we had planned on. From what I hear, our team got a lot of strange offers for accomodations in that town, so we high-tailed it west into the darken horizion in front of us. At 80 miles and about 6 o'clock in the evening, it began to rain. It began to pour. I have a rather rudimentary rain jacket but it offers little in the way breathability, so the sweat stuck my skin to the inside of the jacket and offered little in the way of insulation to the cold. We ran a double paceline at about 15 mph and I had to pull into the wind for a couple of miles. That having put me in debt, I got tired quick and still had a ways to go. I hit 100 miles a little after the 7 hour mark, but at that point, I would be pushing my boundaries until we stopped. I started losing it, slurring my speech, and wouldn't be surprised if my core body temperature had dropped a tiny bit. Fortunately I made it up the hill to our town wet, cold, miserable, and satisfied and peeled off a lot of wet clothing and bundled up in some warm ones. According to wikipedia I didn't get hypothermia but I guess I could have, so it's something to consider when biking in the cold. The United Methodist Church in Huntington, IN had dinner ready when we got in, so that was good for recovering from the day's work. I set up shop underneath the dinner table and fell asleep reading Kerouac.

Tuesday was a well-needed rest day. My natural clock woke me at 5:55 in the morning, and naturally I got up and bumped my head on the table above. Cursing myself, I fell asleep until breakfast and a team meeting where we went over a few key issues surrounding our mornings and general team conduct. The day before I had started eating before I was supposed to, but hadn't heard we would now be eating together, at the same time, instead of at everyone's irregular rhythms of waking up and getting packed. I was afraid I had set off one of our teammates in particular, but was told not to worry or feel bad about it by our team leaders. It was all said and done and I left it at that. I've been pretty much living up to the idea that my needs and everyone else's individual needs are subordinate to the team's in order for things to operate smoothy and in a timely fashion, especially where it's key that we start out early and avoid the hot of the day or other conditions that may make cycling a pain or difficult. That's just how we need to roll.

I went to the local Y where I took a much needed hot shower and played bumper pool for the first time ever with Dan. I beat him after nearly being defeated. That may or may not be the last time I play bumper pool on this trip. I then bought a bottle cage to replace my broken one and my favorite kind of patch kit. In the afternoon I took care of laundry with Brian and Andrew and visited the local Walgreens for more sunscreen. I realize I should have took a picture to send to the folks back in Hinsdale, but there are something like 5400 stores nationwide and in Puerto Rico. Later I watched the Fountain with the folks who had rented it and I have to say it is one of the better movies I've seen recently and something I can appreciate post-film class for all of its structural and argumentative devices. For more on that, see previous posts. Like the ones that are not about bikes. I managed to screw up my rear deraileur after removing and cleaning out my cassette. It began hitting the spokes in the inner-most position, but after messing with the tension and high/low stops I got it working properly again. As a note to myself, I should probably stop messing with things that don't need fixing in particular. I should also mention that this has worked well for my tires, which haven't given me a problem after a long period of blowouts and pinch-flats. I nearly missed dinner and fell dead asleep watching Casino Royale.

Today we got a start into the chilly morning with me wishing for a long-sleeved something to go over my thin cycling jersey. The sun was out and the terrain was cornfield, so warming up wasn't a problem. We rode quick and non-stop for four intense hours before getting into town. Despite my best efforts, the riding became increasingly tiring and after a while, it became a pain to keep spinning at high cadence, but you could say I've seen the light and the benefits of staying in the small ring rather than powering through the strokes and hoping for the best if you need to accelerate. In town we talked with the locals outside our lunch stop. One of them had driven into town to do bike work at the hardware store, but none of us needed anything done. He still gave us free tire levers which was a nice gesture. If I'm ever in Peru, IN I'll stop by Breakaway Bike Shop.

We set up camp outside the Fellowship Baptist Church in Winamac, IN. I promptly fell asleep for a few hours inside one of our tents. Waking up, I was recruited to cook dinner and did the best job I could cutting green peppers. They had two side-by-side kitchens so cooking dinner was done with machine-like efficiency. I realize I don't have a meal kit and hope that whichever sibling of mine had one didn't give it away.

I'm now blogging on the computer inside the youth room of the church. Everyone is lounging around and I suppose I'll be joining them when I finish blogging now.

Out of the Endless Mountains, into Lake Erie and out into the flat midwestern expanse

2007-06-03T19:40:00.001-06:00

The great thing about entering the mountains in Pennsylvania is getting out of them, down a long, winding slope through the Allegheny Forest that lets you open up and really fly. Thursday, we did a paceline for a couple of miles to varied success, but a lot of people are faster than others, a lot more faster. I had a good run until I got a flat going up a hill. It may or may not have been a flat, but just me being delirious and thinking the flex of my tire sidewalls spelling doom for my front wheel. At our lunch stop in Union City, PA the lady at the deli I visited gave Keith and me lunch for free, saying she appreciated what we were doing. The kindness of everyone we meet is just astounding and that was just that day.

I got lost getting into our destination in Edinboro, PA - the expanse of a backyard of a landscaping company. It had a swimming hole, a fire-pit for s'mores, and a full workshop. It was also our first night of what I would consider "roughing it," hearing the symphony of crickets and bullfrogs and sitting around a camp fire, despite the food and indoor showers. I slept a lot and got a hard time for it.

Friday I had one flat going up a hill on my already torn rear wheel, but with a new tear. That being repaired for the short run, I put on an emergency boot at the water stop only to have my front tube blow out going up another hill, and as I was repairing that, my rear repair died. So I threw in the towel and rode shotgun in the support vehicle. It was unpleasant not having a good cycling day, and I realize I hadn't a good, emergency-less day since we began. I saw Lake Erie for the first time and all of its charming seaside houses and post-industrial rust-belt archaeology. The most enduring image is of the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant visible from an otherwise scenic lakeside park near our stop in Perry, Ohio. I went with a few of my teammates, and we climbed down to the barriers to a secluded, pebbly beach. They went in, and my years of being told how filthy Lake Erie caused me to recoil in horror. So I also went in after them. I figure it has the same choliform and chemical run-off levels as Lake Michigan, so how bad could it have been?

Saturday we biked through more seaside villages before coming upon a scary part of East Cleveland that turned into nice wooded, fenced-in, and univiting houses along the shore, which then turned into a lakeside bike path. I saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the beautiful urban park that dare I say rivals both Central and Grant Parks. We ran into a bunch of cyclists from Case Western U. who were supporting an alum who would be biking into the city that day after having biked from San Francisco to attend his fiftieth class reunion. I thought that was cool. In all, Cleveland was a nice, little city that's nothing like the place where the river once burned due to the high amount of inflammable solvents floating in it.

Coming out the other end of the city, I joined up with the "A" group who had gotten lost. Then the paceline proceeded. Needless to say, we averaged about 21 mph for nearly an hour and pulling the line was not easy, nor was following in it. Still, the intensty and the heat got my legs churning and it felt great. I question the value of arriving at our destination before the van or before our host even knows about our arrival. In Vermillion, OH I took a nap on the lawn of the church we were staying at before sprawling out inside. The pastor made us pork chops, which were delicious, and even more delicious with a pad of butter melted on top. My eating habits for sure have had their standards decreased. I've been reading nutrition labels to see what has the most calories and figuring out the most calories per dollar. Our ride leader said he got through RAGBRAI on 1200 calorie per dollar's worth of fudge brownies, so that's something to try. The pastor bought the ladies on our team their own hotel room, so we had to shuttle around the car for people to do laundry or to take a dip in their pool. It was needlessly complicated, but in the end, there were clean clothes in it.

Sunday the pastor gave us an inspired devotional that everyone took to heart. It got our spirits up and was another reminder of what we're doing on this ride, something we believe as worthwhile. In that spirit, we stuck together until it began raining. And oh, did it come down, it was torrential. We stayed out of the nastiest, electricalest bits and otherwise toughed it out in our rain jackets. I was more soaked from the sweat from my non-breathable rain poncho than the rain itself, but I kept myself moving and more importantly, warm. Riding away from Lake Erie flattened out the terrain, so it's like we're back in the cornfields of Chambana rather than climbing some ridiculously unfamiliar mountain. This also means we ride a lot faster and I ended up high-tailing it through more rain the last stretch before Grand Rapids, OH. We were fed by the Lutheran Church here and I couldn't move after eating, I felt so good. I talked to my family which was nice because I hadn't spoken to a human on the phone for a few days and because I miss them a bunch, so if you're reading this, that means you.

Pictures to come. Internet is slow when it floats through the wireless ether.

Chicago to Newark to NYC to Kane, PA and all points in between.

2007-05-29T15:14:00.003-06:00

I've written a lot of stuff in my pen-and-paper journal so this is just the condensed version of things for right now. Internet is few and far-between and there are only so many laptops for everyone to post every day. The majority of waking hours are spent eating and cycling, the precious hours left are for the other routines of the day, like packing or unpacking or setting up camp or decamping. It's exciting and tiring and overall fun.

I flew out of O'Hare with the team last Wednesday. I hadn't flown since a month before 9/11, but the experience wasn't as unpleasant as everyone says it was; no long lines, no endless security checks, just the same airport experience I remember as a kid with its expensive food and the familiar long checkered corridors of the terminal. The flight was uneventful, minus the sight of the New York City skyline as we flew into Newark Liberty airport. As a Chicago resident I'm ever so happy to bash NYC, but I was generally excited over the days leading up to the trip to see the big apple.

We drove out to Anish's house in Hillsborough, New Jersey and settled in. We were treated by Anish's folks, their hospitality and support for the ride was outstanding. They hosted a send-off party and invited theirs and Anish's friends from New Jersey and we unveiled our decorated vehicle, banner, and matching ride jerseys. Among all the frenzied activities we managed to learn how to set up a tent and had a long meeting to go over expectations. It was then that I realized the gravity of our undertaking and understood what I would be doing this summer.

Thursday we rode the NJT train from New Brunswick into Penn Station, right in the heart of midtown Mannhattan. Walking down 6th street we realized that it would be impossible to keep everyone together so I ended up seeing the sights with Dan and Brandt. We saw the touristy sights like Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Greenwich Village, etc. We even saw mayor Bloomberg. I ended up going solo and riding the 1 train up and down Mannhattan. I saw the Seinfeld restaurant on the upper west side and then shuttled down to Battery Park and its views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I thought that maybe the Laudes came through there, but they probably came through Canada. It's something I have to research. I then walked up to around Houston street and Tribeca but not before seeing the WTC site and the temporary memorial they have set up there as well as City Hall. I ended up being conned out of five dollars at a street festival for St. Anthony in Nolita, but I got a small stuffed dog out of it. So I named it St. Anthony and declared it my mascot. We all met up and ate at the pizza place on Mott and Spring Sts. that claims to be the first pizzeria in New York. It was good and thin, but I'd take Chicago-style deep dish any day.

It was at dinner that we met Patrice Yao and Zach Hermann, former Allen PAs. We would end up spending the night at Patrice's one-bedroom 300 square feet studio apartment just south of central park. She said rent was 4000 a month but it was subsidized by the company she's interning for. My overall impression of New York was that it was clean and wonderful thanks to mayor Guiliani but that everyone is just out to take your money. Zach would be tagging along in the sag wagon to document our journey up until Sunday morning.

Friday me, Sandy, Andrew, Brandt, Dan, and Brian went over to Rockefeller Center to try to get on the Today Show. We drew up a nice poster but were unable to take it into the Plaza where they shoot the outdoor concert and people holding signs because it had a URL on it. Luckily Patrice got us into the area that was immediately around the stage, but we did not get to meet Al Roker or get any face time. In the afternoon we walked out to the upper east side near Cornell Presbyterian Hospital where we would be starting out from. The process of getting out of Mannhattan was convoluted before the ride, but went smoothly afterwards. Before we left we had a send-off at the hospital and departed to the cheers of friends, family, and the bystanding medical folk.

I had never ridden in a major city before, not even bike-friendly Chicago, but the ride was smooth and relatively traffic-free. We rode up the East side of Central park before going up the drive along the Hudson into Washington Heights. We then crossed over the river on the George Washington Bridge into Jersey and all its suburban glory. It was then that we split up into two groups so the advance group could get back to NYC for an alumni event. I ended up slowing down the group not going back to NYC with not one, not two, but three flat tubes. That and we got lost and got into our destination in Tuxedo Park, NY as the sun was setting. The car had gotten a flat tire so the top group ended up not going to the Alumni event.

We stayed at the Episcopal church there just behind the gates of the community. Apparently the town had been a hunting lodge for rich New Yorkers and the story goes that the eponymous evening jacket was named after what happened when one of its residents had the tails cut off a european-style coat back in the late 1800s. The rest, as they say, was history. So the stay was pretty fancy by our expectations. We woke up Saturday and got an early start and a lot of climbing in the first 10 miles, the inclines were incredible. We were, of course, climbing up into the Appalachians. The day ended up being a lot of ups and downs through a lot of middling, historic mountain towns, the kind that were formed before the Revolutionary War. Our stay in Hawley, PA that evening fell through, but Jon came upon accomadations in a friendly local's backyard. Our host, Florence, was very excited to let us stay at her well-furnished cabin in the woods out on a lake. She had the local grocery donate food and we dined superbly while hearing a lot of her interesting stories about traveling and seeing the world in general. In return, she asked for our stories and it was a good oppurtunity to hear everyone's reasons for going on the trip.

We got a late start on Sunday due to the cold, the damp, and Florence's hospitality, but the ride ended up being shorter than predicted. It was more or less the same ride through what our host in Tunkhannock, PA called "Endless Mountains." Our arrival in that town was early enough to get in laundry and have the tire replaced despite it being Sunday. The pastor who hosted us had pulled together the community to have those services done and we were ever grateful. Pennsylvania so far had opened up its hearts and homes and did not stop being an incredibly beautiful place to us. Monday was our longest ride yet, up and down more mountains and stopping in the heart of it to eat at a road-side diner in the woods. I gorged myself on fries and otherwise had a good deal of food to eat. Unfortunately I felt it later and wished I had eaten better. I was also intentionally struck by someone who had stuck their hand out the passenger side window of their car. After shouting a few choice expletives at them, I sped down the rode I was on for the next two miles trying to catch them to no avail. Once the adrenaline wore off, I began hurting and slogged into town with little more than a third of my 90 miles left. It was then that I realized the danger of what I was doing and that I have to be a lot more careful if I didn't want to end up at the side of the road.

In Wellsboro, PA, we were fed by a local restaurant and stayed at the Catholic Church there. I woke up Tuesday not feeling so well and having the oppurtunity to drive the van, so I accepted. Allison co-piloted and made calls, so we bonded and became team Haude or Team Leim. We stopped at a souveneir shop in the middle of the mountains and talked to the owner and fed his deer. At our lunch stop in Port Allegany we bought food from the grocery there, but a lot of people ate at the pizzeria across from the park we set up in. Nonetheless, everyone got into Kane, PA in good time despite the 97 or so miles they had traversed.

We spent Tuesday night and today at the First United Methodist Church in Kane for our rest day and explored the town among the organizational business to take care of. Dan, Adam, Drew, Andrew, Sehee, and I went over to the local high school to shower, which was weird for the fact that they both were expecting us and that I was going back to high school again. We just wandered the halls and talked to the students milling around. Apparently they have a good track team and even had an olympian 5k runner come from there, so we saw her pictures on the wall there. Some of us wanted to eat in the cafeteria there, but I ended up eating in town.

So hopefully I get to update my blog more often. I'm really itching to get back on my bike and do 100 or so miles tommorrow. So far I've done 275 on a bike plus the 100 or so I drove in the van. So if you've read so far, leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you and probably miss you also.

Here's an obligatory photo. It's of me standing at a scenic overlook above the Sesquehena River. I'll end up making a panorama of the complete overlook when I get a computer with photoshop.

Packing List and Manifest

2007-05-19T21:53:00.000-06:00

Things I'll be carrying along with me down to a T. Good for future research and development purposes:

Bike stuff:

2000 Lemond Zurich, 853 Reynolds steel frame, Shimano Ultegra components, Rolf Vector Comp Wheelset, Hutchinson Fusion Long-distance folding bead tires
Topeak mountain morph pump with a presta-valve adapter superglued into the rubber gasket. only good for emergencies.
Seat bag containing:
- 3 Park tool tire levers
- Patch kit
- Extra tube
- Emergency cash
- Angelina Cole's lucky dollar which will be donated upon arrival to San Diego
4 long-valve small 700c tubes
1 set (2 pair) serfas Shimano-compatible replacement brake shoes and hoods.
1 Set of Allen Wrenches
Screwdriver handle with Allen and flat-head and Phillips driver
Rear blinker
Front light
2 water bottles
Cateye Cordless 2 Cyclocomputer
1 Wristwatch
Kryptonite U-lock and cable

Clothing stuff:

Helmet
3 pair cycling shorts
1 pair long tights
3 cycling jerseys
3 pair cycling socks
Pearl Izumi cycling gloves
Long-sleeved black thermal shirt
Gore Bikewear rain jacket
Adidas Adistar Comp cycling shoes, Nashbar mtn. special cleats
1 pair brown flip-flops
1 pair Asics running shoes with orthotics
1 cycling cap
1 knitted cap, the one with earflaps and tassels that was hand-crafted in the Andes in Peru
Brown H&M polo shirt
1 pair olive-drab pants
1 pair khaki hiking pants with the legs that zip off.
2 pair gym shorts that can be swum in.
3 T-shirts, American Apparel
3 pair boxer shorts
3 pair non-cycling socks

Living stuff

REI Mojave sleeping bag and compression sack
Sleeping bag liner made out of a top sheet
Inflatable sleeping pad
Toiletries
Camp towel
Sunscreen
Bug spray
Bandage kit with alcohol wipes
Anti-inflammtory, fever, and headache relief
Cell phone and charger
Wallet with cash, debit card, driver's liscence, insurance cards
Sheet of important phone numbers in ziploc bag
"Jon Schlesinger" kit
Bag to put all my living and clothing stuff when I'm not wearing or using it.
Carabiner keyring with kryptonite key
Keyring with extra kryptonite key and house keys

Misc. stuff

Journal
SPACE PEN! and non-space pen.
USB thumb drive
iPod and headphones
Olympus digital camera with charger, 2 gig and 64 meg xD cards, soft case.
1 copy "On the Road" or something about the romance of the American landscape.
This packing list / manifest.
Hard glasses case
My self

This should last me 2+ months. And if it doesn't, then I can get what we need when we go through Chicago.

So how do you fit four bikes in the back of this van?

2007-05-17T20:57:00.000-06:00

This is a problem that has plagued me for a few hours, but I found a solution after much tinkering. I guess I should also say that this is the transition from this blog being about Art and the class I took this spring to being about bikes in general and the Illini 4000 in specific thissummer. So hello, new audience. You're in for a world of adventure. Thank you for reading, I'll do my part to keep you informed and entertain. But first, an engineering conundrum.

My family's wonderful '96 Chrysler Town and Country has become our support vehicle this summer and has sprouted a quad of Yakima bike rails on its roof, soon to be six thanks to Amy and Clif's generosity. (Thank you guys!) So, if six can go on top, then only four need to go in the trunk if we're hauling ten bikes. The problem with putting bikes in the back is that sometimes the hatch won't close, especially with longer frames, bigger wheels, or taller handlebars. This is caused by the position of the middle-row seats. This is where they are when they're as far back as possible:

and this is what it looks like with bikes in the back:

compare that to this configuration, with the middle row seat moved up a mere six inches.

Well, you can't really see it, but the bikes aren't sticking out as much, plus you stick the bikes in rear-wheel first or handle-bar first. I figure that leg room comes at too high a premium at the expense of cargo room. That and the configuration is not static, it can be moved just as easily as I did tinkering around with it. And that's the support vehicle, it will be our life-line and carry all of our equipment so we don't have to!

We leave in a week!

A look back at ART 250 and the days I spent at Art+D

2007-05-01T19:30:00.002-06:00

I think it was best summed up when we were all penciling in our ICES forms and I posed a question to the people who would walk in a few weeks, sheepskin in hand, "is this the best class you've ever taken?" The answer was a resounding and unanimous "yes."

I'm half-way (hopefully) through this journey called college and I can truly say that this is and will be the best class I've ever taken. For one thing, it's art. Art is Hard, yes, but it's so delightfully subjective and open-ended so as to demand the use of your creative mind, which is a breath of fresh air given my scientific and analytical mindset. True, there is a lot of that thought involved in being creative, being witty, and being fresh in your observations of the world. In a purely aesthetic sense, this form of art is the complete opposite of everything I've done, and it's a nice break. This is probably the last "nice break" I get for the rest of college, life, etc. and expect to get credit for it. Unless I find something and take it upon myself to stuff it into my schedule. Otherwise, it's been an inspiration to start expressing myself through words and images and sounds again.

So it was an expressive outlet. It was an emotional outlet. In short, it was a learning experience. I was made more aware of my abilities to articulate things and say it in a concise and thoughtful manner. I was made aware of the nature of objectivity (it doesn't exist) and that somewhere in the discourse of things, we can all find common ground. I learned that robots take a lot of work, but when they spread their love, it is well worth it. More importantly, I discovered that the exigency to produce art is also the impetus to do something real. Whether it be mobilizing peoples' opinions or commentary about the state of affairs of things or to simply exist as a light in a bleak world, art has a purpose beyond itself.

I don't think I've written so extensively for any class so far in college. I look back on all the substantial things I've written and all the notes and figure it's somewhere on order of 60 pages, and the fact most it just flowed out in a stream of consciousness showed the enthusiasm I had for this class. I really wish I could do that for other courses, but perhaps this is an exercise in helping-me-write-more-faster. I've neglected voluminous amounts of writing for so long, but really it's cheap therapy. It keeps me busy. And keeps the thoughts running around in my head from going wild. It kept me going through mid-semester when a lot of shit went down. It was just nice to reflect on things and renew some sense of self-worth that I had stripped myself of. So, as unfortunate a situation that was, it was a fortunate outlet to that end.

Most of all, the class gave us an oppurtunity to get to know each other better. In words, yes, in workshops, yes, in barcrawls even, but there was such a sense of comraderie, these are people who you will wave at on the Quad if you see them, rather than passing them by with awkward acknowledgements like peers from other classes. I don't know everyone from other classes, that would be an impossible exercise given the 100+ person lectures and large discussion sections in other technical classes. The class size was just perfect for that kind of social engagement and dare I say synergy?

And above all, we had a great instructor in Cory Holding, someone who was gentle, warm, inviting, prodding, and otherwise perforce more interested in her students than some run-of-the-mill TA. Here's to you Cory Holding, you made us look forward to coming to class each monday and wednesday and your copious e-mails kept us delighted and on task!

And that's it. Until I return my external hard drive, there will be no more walking the halls of A+D, seeing all my art friends in the hallway, seeing zak or daniella or whoever else at the check-out window, parking my bike outside the building, seeing the magnolia tree outside in bloom, or room 225 and its copious amount of ever-increasing natural light and views of the stadium. To paraphrase my future tech+mgmt. professor, it's important to venture south of Green Street. And that, that I have done with spectacular results and have taken with me long-lasting memories.

Argument reception, critique, and distribution notes

2007-05-01T19:30:00.001-06:00

Success! My last project is finished and shown and I'm pretty much done with class. Which is bittersweet for its many reasons, but that's for another journal entry. I showed it with some unavoidable technical glitches, but the point went across the minds and hearts of my class mates. I distinct remember everyone laughing at appropriate parts, which surprised me. FARM BOT is serious business to me, or maybe the humor is just lost on me because I'm the one crafting the piece or if I put back-to-back all the times I've seen it while working on it, it would be longer than the Godfather Part 1 and 2 but not 3 because it's terrible. I remember telling people not to laugh! I guess FARM BOT is just naturally funny and brings joy to everyone, which in turn fills me with a lot joy. Mission accomplished. I achieved the truth and brought the people something they enjoy.

I wish I remember the critique a lot better, I'll just assume that someone said something about how the levels on Tom Abram's talking head were kinda low. Which I cranked up to 150 percent in post. Also it wasn't in a big room and wasn't mic'd. So there wasn't little I could do in post, but maybe in photography I could have done something. I remember people watching the video the second time around when I played it without sound, but they were too enraptured with catching the details I sprinkle into the movie so cleverly to give criticism. I really wish I could redo critiques.

I posted this on YouTube and 48 hours later it has 1024 views. I was hoping to get a thousand by friday, so this exceeded my expectations by far. I did a lot of promoting it on facebook, messaging all the members of the FARM BOT group and posting it and encouraging people who had seen it to encourage others to see it. I feel this will be instrumental to the movement. Because the whole reason for this film is not only to be an academic piece but to promote our cause. It has been successful to that end. I hope to have 2000 views after a week, but that's being optimistic I think. Because it's finals time for one thing and on the verge of summer for another, I think it's a little late to promote it beyond the internet venues, but the piece is written for the Internet and ART250, so I think it works.

UPDATE: Friday, May 4. It has over 2600 views. It was also mentioned on the local political blog IlliniPundit from which it was mentioned on RealClearPolitics, a nation-wide blog sponsored apparently by CNN/Time. I'm a little surprised. I guess my next goal is 4000 views, we'll see how that goes.

In the future though, there will have to be revisions to the film. Already I forgot to credit my friend Evan for being inside the costume and another person who came out to help build, but I don't remember him. And as for Evan, I don't want people to know it was him inside FARM BOT that Thursday, but I'm thinking the people who would care already know.

Oh well: here's the YouTube posting:

Reaction to Inconvenient Truth

2007-04-25T15:32:00.000-06:00

True story, like Fast Food Nation, I've already seen it. That is, I read it. No I hadn't seen Fast Food Nation before class, but I have seen Inconvenient Truth. It was good the second time.

It's alarming. That is, when I first saw it, I basically felt like the world would come to an end if I didn't do anything about it. Which is the rhetorical object of the film, I suppose. What makes this film so great is Gore's use of Keynote, that wonderful Apple Powerpoint killer. You gotta love the wealth of charts he uses during the first half or so of the film, especially the one that highlights mean temperature (or carbon emissions, whatever it is) that he has to use a cherry picker to point to it. That visual evidence is enough. But then he shows all the ice fields that have broken up in recent times, like the gigantic ice field in patagonia or the ice sheet in Antarctica that had broken off. Pictures like that are worth much more than a thousand words, but our administration doesn't really think so I take it. Global warming doesn't make money. Unless you're Al Gore and you're scare-mongering people into seeing his terrifying prediction of the future. But seriously, Gore had genuine intentions in producing this film, it's been his labor of love making this presentation for months, years, etc. He makes it personal by injecting it with the anecdotes of his sister who had died of lung cancer or his son who was hit by a car. He makes it clear that he doesn't want to lose something precious to him, and that just happens to include that thing we live on - the Earth. The pictures he uses of our planet are stunning reminders of just how wonderful this planet is, but also how small and fragile. We are a tiny dot in comparision to the the vast universe around us and we gotta start treating it better.

In terms of argumentation, this was the most successful piece we've watched in class, better than Fast Food Nation and it's fictionality and frivolous inclusions but painful imagery, or Iraq stories and it's overt biases but unique perspective. Inconvenient Truth has just such a well-crafted argument and high production values. And it's completely true. It's the perfect package of story-telling and persuasion.

Argument post-production notes

2007-04-23T09:35:00.001-06:00

I started with the middle, musical interlude. I shot the first bits of my friend Chris walking through Loews specifically for the purpose of depicting him walking into Loews to buy robot-making supplies. I laid down the music first and over the course of the days I edited, split up the Sufjan track into whatever would give it the most dramatic effect. I had to start with the vibraphonic part at the beginning and then work my way up to his heavenly voice but stop there. I wanted to end with, as Chris walks out of that big-box store, the part at the very end of the song with the ethereal choral part. I eventually settled on the part with the trumpets. Let's just say Sufjan makes me feel the (Illi)noise, I'm that big of a fan. I laid it out in the obvious order and with the visual details that I want people to catch. It's probably the singlemost sequence I spent the most thought on. It's pretty much how I feel about consumer capitalism. It's like a journey and in the end, you walk off into the sunset with wonderful music in the background.

This was an obvious transition between Tom Abram talking and us building the robot, but specifically it moves from him saying that a costume would suffice, rather than actually building a robot. I laid down the interview bits in order to expose exactly what FARM BOT is, what he represents, Tom's thoughts on the Chief with respect to FARM BOT, his uniting power, and how he would be implemented. I figured it was a good bit of exposition and argumentation wrapped into one. I inter-spliced whatever talking head-slash-cut scene footage I could and left the rest of the longer bits for later. I did the intro. It took about four or five times to get Chief Questionmark right in Photoshop. I originally had a blank-faced Chief and added a questionmark with iMovie's very limited titling utility. It didn't fly. I had to use the music, it was a song my brother's former powerviolence band did, it depicts the bad-assery and the hardcore-ness of the Chief, or at least the anticipation of such a bad-ass or hardcore mascot. And then the talking heads.

Next, I combed through my iTunes and made a play list of "songs that a robot would listen to or be built to." I already had one in mind, but compiled one so I could have something to jam out to when building my piece. In the end, it was "Glass Danse" by the Faint that you hear. There's something about the synth part that screams mechanical. I laid that out like I usually do, sequentially and semi-randomly. Whatever looks good and has a variety of action I say. At that point in editing, I switched over to the external hard-drive and imported into it the hour or so footage I had of FARM BOT wreaking havoc or giving hugs or whatever. It would end up being something like 23 gigs of space and would have crushed my drive like FARM BOT crushes his enemies.

I decided the Flaming Lips were an obvious choice for a robot that is warm and alone in the world as he walks into campus. I chose a lot of footage that suggested that no one paid attention to him as he walks down Wright Street. I almost showed the girl in crutches walking off the bus instead of waving half-heartedly, I felt that bad for the FARM BOT. There was a girl who walked onto the bus who did a great double-take, but it wouldn't have fit. The next song I laid down was too ironic a track to pass up. I think the title, "Warm Panda Cola" says enough about the song itself. It was either that or an Iron and Wine song. What mindset I was in when I put those onto my robot playlist, I don't know. But I used a really bubbly and happy song and I'm sticking to the decision to accentuate the fact that FARM BOT is as Tom put it, "as soft as metal gets."

And then somewhere in there, my hard drive got unplugged and then it ruined my project file for iMovie forever. Luckily inside the iMovie package file there's a constructed quicktime movie that you can view, so I had to piece it back together from that, which took a bit, and then haul over the clips I wanted to conclude the movie with and sprinkle in between Tom's talking head bits. The crisis was averted.

I ended up with arguments against the other mascots and some underhanded visual trickery against the Illini Dinosaurs because dinosaurs do not represent our great state so much as as a dancing robot. As ridiculous as that sounds, it's very true. Because the dancing robot shoots corn, which is the point I got across hopefully. That and I added the scholarly bits that took research. Those are actual unofficial mascots at other school. For brevity's sake and because iMovie handles long centered titles badly, I used short inter-titles. Before that, I ended with Tom telling the audience what to do about FARM BOT (and the obligatory facebook inclusion). I figured putting that over what he says is okay because what he says is rather ridiculous (holding a candlelight vigil to show to people how we would feel if there wasn't a FARM BOT). And then I really end it with my friend Justin with "Let's Cornhole 'Em" which seems to be the adopted rallying cry of our movement.

I thank Tom that he sent me those drawings that Eric Uskali made for his design project. His heart was in the right place when he drafted it two years ago. We'll just say his presentation mentioned "central american military juntas" as a potential customer for the corn cannon besides FARM BOT. I finished up by trolling through google images for pictures that would make sense to cut into his talking head. And the credits. because I really like... this class. It won't make any sense when I post it to youtube, but they're just going to have to deal with it.

Argument production notes

2007-04-23T09:30:00.000-06:00

I'm just going to consolidate all my notes into one buffer rather than in multiple notes. So it goes...

Last Wednesday, it all started. I got Tom Abram on film and didn't get nearly as much speaking time with him as with Paul Schmitt, but that's all the better, no two hours of footage to comb through. Also, the issue is not nearly as controversial, so I guess there's less to talk about. I ended up interviewing him inside the John Deere pavillion inside the Mech.E. Lab building. It was open and a large rooom. It had an earthy feel to it, a lot of brown tones to it, that and he wore a Brown blazer and matching shirt under it. I guess that goes along with the whole getting-back-to-the-earth-with-an-agricultural-mascot thing I'm working on. Just something I noticed.

Saturday I started working on the robot prototype. I decided it should be a human exoskeleton (read: costume), so that took a little messing with. I had to dumpster-dive at a local cycle shop to get large sheets of cardboard. There's actually a few of these caches in town, cardboard-only dumpters, so if you ever want to do paper sculpture, I would suggest finding one. I had to purchase my duct-tape and spray paint, but not before trying to hit people up for donations. I documented a lot things, the purchasing, the taping, the painting, the fitting, but it all really added up to about 20 minutes on the first day of construction. That and talking heads of people who walked by who I knew. I went for a variety of people, but it seems the people I know who were willing are of ... variety. I had really thought there would be an exclusively male support for the FARM BOT, but I actually have more female talking heads.

I had to go to a second day to get the larger things done, like the legs and putting together the torso. By the end of Sunday we had everything together except the head. I suited myself up and was impressed, albeit disappointed about the FARM BOT's inability to move gracefully. The walk is very short and stifled and you pretty much can't bend your knees inside the thing. But otherwise, I was glad to have it done.

Tuesday I went around takiing photos of iconic campus agriculural and engineering buildings. And the Morrow Plots. I didn't notice my camera was on manual focus or didn't have steady-shot mode on, so the photogs will end up looking interesting. But this is all B-roll anyways, so I figured it was usable. Side note, my friend was manning the table in front of a demonstration against the war, he helped plant hundreds of little white flags that represented 650 thousand or so Iraqi dead and six American flags to represent the 3 thousand or so of our soldiers who have died. It was poignant, and I captured the message.

Wednesday Tom and I finished the head and secured the other bits of the exoskeleton that weren't fully secured onto the body. I didn't have a camera and was kinda disappointed that the Art+D window didn't have cameras on hand. I secured a reservation for Thursday morning but instead borrowed my friend's. That all said, I suited up my friend who volunteered to be FARM BOT Thursday morning and we headed off into the world to wreak havoc. I first had to duct tape on the head, it took a lot. It didn't turn out that he destroyed and pillaged, rather showed his soft side and was extremely friendly. A lot of people gave him hugs or took him up on his offer. Frankly, a robot should be terrifying, but his facial features suggested otherwise anyways. So I'm going to go off on that angle, the friendly robot, the people's mascot. The destruction will be saved for the basketball court or the football field. We couldn't get the fireworks unit to work properly, but the corn cannon worked beautifully. We got a lot of positive reactions and even a mention on WPGU when we paraded in front of the Illini Media building. I managed not to get that on video, but the audio is terrible on green street and the DJ on duty came out on her break to speak to us and basically gush about the FARM BOT. Overall, it was a succesful venture and if we don't go out again in the exoskeleton, then I'm done with principal photography.

Friday I found out there was a robot party somewhere in town, but by the time I found out where it was (second and Armory, far far away) it was two in the morning and I had a bike ride six hours later, which I was still dead for. It would have been cool, but I'm not sure how I would have incorporated it, maybe FARM BOT could have beat the crap out of the other robots to show his dominance, but as we discovered thursday, FARM BOT is a friendly robot.

Argument bibliography and other scholarly components

2007-04-23T09:26:00.000-06:00

This is a list of the scholarly stuff that is relevant to my project:

(also, It's all online, but some originally came from various news sources)

IN WHOSE HONOR? - mascot changes by date

This is a collection of dates of changes from Indian mascots to others. It's not chock full of information, other than the dates and institutions and some of their changes.

Maquette University | Athletics Nickname decision

This is Marquette University's official timeline of how things were changed regarding their mascot, which was once Indian, to a less popular one, the golden eagles, to an even less popular one, the gold. This situation parallels ours, in that they once had a native mascot and retired it. The parallel ends their, however, in that they actually deliberated on a name and then deliberated on a name again to end up with an unpopular one. It is imperative that the U of I avoids this kind of situation and renders a quick and timely decision, as well as chooses a mascot that everyone will back wholeheartedly.

The "Big Green" Nickname

This is much like Marquette, In that they changed their Indian mascot to the name of a color, rather than an animal or object. They cite not enough broad-based support for an actual mascot, although students particularly enjoy "Keggy The Keg", which a wikipedia article explains is an anthropomorphic beer keg which serves as an unofficial mascot. Perhaps this is the route that FARM BOT could go through, however, we will not rest until the administration recognizes an actual mascot. We would not want to become the "Orange and Blue" by any means!

Calling for a new Stanford mascot.

This Stanford Daily student newspaper has suggested that the new mascot of Stanford be "The Robber Barons" with a nod to the founder of their university, railroad tycoon Leland Stanford. The current name for their sports program, however, is the "cardinal," after their school colors. In actuality, the name Robber Barons had recieved a plurality of support when the issue was up for vote among the student body, but the school did not act on that vote.

The Stanford Review

The Stanford Review, the conservative alternative daily, documents the history of Stanford having an Indian mascot and the multiple attempts to reinstate an Indian mascot. The article paints a picture that the Indian mascot has a semblance of a following and much like the percieved unilateral decision making made here, was made unfairly and for reasons of political pressure and had support among the native population. It is important that we move away from such movements here, lest they disturb the chance for FARM BOT to rise to the occassion.

Stanford University Cardinal

This is Stanford University's offical take on the issue, documenting the change from Indian to nothing to "cardinal" referring to the color, rather than the bird. It also mentions the Stanford Tree, an official member of the university marching band, and like Dartmouth's Keggy the Keg, serves as a student-backed unoffical mascot.

Before the tree...

This is the history of Stanford's mascot from a Native persepctive, otherwise serving as a counterpoint to the Stanford Review's take on the issue, in that the mascot is inherently racist and was culturally insensitive. (Sound familiar? It should, but unlike the U of I, they got rid of their mascot back in the 70's) It also cites and recognizes the omnipresent movement to reinstate the mascot, but that the administration will refuse to bring the issue to vote.

Argument Planning and Treatment documentation

2007-04-11T09:49:00.000-06:00

FARM BOT FOR MASCOT, FARM BOT ÜBER ALLES (a working title)

This project is essentially an encapsulation of why FARM BOT should be our next mascot at the University of Illinois. As a counterpart to the last project, wherein I took an objective stance on an issue, this is highly subjective. I believe this is the case, and the rhetorical exigency lies in convincing others to think the same. Ultimately I would want the audience to believe that it is important to have a mascot that reflects our agricultural and engineering heritage, as well as a mascot that is fucking cool and crushes its enemies.

The essential topic becomes a discussion about FARM BOT. The assumption is that people don’t have an understanding of who FARM BOT is, and it becomes necessary to introduce the robot itself. When framed in the context of recent events, the FARM BOT fills a vacuum that people feel is necessary and right, that there should be some representative symbol of our University.

A large deal of the action in this piece involves the construction of a FARM BOT proto-type and human-operable superstructure (read: costume). It is meant to show that people have the desire enough to come together to bring the FARM BOT to life. It is worth mentioning that I planned a good deal of the construction, brought people together, bought the necessary materials, and dumpster-dived for a lot of cardboard. True, it was not a spontaneous thing, but it shows that people actually showed up and it wasn’t just myself constructing a giant robot for this project. The sequence is meant to be shown chronologically and either woven into the piece and discussive interviews about FARM BOT or shown as a separate sequence of events. Without this sequence, the piece becomes dry and visually humorless, the construction sequence is like an oasis in a sea of talking heads and extrinsically boring answers to the questions listed well below.

Another large piece of action involves the takeover of the quad by the FARM BOT, wherein he comes out and smashes cardboard cutouts of his enemies, the other mascots that have been suggested in the wake of the former mascot’s retirement. Again, this is logically placed after the construction sequence. It is meant to show the dominating power of the FARM BOT and how he will crushingly defeat his enemies on the field of play and off.

The main characters in this piece are of course, the FARM BOT, who is brought to life much like the Maria in Lang’s Metropolis, a horrible yet wonderful reminder of human ingenuity gone amok. A documentary about FARM BOT without the eponymous character is… nothing? There’s a certain necessity in including the robot itself.

Another main character is Tom Abram, the self-described “discoverer” of FARM BOT. He is the subject of one of my extensive interviews and one of the constructors of the FARM BOT. He is also an expert in FARM BOT history and lore.

Another potential main character is a professor of General Engineering whose field of interest is in robotics and control systems, subjects that are very relevant to the FARM BOT and his development.

There are other minor speaking characters who will either support or detract from the FARM BOT. I should also include myself as a character, but as in my other pieces, I am a minor, non-speaking, and non-appearing figure.

The conflict that is built up in the piece is the fact that we are fighting an uphill battle to get the FARM BOT instated as mascot and that there are many enemies of FARM BOT who present a challenge to his power. They are eventually crushed, however, giving closure that narrative arc in the story. Most of this is observed through the lens of an “objective” camera, no POV shots, a lot of wider framings, and hand-held third person perspectives. Other than that, it seems to me that the piece is a little too subjective and provides too little exterior perspective, but such is the nature of my subjective work.

My primary audience is my peers in ART 250. They are, as I assume, unaware of the FARM BOT, and need the necessary background thereof. I also assume that some will have their own biases and need to be convinced otherwise that their suggested mascots will not withstand the might and power of FARM BOT. My secondary audience is the people who already support the FARM BOT. The piece is meant to appeal to their senses and support their viewpoint, as well as provide a piece around which they will rally and use to evangelize for their cause. My tertiary audience is everyone who has a vested interest or desires to have a new mascot. Again, much like my ART 250 peers, they will not have the necessary background regarding the FARM BOT and require the same introductions and indoctrinations. Also, some will still harbor an attachment to Chief Illiniwek and would need to be convinced otherwise.

I conducted a few impromptu interviews with people during the construction process, such as, what are you doing (to explain the component of FARM BOT that they were building) and their views. I also interviewed random people in order to document their views on the FARM BOT. The actual, formal, on-camera interviews are as follows:

For Tom Abram, one of the main characters listed above, I asked the following questions. I considered him an expert on the subject given his passion for the FARM BOT and his involvement in its discovery:

1. Introduce yourself, name, college, profession
2. What is the Farm Bot?
3. What does the Farm Bot symbolize or represent?
4. Why should we have a symbol that represents these values or institutions?
5. Why do you support the Farm Bot
6. Where does the Farm Bot come from?
7. Make a comment on Chief Illiniwek. What was done wrong with the Chief and how does the Farm Bot address those issues.?
8. Why should Farm Bot be our new symbol/mascot?
9. Would this necessitate a name change (from Fighting Illini to… something else?)
10. Make a comment on the alternatives: Illini Dinosaurs, Fighting Abe Lincolns, Quad Squirrels, Prairie Wind / Prairie Fire, Fighting Fratboys?
11. What is Farm Bot’s uniting power?
12. What should students do to instate Farm Bot as our symbol/mascot?
13. How do you envision Farm Bot being implemented? Actual Robot or Robot Costume? Haltime performance or sideline mascot? Great Mascot or greatest mascot?

These questions were modeled after the questions I asked Paul Schmitt in my last piece, but I know I forgot to ask some of the harder questions or elicit a stronger response from Tom. These questions seek to reveal much about FARM BOT in an expository manner.

My other potential interviewee is Prof. Spong of General Engineering. I would interview him in order to create an appeal to his expertise and authority on the subject of robots. I would ask the following:

1. Introduce yourself, name, profession, field of interest.
2. Describe your work and current research.
3. How prominent is the U of I in the field of robotics and robotic control systems?
4. Why is it important to have a mascot that highlights our highly-rated engineering and agricultural studies?
5. Would you endorse the FARM BOT?

Structurally, the project should be chronological in its approach to action sequences and logical with respect to how it treats the exposition surrounding FARM BOT. The audience should get to know FARM BOT before hearing why it should be our mascot. I would hope for some sort of well-crafted opening in that witty introductory paragraph way of writing things, except for video. The ending should be the same, lyrical and stunning. I could possibly end with the FARM BOT crushing it’s last enemy and yelling to it’s wonderful delight, “Let’s Cornhole ‘em!”

I do not imagine I’ll need to mention especially different formal and stylistic elements. Just imagine something else I’ve done, and that’s how the documentary will look like. Visually stunning, quick, astute, etc. Special effects will not be implemented because the FARM BOT can accomplish those already. I imagine I’ll need to use text to explain things, like exactly what this documentary is or the scholarly bits of this piece that are obligatory to this project.

For this project, I’ve already spent something like 20 dollars on duct tape and spray paint, but those are just what is needed to produce the FARM BOT, rather than actual production costs. Again, cardboard was cheap and free. I’ll need a good deal of DV tapes, as well as manpower in order to execute my massive action sequences. They will not be compensated properly as their participation is both voluntary and reflects their desire to see the FARM BOT come to life.

SCHEDULE:

• APRIL 18: Interview Tom Abram
• APRIL 20: Plan for construction of FARM BOT, steal cardboard from bike store dumpster
• APRIL 21: Begin constructing the FARM BOT. Document the process.
• APRIL 22: Continue construction, documentation
• APRIL 23: Continue if necessary the above. Have rough-cut done before class time, or else spent class time on rough cuts.
• APRIL 24-27: Stage wreaking of havoc on the quad wherein the FARM BOT destroys his enemy, document the process, document the faces of shocked individuals. Also interview Prof. Spong sometime in there
• APRIL 25: Have rough cut done before class time
• APRIL 27: With hopefully all the principal photography done, edit the results to a polished product.
• APRIL 30: Bring to class, sigh of relief.’

Obviously, this is still a work in progress and will be until the week ends.

TREATMENT:

It should begin with the ever famous and now retired Chief symbol, except its face is blanked out, suggesting that what is next is yet to be known or determined. Over it, the infamous Marching Illini music that I guess is supposed to sound like a war march for the plains Indians, or however people back in the 1920s thought it should sound like. From there, I suggest that this project will be suggesting a new mascot. No, not suggesting. Insisting. I make it clear that the U of I will need a new mascot and that mascot is FARM BOT. Perhaps I can begin with FARM BOT smashing on a cardboard cut-out of our Chief Questionmark when he stomps on the faces of his enemies on the quad. Except that would be slightly offensive to people who might think I’m suggesting it’s Chief Illiniwek. Clearly, however, it’s Chief Questionmark, not Illiniwek. From there I explain how other schools have gotten out of their native mascot quagmires (except for Stanford, which still doesn’t have an official mascot) and how they might relate to our situation. My focus here is not on whether or not people will still give the university money, but rather whether or not people will get behind a mascot like FARM BOT. They clearly will. And must. The time for controversy is over, the time for our robot overlord to crush the enemies of the Fighting Illini has come. People are talking, some like the idea of a robot; others think that it’s a more viable alternative than a dinosaur or a squirrel. We see the faces of these supporters, we hear their words. The people are clearly talking. But what is FARM BOT? Tom Abram explains the subject and the necessary background to the situation. FARM BOT is the Fucking Awesome Robot Mascot. He speaks at length about his jet-pack, his corn cannon, and his stove-pipe hat wherefrom he shoots fireworks to entertain and excite the legions of fans who have come out to support the Fighting Illini. He speaks more about the technological advances made in the past that have made FARM BOT possible, and that most of them had been developed by students here at the university. He talks about its power to unite and bring the people together, past, present, and especially future. People have failed to think about the future and this is exactly what the Pro-FARM BOT movement has had in mind all along. If we are going to have a mascot, it is going to be the greatest mascot in the history of college sports. We see a montage of construction and people buckling down to bring FARM BOT to life. We see the warm Saturday night spent on the porch of Allen Hall constructing a robot superstructure, we see the arm holes being cut, the head hole, the “Block I” decal that goes on the front, the massive amount of newspaper spread on the concrete slabs as a drop cloth for the factory of silver spray-painting. All the intricate details and massive structural pieces come together in synchronicity, as one brave soul gets suited up inside and walks around, slowly, albeit with the intent to crush and destroy. Crush and destroy it will, as we see it on the quad one day, wreaking havoc and observing the shocked faces of passer-bys who have not seen anything nearly as beautiful or wonderful as the FARM BOT. The FARM BOT proceeds to crush its enemies by stepping on them. We see its final triumph as it destroys its last enemy and raises its corn cannon to the sun amid cries of “Let’s CORNHOLE ‘EM!”

Response to Fast Food Nation

2007-04-09T15:20:00.000-06:00

True Story: I read the book of the same name junior year of high school, so like, three years ago. Really, it wasn't all that long ago that everything Eric Schlosser wrote kinda crept back on me, except just the parts about meat-packing and how generally awful an industry it is. Don't get me wrong, the whole of industry involved with making fast food is terrible, but it seems that meat is the biggest one that the writers of this film had a beef with. (yes, pun very much intended). Dialogue aside, there were lots of times during the movie when it seemed unrealistic, like the rendezvous at the "mart" whose name was obviously blanked out, or Luis Guzman as an alien transporter, or the vapid discussion the college students have. I don't sound like that. I don't know anyone who sounds like that. And I learned that Avril Lavigne was one of them. Ugh, that part killed me. What is real, however, is the footage of the killing floor. You couldn't have ended the film in a more powerful way, just showing the brutal and sickening methods these people use to tear apart cows for human consumption. I would rail against the fact that the movie tried too hard to be serious, and the method of framing things in a narrative way only works towards a comedic effect (see Thank You For Smoking). However, that last bit, of her crying while having to de-kidney the guts is the literary nadir of the movie. It ends on that down of a note.

To do a documentary of a book that could possibly be a documentary would be foolhardy, but to make it a narrative tends to ruin things, like the extraneously long and poor conversation between Greg Kinnear and Bruce Willis' characters, or the over-long and too-much-detail inclusion of Ethan Hawke's character, or the fact that Kinnear's character just kind of disappears from the film after he checks out from the hotel except for the brief bit at the end where you see he has begrudgingly sold his soul, shame on him.

I suppose we watched this because it shows us what not to do for the next assignment. Particularly, it should be rooted wholly in reality, and not dip out into it at times for matters of convenience, and it should be real, not contrived in any way, and it should be biased, like the entire message of this film. Fast food is evil. And fast food is delicious too, but the evil part is more essential to the film. There are essential topics and there are non-essential topics. We should be focusing on the essential ones, i.e. the ones we agree on and want to expose. Looking at the film this way, it was effective, albeit poorly executed in some respects.

Representing Peer Critiques

2007-04-04T13:14:00.000-06:00

Meghan - Women's Rugby team

Like I said in critique, I wish I had seen footage of someone get seriously injured, and that's just the overtly masculine desire to see missfortune like that come upon someone. It's schadenfreude, yes, but everyone has a little bit. Still, what drives this piece is the constant action of the piece, there is not a single shot that does not include the players scrimmaging or about to spring into action, and that really captures the audience's fascination. So bodily violence aside, it's still action-packed and wonderful in its appeal to that sense. Some had said something to the effect that they had wanted to maybe put a face to a voice and include at least some images of your coach speaking, but I think your emphasis is clear by focusing mainly on the team and in specific, the game you play. I'm sure there are other aspects to the team that would make for an interesting documentary, but this wasn't Hoosiers or Rudy, it was a only the game, like you said, where you crushed your opponents. I thought the shooting was crisp, steady, and well-composed. I don't think you could have gotten better footage other than bringing the camera on field for a tighter framing of individual players or their point of view and perhaps landing you with a 600 dollar fee when it broke. Also I'm pretty sure that would also defeat the rules of the game. That aside, I think framing it around the Queen track gives it a playful sense and injects your sense of humor into the narrative. As a representation overall, it is effective in portraying what the team actually does, rugby, and explains in details its rules that are obscure to most Yankees or non-Anglicized individuals like myself. You removed yourself well from the piece and we couldn't have figured you were on the team if you didn't explicitly mention it. We could fault you for this, but I think the images and overall composition of your piece was great.

Heather - Ron Kovatch

The strong point of your piece is how well it represents your subject in the context of what he does, that is, art. Although I disagreed with some of the nuanced parts of his discussion, I thought that he presented himself in a clear manner and expressed his ideas articulately, and I think that reflects the quality of questions you asked of him. I know some of our classmates would have wanted some more background on the man himself, but I think the specificity with which you approached Ron lends a lot to the piece. You punctuated his discussion with stills of his artwork, which was a positive point, and I know you felt the Ken Burns effect detracted from it, but I would disagree. I love the effect. I would use it all the time if it didn't become repetitive over the course of an hour, but a few examples over five minutes is absolutely great. For future reference, there is an option to turn it off or to control the extent and speed of the zoom you use. I thought the titles you used were effective and a good device to remove yourself from the composition, but especially over the artworks, I thought they could have lingered a little longer. As for the framing of your subject, I thought it was a little distracting to remain static enough to notice the background objects, but there is a silver lining in that it places him in his creative space and is relevant to the man himself. I noticed his eyes were downward facing for a particularly long time and felt this made him seem unengaged or aloof. As I see it however, the camera was at eye-level and you couldn't have moved it in any way to get around this. Regardless, your subject was interesting and I enjoyed his discussions.

Representing Distribution, Reception, and Critique notes

2007-04-02T10:17:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately Danielle went home for Passover, she was one of the subject of my piece and she lives down the hall, so there's little excuse for her not to see it any time soon. I guess how she reacts to her inclusion and her statements is the true reception of my project, so that'll have to wait.

Otherwise, my peers recieved it well and particularly thought I represented the pro-chief movement's reaction after the announcement in as unbiased a way as possible, although I couldn't look past how their expectations might have affected their viewing of the piece. Some said that it might have ended up with a comedic effect with the juxtaposition of some images, like a Monty Python arc, but that was completely not what I was going for. Even though I really couldn't contain my laughter when showcasing it. Yeah. Seeing the subjects on the screen really made me realize how ridiculous they are, and stepping back for a second and watching it with my opinions and biases made me think that way. Others liked how it flowed, in a seamless fashion almost, although there are some points there were it could serve me best to correct sound discontinuities. One liked how I transitioned from one speaker to another but kept the image on screen, and recognized how I was going for a documentary feeling.

A particular critique was how I still had Paul talking but pasted over his image some scrolling text to wrap things up. Honestly, I didn't want to extend it longer than it should have been, and was making an decision of temporal economy, and like all economic decisions, there are tradeoff disadvantages, and in particular, that was the potential distracting-ness of that choice. I can say that if I didn't feel constrained in terms of time, this could have been a short documentary of sorts. Like 40 minutes long. But yeah, I think I could have dealt with the extra twenty seconds, I was already at 6:45, why not make it 7 in that case?

Anyways, I still don't think objectivity exists, but I think an interest topic to brush up on is how the audience's expectations may change their perception of the piece. If I were to include a disclaimer stating my position on the Chief before distributing it on a wide scale (which I will do on iTunes for the benefit of those who didn't come to today's critique), will people see this as courageous and honest? If I didn't include a disclaimer and targeted distribution to people who don't know me, would they think I'm pro-Chief? In some ways, I did break neutrality at points and provided a potentially sympathetic point with the bus anecdote and a somewhat negative point with how badly some percieved Danielle's ability to interview.

This is all a very interesting topic and I wish I remember better how people recieved this, especially the constructive criticism I expected. This is also where Danielle's reception to the project goes, or Paul's if I were to show it to him:

yeah, so Danielle Perlin and her friend (who I also featured in the piece - she was the friend who painted her's and danielle's faces like the Chief) both liked it and thought it was balanced. Other than that, their criticisms weren't nearly as directed as the class comments. In the final analysis, it was a generally positive response and one that indicated a good job in hiding my biases well.

Representing Post-production notes

2007-04-01T16:37:00.000-06:00

I thought the tough part was over, but I was wrong. It took me about two hours to figure out what to import and ended up with a bloated gallery of footage, something like 90 minutes on my increasingly tightening powerbook hard drive. I ended up working out of my borrowed Art+D external drive for good measure. That and I had about a gig of external media, like all the pictures I ended up from Danielle. I looked back at my treatment and started from there. I started with the first bit of footage I ever took dealing with this issue, the Chief rally held the first monday after the February 16 announcement. It ended up being a pastiche, a lot of related clips to just set the mood, a pastiche that would set the tone for the pastiche that became the rest of my piece.

I consciously went into this without wanting to do titles to avoid injecting any bit of my commentary, but titles don't necessarily imply any bit of bias. Mainly the titles were used to demarcate the chronological ordering of events and to introduce my two subjects. In this regard, they worked well because they avoided having to expose those facts through lenghty video explanations, which, given the time constraints would have bloated the piece even more than it ended up. I think I represented well how the event was attended, and the activity that went on. I took a lot of footage of how the media covered it, there were a lot of local network cameras and photographers, as well as the obligatory DI photographers I recognized. I included the short bit of Dan Maloney talking to the cameras for good measure, he doesn't say much to add to the piece however. I kind of mixed up the order of things for aesthetic effect, I don't think it changes the meaning too much, and it created a good transition to Paul's initial bit of his interview. Specifically, I made it seem that the chanting of "save the Chief" was spontaneous when it was really followed after a rousing rendition of the Alma Mater. I didn't include footage of the speeches which I suppose was the whole point of the rally. I didn't capture the sound too well. That or the hordes of students buying T-shirts from the Students for Chief Illiniwek representitives.

I started off with Paul talking about the uniting power of the Chief and followed it with Danielle reinforcing that idea but from the perspective of viewing the student body as diverse and needing a uniting symbol, rather than an appeal to tradition and a more longitudnal attitude towards the Chief's bonding power. As I would see in the footage, Danielle would end up being a more common voice than Paul Schmitt, who was incredibly well-spoken on the issue. I wanted to make it clear she was a sports fan in particular, so I mentioned that she was an Orange Krush member through text. After that I tried to steer the discussion towards one particular topic, and that at the time was the racial sensitivity issues surrounding the Chief, but it ended up being a slower process than just that. Paul said something quite post-modern about the issue, being that a symbol such as the Chief is whatever you make of it and reveals what you may think or feel. I wanted this to be a piece about semiotics or objectivity itself, I had Danielle talking about effective argumentation, that is, how she goes about trying to understand the other side of the issue in order to better understand her stances. In that regard, both my subjects were thankfully thoughtful and did recognize the merit of both sides of the issue.

I managed to include the footage of the Chief's last dance and surrounded it by my subject's responses to the question regarding how we are educated about Native history and culture, in what I hope should be the more thoughtful parts of the dialogue. They both recognized that we don't learn much about Native history and culture, and I even have Paul Schmitt admitting that the Chief is not meant to be accurate. I in turn recognized that Paul was genuine in his belief that Chief Illiniwek could have and should have served the interests in teaching the public and raising awareness about Native issues and saved that for a finale. It really is their saving grace in my mind, that they feel that the Chief is a misrepresentation.

I included a lot of my external media in the form of pictures into which we zoom in. Let's just say I went a little crazy with the Ken Burns effect. I think it works for the best, it not only accentuates the subject's speech but provides a visual break. I seriously don't want to look at a talking head for more than 30 seconds, and I made sure you and I don't have to. I also realized from the start that I would be framing the expository parts around the events of "Chief Week" and beyond and ended up including the February 26 candlelight vigil before Paul really addresses the racial issues. As for the rest, they're just nails in the coffin of the Chief. To add a topical element, I included the recent news surrounding the University's decision to retain rights of the Chief's image and logo and effectively end the manufacture of related merchandise in the coming months. Which is dandy in my mind, but I didn't add that feeling, merely presented the facts of the matter.

After 5 minutes of an actual piece, I was at a loss of how to continue without going over excessively, but the way the piece flows, it doesn't seem at all like 5 minutes. So I tacked on another minute and half and accentuated the point about how there was disrespect towards to the pro-chief movement in the final days of his existence. And after that, the topical elements and other historical framings of what went on.

I can honestly say that this may not be my strongest work. For one thing, I'm portraying neutrally or even somewhat positively a viewpoint I don't agree with. For another, it doesn't end with the grace that I had envisioned. It ends with what I thought would be a good thing, a final thought that would provoke the audience to think or at least challenge their beliefs. It may or may not do that, but the intention is there. Also, I could have ended on a light-hearted yet nostalgic note with a montage of every bit of the Alma mater being sung, at the first rally, at the basketball game, at the candlelight vigil, etc. But it would have ended up just as I described: light-hearted and nostalgic, or in other words, depressing and inappropriate. The inclusion of music in this piece would have disturbed the effect, I think the feelings and thoughts of the subjects and the other media speak enough for themselves without the need to be sung.

And that's that. I head off to critiques.... now.

Seeya soon!

Representing Production notes part 3 of: on second thought...

2007-03-29T19:51:00.000-06:00

Hokay, so I didn't actually do any sort of editing, but I did spend a copious amount of time logging shots yesterday. A copious amount. There were two and half tapes. Especially with Paul's interview, a lot of ground was covered and his alone was worth a lot of pages in my notebook. And at the time, it was too much to handle. Thus, impetus to figure out what kind of approach I should go for. I basically couldn't do any workshopping in Wednesday's class, but did my best to help those who did have shots and compositions and what not.

I figure I should talk about the racial sensitivity debate, in that the pro-chief movement does not think that the chief is itself racist or creates an environment of racism. I should proabably mention that I'll be wearing my "racial stereotypes dehumanize" t-shirt that day. Either that, or that the pro-chief movement, or at least the more sensible elements of which, were willing to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the opposition and were otherwise flexible in their demands to keep the Chief somehow, in some form. We'll see how it works when I import the footage.

I don't think I'll be doing the investigative video-journalistic thing. A lot of people may already know that the issue was decided a long time ago and in a non-transparent way, well.. obviously. If not many people know about how it was done, but know that it was done, then yeah, it was non-transparent. Really I don't see myself doing something without a wider-release that will just end up pissing people off and could potentially not end up how I want it, i.e. the trails I take lead no where. Also, it's a dead issue. And only people who are pissed off would care. I'm not pissed off. Therefore, I really shouldn't care. However, it would have been really cool to rock the boat with this one, but I'd be appealing to a crowd that I completely disagree with and frankly, don't want to see come to fruition. And luckily, the situation won't ever come to fruition. We retired the Chief and we did it, at least in a public fashion, with as much decorum as the university could muster.

Really, I think my desire to do this only stemmed from the fact that I was taking so much footage of Paul Schmitt and have felt bad not intending to use it to it's full extent. That, and when you keep an objective mindset and go into a situation, you tend to be more easily convinced. And he was persuasive, let me tell you what. He actually made me think that the board of trustees, or that some members thereon are a bunch of malicious pricks whether or not you like the Chief. But again, the issue is: who cares? One should care that the university is not making decisions democratically, yes, but this issue has been plaguing the university and it's reputation and whatever for 20-some years. It was time to take some initiative, and that's exactly what happened. Sometimes things shouldn't be done democratically, which is why I would love to see this country headed by an enlightened despot, like back in the 18th century. Oh, we have a despot for a leader, but he's certainly not enlightened. I'm talking about somone who will make decisions that are in the best interests of the country or body they run, not just a select few, and shouldn't buckle under external pressures. Of course, if there's a massive bread shortage or genocide, there's going to be problems. But so long as everyone is happy, fed, and unoppressed I'm perfectly fine with giving away my vote in return for someone sensible and intelligent (which, is pretty much how our democracy works now, except for the intelligence part). Oh, and so long as we can keep capitalism. That would be hunky-dory.

Rant aside, this footage in some other edited form should be passed on to Paul or some organization that would take a vested interest in it's contents for historical or sociological purposes. It really is an interesting narrative and whether or not you like it, a part of the history of this university. The pro-chief folks should just be happy we're not erasing him and sending him down the memory hole, just stopping him from doing his silly halftime dance. And the anti-chief folks need to focus their attention on something like Darfur or solving the problems of world hunger and overpopulation somehow. Please, for the love of jebus, these are real problems that will affect us in the future. I'm not saying that there's not racism on campus and that it's not a problem, just that there are larger social issues in larger, off-campuser contexts which are ultimately more important in the long-term. Please think of the children.

Okay, now this time I'll put the rant aside. I'm making an executive decision when I say that, I will approach for my next project, the idea that Farmbot should be our mascot and exactly why this is the case. What could be cooler than a 9-foot tall robot that shoots corn pellets out of it's arm cannon at its foes and launches fireworks from its stovepipe hat? I ask you...

Now back to being objective and looking past peoples' inability to see cultural insensitivity...

Representing Production notes part 2 of probably this is it

2007-03-27T21:59:00.000-06:00

Success! I had my interview with Paul Schmitt after many hours of phone tag and other uneventful anticipatory moments. He showed up to the Armory in a blue suit with an orange tie in true Illini fashion. He made it clear that he likes going here and its traditions. Except for maybe the fact that its traditions are being taken away. We started at 8 in what I claimed would only take an hour. We left the room we were interviewing in at 10. He had that much to say and to elaborate about, he really knew his stuff and was not nearly as nuts as people make him out to be.

Again, I was very transparent about my beliefs but kept them to a minimum, that is to say, a level of non-existence, and I found a lot of things we agreed on, as much as we could in a filming context wherein I am supposed to ask a question and shut up until it's been answered and was otherwise, very enlightening and engaging. He said a lot and this is going to be very difficult to pare down, given that I have his interview on two tapes and another tape of B-roll-worthy material. By the 60 minute mark, it began running in my mind that I should continue this issue for the next project. At least this means I can stop shooting and stop making production notes and start the editing process as soon as possible.

In specific, we spoke off the record about a few subjects that are potentially explosive and, well, very laden with heresay and conjecture that if I follow close enough, may turn out to be true. I won't say anything else about the manner, except that whether or not you like the Chief, you would care if you knew what I knew.

I was a little concerned about sound, I didn't use an external mic due to my previous experience and mistrust with the things, especially given the cinder-block and tile classroom that also happened to be located in the same hallway where a stepping set was practicing, but listening to the audio in the video lab gave me some confidence that you can hear what Paul was saying. So yay. I'm ready to edit tomorrow in class.

Representing Production notes part 1 of many

2007-03-27T10:26:00.000-06:00

I sent out an e-mail detailing my project to Paul Schmitt and got a positive response. However, he never followed up on my second e-mail, so I have to hunt him down or find another person of great authority and knowledge on the issue. Yesterday I interviewed Danielle Perlin and got some good responses out of her. A lot of what she said related to the fact that people will try to force their opinion on others in a manner that is either rude or condescending, and the lack of respect of one representitive of one side of the argument towards the other. She told me that she had a poster of the Chief stolen from her door anonymously and it was only returned after our RA intervened. What I percieve out of her interview is a lack of constructive dialogue or other respectful means of communication one's beliefs.

The interview process took longer than I thought. For one thing, it helps to know how much tape you have left. I ended up running out during a pivitol part of our conversation, that I made her redo with less extemporaneous effect. What I was going for was a level of spontaneity that underwrites an incredible amount of feeling and meaning in what the subject says. Also, I had to give her some coaching about doing an interview to edit. For one thing, it helps to pause before responding to questions, between main thoughts, and to phrase responses completely, as in "I think the sky is blue" rather than, "yes, I believe it's true" if I were to ask "Do you think the sky is blue?" Also the shotgun mics are unamplified so the signal is rather low, causing me to just use the camera mic. They take great sound for sure, but it would just be nice to get amplified levels out of them. Oh well. I think the project is going smoothly and I'll have a great finished product.

Representing Pre-production interview queries

2007-03-25T19:12:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so about that spring break. It was a doozy. I spent the week in the sun and in the end, all I got was a lousy reaction to the sunlight causing a bad rash and a severe lack of productivity. And while neither really hurt that bad, they both leave a sting that is only satisfied by scratching at it gently and then vigorously, possibly making them worse.

Anyways, I came up with a preliminary list of ultimate questions that I will grill my interview subjects with. They are, as follows:

Introduce yourself, name, major, year, etc.
What does the Chief mean to you?
Why do you support the Chief?
When were you first aware of the Chief? How did this initial encounter make you feel?
What do you believe the Chief symbolizes?
Why is it important to have a symbol that embodies those values, especially for our university?
Are the playing fields and ball courts not an appropriate venue for the Chief? Should he and his image be primarily confined to an athletic context?
How would you respond to the anti-Chief movement's argument that the chief embodies racism on campus or is racially insensitive?
What are some other misconceptions surrounding the Chief and why do you believe they are false?
How would you account for the turnout at the February 1 I-Resist forum?
Can you comment on the following incidents:
- The NCAA's condemnation of Chief Illiniwek as a "hostile and abusive figure"?
- Recent racially-themed parties?
- The Ogllala Sioux's demand of the return of the Chief's regalia made by Frank Fool's Crow?
- The facebook incident wherein someone threatened to "throw a tomohawk" in someone's face?
- The outcry of alumni who will no longer support the university?
- The alleged profiteering of the Chief's image in the wake of the initial announcement?
What is your opinion on what and how we learn and how much we learn about Native American history and culture in an educational setting? How might the Chief fit into this scheme? Do you feel what and how we learn is not truly representitive of Native history and culture?
What can be said about the manner with which the board initially handled this decision?
Who among the pro-Chief student body was consulted on this issue?
What will you do to save the Chief? What must be done to have him appear next September?
What should students do to reinstate the Chief?
Why should students care about this issue?
Can you say "I'm (blank) and I support the Chief" ?
Any other comments or questions that may give insight into the issue?

Yeah that about does it. Now I just have to guarantee some interviewees!

Can you say... hiatus? Representing pre-production notes and other mumbo-jumbo

2007-03-25T18:38:00.000-06:00

If I could choose a working title, it would be “an ultimate test of objectivity.” The purpose of this assignment, as I see it, is to represent someone or someplace with which I have little or no familiarity. As a person of opinions leaning in a certain direction, I can honestly say that such opinions are the formation of in-group biases, and that we tend to vilify at worst, or detract from the credibility of, at the bare minimum, those who do not share the same opinions as ours. We do not understand the opinions of others at times because we fail to understand who holds those opinions. I hope to gain an understanding of that person in the process of creating an objective representation of that person.

In specific, I want to, in part, document the series of events surrounding the retirement of Chief Illiniwek from the initial pro-chief reaction to the present. I believe that, like the symbol or not, it represents a pivotal time of change in our University’s history. I am not keen on the symbol, and own a t-shirt stating my opinion on the matter, but feel that the controversy it has created shows a lot about our university body. I specifically filmed certain pro-chief events believing they would make for good context regarding this subject in this project. I even had the opportunity to interview or capture the interviews of some students who had rallied in support of the chief. In particular, these were Paul Schmitt, president of Students for Chief Illiniwek, and Danielle Perlin, a journalism student and acquaintance of mine from down the hall. Because of certain untempered ambitions, I want to interview Paul Schmitt in depth. The difficulty presented is that I am not personally acquainted with him and may not be able to interview him for various reasons. Thus, an interview of Danielle lends itself to convenience, a situation that I try to avoid, but realize I must embrace at times. There’s another point I also need to get at. Also I realize I’m not following the proposal guidelines. Please bear with me.

The ultimate goal of this piece would be to identify with a pro-chief student and understand exactly what makes them pro-chief, something I have a difficult time understanding. What makes this a test of objectivity is the fact that, as a film-maker, I would be presenting a viewpoint I disagree with, and the end product would be an expository piece bordering on persuasive. I have wrestled with the thought that successful production is measured by audience reception. Ideally, this film should convert people to the viewpoint I’m representing, because such is the power of moving images. At the same time, I’m not completely willing to compromise my values to sell or proselytize something I wouldn’t buy or believe in. It’s much like Michael Moore making a documentary about the NRA. I’m willing to do this for the truth. It shouldn’t matter whether or not I agree with the viewpoint; I am representing it in a way that is not clouded by my judgments and truly reflects that person or ideal.

It would be, in some ways, wise to choose just anyone, opposed to the leader of a student organization or other publicly visible person. Taking a typical person off the street reinforces the fact that actual people feel this way, rather than exceptional people in positions of influence over said people. Still, it would be cool to interview Paul Schmitt. I digress. I’m also going to follow the prescribed order from here out:

In terms of action sequences, it would be imperative to include the footage I took of the Pro-chief rally on the Monday following the Board of Trustee’s decision. It documents a large body of students protesting the administration’s handling of the decision and their distaste for said decision. It was a funeral, except the people there still held hope that he would remain alive. There was a eulogy, which I unfortunately did not get good audio for. Then there was the dirge, the swaying of bodies to the tune of the Alma Mater. Then the chanting began, and the dispensing of t-shirts and call for petition signatures. It makes good B-roll in a film that centers mainly on the people, or an individual who wants to save the Chief, or serves as a pivotal entrance point to this series of events.

The main character is the student or students I get an interview with. This person has unique opinions, or at least unique in the sense that they hold a specific reason for having it or some variety of opinion that is different from the rest. They drive the film, it is about them, not me, not the Chief, not the board, the attention should rest on them. Obviously, they are the ones who will give the on-screen interview they would need to asked the following, among the myriad of questions that aren’t the five I’m stipulated to include:

What does the Chief mean to you?
What is your initial experience with Chief Illiniwek and how did it make you feel?
What are some misconceptions that you feel the anti-chief movement holds and why are they not valid?
What is your opinion on what we learn and how much we learn about Native American history and culture in an educational setting? How might the Chief fit into this scheme?
What will you do to save the Chief?
Overall, any other questions would develop exactly why someone is pro-chief and not anti-chief.

As an expository piece, I have no expectations on the part of the characters to undergo some sort of change or narrative crisis. If there is a change in events, such as a vote from the Board on March 13th that contradicts their February 16th decision, that takes place in the context of the piece, then I would want to document some sort of change on the part of the subject(s). However, I probably won’t start principal photography until well after that. In terms of framing, I would want to juxtapose images that make sense for exposition’s sake: introduction, middle, end. First, some sort of clue as to who this person is, then the rising tide of additional information and context and opinions that somehow come into a crucial moment when they have to defend their position. And at the end, the moment of truth, whether or not they have succeeded in explaining their position or failed miserably and given up. Hopefully the former. Although I’m not averse to using the latter if it proves to be objective enough.

The audience of this piece is our class, or whoever among my friends will see it, if I’m very passive about this process. I wouldn’t mind selling this piece if it turns out successfully to some organization like Students for the Chief, or whatever, or putting it on some public display. The audience I suppose already has a working knowledge of this controversy and shouldn’t need the context for the piece. As far as producing for a certain audience, this is not a point of consideration. I am not Fox News and I am not pandering to what is obviously a conservative audience. If anything, the appeal or the approach should be so inherently neutral that anyone can watch it and understand, rather than brush it off as something imbued with an agenda.

I don’t forsee there being anything complex in terms of formal syntax, a rather uncomplicated interview set-up and the images that I’ve already taken or will take if anything happens to develop.

The piece should end gracefully, if there was ever such a way for an expository piece to end. Some sort of truth uttered by the interviewee or conveniently placed footage of people valiant enough to stand up for an issue rather than let some body unilaterally decide on things. I think that would work stylistically. Maybe even the interviewee voicing over the footage as it fades out. In general, it should basically be a summation of the main reason that the particular person holds their particular opinion, but parsed in a manner that is stirring or philosophical or challenges our belief or whatever. In the course of writing this, I’ve become less and less excited and it probably shows.

This will take a camera, preferably a 3-ccd miniDV format digital camera, adequate lighting, an acoustically appropriate space for filming, a video tripod, a shotgun mic, and if I’m lucky, just one DV tape. Maybe some Pocky as an incentive for people to undertake the interview process. That and a willing interviewee.

So here’s the deal with scheduling. It’s Monday, March 12, 2007. I have until April 1. Here’s how it should break down:

Today – have meeting with Cory. We will probably discuss how badly this proposal was written. Sorry. If it isn’t bad, then disregard the apology.
Tommorrow, March 13 – film the board of trustee’s meeting if they’re public, which I’m not too sure about. Also, cameras may be in short supply.
Wedneday, March 14. Interview Danielle Perlin with appropriately measured questions that I will have come up with by then.
Sometime during this, approach Paul Schmitt via e-mail about possibly interviewing him. Also should do the same with Danielle, just so she knows what she’s in for.
If I do get Paul Schmitt, schedule it very carefully such that it happens when a camera is available. Pray like crazy. This will probably have to happen after break, unfortunately.
Post-production. As soon as I get my footage in order.
There is no step three.
My contingency plan is to cry a lot, or just find other pro-chief supporters and interview them, figuring out what makes their opinions so different from everyone else. There’s a ton of them, unfortunately.

As far as a treatment goes, I’m going to have to stretch this a bit:

I begin in the thick of things. There is a throng of coated and heavy jacketed college students standing in the plaza outside the Illini Union. They are clad in orange and blue and adorned with symbols and block letters that suggest their support for the Chief. It’s a dark evening, after classes, after work, but before the late night when people are truly busy and hunkered down. Right now, they are holding signs that read “save the chief.” And they chant those words over again, “save the chief, save the chief, save the chief, etc.” They say it with growing enthusiasm, and the camera gets into the middle and crowd and points down. There are a lot of people. They are a qualified throng. On February 16, the Board of Trustees decided on retiring the Chief. On February 19, a lot of students began the first of what would be a week-long series of visible protests of this decision. It began in force that Monday with the gather of students to rally for their cause, reached a boiling point at the Chief’s last performance at the last regular season home basketball game, as hundreds of students changed out of their festive orange for somber black, and fizzled out with a sparsely attended candle-light vigil on a cold night the following Monday. Our subject introduces him or herself, with the usual name, the class, the major. He or she goes into why he or she supports the Chief, his or her reasons becoming more and more apparent as the interview goes on. We see what how the media has covered this event. We see websites announcing the news, we see the Daily Illini headlines and front page illustrations that, for a week, said the same thing, just in a different pitch or worded differently. We see a whole page of op-ed pieces that denounce the announcement. We see the news crew who cover the events that first Monday, and then we see it again on television. By now, the interviewee has said something stirring, he or she has said something in apparent defense of his or her beliefs, a parry to the thrust of the unseen, unheard interviewer’s line of questioning. It is at this point that I fail to see the effect of a treatment on a piece whose content is driven by probability. I have no idea what they’re going to say, or how they structure their answers. I’m not going to wag the dog or beg the question or lead them out or write out mad-libs for them to fill in. How is any of that or this objective? He or she will make a comment on the board of trustee’s decision and what they plan on doing about it, because he or she believes that their beliefs should be put to action. At this point, he or she makes a plea to the audience to do something similar, like express their distaste for the Board or Trustees or continue to support the Chief by wearing his likeness. At this point, I could include the footage of people swaying back and forth, singing the Alma Mater with a voice-over of my interviewee’s send-off message that easily encapsulates his or her argument in a manner that makes people really think about the issue, and I mean really think.

That really wasn’t all that bad. But still, I can’t expect out of this exactly what I put in; my whole concept revolves around the fact that there are too many unknown, unforeseen variables. This is, however, a reason to be excited rather than scared. I’m going to discover things I haven’t encountered before, and really that’s the point of argumentation, to develop yet unthought, unwritten, and unsaid ideas.

------------------------------------------------
What was this, the monday before break? That sounds about right.

This is unfortunately where I have to wedge my Dark Days response. I thought I had problems, but when you live in a railroad tunnel, then the shit I go through seems stupid. It's nice to live in comfort and have all the trappings of a technological society and struggle towards making a far-above ground living when I get out of school. It's not so nice to live underground in a shack. Sure, the shack is insulated and everything and you can get free electricity and maybe water, and given the outrageous rent in NYC, it's downright desirable in an economic sense, but it's literally a step below homelessness. The people living down there may think otherwise and shy away from shelters for safety's sake, and one can't help but think these are rugged individuals making it out on their own in a cruel world. Marc Singer's aesthetics reflect the stark realities of underground life. For one thing, he chose to use black and white, and arguably this is the best choice for low-light conditions. Still, the lack of color suggests a cold and bleak existence on the part of the tunnel residents. And yet, they continued to live there. Whether out of choice, or out of necessity is explored through the series of intimate dialogues between Singer and the residents. A choice I particularly enjoyed was his use of DJ Shadow in the beginning. I probably first heard that track before 8th grade and I just think it's a cool piece of music to use, and the repeated choral sample suggests something dark and mysterious overall, just a perfect way to suggest what is to come in the work.

As a representation of a group of people or place, this piece works extremely well, the filmmaker does not inject himself into the discussions or serve any purpose in the exposition rather than capturing it and as a sounding board (although on Wikipedia, I read that he had helped to secure their housing vouchers). I think it works well to let the subjects drive the conversation and inject bits of non-incidental anecdotes, as well as let the events in their lives serve as narrative points, like how the one woman's shack burned down. We see and hear their stories directly, rather than through some third-hand channel like in print. And such is the nature of well-exposed film, it is second only to experiencing something in person.

Reaction and notes on Berger and Sontag

2007-03-04T15:28:00.001-06:00

Excuse me if everything I write from here forward is bitter and well... generally downbeat in mood. My girlfriend of 6 months broke up with me. And we need to remain best friends. And it helps as much as it hurts. Whatever, now's not the time.

What I think about Berger:

Berger suggests that women are objectified, in the sense that they are an exercise in aesthetic pleasure and revered for those qualities. Of the first four images, two of them depict women who are explicitly being watched, reinforcing the fact that they are, in a vulgarmost sense, art. Their qualities fit a narrow criterium of art, in that they take on certain aesthetic forms and qualities, i.e. shape and beauty. Though a stretch, they are "art." The second two-page spread takes this suggestion to the extreme, encapsulating various forms of nudes over the ages. From right to left we see examples of classical, modernist, and impressionistic pieces that depict the same thing with the same exigencies: naked women unaware they are being observed. Is this voyeurism or the highest expression of what is deemed most beautiful, the female figure? The photographs suggest the former, in that they are pornographic and overtly sexual in the sense that we are most used to as members of a relatively hypersexualized culture. Could the other pieces, especially the more life-like, be deemed pornography for the 18th and 19th century? Probably. But these were considered high art and a component of high culture of the time, not something that would be put into a centerfold, or more appropriately for the era, a tawdry woodblock cutting.

The last two sets of photographs completely scrap whatever that idea held, revering the female figure for cruder purposes. It's too irresistable to say that "sex sells," because it does. And sex sells for sex's sake, the products depicted in the third set in particular suggest that you too can be pretty and looked at in an overtly sexual manner if you wear our stockings, our cosmetics, our spray deodorant. The depictions of women in sexually suggestive poses would belong in pornographic print if not for a few key pieces of clothing and their obvious target demographic of women who read fashion magazines. The last has an even more completely different message, in that women are narcissistic and hold themselves and their beauty far and above any ideal, simply for the sake of beauty. I can't really assume much about the classical depiction of some religious or mythological allusion, but I'll just assume it fits in with the photo of the woman being photographed, the final remark on male society's reverence for femaleness and female willingness to self-debasement.

Yes, that was bitter. The "sex sells" part is probably true of all of these paintings. Except maybe the impressionistic or modern pieces, all of these had some sort of financial exigency, some artist was commissioned, some designer salaried, all to profit off the image of women, and to appeal to the proponents of what was and stilll is male-dominated, misogynistic culture. We would really have to ask the painter, the sculptor what their original intent was, but it is safe and convenient to assume the most nefarious of purposes.

What differentiates Berger's second and third essays are words on a superficial level, but meaning on a deeper one. The sum of the uncaptioned images is explicit in the differing ways we've seen women in history. Berger then extends the montage by filling in the blanks with his second essay, addressing a lot of the issues with how the images depict vanity, express the power struggle between genders, and in particular how the works address the audience. It is completely different to step back as a casual observer, as it is to step back as a 14-19th century nobleman and see a painting you've commissioned, obstensibly for your pleasure or sexual gratification. It is not enough to be male in a lopsided world, you have to be reminded you're a male, as if your gender will change without this constant bombardment.

Thus, regarding his statement that "men act, women appear," I believe this is true for the time it was written or for the time of the pieces depicted, and the realist in me must accept the fact that this is still true. The time of high art is dead. There are no classical depictions of recumbent nudes, but in its place, a series of well-shot black and white photographs of nearly-nude, skeletal women inside Vogue. The female body has been usurped to sell fashion or diet cola, whatever kids and not-kids today wear and drink. We do not support realistic views of femininity in the media, we have lost the concept of the ideal woman. She has lost an unhealthy amount of weight and in the next fifteen to thirty years will be dead or the width of toothpick.

It is thus more ethical to represent someone realistically, in an unadultured fashion. Some women are models. Most women aren't. One could choose either to represent and follow around with a camera, but it is more likely going to be one who isn't. Because models are merely figments of our imagination, they're not real. In a similar vein, politicians are people too, just people with sexual deviancies and poor voting records in regards to subsidizing beet farmers. I'm sure they've done good things too, like help a child to read or saving kittens from trees. The latter things are left unnoticed, and are by necessity, not a good thing to include in something negatively subjective. Thus, objectivity is reality. Objectivity is balance. An ethical consideration of anything regards both sides of an argument or situation, and leaves the opinions of the filmmaker or artist out of the picture.

One can too easily distort the message of raw, unedited footage. For example, I took a lot of shots of the Pro-chief rally the monday after the Board of Trustees announcement. A lot of people were there in their orange shirts and hats and signs. I depicted the speakers, I depicted the crowd swaying back and forth while singing the alma mater, I depicted the crowd chanting "save the chief" ad infinitum. I also captured the tv film crews that were there, and the exchange of money for Chief T-shirts. I could have spliced those images in between any of the former images and create a false context, like how the pro-Chief movement is motivated to keep selling an image and profit from his demise, or how Paul Schmitt, the leader of Students for the Chief is media-hungry and wants to use airtime to help his student trustee campaign. I could have done a lot of things. They could have been real, they could have not been, but they're all distortions of the truth. In an objective reality, one avoids commentary and biased narrative and lets the film or artwork actually speak for itself.

What I think about Sontag:

In choosing images that depict warfare, it is important they reflect an neutral agenda. This is, however, impossible. There is no neutral agenda. There is neutrality, but that doesn't sell. Christian Science Monitor does neutrality, as a newsource that is not backed by a major media conglomeration. How they choose images, however, I'm unaware of. Ideally, you don't want images that depict the process of death, like from a gunshot wound or a mortar blast. Body parts and blood in animation are no-no, especially in our sanitized, sensitized world. There's a certain level of gross bodily disfiguration that is not acceptable. Obviously, it's unsafe to capture images of war as it happens, it's always the aftermath or a talking head speaking about an event. One would want to be able to sit a child down and explain what is happening in a frank manner so as not to disturb a child. It is not appropriate ever to sanitize images, like discolor blood so it is less apparent, or crop dead bodies from a photograph. This kind of adultery is avoided online where images are disseminated rapidly and without censorship.

I believe we are desensitized to images of war because of their omnipresence, but we do not see what real carnage is. Real carnage is what happens to those who do not fight. They lose limbs, they lose their skin to third-degree burns, they lose family members, they lose houses. We do not see these. We do not want to see these. We want to see headshots of recently fallen soldiers, as Jim Lehrer does every night on the NewsHour. We see the faces of those who have fallen, but not their faces as they have fallen. We are desensitized to the memory of dead but have no real conception of what goes on during a war besides the exchange of fire and the dropping of bombs. What we gain from this is a lack of appreciation for the gravity of the situation, and an expected reverence for those slain servicemen and servicewomen. If they did show the realities of war, we would have completely different reactions, like disgust or anger or maybe indifference. It is a moot point, however, because of this sanitization.

We have thus far not finished Iraq Stories, but overall it is successful in that it is not a major, mainstream depiction of what the war is. The film is mainly about people, in my opinion, and their stories, rather than groups of people or rulings or geopolitical struggles. It is simply about people. There's a certain veracity in the images, like the images Sontag menttioned in Krieg Dem Kriege, they tell the truth, and a not a propagandistic message. What there is to Iraq Stories is this truth, the Jordanian Armor-plated SUV driver, the American soldier who installed an xbox in the barracks, the old Kurdish woman speaking praises of George Bush. These were all new to me when I saw them. I had no idea how controlled and stable Iraq was, and how backwards it is now because of the war. One could derive a negative meaning from the film, like how our intrusion resulted in a lot of unrepaired damage and disorder, but at the same time some semblance of hope within certain people. Before I pass holistic criticism on the film, I would need to watch it in entirety.

I think embedding journalists is a great idea, in theory. Geraldo Rivera kind of screwed that one up, showing troop positions and potentially giving them away to the enemy. I doubt, however, that an entrenched Iraqi soldier would have gotten CNN or Fox News to have much of an effect on the battlefield. In practice, it is necessary. It is necessary and it is right as an American citizen to see exactly what is going on before one passes premature judgement on a situation. It is also a method of independent oversight. There will always be some discrepency between what the top brass reports and what a journalist would. They both reflect seperate agendas. Nevertheless, it is important as a tax payer to see exactly what your portion of the billion or so dollars is going towards. The problem with embedded journalists, however, is that they are limited just to combat, not like Iraq Stories where the filmmaker hoofed it around the country and didn't attach himself to a unit. This provides for more balance and more exposure to something we might not otherwise see.

...Okay, this is where I rip into Iraq days after having seen it in entirety. Yes, the approach is great, and frankly the images we saw we probably hadn't seen, but I can't get the feeling that it does offer the viewer a clear bias, that we're screwing up in there and not taking things with grains of salt, and I can only assume that's the same case four years later. Which is unfortunate, but in our mindset, we should be depicting things without adding our bits of commentary. We should be doing what Fox News advertises, reporting and letting the viewer decide. Evidently his work led up to a conclusion which we can't fault him on for coming to, but rather for presenting it in the way he did. You have to give him props for doing something so brash and idiotic like embedding himself in an armored patrol and getting ordinance certified, that takes cajones which I can say I don't have. I like my life, and I'm sure he likes his, but he values the art that comes out of a bad situation and shared with us what he saw, but unfortunately also how he saw it.

Aesthetic Part Four: Critique and Concluding Remarks

2007-02-25T21:57:00.000-06:00

To the people in ART250, section M4:

You are all very very cruel people.

I really wasn't going after schadenfreude, but I guess there's an inherent comedic effect in the piece. Yes, it's very funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's Hilarious. In a similar vein, people in distress usually look funny and we can't help pointing and laughing, especially with Ben's stellar face acting and gesticulations. When filming 8 1/2 Fellini taped a message to his camera that basically stated "remember - this is a comedy." Perhaps in the course of filming I had it on my mind to remember that this is the black comedy of our college lives, and it was recieved that way. So to reiterate, you are all very very cruel people. But it was well warranted.

If we all have been put into a situation like this (which I gather was the case from people's responses) then naturally we tend to see ourselves in pieces like this, and it's perfectly okay to laugh at ourselves. We are all very self-abusive and thus self-deprecating. So, we are very cruel because we don't love ourselves enough to feel pity for the subject, or just love ourselves in a cruel manner because we recognize that this is painful and enjoy it. However you spin it, you can't hide from the fact. You're a cruel, cruel person.

Not all of you recognized exclusively the humour, some saw the frustration, the agony, the boredom, the other feelings that you thought of. On the whole, most of you liked the piece and didn't offer any criticism like you did for "Circles." I was kind of disappointed in that, seeing as how I didn't have a rough copy to show at workshop time (which also explains why I don't have paper copies of that round of the process), and hoped that someone would pipe up. I remember clearly that Heather offered something critical, but I forgot what specifically. I was too giddy at the fact that someone rendered some criticism (this is not sarcasm). That said, I'll make some of my own up. I had a lot of unintentional continuity issues that I didn't think people would notice, but someone did, that in particular was the fact that the hands typing were not the actor's hands, as the big red X on my hand but not Ben's would indicate. Danny noticed it enough to make a comment about it, citing the possibility that the night before, the subject had gone out and maybe had a little too much fun? The second time he drinks from the travel mug is just a longer take of the first time he does so, split apart and placed at opposite ends of the film from each other. Presumably, this cold have been retaken with the subject changed in respect to how he should be at 4 in the a.m.: hunched over and trembling slightly, eyes maybe blodshot. I did only have my subject for about 15 minutes though, and it was a distressing 15 minutes for him without changing how his eyes looked. Still, continuity issues were pressing.

Also, another criticism Cory issued was how we don't see the subject's frustration in writing alone, but merely implied as a lack of progress. What I could have included was some semblance of progress within the paper he was writing, only to be stifled by self-critical realization, for example, a whole, explicitly typed sentence deleted in a few backspaces. While this approach may have made contextual sense, I think it would have detracted from the character's development, in that this is not a Sisyphean effort at all, but rather a result of the character's inabilities to cope under stress and be creative.

I enjoyed everyone's comments greatly and the levels on which they appreciated the work. At the same time, this is a struggle of man, but on another level, this was portrayed as a struggle of man vs. machine. People recognized that the computer is itself a character, injecting itself into a strained relationship, rather than a static plot device. I especially enjoyed the little things that I thought were unconsequential, like the sentences I chose to write as a "paper." As I mentioned, those are my reward for you paying so close attention to the film. The fun is always in the details, and I'm glad you pick up on them.

So this is a new thing: I uploaded my video to YouTube instead of netfiles and posted a click-a-link to it below, rather than having to let it load and take up unnecessary bandwith.... Hooray! Enjoy:

Now that I look at it, it's not all that great because of the incessant and omnipresent YouTube label. Boo on video watermarks! This is the price we pay for free media hosting...

So these are where the critiques for my classmates shall go:

NATH - Before the Test

I recall being more rushed before tests, like I'm frantically trying to cram words and figures and formulas into my head from some lengthy tome, or else I'm rushing up Goodwin on my bike to get to Siebel Center before they pass out scantrons and don't want to run into a large lecture hall as sheepishly like I imagine, or fall down the stairs there, or whatever. This is your depiction and I can understand where you're coming from. I liked the use of your watch as a narrative component and source of that incessant ticking that keeps you going ten or fifteen minutes before the TA carts in that packet of freshly-copied exams. I noticed you did speed it up ever so slightly, but it is imperceptible and perhaps it is my imagination that actually does the acceleration. You might have wanted to increase it in volume, but you weren't going for an overdramatic depiction of such. Instead, you put yourself at a certain distance from the camera and kept yourself there, and focused primarily on what might be bothering you, that is, the book and leaves of paper that you have to shuffle and sort through, emphasizing perhaps the importance of what you're going over, rather than the emotions you percieve at the time. Or the emotional response is implied, but we do not see it, other than your sense and awareness of time with repeated glances at your watch. You are obviously rushed. But not that much. Maybe you're nervous. You removed yourself as a character with feelings and a (possible) sense of foreboding. I like the overall narrative arc of the piece and you really do document the minutes or so before going into DCL and having to wrestle with a piece of paper, much like how Joe leaves out the actual sparring in his piece. It's a depiction, rather than a feeling, and it's effective in this regard.

HEATHER - Waves of memory(?)

What hit me was the disturbing quality of your images and the effects you chose, for example, the reversed footage of the jet of water hitting the car windshield or the hands reaching towards the fireplace or just about the bulk of your images that on an initial viewing are unrecognizable. I would have liked to read your aesthetic writing. Or maybe I shouldn't like to. I suppose the whole point of your depiction was that it reflects a certain amount of uncertainty and unfamiliarity, and maybe emotions entailing confusion or mental unfocus or terror, or whatever. I couldn't guess at what you wrote because the channels between the writing and the images are blurred simply because of the premise of your piece. I can't say I remember my dreams, and I can't say I remember in vivid detail half of the images you used. Some stick out and are in that respect effective, and I guess that says a lot about the sheer number and variety of images you used. I must point out, however, that some shots were ambiguous in that they were not well-lit. My mind says this is a conscious choice on your part and only furthers the idea that they are left intentionally ambiguous, but there are a series of these images. Not enough to detract from the piece, but enough to leave me wondering what's the dark space in this video for? If I go on I'll end up speculating, so I'll stop. What I can point out is how you left the piece end. It just kind of ends. It's going in full force and then... stops. With the speedometer at 15 or so. Even a simply fade-out would be appropriate, something, anything! Again, this is merely a point of contention that someone like me would point out. Yes it would be nice to end gracefully, but it's an aesthetic piece, and does it really need such an end? I'll leave it at that.

Aesthetic Part Three: Post-production Notes

2007-02-25T21:56:00.000-06:00

After hooking up my camera and importing the footage, I promptly gave it back to my friend who would return it to the window in the morning, upon which it would be promptly checked out to a reserved user, meaining there would be none left for checkout. This basically meant that I couldn't take any reshoots within a resonable amount of time, and whatever I hadn't already reshot would just be used as is or not at all. I tended towards the latter. I really dislike not having my own camera anymore, but such is life when it's not yours exclusively. The Art Department, however, has really nice cameras for being in such small packages and their picture quality is superb, though they have the most confusing user interfaces. What really takes the cake are their selection of microphones and video tripods, which are also great. What is not-so-great is the fact that everything has too quick a check-out turnaround. That's not too great for spontaneous capture. So this is just another thing to think about when doing my last two pieces, or in general. Stick to a schedule for a reason.

It all looked good, and I basically rendered everything sequentially as I listed out in my production notes. First was the drawn-out sequence of making tea, which I didn't draw out too much. I made it flow and took out the extraneous parts, like turning on the kettle, watching it steam it, turning it off, picking it up, pouring it out, putting it down, etc. Instead it was all implied, boiling water, pouring water. it's all that simple. The same feel I tried to employ with the tea part, trimming that shot down to about half and making incontinuous cuts. Then I got right to it, depicting the ill-fated attempt at paper writing. It begins with an empty screen, but suddenly, words! Which are being deleted. and replaced. and sip of tea. even more procrastination, or perhaps inspiration with a little music. Very little actual paper writing actually takes place after a while, and I wanted that suggestion to come about very quickly in the narrative.

When the music starts, it doesn't stop, with some very essential exceptions. I chose the Postal Service - "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" because it has such an upbeat feel to it but reading the lyrics, is ironically depressing and deals with loneliness, appropriate enough for our solo student. It was also this song, during it's series of electronic blips that I looked up at my computer while laying my head down in the process of writing a paper and basically felt small and powerless compared to this thing in front of me. It was a great bonding moment, me and my computer. And that's why I tried to capture it. It's implied that the subject is listening to to song, perhaps over and over again, but it provides the only bit of continuity besides the fact that nothing meaningful is being put onto electronic paper. I could have chopped up the album the song was off of, which is also ironically titled Give Up, to make it seem like he was listening to a series of songs to give it temporal correctness and not just one. But I kept it simple and stuck to one song and it's qualities to invoke a concise, music video-type feeling.

As for the subject's downfall, I used the bodily detail shots more and more, to suggest some sort of encroachment on the camera's part on the subject's personal space. It hopefully would suggest a lot of discomfort on his part of being encroached. Also on par with a downfall motif, I use the blurrier shots as time goes on, just check out the clock and also how stable the image gets. The hand-held, mobile shots of what time it is again evoke the fact that the ability to focus and see straight is a linear relation to how late it is. Also, most shots to begin with are at eye level with the subject but are then framed from above, to suggest that the subject has been overpowered or has shrunk physically, psychologically, mentally, etc.

As the subject is looking at a skewed angle up from the desk at the computer, I employed a lot of super-soft focuses in post through iMovie's wonderful effects palettes. They didn't look as well as a wanted at first, so as I tried to revert the changes done to the shots to their original form, but I ended up just layering the new effect on top of the old one I didn't want. This is why those shots look super washed out. I kept them because they're so washed out, they're ridiculously altered, but so is the subject in some form (i.e. tired, NOT on drugs). At night everything just seems that much brighter if it's emitting some sort of light.

As the subject is out in the hallway, I increase the introspective subtext of the shot by framing the subject closer and closer. I also cut the music completely to begin with, but on the advice of one of my critiquers, I only subdued it to barely audible at the 8% limit that iMovie allows. The suggestion is that it is still playing somewhere in the background, perhaps in the room whose wall the subject is slumped up against. The music, as a consistent component of the piece, serves as the reminding thread that the situation at hand still exists, i.e. he has a paper to write. I use a parallel structure with the computer, which as a counterpoint, is shot from below and is visibly larger and as the shots progress, bigger than the subject, especially the blinking cursor that indicates where words should be written.

The last suggestion is that this has given the subject a new hope for completion, the raising of the head from the desk, the last hurrah of a swig from the travel mug, and the chatter of typing. Naturally, this is just exposition for the ultimate shot, the slamming of the computer lid, upon which the music stops, and the constant sense that something must be done.

I ended with the only title in the movie, "The Aesthetic Process," itself a reference to the fact that I went through the same process as the subject to do this process. I used the typing effect to display the text, as if this too is being typed up in some form (which it is).

The biggest consideration here was sound. I amplified everything that was pertinent and able, the sound of boiling water, pouring water, the rustle of an opening tea bag, typing, the slamming of the computer lid, and of course, the music. All of those sounds had to be considerably louder than the music, which itself was amplified above normal. In contrast, I blocked out the sound on anything that had ben in it for myriad reasons. For one thing, I was shouting motivations at him and had him play "District Sleeps Alone Tonight" while he was acting to put him in the right mindset, so I couldn't use the sound. Especially him swallowing pills or blowing his nose was disappointing I couldn't use. I figured it wasn't a problem, and where he was visibly typing at the end, I just took the audio from another of my typing exploits and pasted it over its audio. Basically, there is a hierarchy of sound with the subject. If he is sitting at the computer, the only essential sounds are those of him interacting with it, i.e. typing, or slamming it's lid shut. This fits well with the theme that the computer is an overbearing presence in the subject's existence.

So after I implemented all of this, I watched it a couple of times and was satisfied enough to put it on DVD...

Aesthetic Part Two: Production Notes

2007-02-25T21:55:00.000-06:00

This is completely new for me, having to make something with some semblance of planning beforehand, moreso than an idea or inkling of what would look good on film. I mean, I freakin' wrote two aesthetic pieces. This is all very incredible. Oh, I've written scripts and stuck to them before, but they simply don't count in this context. This is original in that I'm transferring one piece of media into another. Which I assume I've also done with a script and what not... dammit, none of how this was done is new; I just relied on old, bad habits. This is how I did it:

Frame
Point
Shoot

Just kidding. I had a good idea of shots in my head, and wrote them down. (I'm a terrible drawer, and would never make it in Art+D, unfortunately, without that skill). I had a lot of hyperbole and metaphors in my writing, and I mean a lot. Just read the third paragraph of my piece and you'll see just how elaborate it can get. So I cut those out and framed a lot of shots that I feel would set the tone and then drive the narrative, yet still provide some aesthetic contexts:

Water boiling. I took shots of me turning it on and off, but the lighting was inconsisent with me pouring it, so didn't use any of it. Otherwise wanted to provide unnecessary amounts of detail relating to the preparation of a cup of tea, you know, like you're procrastinating a really long time on it.
Water pouring. This I got and looked great. Unfortunately, steam doesn't show up unless it's opaque, and because it's apparently transparent in reality, it's gonna look that way on video. It was supposed to be hot, as if my room and the viewer is getting more humid because of it.
Making tea. I used a shotgun mic for this and many of the computer images. I wanted a satisfying rustle to come up on video and the quiet dunking of a bag of tea in water. I wanted this and the other shots to be close-up and with reasonable amounts of detail.
Tossing away of tea wrapper and other miscellaneous trash. I basically put the camera on a tripod directly above my receptacle, balled up pieces of newspaper and other trash I had and dropped it from above the camera. Unfortunately a tripod leg was in the shot and I couldn't use it.
The clock on my computer. It provides a good context for time, especially since it ticks off seconds. I had a lot of fun reseting my computer's clock rather than having to wait about 7 hours.
Framing of the computer. There were multiple angles for this, one that is objective, neutral, others that suggest an overbearing presence (one of my favorites was putting a piece of white cardboard behind the computer and taking it from a low angle), others that suggest a point of view and that the subject is looking from a very skewed angle with his head down, others that focus on details, as detailed below:
Framing of the keyboard. Again, I had a variety of keyboard shots, both hands, one hand, focusing on one finger and one letter, etc. I was really limited by how close I could get to the keyboard. So I kept the blurred out shots, and thought that they would provide a convenient thread for progression: as the night goes on, the subject gets more and more tired, and simply can't see straight anymore.
Framing of the Word document. Again, same as the computer and the keyboard, I wanted a variety that would suggest progression, first a broader shot, then something that focuses on a few lines typing, then one line, and at varying levels of clarity. I also played around with the built-in dictionary and thesaurus, a favorite pastime of mine when I don't know what to write and decide that certain words could be . . . wordier.
Framing of the iTunes window. I wanted it to be clear that it was iTunes I was playing music from, so focused on the change from a Word window bar to an iTunes window bar, the iconic control buttons, and scrolling through my massively long music collection. If you look closely, you'll see I actually select the song I chose to use in post-production (more on that detail later). Again, the overbearingness of and overreaching abilities of computers these days.
Framing of sickness. I wanted to suggest the subject was sick, so I shot my hand pulling tissues out of a kleenex box. Because I wanted the satisfying rustle that it would intonate, I put my shotgun mic by the box, but only noticed in post that you could see it, ever so slightly. I would solve this and another problem with that later. I also filmed a zooming shot of some medication scattered across my desk and my hand picking some up. The detail was reasonable but not so reasonable that one could ascertain whether it's adderall (gasp, college kids abusing prescription drugs?) or harmless pseudoephedrine.

The way I scheduled things, I took care of what I could by my lonesome, knowing full well that I cannot and will not film myself and that any of my friends I pull out of their room to be my subject would only do so for about 15 minutes and with a reasonable amount of direction. So in exchange for some Pocky sticks, I coerced my friend Ben Campbell into being my poor bastard of a college student-subject for fifteen minutes and fifteen minutes only. My main motivation for him, a self-described thespian and improvisationalist, was "frustration" which he initially took as "sexual frustration." Once I sat him down at a computer, he seemed to get it. To put him in the mood and to simulate conditions I went through, I put the song I framed as playing on my iTunes on repeat and shouted motivations at him:
Framing of a relatively focused subject. Just as the eye would see it, someone in front of a computer, sipping at a travel mug full of tea, maybe typing something ocassionally, but otherwise undaunted by the task ahead, focusing on the waist up
Framing of bodily details and appendages. I took great liberty to film his mouth, eyes, and hands in various positions and stages of action. They are, after all, the windows and the machinery of the soul...
Framing of a sick subject. This involved him blowing his nose and throwing the tissue to the side. What I didn't realize when taking this was that I had told Ben to move the kleenex box, but as I would find out, I couldn't use the shot of the kleenex box anyways, so eventually I just filmed myself reaching into a desk drawer and pulling out tissues from there. It also involved him popping pills, which were just cepacol lozenges, of which I got him chewing, which looked good out of focus.
Framing of an increasingly frustrated subject. Eventually, everbody has to learn sometime. Naturally, I started out with him acting with his whole face, literally blowing off some steam and getting on with it. This is in contrast to the starkly-angled shots of him putting his face down, from above and below. Kind of a "oh how the mighty fall" moment, juxtaposing the two. My favorite shot of his frustration, however, is when it's on the desk at a skewed angle looking upwards towards the screen and his face is partially obscured by it, again suggesting the presence it has on him.
Framing of a subject who has removed himself to regain some sort of sanity: Originally it was wandering the hall, him doing the "what the fuck am I doing" dance, but I chose something more simple in the time given, slumped up against an interior wall, rubbing the face, scratching the head in a manner of thought or apprehension or complete surrender. I let him act that one out.
Framing of someone who has more or less regained some sanity. The action in these shots, rather than the framing drives it, as he picks his head up and starts to type again.
Framing of the counter-argument to that last shot, where the final bit of frustration is realized. Again, something relatively neutral, as if they're level opponents in some metaphorical match between machine and computer. He loses, of course, but not without slamming the computer lid down first. Score, zero, zero.
Framing of the subject asleep. Basically medium and close-up shots of him sprawled out on his bed, or in a fetal position, mouth slack-jawed, not visibly breathing, still dressed. Taken in both low-light and lit conditions as if he either fell dead asleep or fell asleep with some foresight, i.e. turned off the light.

So I got a lot done with Ben in fifteen minutes. It was quite good, seeing as how I took a raw 7 or 8 minutes worth of him, rather than the hour and half or so I spent getting twenty minutes of something visibly decent.

Reaction and thoughts on today's film

2007-02-21T16:03:00.000-06:00

For inspirational purposes, we're watching a film today in class. I'm generally excited and awaiting something wonderful.

SUCCESS! It's 8 1/2 by Fellini. Never seen it, but have heard it's essential cinema. Let's watch...

Done. I was confused at first, thinking this would be something like Godard, without the French. It had a very shaky series of juxtapositions that confused me at first, like the man suffocating in the car sitting in traffic, but eventually straightened out into something with a plot, which is a big change from Sans Soleil. The plot was also confusing, but revealed itself as a movie about... movies, or at least the creation of such. I find it somewhat providential we watched a movie about the creative process seeing as how I had a hard time coming up with a workable concept. So perhaps, for my approach, I'll use a lot of handsome Italian actors and actresses. Seriously, they are all very fashionable in a bourgeois sense of the word, or at least that's how Fellini depicts them.

Right. Onto the nitty gritty. One could infer a lot about this movie, like maybe how it frustrated Fellini in the process, or how he dealt with personal problems of his own. Or one could read the Wikipedia article on the matter (we'll just call this giving credit where credit is due). As a matter of art imitating life, one would somewhat correctly infer that Fellini had director's block, like the protagonist Guido, but in a great twist of fate, life imitated art in that he eventually frustrated one of his producers by not finishing a film for which he had built an elaborate set, like the rocket launching site in 8 1/2. What I get out of all of this is that the only answer to creative frustration is meta-art. Art about art. Don't feel like writing a paper? Write a paper about writing a paper, or at least incorporate some dialogue about your thought process during your most frustrated times. That's what I did for a German paper I had to write and which ended up taking on the life of the aesthetic writing I wrote. Basically 8 1/2 is the ultimate cop-out, albeit a well-done cop out. On the other hand, it's the most powerful statement of how art is not something without a body or a soul, it has so many layers and a mind of its own simply because it originates within someone. It's also a continuum, it is a moment or series thereof in the director's mind, and will continue in time outside of the work, and like any moments in our lives, affect it accordingly. Again, art imitates life and life imitates art. It's the circle of life, or a series of cliches for that matter.

I really don't feel like injecting explicit personal anecdotes into processes I'm working on, like Guido's, however, they provide such a good context within this film. What stood out the most of those injections was his childhood experience with guilt, a great Catholic emotion. How it's painted is as something so stark, so institutional. In black and white, the confessional booths or the court of church fathers before which young Guido appears stick out in my mind and I'm sure his. Overall, the aesthetic of film was a pastiche of these memories interwoven with the surreal plot of a director's life gone awry. How cool is that?

Aesthetic Part One, Take Two: Another Approach

2007-02-19T16:52:00.000-06:00

Let's try this again.

Evening. The dark window sitting behind me, reveals to me the cold world outside, and among the 12 singly-paned pieces of glass a landscape of students coming to and fro, some inside, some to that octagonal edifice of a workout center, all atop the layers of snow that has impeded man and his herd of vehicles. I sit and contemplate closing the blinds or keeping them open, rather than filling up that empty plain of a Word document save for a name, a class, and an assignment. Paper number 1. Art or German or Computer Science or something like that. Something I care deeply enough about to keep it off until the after-dinner hour, Thursday night, wedged into the end of the week by other empty Word or emacs documents that were miraculously filled with only minutes to spare. I hope for a similar situation. I hope to cut a hole through my head and let those ideas flow out on this glowing monstrosity, or save that, build a machine that I can plug into the USB port and will take care of things for me, a couple concepts or themes at a time. That's years away, and unfortunately, I am in the present, and five minutes have passed. I should be thinking about computer architecture or the effect of Romanticism on German thought, or what to write to video. Whatever it is I need to do. I commence the thought process by walking down the hall to fill up my borrowed Kitchen Gourmet brand water-heater-kettle whatever-it's-called. It's a white cylinder and I wonder how I could describe the water level inside of it as a function of how much it's tilted under the arc of the water coming out of the stainless steel box in front of me. At this angle, the rate at which the water rises is decreasing, but will eventually become asymptotic, until it overflows and I curse a few angry words for pressing a metal button down too long. These are the things I think about. I've been here long enough.

Plugged in, that white cylinder is a chorus of air bubbles nucleated at the bottom of a gray circle that underneath is some sort of coil or ceramic heating element. The circle that the bubbles come out of suggests a coil. I could be wrong. It begins with a low hum, then it becomes an ebullient simmer, and then a roiling, toiling boil. It huffs and puffs and lets out invisible clouds of moisture and wets the air inside this dried out room. With a satisfying click, I rotate the dial to "off." The choir ends their song. I pick it up and empty out the hot water into the stainless steel travel mug I swagged from work, complements of some engineering firm, Johns Manville. Maybe they design water heaters or travel mugs. Or better yet, osmosis machines that you can attach directly to your brain into your USB port. There's always technology not yet marketed out there. I could not be completely crazy. I unwrap a bag of tea with another satisfying rustle of a sound and dip it into it's bath, in and out, until it's dark and soaked with it's briny, earthy goodness. This will keep me going for a while, I hope.

I set the mug down like a gavel on the wooden expanse of a desk, atop which is that aluminum-clad, wonderful technology that I have devoted my college days to sitting at and staring intently into for hours upon hours a day. The plain of a forested plane is scattered with the debris of academic warfare, a few depleted shells of radiant orange post it notes, missiles of pens and penciles, bloodied battlegrounds of syllabi and scribbled notes. Below them were signs from other times, like a note from my girlfriend, taped down and immortalizing the time she noticed I had made her the background of that aluminum laboratory in front of me. Among the wastes stand empty factories or office buildings, a civilization of technological life-enhancers. I can work inside this Bluetooth mouse and avoid having to commute to my computer. I can live inside a cell phone. I can recall my memories in this stack of digital video tapes. And towering above them is the inverted silo of caffeinated, bitter water. It feeds me, sustaining this distorted sense of time and alertness.

And still, the empty word document. I consider taking notes, and resurrect the dead from battle. I steal from the graveyard of deceased papers and desecrate their blank, untrodden side. I write in large letters. I write in small letters, equally unintelligible. It is all to no avail. I draw a bunny, or something resembling a broken cat. I start typing instead. The keys are a pitter-patter of activity for a few seconds. Then they fall into a slumber. Then they awaken with more intensity and die with equal decorum. This repeated pattern of life and death, planting and picking yields a meager crop of words, and together a short bale of sentences. Not nearly enough for an introduction. If words are all I have, then I am homeless and living under a bridge. I take great pride in the few precious ideas already presented, I search them over and feel them for their soundness. I look up a word in the dictionary. I look up another on Wikipedia. From there, a viral explosion of encyclopedic knowledge, the result of distraction, a fascination with hyperlinks to other articles, and tabbed browsing. God how I love wikipedia and all it's encompassing knowledge.

I decide this is bad way to do things. It's hours since I began. Probably two of them. Still a lot of time to develop relatively little, a lot of time to develop the rest of a relative lot. I pace the halls and discuss how we try to internalize nature and how it leads to an inner struggle. Or maybe it was the best way to execute thread synchronization. People look at me when I talk aloud about art and it's consequences. I end up in my friend's room and do a "I'm thinking about things" dance. First the left. Then the right. Then the left a step behind. The right in a similar fashion. Repeated a couple times, with the head down, arms moving as if I am waxing philisophically. Of course, I am. But I'm not nearly as prolific as Plato or motivated like Thomas Mann. I come to something and realize I need to write it down. Or carry around a tape recorder. I lose it and have to start over again.

It wasn't completely a loss. I wrote down a few concepts on my hands. Now I have to carry them out. Save for a name, a class, an assignment, and a few introductory statements, nothing. But soon I'll have something. I look back over the literature. It's as dense as the book it's written in, chock full of information surrounded by examples, anecdotes, internal citations, political dialogue, administrative statements, bureaucratic language, a sense of academic haughtiness, and topped with sprinkles. A single page is intellectually nutritious as a klondike bar. I could use some ice cream. The warm tea hasn't tempered my hunger. I settle on Corn pops, 'cause hey, I gotta have my Pops. They crackle as I cut through their ersatz popped-corn and sugar-coated surface and marvel at the taste of ... corn in cereal form? I could use some soy milk. I puncture the foil opening of one with their little expandable straw and let it pour onto my Pops like a small trickle of milk, but pressed from the bodies of little green pods and somewhat less environmentally detrimental. These are still things I shouldn't be thinking about.

The creative process has stalled. I take a kleenex and release my congestion. I do it again for good measure and shoot the wadded piece of grossness into the trashcan like I'm shooting hoops. Brick. I have to pick that up eventually. My eyes hurt and the letters are blurry. The computer has stolen my soul and has taken on an overbearing role in my life. It isn't that much bigger than a five-subject notebook, but thrice as hefty. It could scorn me like an overbearing mother and beat me up and steal my lunch money like a school-yard bully. It could steal my job, if it had arms. It's probably also somewhat more handsome. I'm pretty sure my girlfriend would break up with me just to be with it. I'm beginning to resent this thing. I'm beginning, that is to say I'm pretty sure I've already started a long time ago, I'm going crazy. The computer has put me in its chains and shackled me to this desk.

I put my head down on my folded hands and drift off. The music I started playing becomes ironic, with lots of uptempo electronic beeps and blips, and obtuse lyrics to match. I look up from an acute angle, and now I'm three millimeters tall, looking up at the facade of a glowing screen, like I'm a small-town boy living in a large, cosmopolitan city. People look different and talk different and everything is unfamiliarly large. If ideas are like water, then this paper is doomed to shrivel up and become a desert, a barren wilderness of topical development. I'll get through this if it takes me until 12 hours from now when it's due. Oh, and it's Friday. Morning. Early. Past my normal 1 o'clock shut-eye time. I look out the window, and like before, a street, the snow, the towering polygon of a fitness facility, and no one. Like a b-movie of a post-apocalyptic future. Except it's happening now and I'm alone with this silver rectangle with buttons on it. It's my only key to saving the world and I don't want to. Let it burn, or fry, or roast. I'm so hungry. I just want to sleep to dream about filet wrapped with pancetta. I will end up waking up with my comforter in my mouth. I try again. It's blurry. I type. It's incoherent. I'll do this in the morning.

I shut the lid and put my head down. Somehow I wake up in a fetal position. I look out the window and see the people, going to and fro. How do they deal with writer's block?

Aesthetic Part One: Pre-production note and other observations about bad weather.

2007-02-17T22:05:00.000-06:00

So my aesthetic writing piece was basically a metaphor for how I felt about my relationship with my girlfriend a few weeks ago. Felt like a good idea, but basically got progressively worse. I had a gut feeling that it wasn't going to last very long at times, and it just kinda crept up on me, killing me slowly by taking whatever sense of warmth and optimism out of me. What I forgot to include was how I eventually turned around, took off my shoes, rubbed my feet while sitting on the sidewalk far behind Assembly Hall, hopped back on the bike and roughed it home. I guess this all reveals a lot about my insecurities. I had the tendency to abuse myself with exercise when things weren't going right since high school, but the difference is now that I'm out of shape, it really does hurt. I sometimes have too many feelings for my safety and well-being.

And then it snowed last Tuesday. I should have thought how it would have been impossible to take principal photography out on the roads of the south farms anyways, but the whiteout and eight inches sealed the deal. So no bike piece unfortunately, or lots of other things. The snow days were bad for me. For one thing, I didn't get a single thing done save maybe a chapter of German lit. Otherwise, like the snowdays of my youth, I played in the snow, bundled up inside, played board games, and then had to unbury some cars out of the parking lot, which led to a major back ache on Thursday. I'm never using the two-foot long emergency folding spade from my trunk ever again. EVER. Unless I need to. Which means next Thursday before I go home. I digress, a lot. What the Snowwednesday took away from me was structured time to sit down and think of a new aesthetic piece or approach to my existing one. I have to do that now.

It was hard enough trying to get that memory on paper in the first place. Mainly because I couldn't think of a memory worth putting on paper and eventually on digital video. Maybe I didn't search hard enough. Yes, that was it. There's this tendency to block out everything that, in my mind, isn't exceptional. And in that regard, I have really high standards. I could always try the luddite approach and try capturing some experience I had during the course of my week. One emotion I could encapsulate is excitement, there's a lot to be excited about. One subject I consciously avoided was the snow. Although convenient, it's too convenient. I figure at least one of my classmates will do something about it, and avoiding this preserved some semblance of originality. Plus I'm loath to put my camera in jeopardy by virtue of cold weather or moisture. Strike that idea from the record.

I'm now sitting in class and having a hard time coming up with ideas. I think I'll just try the original approach but in a different way. I'm too confounded by the fact that I'm choosing a subject matter and a story based on my schedule or technical restraints. And I hate this. I don't want to be restrained in my quest for creative expression and I am, I'm letting myself become that way. It's also hard because in some ways, I want to be the subject and behind the camera. This is an impossibility that I cannot get over. This is my tendency to micromanage. I'm making this too hard. I'm trying this again.

Reaction and thoughts on Sans-Soleil

2007-02-12T16:07:00.001-06:00

future Memories
Global, woven images.
a Haunting soundscape.

To reduce San-Soleil to a haiku would be trite, but I just did. Forgive me. I didn't get it. And it's been a while. I just read the online text from where we left off in class, but it's little substitution for watching it again, in it's entirety, to get a real feel for it. The first time I saw it, I had to reduce it to a series of images, a narrative of sorts. Actually, to call it a narrative just confuses the issue. It was a documentary - but about what? The association between the images of Africa, Japan, and Iceland is loose at best. Is it some sort of 41st-centurian travelougue? Am I supposed to see things in multiple Vonnegutesque dimensions? I mean what the hell people?

Here's a different approach: it's all about memory and it's recollection. Our 41st centurian is merely leaking images out of his visual cortex onto our video screens and being narrated by Marker to make things interesting. The stream of consciousness approach makes good sense in this case, the recollections come out in blocks, related somehow by time or in this case, place, but are otherwise scattered in their subject. One could pick out various themes, youth, protest, death, war, religion basically a cultural anthropologist's wet dream. The common thread that binds them, though is how they're remembered and recalled, through Marker's lens. We are not supposed to suspend our disbelief at all. We are supposed to know that the woman's face from the beginning of the movie is only visible for 1/24th of a second, owing to shyness or cultural taboo.

From this one can infer that memory is rather impersonal, almost collective in a Jungian sense, the rememberance of something past is put down on record, permanently, rather than a biochemical process and evoked by words or paralinguistic gestures. Memory comes from moving images. Thus, feelings come from moving images. Everything so unique about visual cognition can be simulated by current technology. Mind you, it's completely ersatz in many ways. Its original context is lost. Its exigency is lost. The way the memories were originally assembled is lost. In a way, Marker is pointing us to how he wants to remember things, what to feel while remembering it, and what to tell the grandchildren when you talk about San-Soleil.

This is a potent example of how we are supposed to consider the potential of images as a series of memories. They are meant to tell. They are meant to evoke. Clever showing this before we begin our aesthetic video process... I'll end this by speculating on the meaning of 'san-soleil'. It means 'sunless' in english. That's half the battle. The other half is trying to pick out something from the film. The only part in the narration that refers to 'sunless' is alluding to the Mussorgsky song cycle. I tried to find a part of it on Altavista and got some guy singing operatically. Never mind on that. I'll assume it's full of pathos and longing for glories past, good Russian emotions. I'm guessing the 41st centurian hasn't a conception of emotion, at least in the kind that makes you shoot yourself, prompting him to jog in memory back in time. Thus the title refers to the dissattached view with which Marker tries to assemble his memories. Is he successful in this mission? Perhaps. Or perhaps it's an ironic comment on the fact that cinema cannot be dissattached if it merely an extension of memory.

Aesthetic Writing Assignment. An excerpt

2007-02-12T16:06:00.000-06:00

The south farms lie on flat, brownish-gray expanses under a speckled January sky, a matte of uneven, wispy whitish clouds, like fresh snow, except trampled upon by a thousand footsteps, now muddled and imperfect. They are divided into squares by strips of dark asphalt that, put in a long line, disappear into the horizon. They meet at crossroads and depart, meeting only again after multiples of miles. I pedaled along one of them one Saturday on a whim, chugging along under clinging layers of lycra and fleece. The wind blows through the vents in my helmet, cooling some spots of my head while leaving other bits of my tussled, untouched hair lukewarm. I extend my sinewy left leg and contract my equally slim right leg in smooth symphonic synchrony causing the series of silvery steel slender tubes beneath me to lurch forward. My bare hands are surrounded in wool and mesh, themselves surrounding the textured wrap of cork that themselves twist around bare black metal that stick out like bull’s horns, ready to strike, impaling the next thing that gets in it’s way. Save for a few automobiles that zoom past the sleepy prairie, there’s not a soul. The desolation reveals a charred stump of a mighty tree that, by virtue of once being the tallest thing around, was struck by lightning and felled in an instant, preserved into an anthill or an organic stalagmite of bark and burned wood. The cold inches towards my feet. In matters of minutes, they bear the brunt of shoes designed for warm weather and for being unwrapped, naked swaths of fake leather and heavy fabric on a platform of studded plastic clipped into a spinning metal contraption. Minutes linger like hours of dancing barefoot in the snow, and I pray for sheaths of warm woven polyester like large socks to cover my feet. I’m hunched over, my chest nearly parallel with the top tube, at an almost right-angle to the invisible line that extends from my immobile center to the rotating, round thing beneath me that, unconnected, could be a torture implement, and could possibly have the same effect, but instead pushes and pulls the pulsating pulley of a chain to another sharp-toothed thing that is tightly secured, unslipping to another round, shrunken Ferris wheel of a thing surrounded in hard, worn, and slightly smooth rubber held taut by trapped tenses of turgid air.

Oh what divine contraption, sent down from the sky to sit beneath my padded posterior. My feet are now numb

...

In-class writing assignment: some sort of dream?

2007-02-07T16:42:00.000-06:00

Some sort of dream:

The blue of the day broke upon my eyes like the splash of a stone in a sea under a somber september sky. It languished. I took a step. Another, in a similar fashion. I rose over a hill, mathematical in proportion and symmetry and imperfect in natural texture, a perfect green. My body, it receded towards this expanse and perfectly parallel, put itself there upon. Eyelids close. Head down, foaming at the mouth, the voice of God talks about MIPS and argues about register locations. Head turns, eyes close again, a vacuum. Stillness, silence, slender sillhouttes, simple shapes, formless wonderful exuberant excellent moment in and out of lecture sleeping deprived processes in c plus plus. My eyes contort and fight the light around outside, battling boredom's blight. I gasp a gaping gaffe and go goalwards. Stuttering steps I stride to the sight and fight the forces that fail. Me.

[I should note my inability to remember dreams very well, or at all. I do, however, remember a recurring motif in which I'm running, putting forth a lot of effort and am not making much progress, taking only short strides and feeling powerless and physically confined. That and I fall asleep in lecture and drift in and out of my professor's drone among random images that I have no neuropsychological reason for seeing (It could be short moments of REM sleep, it could not be)]

Some well-described shots:

Medium. Skewed angle. Lit from four sides, irregular intervals. Still camera. Chalk outline on dingy gray concrete. Blood splattered liberally except where outline would suggest a laying figure. Light rain or snow. Wet. Feet move around the edge of the frame, perhaps we see yellow caution tape. Man stoops down partially out of frame, visible photo flash.

A shot that renders the sensation without being literal:

Men in overcoats, taking notes, asking questions. Child and mother hold each other, while gently weeping. Uniformed man guiding crowd, telling some to move along.

Motif Part Three: Critique and Concluding Remarks

2007-02-05T18:02:00.001-06:00

I had my first critique. Now I'm really an art student. This of course is nominal, my visit to this department is only temporary. There really is no process like this in engineering, sharing each other's work and creating a space where a meaningful dialogue takes place. Plus, there's no creative experssion whatsoever. This is all fascinating to me.

I was encouraged by my peer's comments, and especially glad some pointed out the rougher spots of my work. In particular, I was fairly careless in some of my more staged shots, like the hair dryer or the spoon and bowl. If I could redo any shots, it would be those two, because I believe that thematically they fit within the phrase, but were just not executed with a good deal of forethought. One could say my style is "art by accident," I rely heavily on chance occurances during the shooting process, and if it produces a good image, I'll run away with it. The same does not apply for the editing process, I don't think you can edit without any amount of deliberate planning. And if something doesn't work, it's because you didn't make it work, in a mechanistic way. For example, my repeated images worked in one instance, but not another. One comment was made about the coffee cup and how the repetition didn't work, and I agree with that sentiment. I wasted precious seconds on the same image and had no defensible motive for it's inclusion. Luckily, I percieve that these nuances do not take away from the piece as a whole.

If this was an experiment, it was carried out successfully in terms of variety, pacing, aural qualities, some semblance of narration, etc. In other areas, not so well, but the process is a continual one, and improvement is an upward vector, whatever that means (to which I have yet to inject some meaning).

What I liked about other students' projects was the variety of their approaches, beyond my assembly of images having to do with each other. Some had a certain subtlety that I was unable to achieve. Some were over the top in terms of production values, others were minimalist in approach and had the same effect. Overall I enjoyed watching their projects, as it served to remind me how functionally fixed I really am. What I thought were a million different possibilities is more like a billion or so. I wish I had something more insightful to say at this point about the motifs in general, but it's not over yet. It's a continual process.

Here's what my group members had to say about Circles:

Danny: I really liked your shots. There was some aspects to them that seemed to interfere with the circle motif, but for the most part I felt that they actually added to the film and gave it more character. Your choice of music was good, and it synced up really well with the movie, and it's usually hard to make that happen. I really like your shot out the window of the library. The motion in the background really adds to that one.

Edward: I thought your video was so amazing because of the huge variety of detail you were able to capture from the motif of circles.

I especially thought your video had good transitions, the way you had the shots change in sync with the accents of the song, which gave the film a good flow. What I saw was that you were linking groups of circular objects, such when you had the picture of the no bikes sign, then the bike wheel, and the bike sprocket; the eye close-up to eyehole on the door; the music cover to ipod to record playing, etc. These groupings worked out, my favorite groupings probably involving the shots of the eye, since our eyes are the ultimate circle of perspective, they make the best transition between the different circle groups. My favorite shot that I think many others liked also was the elevator buttons scene, where you perfectly synced the pressing of the buttons with the music gave me a high point in sensation, it was so well done.

One thing that stood out a little was the incorporation of time. In the beginning of the film I really like how you start out with a shot of a window in a dark room with the sun and then to the green clock to paper sun to outside. Then towards the end you have shots of the moon, suggesting a passing day narrative, especially since you end the film at the beginning shot of the high window with sun shining through. Yet this time narrative doesn't necessarily fit in with the groups of shots in between I discussed in the last paragraph, but it's something you don't really notice until after you've watched the whole video. So maybe I would suggest to maybe remove the moon shot maybe to maybe not disrupt the circle groups you have going on. Other than that, this video was definitely one of my favorties. Great job dude.

Will: I think that your footage has a keen freshness, not only in the way it was shot, but also in the juxtaposition of the images. I loved the gear thing hanging on the bulletin board particularly. As I said in class, the repetition of the coffee mug felt a little unnecessary given the extraordinary range of your other images, but that's a really minor quibble. Like Cory, I feel that the brief instances of human presence were intriguing rather than distracting. The only exception was that for some reason the shot of someone pretending to eat distracted me; maybe because it felt artificial whereas your other images had a nice "found art" quality to them. The union of music and image was another strong point; one didn't interfere with the other and they had a balanced cohesion.

In terms of the overall "motif" I felt you accomplished your goal nicely. The suggestion of a progression (the daytime and nighttime shots of the circular window - splendid!) was subtle and enjoyable. The way that you combined things of such a varied sort (symbols dancing with eyes and windows and other objects) was commendable and stimulating.

Motif Part Two: Post-production.

2007-02-04T20:41:00.000-06:00

I'm skipping over photography, because, like I said in one point two, it's not nearly as essential in the process, like raking leaves to clear a yard. My analogy has failed. It is important, but I'm just going to mention it in here: I took lots of circles. I used a tripod for the 18 or so hours I had it, and took even more circles. The outside ones were particularly difficult because it was maybe zero degrees outside. The inside ones were easy, but it was tough to do close-ups to fit my viewfinder guide circle for small ones. There was no preponderance of planning, other than the few motifs I knew were worth some space on tape.

Importing, I was impressed by uniformity of the circles taken using a tripod and liked the contrast with those not using a tripod. Before trimming clips en masse, I figured out the correct phrase timings. It looked good. I then went ahead trimming clips en masse. I organized them thematically and had some semblance of a narration. Any mention of the nuances of the editing process will just detract from the piece. I’ll mention them here:

Having noticed a thematic thread among my images, I decided I would delineate some sort of meangful narrative. I had thought all along that I wouldn't have wanted just a random assembly of images, but rather something that on a deeper level would invoke some sort of response.
I started with the worm's eye shot out the exterior window from a skewed angle to begin with. It sort of suggests morning or at least a sense of wonder at the clouds outside. The implication is that it is a circle although that the image is an ellipse from the angle I shot at. Otherwise, when I took the shot, I just knew that it would be a perfect opening shot.
Next, I juxtaposed more images that suggest morning, or some sort of routine that would prepare someone to facing the day.
I repeated images, but obviously not in consecutive order. The effect evokes, within each "phrase" of the piece, a sense of repitition. Yes, this is redundant, but my motif is about circles. So, it's just another to invoke circularity.
Then I selected images that suggest mobility, or transportation. Placed after images of routine, it begins to make sense; after we get ready for something, we have to get there, somehow.
After this is a human element, a close of my friend's eye. It's the first image that isn't a uniformly sized circle. It was also the first example of how I'm limited by equipment, the field of view on the camera can't do extreme close ups. So I couldn't do my Kubrick homage, unfortunately. Other than that, it suggests individual disuniformity. (I think that' s a word, I'm trying to avoid using cliched descriptions, so I'll use obtuse ones instead.)
Among that are images suggesting a destination, like work or school or some other place.
Next are images of art or music. I'm guessing this is a "day in the life of..." an art or music student, or both. Or maybe I just thought the images looked good and worked together as a theme.
The fifth phrase is unfortunately the last phrase, and I kinda wondered how I had only used about 35 of the 90 or so images already, and realized I couldn't include a lot of them. Such is the fortune of someone who takes a lot of footage.
The last phrase is unofficially night, or some sort of winding down. The glowing round thing is the moon, and like the eyes, the camera doesn't have great telephoto capabilities. I wanted, however, to include it simply because it was a beautiful full moon taken on a crisp, cold, and clear night. The aluminum can was a Moutain Dew can, so one could say that this is really a day in the life of a student, something we could relate to (also as we will see in the phrase, night almost instantly turns into day, like a sleep deprived student).
The passage of time is clear in my motif, it is appropriate that the last tempometrically similar image is a clock before it rushes into the final blur of images, framed through the eyes of my final subject. After that, I repeat the opening image before ending, suggesting that the series of images could be repeated again in a similar fashion. If anything, the piece suggests that the formula for existence is, Day, night, repeat.

And that is all. Movie will be uploaded once Netfiles works properly:

Motif Part One point Five: Pre-Post-Production.

2007-01-31T17:03:00.000-06:00

I'm really getting out of order here. There are myriad reasons why.

I'm in class with only four clips I took to test out my view-finder guide, it was enough to set-up how I'm going to edit my piece. I guess you could call this an post-production heavy project, versus the art and literacy piece which one had to come into with a even a little deliberate planning. In essence, that was an exercise in shooting to shoot. This is becoming an exercise in shooting to edit.

No seriously, I got a lot of out today's exercise. Basically I pared down the images in repeating order to match the repeating phrase in the first part of the song. It is exactly 12 seconds long which, for editing purposes, makes it absolutely wonderful. Just add 12 seconds to the playhead, and not have to deal with trigesimal arithmetic to figure out how many frames to add. Plus, the phrase repeats itself about 7 times, and I only need to take 5 of those to get a minute. I couldn't have picked a better song to use, or so I thought. There's a lot of inner intricacies in those few 12 seconds that I've only partly picked apart, and make matching the images to the song a little difficult. In some instances, the sound lingers, which makes a better effect than if the image lingers. Ideally, the image and sound should have some distinguishing change simultaneously. It's all a matter of persistence. Unfortunately I deleted the original clips and am working now with just the pared down versions, and it's patently difficult to extend your clips using nothing.

Other than that, it's imperative I use a tripod to take footage. A stable image is basically paramount to the uniformity with which I'm expressing this motif. It's pretty much gotten out of hand, how far I'm taking this. No, I won't be using the tripod for every shot, just most of them. In the end, this motif should embody motifs, it should be a meta-motif, a motif about motifs. If I could use motif in a sentence any more times than that, I'm going to do nothing more than give myself a pat on the back. Motifs in just about anything literary or visual should be subtle in their pervasiveness, not redundant. Fortunately I don't have to put a lot of creative thought into the process, like something Oscar Wilde would approve of. I just need to shoot some damn circles. I find that the only thing harder than being subtle is not being subtle. And I'm trying my best at it.

Film Manifesto

2007-01-29T18:21:00.000-06:00

What I’d really like to accomplish is to create a piece that tells something so profound, it is regarded as shocking or moving. It would need to be the truth. It would need to be original. I feel I have met the former criteria in most of what I’ve done in the past. It is difficult to distort the truth behind images, just how they are collected and presented. In all manners of expression, I pride myself on holding to the truth in that process. It is the latter criteria that I feel is especially daunting.

I have no style. That is, to say, I have a style, a loose pastiche of a lot of different directors’ styles. My style belongs partly to someone else. In a probabilistic sense, someone had to have used a lot of the cinematographic techniques I recycle time and time again, but it still draws heavily upon someone else’s experience. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’ve gushed the most over my brother’s work. We grew up with a Canon GL1, iMovie, and too much free time. The first summer we had both, he tried to redo Fight Club and I tried to do a version of Big Brother with my friends. It was downhill from there; whenever he made something, I stole a lot of the little devices that made his work unique. I knew it then, and he knew it too. And he yelled at me, in that you-took-my-stuff-without-asking kind of way. When he left for school and I had no one to steal from.

Next to my brother, Run Lola Run defined my formative years. I’m still obsessed with non-linear narrative, time, and repetitive imagery. It’s these last two characteristics that pervade my work, including my recent pieces for this class. There’s something about manipulating time, in that you can’t manipulate time in reality, which fascinates me. It’s such a good device for getting through 20 minutes in just 1, to cite an exaggerated case when you would use it. My other biggest influence was Kubrick, particularly in my attempt to remake The Shining, with long shots and steep angles. I did, however, dedicate it to his memory due to his then-recent death. That was clearly not enough to absolve me for not being original. Granted, I was an impressionable eighth grader.

As an engineer, it is my fondest hope to advance the cause of technology through innovation. As an artist, I hope to do the same for our creative consciousness. This is a gradual process. I don’t expect it to happen within the course of developing one piece, but rather over the course of a long, creative campaign. Like science, the process is one of trial and error, and breaking away from established routines to find new ways to understand the world. The medium of film is the same, discovering what works, what doesn’t, and how it affects how an audience, or even the artist, comprehends the world. It means breaking away from old patterns and distancing myself from what I’ve seen before.

Dare to be unique, and see the world in your own way, this is the means to which I can say the truth.

Motif Part One: Pre-production.

2007-01-29T00:30:00.000-06:00

I think I'm going to limit the number of posts per blog page to three. Having to load more than three posts with videos attached to them can add up in terms of bandwith after a while, especially if you're liable of being rate-limited. Having no internet is no fun after the first few minutes, let alone hours.

That said, I'm not sure where it started, but I was thinking I want to explore circular shapes for my motif. It was probably long before today that I thought it would be interesting to capture a number of varying images of basically the same thing, in essence, a motif. It would be great, I could film the moon, I could film the sun, I could even film someone blinking and have it change colors, á la 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unfortunately, the moon is not full, it's probably a bad idea to film the sun even during winter (and even if I'm fortunate to even see the sun in these cold months), and I really think I've done enough Kubrick homages in the past (although, I'll probably still do this one because I lack that much creativity... and it's too great an allusion to pass up). I still plan on doing this. Not only do I have a series of images, I have the perfect music to use, basically anything by the Appleseed Cast, who I saw this past Saturday. Their opening band, the insuferably obtuse sonic-indulgence-that-is Asobi Seksu, had a transparent drum kit, and upon seeing it I thought, 'that's it, I'm doing circular shapes.' There was something about realizing the quality of roundness, as if an opaque snare drum wouldn't give me that revelation.

Back to the Appleseed Cast: their instrumental stuff has this great circular quality to it with long, repeating riffs that have such a vast sound to them. I definately plan on laying down a track of theirs first and changing the image to match the bass or a rhythm beat. Oh, how my excitement right now is uncontainable! To make the circular shapes uniform, I cut out a piece of packaging tape, applied another piece of packaging tape to the first so their sticky sides were together, drew a large circle on it, and taped it to my view-screen. It works great, but it would probably help if I had a tripod or a steadier hand. Image stabilizers can do only so much...

That about does it for pre-production notes. As for principal photography, I really ought to preface the fact that I never go into shooting with more than a concept or a video prompt in my head. It's probably a good habit to start planning shots, but for this assignment particularly, I'm going to rely on taking video as need.

'Art is hard' and other trite observations of what 'art' really means

2007-01-27T14:58:00.000-06:00

Again, love the open-ended assignments. Of course, there was some sort of rigidity, it was either "what is art?" or "what is literacy?" There are still a million and three ways to go about doing this. I wavered a bit on which of the million I three paths I should go down as I stood in the hallway a few doors down from where I sleep and pondered whether I should film my friends sitting there doing art or reading. If I had done literacy, I would have just filmed people reading or studying, spliced in a few images of the words they were reading and then slapped on some loud, ironic soundtrack. Loud and ironic clearly does not equate to literacy in the in physical manifestation of such, but it's nearly as exciting, evocative, and powerful in expressing ideas and communicating them in a manner that will remain unchanged for eternity. Or something like that.

Instead, I filmed people talking about art. Because I have no idea what art is. As an engineer (read: scientist and charlatan) I think that anything that requires technical skill is art. Science is an art. Writing computer code is an art. Those things are just extremely difficult and are brought about by effort, like painting, scuplting, photography, wicker basketry, etc. But what about nature? Is there not a lot of artistry in nature? The arrangement of leaves on a branch, or fields of wildflowers, or penguins in Antarctica? Obviously there is a lot of art in the world. For our purposes though, it's safe to assume that art refers to something technical (hence man-made) and an inherently aesthetic exercise (excluding all the fun explosions and supercomputing you find in science).

Or at least, that's how my subjects defined it. I left the question as simple as the project would suggest: "what is art?" Some were art majors. If they represented some discipline that is not a physical medium, I followed up with "how is [your discipline] art?" Some were reluctant, others more than willing. Some droned on, others skillfully exuded about their practice. Some offered to show me their art. All gave me some insight into something I pretended not to know about. I even filmed some of my friends watching the State of the Union address while one of them strummed on a guitar. In sake of verisimilitude, I simply asked them on the spot without time to prepare statements.

In total, I shot about 25 minutes of footage, and paring it down to less than 3 minutes proved progressively less difficult. After reviewing the shots, I chose the image of my friend Justin writing on what appears to be the lens of the camera as an introduction. This was a technique I used in an earlier project, wherein the camera is placed behind glass and focused in front of the subject on the surface of the glass. This is a good way of simulating the perspective of a whiteboard. Because it visually emphasizes the words being written and the physical process of writing, it exudes a sense of exposition. After this, I chose a shorter transition before a longer interview. It begins with a medium establishing shot of my friend drawing on her arm and then a tighter close-up for detail. My friend then speaks: "Art is expressing creativity" with a slight pause, followed by a rough cut to her laughing at her sentiment, perhaps at the sense of embarrassment from appearing on video. Otherwise, it functions to lessen the seriousness of the whole piece. In contrast, I placed afterwards Emeka's and Zak's more thoughtful response to the question that otherwise has the same message. Only does my friend Kristin offer a different explanation, that "everything in the world is art" in the sense of material and manufactured consumer goods. For parts of the interview, I voiced her over a few images to add some visual examples. From here, I return to Emeka's interview which emphasizes art as a discipline and means of self improvement, and leaves off with the same rhetorical question the piece attempts to answer.

In juxtaposition to this, I put Russ's overreaching answer, that "art's whatever you want it to be," and follow it with Zak's explanation of how he likes to eat tortilla chips. I was almost not going to leave me saying at the end of the clip, "this is art... clearly," but it only bolsters the self-referencing argument that its inclusion tries to make. On one level, exactly how Zak eats a tortilla chip is "art" and the piece that the audience observes is also art. I appropriately finish the piece with Justin's unironic delivery of the concluding lines and finish it with him playing a few well-toned chords. Just as I ended the piece with music, I finished post-production by adding music to the beginning images, Cursive's Art is Hard, which ironically is all about letting go of who you are to get commercial success.

Again, I'm satisfied greatly with the result, especially its coherence. I still don't know what art is, but could ascertain an answer on various levels after repeated viewings. Unfortuantely, the method of presentation didn't allow me to include all the footage I took, and the inherent message differs from that of the aggregate. For one thing, one of my subjects spoke at length about how art reflects the cultural value we assign it. Others gave functional answers, about how art is a method and a medium. A lot of the the interviewees' messages were also mangled in the editing process, as I made liberal use of documentographic "ellipses," or just plain didn't include part of their messages that didn't fit with the overall meaning. Notably, Russ gave a quip along the lines of "an intellect takes a simple idea and makes it difficult. An artist takes a difficult idea and makes it simple" and expressed how art simply communicates those ideas. If anything, I could use that quote to end this journal entry. I leave it up the reader to read that line again and try to mentally digest it.

...and this is how it turned out. Turn up the volume, the levels are kinda low.

Journaling the adjective and self-discovery process through meaninful images and sounds

2007-01-25T14:33:00.000-06:00

My first impression was “I have to concoct three adjectives?” My second impression was how well I got over the shock of doing something blatantly… creative, for once in my college career. Before I dove into the world of creative neologisms, I borrowed my girlfriend’s digital camera and collected the necessary images that define myself: the bike ridden everywhere, the bizarre rasterized artwork, the hung-up shoes that represent youth and vigor from a bygone era, Allen hall, and a tidbit of computer code showing the toil of such a difficult engineering discipline. That said, I quit my adjective quest for a few hours to think about issues that were important to me. Dodging the difficult task of taking photos of the melting ice caps or having to go out to Savoy to capture the (sub)urban sprawl, I searched the Hall for the typical liberal issues that I would normally hold a sign for if not for the endless hours of other burdens to be overcome, like optimism, anti-Chief-ism, and un-plowed-bike-paths-ism.

So now the adjectives. The first one was easy. I wanted to capture a feeling of contrast, something at ends with itself and at the middle very peaceful. Something Zen. I thought of “immotion” – maintaining a constant position through constant motion. Like trackstanding on a fixed-gear bicycle, the filming part was simply that. I then realized “immotion” is less a noun than an adjective, so I added “-al” to the end. “Immotional.” Like emotional, but not. More Zen. My next was not so easy. I though of a definition first, the quality of a inelegant, inexpensive, and aesthetically unappealing solution. This lead me to my friend Ben's room whereupon I chanced his crappily-affixed whiteboard on the underside of the bunk above where he sleeps. Henceforth was Begineering born and it's descriptive counterpart 'bengineered.' The third was a complete dodge to the assignment, I just took a photo of a painting I helped to create by throwing paint off a parking garage onto the canvas below. Garage-tossed was hastily crafted as a means of describing art that is the result of probabilistic forces, like gravity, or just by throwing paint off a parking garage.

I made a successful attempt at getting sound to complement one of the above images; I simply pointed my camera at my keyboard as I typed in a manner suiting to Steven Colbert as so many of my friends have pointed out. I'm always concerned with capturing sound poorly due to the fact that my camera has awful sound-recording capabilities. At the price, you would think it attenuates sound better, but it still takes excellent photography. It's best to overcome this failure by pointing the thing close to what you're shooting and hope for the best. This will explain a lot of close-up framing of people, especially when they're speaking.

Lugging both my camera and my computer in my messenger bag to class was an adventure, man was not intended to carry sling multiple bags on his back and bike down Gregory in the cold. I avoided this pitfall in later classes by loading the video into my computer first or my hard-drive second, which fits snugly next to my computer in one bag. Plugging my camera into my laptop in class brought back some memories, I hadn't edited anything this summer when I produced a short piece for my hall's orientation program. I love iMovie for its simplicity and hadn't lost on the little nuances that gets things done really quickly. I need, however, to graduate to Final Cut and take advantage of it's rich feature set, despite the learning curve involved.

I kept the assembly of my images in a logical order and added the obligatory titles. I let the adjectives define themselves (or rather, I defined them) for sake of brevity and the fact that trying to add long dictionary definitions would prove cumbersome. I try to let things speak for themselves and draw on the evocative power of the image. Of course, a well-chosen sound always bolsters an image and can create a strong rhetorical effect. In whatever I make, I try to add some pervasively ironic component, and in this piece I put the iconic measures of the Marching Illini's Three-in-one behind the image of the anti-chief, anti-racism logo. If I had to defend this inclusion, I would probably just cite the fact that the anti-chief movement doesn't have a soundtrack like the pro-chief movement does. So why not co-opt theirs, call it funny, and thus detract from their credibility as a regressive movement? It's exactly that that the juxtaposition of the image and sound intend to do.

Taken as a whole, the adjective process got my feet wet again thinking about images and their inherent and collective meanings. I enjoyed particularly trying to encapsulate who I am into a handful of images and deriving from it some sort of personal insight. Honestly though, I think I'm getting ahead of myself. There is still much to explore and learn.

Take a sneak peek. Higher quality movie coming if not already "higher quality". Meaning something you could bear watching on an ipod:

"Writing with Video" and the implications of self-exprssion and artistic exploration

2007-01-24T20:10:00.000-06:00

I like long titles and by extension I love academia because it creates them. There is nothing quite like a witty, succinct title ruined by a long, descriptive post-script like above. The frustrating part is that they are so completely necessary and reflect a certain amount of security on the part of a time-pressed reader. Do I have time to read about the Diurnal Mating Habits of Uruguayan Rainforest Termites or rather Real-Time Distribution of Small-Scale Data Structuring Algorithms in Assembly Languages*? I don’t. But their titles are well written so I assume they do not lack academic rigor. In short, I’m forced to secretly hate them.

What I really love is stuff like Week-end by Godard, something so completely non-sequitur, encapsulating about 50 years of modern philosophy so as to be genius yet so pretentious and inaccessible that only a few people would get it. I honestly didn’t get it. Reading Wikipedia just now didn’t help me get it. Trying to make some rational, empirical conjecture about what the hell the movie is about from the title alone is so clichéd that I must call it an ‘exercise in futility’. And I dig that. I like obscurity and obliqueness because it represents a good effort of mental diligence to simply watch and piece together. It demands interpretation. And rather than some long string of nonsensical words strung together, film titles like Week-end, or just about any film title, are as carefully chosen as the brush-strokes on a Renoir** (An exception to this is a good favorite of mine, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, which qualifies as ambiguous both existentially and referentially).

As far as other foreign pretensions go, I confess that I have yet to see a Fellini or a Truffaut (I have seen some Herzog and Kurosawa, but who hasn’t?). I have seen a lot of popular German films, ranging from Run Lola Run and Goodbye Lenin to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. They are fascinating simply because they reflect a culture and a filmmaking style I’m not already submerged in. That is not to say I’m completely desensitized to the opiate that is Hollywood. My all-time favorite is The Godfather Part One for its brilliant acting and sheer epic proportion as the quintessential American tale of family, crime, politics and everything in between. I appreciate Wes Anderson’s cycle of films from Rushmore to The Life Aquatic for their particularly strange and well-shot studies of effete, intellectual, and mal-adjusted characters. They’re simply too weird and different not to pass up on a few repeated viewings. Upon a recent viewing of Annie Hall, I now appreciate the subtext that breaking the dramaturgical fourth wall brings forth. Also Woody Allen clearly falls into the mal-adjusted character column.

What I don’t like about films is something along the lines of Crash. Yes, it had a good message and yes it was heart-rending (if you aren’t already in tears when the Iranian father shoots the locksmith’s daughter, you have no heart). It was just very heavy-handed in its attempt to tell me I’m racist (which I claim not to be). Also as an aside, it did not depict Asians in a very positive light. At all. Crash’s brand of social criticism was just a little too much. Other that that, it wasn’t terrible.

I’d like to say that I have the vision of Anderson or Coppola or even Spielberg, but I haven’t developed fully my eye for moving pictures, much less opened it. If I were encouraged to follow my dreams, perhaps I’d have gone to film school. I had everything I needed growing up, a nice camera, a nice editing set-up, the technical know-how, etc. Instead, I was primed for “serious” academia and ended up in engineering school. How cool would it to be a film director? Then again, how big of a connection does it take to make a living in the business? Large-scale production and true artistic vision mix like oil and water. Instead, I ran with the opportunity to take this class and feel right about it. I would like to express myself in a creative fashion and work hard getting credit for it. I feel that I can exceed, especially in the first few movements of the class, the technical learning curve to spend time developing some semblance of artistry or at least come to some realization of how I view the world.

Among all my classes, this is the least straightforward. The title alone suggests that I will write something. To put a mathematical perspective on it, there are somewhere in the order of one million words in the English language after which one can logically put another of something like one hundred thousand words, and some fraction of that initial million thereafter and repeating until a sentence is formed. And from a collection of these sentences, a paragraph. And from a paragraph, something similar to this reflection. At the beginning of this sentence I had written 724 words. Even for a prompted response like this, the number of ways I could have completed it would be a 1 followed by 724 zeros. The possibilities are endless, compared to the math I’m assigned, which normally has one answer. I won’t even get into the “video” part. Together, you have “Writing with Video.” Behind such a simple title lay a gazillion and five different paths I could take, a title which I anticipate enjoying.

*Something I'm likely to end up writing.
**Or 'Insert your favorite Impressionist here.'

My very first ever blog entry. Please hold the phones.

2007-01-24T20:00:00.000-06:00

Holy crap, I can finally call myself a "blogger."

This is a test to see if it will post properly.

This is my ART 250 journal/blog. I'm excited to be in this class as my first entry will show.

So, In the words of William Shakespeare*, "Let's get bus-ay!"

* this is a lie. It was William Faulkner.