Today's Festive Sunrise

So we jumped up this morning to try and get that childhood feeling everyone remembers on Christmas morning. Badger was the most excited. I was pretty bummed out at the clouds blocking a good deal of the sunset, but now that I see the footage, I think the clouds made the video. Merry Christmas.

tonite's sunset

I slept too late and woke up with a bad hangover (which I blame on the Eagles) so I missed the sunrise. I wanted to see if I could improve the video a bit and I think I succeeded. An obvious minor tilting of the camera allowed the automatic aperture to shrink up and a flood of colors came in.

Dave and David

I have been listening to the new David Byrne/Brian Eno album quite a bit lately as it is just what the doctor ordered. I was reading over the liner notes and my jaw nearly dropped when Byrne wrote:

"I attacked the first song, which I think Brian had called “And Suddenly.” I'd just finished reading Dave Eggers's book What is the What?, about a young man named Valentino and his hallucinatory and horrific journey from his destroyed village in Darfur to Atlanta, Georgia and beyond. Valentino's story was harrowing but also beautiful, uplifting (in a un-corny way), and at times even funny. I think I may have been under the spell of his story when I sat down in front of my microphone.

The result is “One Fine Day.” I sang a few harmonies in the choruses to make it sound fuller and better and sent it off to Brian."

Alongside David Byrne, Dave Eggers is one of my favorite people. His contributions to culture really tickle my temples. I have been a longtime reader of McSweeneys, and love all his novels. Anyway, I was pretty excited to hear that one of my favorite songs on the album was inspired by one of my favorite books...

Apparently the whole album is available to listen to from the website(as well as a free mp3 download), and I've embedded it below. Check out "One Fine Day" and then, if you aren't hooked yet, listen to "Strange Overtones" then go get Byrne's 1997 classic Feelings.

YouTube hall of fame

I've been looking for a list like this for a long time.

I received a major dose of the youtube celebrity when we made our way out to YouTube Live about a month ago. It is a new breed of celebrity, one that isn't necessarily super attractive or talented, but incredibly intriguing.

Today's Sunrise

In Case anyone missed it, Badger and I went out today and taped the sunrise. We have been looking for a while for a video project that utilizes our new flip cam that doesn't make friends feel awkward when you shove a video camera in their face, so I thought it might be fun to experiment with some sped up sunrises this winter.


Unfortunately this video kind of looks a bit boring. For the most part, the sunrise is washed out. Ay ay ay.

I sped it up to the point where 1 minute of real time equals 1 second of video time, as the flippercam has a 60 minute taping capacity (although I managed to get a few more minutes out of it today). As far as being the first in a series, hopefully the sunrises will improve as well as the locations. I am torn between having the foreground be empty, or trying to set up something that may be a bit enticing to the viewer... Maybe when I figure out a bit more with the sunrise itself, I can experiment with the settings a bit more. My limited knowledge of photography lenses makes me think the flipcam may not be the ideal camera to attempt this as I can't adjust the aperture or white balance or anything and I feel like a lot of the color disappeared... Maybe it is just hidden and I need to dig it out in Adobe Premiere.

Anyway, I'll be posting the trials here regardless of their quality. I decided to utilize Public Domain music for starters, but we will see what comes in future projects.

An Interesting Comparison

After seeing a clip from Lost Highway over on Jake's journal, I had an onslaught of freaky memories from David Lynch, but I was primarily reminded of a Wes Anderson clip. Let me post the clips side by side, and then list the comparisons:






These clips are great side by side as they more or less show the exact same scene portrayed by two great directors with two very different styles. Blondes walking in slow motion is an easy scene stealer for a movie and I think I may start a side project on this journal collecting a few more from time to time. While I am not the best at analyzing movies (especially David Lynch's) here are a few notes I can make about these two:

1. Both scenes introduce the audience to a pretty twisted love interest
2. The soundtracks align nicely with Lou Reed offering up one song, and Lou Reed student, Nico, singing the other song (which I always thought was a Lou Reed song, but it turns out it was written by Jackson Browne).
3. The blonde hair and dark eyes of the vixens
4. the attempt to remain composed by the men
5. the whole exiting the vehicle bit
6. the fact that these two directors are the favorites of me and most of my friends.

Cooking with Jon

EDIT: WHOOPS- THOUGHT I WAS LOGGED INTO THE SPINTO BLOG... OH WELL, NO POINT IN DELETING THIS NOW.


While we do like to do more than promote tours and shows and other various spinto activities on this blog, sometimes we find that promoting an event is a good excuse to make a silly video... Case in point, tonite in Boston... day off, no show, no Phillies games for a few months- lets make a youtube video promoting our XPN show...

details about the gig after the video:





The XPN gig

Friday December 12, 2009
12 noon
hear it live-
In person: World Cafe Live
on radio: 88.5 WXPN (only for people in or around the Philadelphia area)
online: www.XPN.org



PS- the pasta sauce was a little spicy, but luckily there wasn't really enough of it for anyone to have too much and then there was too much pasta, so everyone had barely any of the too spicy sauce mixed into an extra large serving of angel hair pasta and so the spice (or any of the taste) was mellowed nicely. We had eggnog for dessert.

Spintonic Comics

Here are some more of the old Spintonic Comics I was telling you about. Enjoy:

Pure Zebra by Phil Davis

Untitled

Brodies by Albert Birney

Beef Jerky by Jon Moses

Bearly Able by Thomas Hughes