Archive for August 2009
Small Steps
My progress as a novice movie maker is currently mixed between successfully finishing a video of my song, but stymied with the task of trying to turn it into a DVD that will play on any variety of players. Details, details. There are a lot of details to post-production work. As it is, I got ahead of myself and imported as many images to my iMovie program as I could find, yet neglected to improve any of them with enhancements to brightness, contrast, or saturation. But with my focus at the time explicitly aimed at getting images to match lyrics, I hastily advanced that cause at the expense of tending to adequate preparations. By the time I realized the situation, I decided it wasn’t worth losing the progress accomplished to go back and start over.
If you have been following along, this matches the experience I was writing about after I got back from recording my song. I will allow what I see as flaws to remain in this project. It gives me renewed respect for artists who do this work for a living.
What exposes me as a novice, a true novice, is that I don’t have experience with the software I am using. I peruse the menus, searching for a selection that appears as though it would lead to results I envision, and then bump into a variety of failures until I either change direction and try a different menu or alter my vision of what kind of outcome I will accept. Ok, every once in a while, I get lucky and things happen just like I hope they will. It happens just often enough that I don’t get scared away from trying again to use the software to do things that I don’t actually know how to do. I get some results, but the process isn’t pretty.
I think if I actually used this software more than once a year, I might retain some of what I learn from each experience and develop a basic proficiency, but as it is, I am starting at the beginning each time I get inspired to try. One of the problems is that I have just enough success the first times I use it, that I think my expectations rise, and then when I try again a year later, I find myself increasingly frustrated by the combination of higher expectations from previous success matched against the lack of memory of how I achieved it.
See why I amaze myself when I ever do accomplish these kinds of tasks? Over time, I have come to understand that I can enjoy an acceptable level of personal satisfaction over progress that comes in small steps.
What Weekend?
Sometimes I have difficulty keeping up with the pace of the world swirling around me. Unfortunately, I am one of my own worst enemies. I procrastinate. When a few factors, like weather and working all day on Saturday, pop up in unexpected ways, all the wonderful consequences of my procrastination are revealed. There aren’t enough hours in the rest of the one day of my weekend to accomplish what I’ve left undone.
Yesterday I began assembling a photo slide show to accompany the song I recorded. I’ve got 2 more nights to finish it. Squeaked in a couple of home chores and that’s the extent of my weekend. Much to my dismay, I spent over 9 hours at work on Saturday. Monday comes way too quick when I do that.
My creative conscience won’t let me give up however, and I will keep tweaking my project till it suits my imagination or I absolutely run out of time. I suppose I could show a preliminary version on Wednesday if I decide I’m not happy enough with what I have by then. Are you getting curious to see what I’m up to?
Little Lights
Little lights
scattered
underneath the night
echoing something
not quite right
things coming to this
after all these years
we’ve had to fight
for principles like peace
real understanding
and an abolishment
of fear and blind suspicion
but right or wrong
the balance of light and dark
persists forevermore
let’s combine our lights
and hang out together
in the warmth and love galore
while those much less inspired
brood in their doom and gloom
on the far side of the room
like dust destined to settle
as we sing
our hopeful tunes
© 2009
Save This
Save This
What if it was random writing?
Kind of like stream of consciousness
Only less organized
Not that some coherent thought
Would voluntarily show itself
A lot like the feeling you experience
When you are waiting for your ride
How many different versions
Of strictly rhetorical questions
Does it take to produce
A result so much less inspirational
Before the fabrication becomes
Entirely forged self evident
And the versions that evolve ensure
That self-conscious dash for the car
As if every eye was blatant aware
Saw each nuance and crack in veneer
With all judgment force then passed
Whole reputations effectively formed
Witness for defense denied
Reason most likely wronged
Imperceptibly darkness dawns
Light that was but a different shade
Suddenly burns bright the increased contrast
While still the line of cars
Fails to match the waiting heterogeneity
Though in transition
As slow as the evening falls
One seems to find the other
As if choreographed by fate
Until the lone straggler
Gets picked up late
And whisked to the next destination
Leaving solemn solace behind
To deal with all that remains
Of the questions
Which linger unasked
Hinting at perpetual
Ineffectual translation
©2001
Being Recorded
I had an opportunity last night to have one of my songs recorded by a friend with some very nice equipment and all the know-how to go with it. The experience triggered a few things that intrigue me. Whenever I try to record a song, I am made painfully aware of how impressive professional recording artists really are. Just hearing a song on the radio on the way home, any song, after having listened to my own, over and over again for the previous several hours, has me marveling over their ability to produce an outcome so free of flaw. It is a supreme exercise for me, given my tendency for perfection, to allow myself to be recorded.
For me, just getting a first cut recorded with few enough flaws to make it worth saving is a significant milestone. Any thought of doing it all over again reveals an equal risk of just introducing additional goofs. Best to leave well enough alone and take a shot at polishing the bad spots. Sometimes we can cover them up, other times, we are able to cut them out. But every step takes time and you can consume minutes in what feels like seconds. Time flies by incredibly fast during the recording process. For my purposes, I am able to let an awful lot of the imperfections remain, and for the sake of time, I try to minimize the post-production noodling. But the outcome does end up having a fair amount of “character” that separates it from the artists who record for a living.
It amazes me to consider the number of musicians and performers who go through the work of producing a recording, and have the chops to do it at a very high quality, yet remain in the tier just below a level that brings wide recognition and a comfortable level of income. There really are a very limited number of people who work at the top level of success, and the majority of accomplished artists that perform for a living are doing so in relative obscurity. Trying to record one of my own songs brings me heaps of new respect for those who do it for a living.
Another thing that fascinates me is the recording software and the amazing number of features available to manipulate audio tracks. I pretty much understand a microphone and a way to record the signal, but only rudimentary details beyond that; and I went to school to learn recording technology, …a lot of years ago now. Watching someone who knows the software, glide through the menus and coax all sorts of creative results from the clicks and drags, is mind boggling for me, partly because I know some of what is happening and how beyond me it would be to accomplish the task on my own.
I am lucky to have the friend and his resources. Now to synchronize my song with my slide show… It is less than a week from my chance to premier it to its target audience.
Thinking About Family
Thinking about family has me remembering a period of feeling disconnected from my family of origin. When we would gather for holidays or family events, I found myself feeling out of the mix, like oil and water. Topics of conversation, attitudes about the world, parenting styles, life choices of behavior and activity, all seemed to clash with my perspectives at the time. Either as a result of how this made me feel, or because the same feeling wasn’t occurring when I was involved in activities with my wife’s family, I was finding it more comfortable to be with the family I married into.
It didn’t last. However, one factor during that time related to my feeling disconnected, was some self-examination I was doing that involved my father. I had recently identified that depression was a contributor to my less than ideal life experience and one very vivid demonstration of it manifest in my behavior with my wife and children that mirrored how my father behaved. I was finding myself developing an adult life that patterned right off the one in which I grew up. It actually felt quite natural. It wasn’t anything I had to learn, it was how I already, inherently knew how to behave. But it was imperfect, and I label it as dysfunctional. To behave differently was something that I would need to learn.
One of the facets of that learning involved recognition. It created a conflict in me when I was amid my family of origin, as I struggled to recognize signs and interplay that were once invisible to me, and identify my reactions and my role in it all. At the time that I was trying to change my thinking and how I interpreted the world around me, I seemed to struggle the most when I was with my family of origin. In hindsight, that doesn’t surprise me at all. I believe that as I change myself, others eventually change their interactions with me and that may be part of why I don’t feel uncomfortable around my family of origin now. That, and the fact that I have had more time refining my role of practicing better mental health in my own head.
There is something oh-so-pleasing about rediscovering your own people. I don’t remember the specific incidence, but I definitely had a distinct “aha” moment of recognition that there were others who are more like me than anyone else I’ve met, and they are my siblings. I am a Hays. Regardless any differences we may have, there are basic characteristics that form the foundations of who we each are. Any time I have had a bit too much exposure of other people’s families, I now know that I just need to get together with my siblings and find connections with someone who deep down shares an entirely unique bond with me. It allows me always to remember how lucky I am to have family.
Hays Reunion Ruminations
In the afterglow of the Hays family relations gathering of 2009, designated as first annual, I’m finding a mix of glee over what fun it all was and some wonder over why it never became an annual event years ago. Mom would have loved it. I actually think it is a good thing that doing this in August keeps it separated from the distractions of it being a holiday celebration and the obligations that usually become associated with such. Of course, the main factor in the reunion becoming a priority, and this year being our ‘first annual’, is the death of our mom, Gramma Betty, last year on August 13. We now must be more vigilant to maintain connections with the family in the absence of that last living common individual to gather around. We are just 5 individual families, each with our own descendants/families. We are each the matriarch/patriarch of our own clans. Maybe we always were before, but we are more so now.
When I look at the photos from the weekend that are being posted to share, I become increasingly aware of how much goes on in a weekend and how small a portion of it I am able to experience first-hand. I plan to become more proficient with practice and am already looking at how many possibilities there are for mini-gatherings prior to next year’s ‘second annual’. Here’s hoping for a return of the annual winter gathering in Hayward and a high percentage of people available to attend. The possibilities are being investigated.
Remember the year we tried to bury Linda’s car with snow so she would have an excuse not to be able to leave the weekend early and get back to work on Monday?
Anyone who might happen to be out of town next winter will be happy to know there is an internet connection up at the lake place now and we will be able to video chat if said out of towners have the necessary technology in place…
Winter at Wildwood
Post Reunion Recovery
I don’t have much to say yet about the fantastic weekend. It was too much good fun to process all at once. I wish I could be in more than one place at a time, because even though I was there, I missed out on many things, from the looks of photos I have seen thus far.
Here are a few I captured…
on the woodpile
wasn't everybody, but close
colors of the night
Still Camping
By now we should have survived a second night of camping with my siblings and their families, if we haven’t been asked to pack up early by the rest of the campers here. I have probably eaten too much and laughed to tears so many times my muscles are sore. Or maybe that soreness is from trying to play sports with little kids for a couple of days. Regardless, it is precious family time with siblings and their spouses and kids. It is a treat to see cousins developing connections that come from sharing the extended time of multiple overnights and many shared meals.
Here are my siblings posing with Mom a bunch of years ago now…
Relative Something 