Cactus flower

Fleur de Cactus, ma petite sœur, tu es choisie par le Seigneur
Pour fleurir en Sa maison tout au long des jours de ta vie.
Fleur de Cactus, ma petite sœur, tu es choisie par le Seigneur
Pour chanter la gloire de son nom sur les sentiers du Paradis.

Burning reels

I wish this were mine. . . 

. . . but it isn't. It's the work of a filmmaker named Sam Spreckley, who has a number of interesting experimental films on YouTube. Some of them have only had 7 or 8 views. While this makes me feel just a little bit better about my own wretched, nearly-nonexistent total of views, it's a shame, and it shouldn't be like that. His sparse description of himself in the "about" section hints at a career beyond YouTube, which is merely a catch-all for his bits and pieces:

Description

Scottish video artist and film maker... here and there... dumping ground for assorted projects....

SURFACE ii is described as

Published on Feb 5, 2012
exploring sound and vision through the destruction of 8mm

It's one of the few which had a decent number of views, but that's after five years! Though the description of the film is very short, it appears to be old 8mm film which has been melted down or scorched and burned in some interesting way, with accompanying sound effects.

My own efforts at animation and making still things move are pretty weak, and I know it, but I work at it because it's fun. I can't draw or paint or do anything visual worth a damn, so to me this is new. But I need reminders of what real filmmaking is.

But seven or eight views? This is what is wrong with the internet, among many other things. 

On wings of strange

Bentley, doing nothing

The Baby

Birth of the Swan Queen

Nuns from hell

BARILLA!

Please note. This blog is becoming so gif-heavy that it's basically a gif blog, which is not what I set out to do. Early on, I used it as a place to express my opinions about all sorts of things. I know I shouldn't care about numbers, but getting 10 or 12 readers for a piece I spent hours writing (often on subjects that harrowed my soul) is pretty frustrating. Basically no one is interested in that sort of stuff, maybe because the internet is inundated with it.

I published three novels, a lifelong dream, and practically nobody read them. Nobody warns you that you have to actually SELL books. That part is left out. I'm glad I wrote them, but to have them fall into a black hole is one of the great disappointments of my life.

The things I post now, animations (which I know almost nothing about) and gifs, which I am learning to edit even after they're finished, is like playing with plasticene or collecting frogs or pretending I'm a horse, something I would have loved as a child. The process is everything, or almost everything. 

I post these Barilla pasta ads from Italy because they're so damn gorgeous, and resemble each other so much. They're a collection, a set. I love series of things, and old ads, old cars, old technology. I almost made a gif, but this time, not.

Hurricane Fur Wizard

The Hurricane Fur Wizard started life as the Fur Wizard, one of those handy-dandy products pushed on obnoxious TV commercials, but it didn't sell very well. It was nothing but an ordinary double-sided lint brush, the type with bristles that point backwards to collect the lint, fur, dust, etc. on your furniture and clothes.The only selling point was the scabbard that you stick it into, which supposedly scrapes off all the collected fur so you don't have to do it with your fingers.

Then at some point, seeing sinking sales figures, the As Seen On TV geniuses thought, hmmm! What if we "rebrand" it as the HURRICANE Fur Wizard? It sounds like one of those rotary cleaners that whirls an entire room into a vortex of cleanliness, except that really, it's the same product: an ordinary double-sided lint brush.

How a blue brush that picks up dog hair can even remotely resemble a hurricane is beyond me, and I have no idea if the name change helped sales. But I confess I love As Seen on TV ads. Lately they've been choked with tiresome pitches for faux copper cookware, and as for that old Southern lady (the one who makes pudgy pies in the toasting iron), how I wish she would go away.

But the older ones, the "has this ever happened to YOU?" ones with the "oh, NO!" and the "wah, wah, wah, waaaaaah", those I love. The newer ones are a mere shadow, but I suppose we have to be happy with what we have.

Don't we.

Harold Lloyd Dances!

This animation didn't go quite the way I intended! Harold's dancing is much more awkward here than in real life, but I had only one frame to work with. Getting his legs to bend at the knee was the hardest part. 

Harold was simply adorable in A Sailor Made Man, and in fact he really did dance. I never did figure out the scene where the men danced with each other, but maybe it was a sly reference to "those long ocean voyages" where men lost track of their orientation for the duration of the trip.

Cranes flying over the Loire valley

                   Watch on YouTube/full screen for maximum effect.

Safety Last in 28 seconds!

 

Love Biscuit

Spinning girl

The splash of a drop

MEOWTHRA!

Imagine my surprise when my TV-watching enjoyment (that juicy Scientology series) was disrupted by an ad for a new Lego movie. Some sort of sendup of Japanese creature-feature flicks, only the monster was a hideous creature called. . .

MEOWTHRA!

  

Right. So the monster in this strange-looking film is a cute little brown tabby named Meowthra, presumably a take on the immortal Mothra. I'll tell you something, cute as this cat is, he is not a PATCH on my Bentley. 

Bentley appeared on the famous Pictures of Cats website which originates in the UK, where cats are king. As a matter of fact, I sent them a gif and they made this charming triptych from it. You should check out this site if you're cattish at all.

http://pictures-of-cats.org/can-a-cat-lose-the-ability-to-purr.html

Still pictures will never do my Bentley justice, for his face is sweet and expressive and kind of mournful. His eyes are big and sad, perhaps because he lives with abandonment issues. He was a stray when he came to us, savaged by a dog and left for dead. Does my companion animal need a companion animal, perhaps?

And I love it when he sleeps funny.

When good men do nothing