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~~~ Design YOUR Local Burning Shorts Theater ... to Advance YOUR Local Creative Community ...
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~~~ BURNING SHORTS --Its History ... Mystery ... Revealed ... HEAR ... the online audio-cast |
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~~~ ... since 2006 ~~~ |
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Start your Year, Day, Rest of Your Life here:
"Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM.
Stop. If you are tempted to glide past "Song" to keep reading, then stop. If you do only one, read or watch: see/hear "Song" and then proceed with your Year, Day, Rest of Your Life. It is too easy to indulge in justified, fawning praise for this video. For now, I simply add that it illustrates an emerging genre of original online art, which I call "kinetic collage" or, more specifically, online audio/video kinetic collage and which differs from ordinary cinematic montage. More on that subject in due course: I have heavier lifting to do here. Moreover, "Song" is among the very few that demand presentation, and deserve the supreme honor, as I see it, of my awed critical silence and the invitation for your comment. Our World, digital and otherwise, is in chaos caused by the fear, vanity, and, above all, greed of that tiny elite which controls the secret codes to astronomically large, global wealth. Secretly, that Elite has grown unanchored in its arrogance, and consequently the world economy has collapsed. Yes. This is old news ... several months’ old. What is breaking news is the arrival of US President Obama, and his stunning courage quietly shown on his very first day in office. He signed the Executive Order to shut down Gitmo, the strange prison for a group of suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The keenest reports of those in attendance reveal that, as the President arose from signing the Order, his demeanor changed from his familiar yet beautiful warmth to solemnity. This is so because, the President took an ultimate and irreversible step, as President Lincoln did with his signature on the Emancipation Proclamation. The President unfroze the fate of those incarcerated at our Goofy Gulag Gitmo, and, in so doing, he started the journey of Gitmo prisoners to punitive confinement or, more importantly, freedom. To borrow the old expression which explains our criminal system: "It is better that a hundred guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be convicted." The intolerable dilemma is when one or more of those hundred is a terrorist who, as a result of the President’s Order, goes free, returns to his intimates, and continues his work. It takes little thought or vision to foresee that a freed Gitmo terrorist is and will be the ultimate asset for those who yearn to wound, maim, and murder American and other innocents. The ideological criminal, such as each of those who killed and destroyed on Nine Eleven, strives for the most dramatic and most publicized human destruction. Clearly: an act of human destruction by a freed Gitmo terrorist would be immense in its drama and public effect. And, the responsibility, rightly or wrongly, for that destruction will surge, like the electrodes of Old Sparky, into President Obama and his first day Order. Our President Day One knew and knows this. Therein lies the President’s solemnity as well as a level of courage in leadership of which I know no equal. The world, as I said and we feel, is in chaos. President Obama’s breath-taking, universal eloquence made him the personified speaker for Hope. His expressed mission was and is to meet chaos with Hope, and, of course, honesty, justice, and endlessly hard work. In his Order Day One, President Obama moved silently from the speaker personified to the doer of honesty, justice, and the hardest work ever for the father to two of God’s most beautiful children: he put himself personally at moral risk for the consequences of his Order. In the language of those to whom this site is dedicated, he showed, Day One, he "walks the walk". Day One. In the world today where the prevailing style is chronic attentional panic, you may ask, "What does this have to do with the mission of Burning Shorts to advance original creative expression within Web2.0 and Beyond? Everything and nothing. In terms of Everything: the theme of confronting chaos and, indeed, evil, with Hope is a challenge to each of us aware enough to understand that challenge to walk the walk. Last Issue, I reported that, in service of Burning Shorts, I was hitting the Road. I surely hit it, I continue to hit it, and often it hits me back. At the same time, know this: Burning Shorts continues and, with the inspiration of President Obama and those to whom this site is dedicated (along with their Brothers and Sisters who served and serve), I, we, rededicate our efforts to seek a higher and more noble level. We have been shown the Way, Day One. So, changes lie ahead for Burning Shorts, which
continues to attract large increases in visitors. What does not
change, as our beloved friend Tim Rehling gloriously says, is our
commitment indeed rededication to "artistic nobility" in
what we here present, advance, honor and strive to be.
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From a friend: " HEMA is a Dutch department
store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now
there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands HEMA also
has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany . In June of
this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion
Capital. Yes, we presented here a "Burning Short", "HEMA", but there is something else we must face and now. Yes, it is about Burning Shorts Theater and the destiny of Burning Shorts. And, it is about more than that. Why? Because the American Dream is stolen. The "American Dream" was the valid conviction that anyone could pursue where her/his spirit led ... to business success ... to professional achievement ... and, yes, to artistic expression of any kind. And, as one of our Mentors said, "Hollywood was the purest form of that Dream, because you could start with nothing and create whatever you envisioned." Consolidation of media ownership has killed the Hollywood American Dream just as consolidation of other major trans-national enterprises have killed the rest of that Dream. Consolidation of power, capital, and above all, control in the Elite Few flourishes and remains robust. In earlier times, such Consolidators were warrior conquerors of empires. Ah, but now there is a more subtle and perhaps more insidious strategy. During this era of what Kipling called the "savage wars of peace ...", the consolidation shifts to apparent business enterprises which, to the extent they control governments, makes them "meta-national powers". The Elite Few, meta-national "business" powers, need not soil themselves with violence. That can be left to nations and ideological movements that can be directed by the Elite Few. HEMA, the Dutch department store, is consolidated with the holdings of British investment company Lion Capital. And so on and on ... And our Burning Short for this Issue is a quiet, clever, inoffensive protest against the Elite Few. We must do more and better. Why? Because Burning Shorts and especially Burning Shorts Theater is uniquely, Providentially positioned to stand up to the media Elite Few by outplaying them: getting artist expression to audience. That is what Burning Shorts and the Theater have been designed to do. So. The current plan is, quite literally, to hit the road in hot pursuit of artists who share this vision and just may jump to create a Theater to connect with the Burning Shorts hub. The pursuit is "hot" because the Elite Few are moving fast, hard, and with limitless resources into the creative space of original online content. And, so, this Issue is not for a month or two, but for a season, a season of hot pursuit, hot enough to ignite Burning Shorts Theater
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Let us celebrate your Creativity ... through Burning Shorts Theater and, thanks to Film-maker and multi-talented friend Bobby White, http://home.earthlink.net/~bobbywhiteco/Resume.html ... DANCE!!! |
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The voice says, "This is an awareness test
..."
Then, the words "Awareness Test" appear on screen. Watch carefully. http://youtube.com/watch?v=oSQJP40PcGI Above all, "Awareness Test" challenges all who seek to advance original online video arts. As the video says, "It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for ..." This video challenges us to expand mightily what we are looking for in original online video arts. Here, Burning Shorts, we have surely tried, and we will continue with even greater intensity as a result of the challenge issued by "Awareness Test". The video illustrates the idea that the answer is before you provided you have asked yourself the right question. Or, you have the appropriate intention. Or, both. Currently, in original online video arts, the common question I hear is "What’s the Business Model???" So Alexa, Google Analytics, other resources are answering how many times the ball is passed on the assumption that traffic leads to money. Yet, "Awareness Test" warns us that to do so to the exclusion of other qualities ... like artistic merit ... is perilously narrow at best.
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Erik The Librarian Mysteries: A Series the World
Has Been Awaiting!
As he listens in bliss to music on headphones, moving (dancing?)
wildly down the sidewalk, Erik screams, terrifies another pedestrian, This is a series the world has been awaiting. Erik, twenty-something, played by Charles Neilson, the librarian may be somewhat bi-polar, lost in literary brain fog, or both. He is in love with the patron who forever is trying to retrieve her car keys she left behind. The main reference librarian and the man who is going calmly insane trying to study for the GRE in dysfunctional library chaos mainly produced by Erik comprise the cast. Slick and smart: Brent Forrester’s series is referred to as "Erik The Librarian Mysteries" ... The "mystery" is why it is called a "mystery" (nothing in the episodes clarified), and whether "Erik the Librarian" was entitled with rhyme and meter of "Conan the Barbarian". And, in the center we have Erik. Just as Robin Williams expressly acknowledged his master Jonathan Winters; just as Johnny Carson acknowledged his master Jack Benny; similarly with Jim Carey and Jerry Lewis, Erik is doing a hyper-geek Wallace Shawn. And it is beautiful. The supporting cast is/are exquisite. The series appears on 60frames: take me to lunch, and I’ll go into the subject of the site as a whole. For present purposes: hurray for 60frames! In addition to Erik, there are other other series or anthology episodes that really lead the original online entertainment Parade today at 60frames. (Even the adjacent Google ads are ironically funny.) About 60frames, I say, "God bless ‘em ..." About "Erik the Librarian Mysteries", I say, "Give us more!!!" ~~~ Surfing the Creative Web Wave: The Raw The Naked The Vulnerable ... At The [Turning] Point To begin ... Cold, Wet, Dawn ... in the ocean at a fine point break in So Cal. Among surfers, this is "Dawn Patrol". 1972. One other in the water with me. He paddles to me, asks, "Hey, Man, how old are you?" "Twenty," I reply. "Gaawd ... that’s old," he says. Next month, Burning Shorts turns two, and I think, "Gaawd ... that’s old." Current "Web2.0" Era, that is old. Ah, and currently too, I am still in the ocean daily at a fine point break, and I ride waves that are both fresh, universal and eternally renewed. Riding waves is creative expression. And ... Burning Shorts must be the point break for the Digital Arts Dawn Patrol. Like the surfer, the artist is raw, naked, and vulnerable in a vast ocean, and needs a glassy, clean point break where artist can inspire us to feel the fresh, the universal and eternally renewed. So ... this is to declare that Burning Shorts hereby expands beyond online video to all online creative expression ... Original video, site-as-art, song lyrics, best of the blogosphere, forms yet to be invented ... all online creativity passionately sought and supremely welcome.
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"A Bunny Situation" and Editorial on the State of Online Video: Our Fingers In Our Nostrils As promised today to and for JT, here is digital animation reported by our one of our Visionary Editors as done by a single person ... "A Bunny Situation" www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFuitd30vH4 Editorial photo www.meetthesqueegees.com/fun.html We enjoyed the HanDonks especially the Oogum Boogum performance poem of their landing page! www.handsomedonkey.com. So we were excited when we learned that www.abc.com was to launch the HanDonks' new series "Squeegees". So, episodes 1 through 5 of "Squeegees" ... um ... has "potential"? "Potential" to grow into a character-driven irreverent verbal and physical comedy ... you know, like those Marx Brothers ... they were pretty good? Or ... is www.meetthesqueegees.com from whom our illustration above is borrowed unintentionally a great deal more funny? Like our visual commentator above: we keep our nose plugged and hope for the best. ~~~ Welcome back, Brother Jim!
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Hello! What's This? Time Stopped In Grand Central Station!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo The brilliant ImprovEverywhere* used only human cooperation: humbling and inspirational! We are inspired by this glorious video to see and to declare: Our Mission is to bring online works to smart humans. Recalling our birth in Issue 1 way, way back (nearly two years ago!) and squinting ahead into the Global Brain Fog that obscures the Future, we see we strove, strive, and aspire to the Mission we can now express ... declare! Those who have been with us know that we have grown, and it is a joy to behold Frozen Grand Central unfreeze our ability to express that which has motivated us until now and that which forever will remain our aim. *http://www.improveverywhere.com/
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Can it be true? The Grateful Dead predict Burning Shorts in 1972? Introducing the Dead, May 7, 1972, The Bickershaw Festival, UK: " 'For all our muddy friends THE GRATEFUL DEAD.' Thus spake the announcer as the Dead launched into "Truckin'" - the start of a mammoth 245 minute show . . ." during which, this: "After RAMBLE ON ROSE, the band comment on the stink from the dozens of fires. Unknown band member: "What's on fire" Weir: "I don't know what you're burning out there , but it smells rotten." Phil? "It must be my shorts ... " Below mid-page and just following "After RAMBLE ON ROSE ..." http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/dead.html ~~~ So, we embrace this opportunity to honor hippie heroes and true creative visionaries: Timothy Leary, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, and Jerry Garcia with Kesey, all as today's internet can only make possible. Indeed, there is such a wealth of content that what follows is a mere taste. Humble thanks to Web2.0 for providing us with such wealth. In a recent Flaming Arrow, we mentioned our encounters personally with Leary, as he was an early, passionate, digital media evangelist: "Turn on, tune in, boot up ..." as he said. The recipients wanted more: You got it! We spent a weekend with Hunter S. Thompson; we interviewed Kesey; and we had a most memorable conversation with Garcia. That was a while ago. Yet, time only illuminates more brightly just how swashbuckling these creative visionaries were and, as inspirational figures, important to our current mission: to commit heart and soul to advance the Human Adventure unfolding in digital media. It is therefore a personal pleasure to bring you the following homage: Timothy Leary: Psychedelics as sacraments; coat and tie era for Tim; black and white television clip; 42 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HclVTYUQV-M . Then, Tim circa 1980 and ambushed by television interviewer. Behold Tim's commitment to gentleness and remaining open and non-defensive. 10 minutes 18 seconds and worth it. And he tells the interviewer to go "back to Iran"! Close to a hundred K views on this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT31oB2vspw&feature=related Nearing death in 1995, Tim provides advice for all of us: ""You have to go out of your mind to use your head." Part of a series of length, captivating interviews by Paul Krassner. E.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-KAmpXsdUE Hunter S. Thompson: Hunter was surely big fun back in the day. Here we have Hunter struggling with intimations of mortality and just perhaps hatching a plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31hV_BPFf0&feature=related ... For an accurate tribute to Dr. Gonzo, it would require the unique verbal intensity and apparent psychic chaos of another we met ... Gary Busey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-rE0dNV5Bo&feature=related Ken Kesey [and the Merry Pranksters]: Seeking to visit Leary (they were all connected with each other ... just not on this day, but see Garcia and Kesey below). Look for the "Further" sign on the front of Kesey's bus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcstOdT1Pe0 Jerry Garcia with Ken Kesey: Interviewed by the strangest of all, the late Tom Snyder ... captured herein (Live, NBC Studios, New York City, May 7th, 1981) is a trace of the infectious joy and silliness that fueled the era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ilnADvT2s
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Zune Journey: we just may have a masterpiece at http://www.zunejourney.net/
.
Please know and remember that the visitor controls the velocity at which one moves as well as the angular direction: Fast and straight is spectacular and even more so is slow with angular exploration. Standing still is also fascinating: what a tribute to an interactive digital artwork. This is a work, a Journey, of glorious kinetic, visual richness, and it is recursive in that the visitor-guided Journey moves through phases which repeat. Yes, the refrain from a song or, more accurately, the variations on a melodic theme in a symphonic movement repeat; however beautiful such musical repetitions or recursions may be, the listener remains passive. In Zune Journey, the visitor fully shapes navigationally all variations of each thematic return, and all occur seamlessly. Zune Journey’s music, specifically, is a series of linear songs which are diverse yet supportive of the visual, self-propelled adventure, both in brisk forward mode and in thematic visual variations. In design, there is an early ancestor of Zune Journey by Cyan called The Manhole. Regarding The Manhole, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhole.
Regarding Cyan and its legacy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyan_Worlds I had the privilege to represent Cyan during its most celebrated years circa 1993-1997, the period of Myst and Riven, the hauntingly beautiful, completely innovative, and exquisitely shaped works of interactive fiction for the personal computer. During its era, Myst was the best-selling computer game in history. The Manhole was a very early work, and yet its innovative creativity alerted the player to the Cyan brilliant imagination which bloomed fully in Myst and Riven. It is, therefore, both a personal and editorial pleasure to recommend Zune Journey, this native online work (hence available free and worldwide, though unobtrusively in service of a commercial product), which is uniquely beautiful.
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