Fingerpainting (Footprint)

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I-Movix SprintCam - 1000 fps

I found another awesome video.

This was made with the I-Movix SprintCam, a camera that shoots at roughly 1000 frames per second. Typical video, by contrast, is viewed at or around 24 fps. The additional frames allow you to slow down the video for some astonishing detail, (pay particular attention to the 47 second mark. That's my favorite part):


I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Hawks!

No, I'm not cheering for St. Joe's, though I should also give a hearty congratulations to my cousin Kevin for his ever-approaching graduation from said institution of higher learning.

Instead, I'm linking to an amazing slice of urban wildlife. Nestled in a windowsill of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, there is a nest constructed several months ago by some honest-to-god hawks. A live streaming web-cam was installed on the inside of the window to sneak a peak at this marvel of nature. The chicks have hatched now -- apparently, the hatching process was quite amazing -- and are now adorable little piles of fluff who stumble about and try to eat scraps of food that are bigger than they are. It is worth glimpsing, even for just a minute.

http://www2.fi.edu/hawknest.php

The world we live in is amazing. Not only that these birds are able to nestle into the city that grew up around them, but that we are able to watch it, live, from wherever we are.

Technology is neat.

Take That, Flash Freeze

This is in response to Mooney's post from a few days ago. This is the actual footage, with the actual music:

Turns out, it was from a T-Mobile commercial event called Life's For Sharing filmed in Liverpool Street Station, England. It took eight weeks of preparation and rehearsals, including several nights of rehearsing at 2am in the station. It involved 400 people, down from the 10,000 people they auditioned at the outset. Quite frankly, I think this is one of the greatest things ever. To see more, including rehearsal process and crowd reactions, check out the behind the scenes video.

Self-Portrait

I like this new lens...

Update: I'm Not Dead

RECAP: So last Friday, while doing your everyday Atlas balance on Jeremy, I fell out of my standard upside-down orientation and rolled my neck pretty badly. Badly to the point of passing out and collapsing. Twice. After several hours in the ER strapped to an orange plastic backboard and getting stuck through a cat scan machine, it was decided that, while I hadn't broken or displaced any discs in my spine, I had most likely torn some muscles and/or ligaments in there someplace. Anyway, here's some drugs that will make you feel like a total zombie. Don't do anything for a few weeks. Crap. So A Different Spin placed a call to its West coast members and prepared to bite the monetary bullet to fly Alex out to Boston so he could go to Atlanta in my place for our first real gig of the season.

Update: Eff that. After two days of wearing my very stylish foam neck brace and being numb to the world, I decided to start rationing my drug use and testing range of motion again. I'd take the intense pain shooting between my shoulder blades over that crap any day. Turns out, my condition was improving. After another day, I had stopped taking my narcotics entirely; by Wednesday, I was out juggling with the boys again. God, it felt good to get out and do. Stuff. Anything, as long as it wasn't clouded by prescription drugs. By Thursday, we had an honest-to-God rehearsal again, and called Alex back to tell him we wouldn't need him after all. Friday we ran our fire show, built ourselves some new staves, and felt generally confident.

And now I sit in the internet cafe of the Sheraton hotel in downtown Atlanta at 2am, eating the sandwich I made myself at 5pm as we left our apartment in Boston. Our ski bag full of fire toys actually made it through airport security, and tomorrow should be an excellent day, provided we can track down a stupid Walmart that actually has some stupid fuel.

And I promised not to do anything upside-down until the machinery in my neck are back to one hundred percent, and I will keep my word; but at this rate, I think I'll be flipping over audience members in another week or two.

Photography At f/1.8, or "How To Distract Yourself From A Serious Neck Injury"

Still Life, with Percocet.

Today had a distinct high point and low point. The high point was the arrival of my new Nikkor AF F/1.8D portrait lens, which operates in an exceedingly friendly way with my new Nikon D80 D-SLR. After months of hemming and hawing, I finally sold my Olympus to a friend here in Boston and dove headfirst into the world of Ebay in all its glory. The camera arrived maybe two weeks ago, followed up by some filters and a memory card. So I cannot begin to describe how excited I am that, with the F/1.8's arrival, my new photography kit is now complete.

The low point of the day was the grievous neck injury I incurred while attempting the Atlas balance during rehearsal at the YMCA this morning. After some serious pain and two prolonged black-outs -- my thanks to Jeremy for catching me both times before I pitched into the bathroom wall -- I got strapped to an orange plastic backboard and loaded into an ambulance. The CT scan showed that I didn't do any serious damage to the vertebrae or spinal column; still, it's likely that I tore a few muscles and/or ligaments along the left side of my neck and that I won't be doing a great deal of flipping, spinning, or really much of anything in the near future. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse. So I'm thankful for that, I suppose.

But I don't understand how people can get addicted to drugs like Percocet; in my mind, it will forever be associated with the excruciating pain shooting up between my shoulder blades, and why would I want to remind myself of that?

Borrowed Words Poetry

[Borrowed Word poetry is something I picked up in high school, I think; the idea is that you take the words of someone else and recompose them. It's a mix of collaboration and inspiration that allows you to generate ideas less linearly and is, I hope, not actually plagiarism.

In any case, the following poem was composed using only words and phrases pulled directly from T S Eliot's The Wasteland. Everything -- including verb tenses and articles -- came from the original work.

Mr. Eliot: please don't sue.


To Play A Game

And as we talked, I found you there
In a garden of your images,
Arms and hands and fingers
Wrapt softly round white bodies, red sails
Gliding over the violet air.

You show me something different
Those strings of pearls, fruited vines of ivory
That run softly down your back,
Draped in your shadow at evening,
In empty rooms, in faint moonlight.

I spoke of nightfall with you, the scene
Framed by marble walls, each red flash
Like so many caresses, mixing memory with desire
Like a bridge of reflecting light over a calm sea;
And through a window of unlit fog, red and
gold, we talked for an hour in whispers,
and rose and fell and glowed into words.
Goodnight. Goodnight.

More ADS Designs

Circus Arts Shows Poster (8 1/2 x 11):

Fire Shows Poster (8 1/2 x 11):

A Different Spin Got Talent

A Different Spin is for realz, y'all. For the last month or so, we have been doing our damndest to pull ADS together as a legitimate business. Which is hard when you're dealing with four people as ridiculous as ourselves, but still, we're doing it. This involves a lot more than I would have thought going into it. We are practicing upwards of six days a week, two hours a day. We are constantly writing and rewriting our routines to make them smoother and more entertaining. I have cut and recut the same three songs so many times that I'm not sure I remember what the original tracks actually sound like.

And that's just the performance aspect of it. On top of the 10-12 hours of rehearsal time each week, we're doing our best to be an active business practice. Ricky and I have been graphic designing our asses off to get ready for the APCA National Conference in Atlanta. Since the APCA conference is really focusing on the fall, Mooch and I have been submerged in more college calling, while Ricky and Jeremy are hunting down spring and summer festivals. We've also registered as an official partnership, gotten a tax ID number and opened a business bank account.

And to prove it, here are some of the finished products that Ricky and I have spent what must be hundreds of cumulative hours designing. Goooo team!

Business Card (front and back):	Full Page Ad:
Tri-Fold Brochure (outside, interior):
2' x 6' Vinyl Banner:

This poem was inspired by a series of photos taken by a friend. One of these photos is presented below.

Sun Rises

The crisp air drags a finger across the glassy surface, over hills and rising fields, rippling trees and sky with tangled textures and windblown hair, wisps of light that cover her eyes but not the addictive smile etched across my window. I strain to see in focus through the deep, round frost, corn silk glowing gold and twisting into every twig and finger of the winter ash and pine that stand guard along the rocky shore, (and I hear the faint voice of music, a soft treble

whispered across strings and mountains, an echo of a summer long since gone to sleep. And she lingers as a gentle spirit, back turned, looking ever forward) and the shore scattered with sentinels cold and muted grey; I see red brushed across her cheeks. Oh, how I wish I had kissed them just once more, that satin skin raised shy above her lips curled up in a reluctant smile and drawing a line in thick crystal up to her clear, glittering eyes. The winter chill breathes soft across the glassy surface, decorating the ice that spreads slow and gentle -- silver spider webs dusted with clean, paper doilies -- while the bleached skulls of ancient kings stand bright upon rivers, stones and tides. She stands upon cracked earth and rising fields

and lifts her chin, eyes closed, to breathe in the morning sun that soon will saunter through the jagged woods, mingling with the current of a new day. And a long anticipated smile spreads with a sigh across her lips -- moments later she catches fire and dances with the phoenix in the thin space between the world and the night and all of the dreaming -- while she hums in tune with the last dissipating refrain, (she must hear it, too), quiet and calm, and magically waking. It was, in a word, Freezing; and also in another word, Beautiful, that spirit hour before the sun rises, and when I flutter and drift, and wake in that moment made of moments, the now that crawls and walks, and flies on into forever, I take comfort and lift myself from my frosted sleep, over the fractured fingers of birch and pine, and I glimpse her in the glassy surface, and warm my hands upon her feathers all aflame, as she runs out to the lake, and watches the sun get up. And I rise.

I Saw A Squirrel: "Airline Check-In"

Grand Canyon, Aug 2008

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A Different Spin Photo Shoot

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I Saw A Squirrel: "Holiday Cheer"

I Saw A Squirrel: "Mall Santa"

I Saw A Squirrel: "Power Tool Rangers"

2 Weeks, $200

As most people know, I dabble in the art of "Photochopping," a hobby which has kept me occupied on those nocturnal nights, (Read: every night), and which, just recently, has started actually paying off. Thanks to good old Woot.com, I am now $200 richer, or at least I will be when their budgeting department realizes they're obligated to pay me.

In any case, due to the demands of those I've mentioned it to already, I am posting the winning images here, along with the contest guidelines that generated them:

Contest #196: Show us a Halloween costume made of past or current Woot products.

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Contest #197: Show us the secret role played by one or more Woot products, past or present, in the 2008 election.

Eye of Blue

Grover

The neighbors had always been wary of the Ekhart family. It wasn't the fact that Mr. Ekhart was an abstract sculptor without sufficient studio space, prompting him to keep what amounted to a huge pile of scrap metal and rubbish out on the front lawn. And it wasn't that Mrs. Ekhart enjoyed authentic smoked meats such that thick, black plumes poured from her chimney twice a week. And it wasn't that their eight year-old son, Robert, had recently developed a love of both bicycles and fire engines, which combined into a single hobby of riding up and down the street while shrieking at the top of his lungs.

No, it was their dog, Grover. From a distance, the jack russell terrier was almost cute, a little bundle of white, bristly fur with a big brown spot on one side. His tail wagged perpetually, and his open mouth curled almost into a smile. But up close, the neighbors all knew that there was a strange glint in the dog's eyes, and his adorable outward appearance didn't entirely cover the uneasy feeling they got when his gaze met with their own. The Ekhart's thought they were all crazy, of course. They loved their little Grover more than anything else in the world.

The Ekhart's house was nestled into a small cul-de-sac at the top of a hill. The access road sloped down through a row of young elm trees before meeting with the busy street below. The traffic light defaulted to the main street, changing only when a car passed over a sensor at the end of the quiet road. Because of this constant cross traffic, the Ekharts tried to be vigilant in keeping Grover securely leashed when they let him into the front yard. They didn't want him to run off, or -- God forbid -- dash in front of a speeding vehicle. There was also a chain-link fence surrounding their property, but the little dog had long since learned to escape this obstacle, though the Ekharts never could figure out how. More than once, one of the neighbors had rung the doorbell and delivered Grover, tail wagging, leash trailing behind, back to the Ekharts after a daring escape. Every time, the neighbor would tell them that they found him sitting at the top of the hill, head cocked to one side, staring down at the traffic rushing past. The Ekharts would thank them profusely for saving Grover from harm, although often got the impression that they were less concerned with the safety of the dog than with the safety of the cars in the street below.

One day, Mrs. Ekhart returned from her errands with two new toys: a big, shiny red firetruck for Robert, and a big, shiny red rubber ball for Grover. Both the boy and the dog danced about with glee at their new gifts. Robert dropped to the ground and began to drive his truck from room to room, shrieking with renewed vigor at the top of his lungs. Grover followed right behind, pushing and kicking his ball as he was unable to grasp it in his small, smiling mouth. Once or twice, he accidentally got the ball to bounce, which seemed to delight him to no end. He played with the ball for hours, kicking and bouncing, and then trying to bounce it higher and higher. The Ekharts laughed as they watched him, his little tail whipping about like a propeller.

Around five o'clock Mrs. Ekhart began to prepare dinner. Almost at once, the red rubber ball bounced onto the counter and into the sink where she was peeling potatoes. She chuckled at the little rascal, and then put Grover and the ball out into the front yard so she could cook uninterrupted. She secured his leash to the tent stake in the middle of the yard, scratched Grover behind the ear, and returned to the house.

Grover watched the retreating figure of his owner as it passed into the house. He waited for a moment, watching as the door closed behind her, and then looked at the tent stake. He grasped the protruding end between his teeth and pulled it straight out the earth with a practiced movement. He shook the leash free and deftly replaced the stake into the ground, sliding it gingerly back into its hole. Then he turned his attention to the ball.

It was exactly what he had been waiting for all these months. The perfect toy; the perfect tool. He began to kick and bounce the ball, nudging it higher and higher into the air, until with one final leap he shot the ball, silhouetted for a moment against the late afternoon sun, off his nose and right over the chain-link fence. It swished gently into the hedge on the other side, sliding quietly through the leaves. He stared at it for a moment, then trotted to a small bush in the corner of the yard. He pulled at a loose scrap of Mr. Ekhart's sculpting metal, something corrugated and innocuous, and dove stealthily into the small tunnel hidden beneath. He appeared a moment later under the hedge on the other side, shaking the dirt from his fur, and glanced around. He located the ball, perched in the branches just above him, and carefully nuzzled it free. He looked right, then left; satisfied, he batted it cautiously into the empty road. He ran after it and, with mounting excitement, bounced it once, twice, three times into the air, nudging it ever forward. Then, abruptly, he stopped.

The dog sat down and watched as the ball bounced down the hill, gaining momentum every time it flexed and recoiled on the sloping concrete. He saw the glint of the sun on the red rubber, and also on the hard metal frames of those monstrous vehicles rushing through the intersection below. He panted, tongue waggling, waiting patiently for the inevitable.