alight on a rooftop with me, and let's nestle together and cast our gaze on the stars

lyrics for Andrew Bird's "Night Sky" (transcribed by me, as i listened to the mp3 below)

chorus:
sound is a wave, like a wave on the ocean
plays the ocean like a violin
pushing and pulling from shore to shore
biggest melody you never heard before

if i were the night sky (x2)
here's my lullaby
lullaby to the eve bye
if i were the night sky

verse 1:
what if we hadn't been born at the same time
what if you were 75 and i were 9
and i come visit you
bring you cookies in an old folks' home
would you be there alone?
when the late summer lightning fires off in your arms
will i remember to breathe?
you know i never will
if i could convince you that i mean you no harm
just wanna show you how not to need (/leave?)

what if i were the night sky?
here's my lullaby
lullaby to the eve bye
if i were the night

verse 2:
what if we hadn't been each other at the same time?
would you tell me all the stories from when you're young and in your prime
will i rock you to sleep
would you tell me all the secrets you don't need to keep
would i still miss you?
oh would you then
had been mine

chorus

[download mp3]

an important mystery has been solved!!!

over a month ago, i posted this tweet:

the foot in question greatly disturbed me, to an alarming degree; it created in me some nagging, paranoid fear of an expanding unknown natural world, a cruel, heartless world in which creepy-looking, unidentifiable feet are violently severed from their bodies and horrifically displayed in my work parking lot.

here is a crappy photo of a crappy cell phone photo of the aforementioned foot (i haven't figured out how to download photos off my cell yet, sorry). the poor quality of the photo greatly dilutes the creepiness of the foot; you cannot see, for instance, the bleached bone protruding from the scaly green flesh, the torn tendons, the little curvy nails, sharp and pointy at the ends of the toe pads. 

but, just as i'd forgotten about the foot, Ben and i went to Golden Gate Park and spent an afternoon hiking and walking around Stow Lake. there, by the water, to my great surprise, disgust and horror, i saw the feet again, this time walking towards me!

all around us, these strange birds i had never before seen. they were a weird cross between a chicken, a duck, and a lizard. they had small, fat black bodies, with weak-looking wings, white beaks, red eyes. and those feet! they looked like a strange chimera of chicken and an iguana. and they enjoyed coming close to us! we'd never seen birds like these before, and we were terrified.

well, tonight, i learned what they are! i found this book online, The Birds of Golden Gate Park, by Mailliard:

i had to look pretty hard, but finally, towards the end of the water fowl section, this description:

"Can be confused with no other Park bird"

"chicken-like"

"feet lobed, greenish"

yep, that's the bird! what we saw was a Coot, or mud-hen. also, that solves the mystery of the foot i saw in the parking lot of my work... but not how it got there. my guess, after watching the seagulls get hostile with the coots, is that maybe a seagull attacked one, ripped off its foot, and then carried the foot, in its beak, further inland, dropping it in the parking lot near my car. *shudders* nature can be strange.

further question: is this where the phrase "ya old coot!" comes from?

i mean, really, can anyone look at this and honestly tell me they are not creeped out!!?

aaaggggghhh the toes!

tree house

i've always had an affinity for all things related to trees, nests, and birds. so imagine my explosive delight when i learned of the artwork of Patrick Dougherty! i had the phenomenal pleasure of seeing one of his art installations today, in Palo Alto, CA.

Patrick Dougherty is an artist who uses renewable resources to craft beautiful, dynamic structures. his work material is sourced from local plants and shaped and woven without the use of metal nails or synthetic glues, just the delicacy and dexterity of human hands. this particular piece, called Double Take, was made from willow and poplar branches from a place in California.

Double Take is quite easily the most exciting and inspiring piece of art i've seen all year. my first response to it, as i rounded the corner and first caught glimpse of it, was that it looked like something from out of Where The Wild Things Are.

in fact, that's a good way to start describing the impact the work had on me. the atmosphere and feel of the Wild Things movie was fantastical, vaguely familiar and slightly off-putting, like a dream, a vivid dream that is sublimely vibrant and intensely textured. this is the same effect i got when i approached Dougherty's work: i felt other-worlded, the way you do when you confront something strange and beautiful for the first time. gargantuan nests of woven branches standing over 20 feet high on the corner of a neighborhood - their staggering beauty and seeming defiance of natural laws and elements completely belie the humble materials of which they are made.

from the rigidity and strength of twigs, branches and splinters, Dougherty shaped structures that imparted smooth, liquid movement, at once evoking the hot licking flames of fire and the gushing, explosive force of water. the branches look as if they are constantly wind-blown, but stand hardy and strong despite the elements. the structures are both deeply rooted* into the ground and reaching skyward.

*a little girl shows me how they watched the artist use larger, thicker branches to form a frame, and then dug deep into the earth to root them, later burying them so the whole structure would remain in place.

indeed, what makes Mr. Dougherty's structures so captivating is how full of contradiction they seem. the unnatural, conspicuous beauty of the whole contrasting with the humble parts. the fluidity despite rigidity. the deep-rootedness coexistent with upward flight. even though Mr. Dougherty builds his works of art with the intention of allowing them to decompose naturally under the elements, Double Take seemed impervious to weather and the seasons. i went at a good time, the day after the first day of autumn, and the leaves were beginning to show the first signs of changing color and had begun to fall, landing on ledges in the sculpture windows, sometimes catching in spiderwebs to spin perpetually in the wind. from the ground, vines have started climbing their way up the face of the walls. the sculpture looks every bit as alive and dynamic as i imagine it did in January 2011 when it was finished.

the other dimensions of the sculpture which made it so exquisite: the smell. i wish i could have captured the smell to share it with you. all around it and inside it was the freshest piney fragrance, like being deep in evergreen woods on a clear snowy morning. crisp, clean, comforting, and invigorating.

also: the way it invited interaction. in the hour i was enjoying the sculpture, i met two little girls, who rode their bikes right up to me and asked me, "do you know who made this!!?" they were so excited to start talking about it, and wanted to show me all the ways they could climb in it, on it, around it. after them, a trio of senior citizens came and walked through it, poking their heads out of windows to grin at each other. after them, a family of a dad and his two boys, both under 7 years of age. the boys would go to a window and play a game with their father in which they pretended to serve him a fast food order ("do you want sweet potatoes or ice cream, dad?" "do you want ice cream with that?" "you get ice cream because you're the man.") seeing everyone have so much fun with the art made me realize how rare an occasion it is to actually be able to touch and play with something so beautiful that is also not fragile or protected behind glass.

another amazing thing about this piece was how three-dimensional it was. this seems obvious at first, because of course a sculpture is 3D. but think about the sculptures you see in museums, and how there are only approximately 4 different angles (from the front, rear, left and right sides) at which to view a sculpture before you've exhausted visual interest. supposedly symmetry is a sign of beauty, but it makes for, ironically, flat and boring art. not so with Mr. Dougherty's work: i walked around the entirety of his work for about an hour, and photographed a new angle each time. each section of Double Take, like a tree in a forest, was remarkably individual and irreproducible.

now, for lack of any more words (or perhaps too many), a glimpse inside Double Take. i shot this video while walking through the inside of the work. you can see the phenomenal craftsmanship that went into the weaving and construction of the piece. you can also hear the sound of children playing, the distant chirping of a bird, see the light and hear the wind, as well as the traffic from the nearby street, and the sound of my feet on the brittle wood pieces on the ground.

at fingertips

for those of you who're kind enough to have bookmarked my blog, you'll notice a small design change: the new "favicon" for the blog, taken from this picture below:

this photo was snapped by ben on our recent trip to LA. we witnessed this amazing moment in nature. and what was so amazing about it was how unnatural it seemed: there were hundreds of these pigeons, on the beach at sunset, flying in these sweeping arcs, over and over above our heads. it was so conspicuous that we stopped, many people stopped, to look up and wonder at their movements. they flew in this gigantic, menacing swarm, gradually descending lower to the ground, so low that at one point, standing on the boardwalk, i could reach my hand up and feel the beating of hundreds of wings, so close to my fingertips.

cluster flock from stephan!e lee on Vimeo.

everyone asking why? why are they doing this? where did all these pigeons come from? there was a man on the shore, wearing a fishing vest and a hat, who we noticed was moving his hand in a certain way. "he's throwing seeds," was ben's observation. could it be possible? were these pigeons performing for food? i noticed later, after the pigeons eventually landed, that the man had a large net, like one used for fishing. could it be possible that he, too, was performing for food (i noticed him lift it menacingly from time to time)?

how strange, the sudden behaviors and togetherness of swarms (both bird and human swarms, in this case). how strange, the choreography in nature and the ways in which forces of nature interact, and the eery beauty that results from nature being manipulated against its will.

it reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films, All The Real Girls. the movie as a whole has some quietly insightful writing, including the following scene, about nature (skip to about 2:12 in the clip if you want to get to the point):

"have you ever seen a mistake in nature? have you ever seen an animal make a mistake?" there's a beautiful truth to that statement. humans are known as the only animal with "will power" and "intelligence" and somehow we conceptualize humanity as above animals, above nature, and thus able to control and manipulate it. but nature is perfect and seamless and remarkable, and humans, despite our self-importance, must pause in awe and wonder of that perfect splendor.

moves

i reluctantly returned to LA last night. felt sick from high altitude, bad tomato juice, and separation anxiety. went to bed late, dizzy and alone, and woke up early, roused awake at 5 am by screaming from the apartment next door. still alone.

i uploaded photos and videos to remember the last 3 weeks i had, as a sort of cheering tactic. included: this video from my birthday. penguin-like moves. my brother yelling "save it for the club."


birthday dance from stephan!e lee on Vimeo.

hoping this semester goes quickly,
stephan!e

bird fLight

my video poem, in response to Stan Brakhage's MothLight:



one thing i noticed only after watching it is the mirroring of Brakhage's vertical movement within frames, giving it the feel of a reel spinning vertically over light.

also, one thing that the youtube doesn't do justice to is the mirroring in the window glass. you can see me twice in the footage, with camera in hand.

also, the spot on the window pane where the bird hit the glass.

-stephan!e

video poetry

sorry for the virtual absence, but after wrapping up one of the most trying academic years of my life, i needed to get away. i spent a lot of time in the woods in the back of my house, picked up the harmonica and tambourine, danced and jumped around, and said goodbye to many dear friends. i've crawled around in attics of lofty chapels, swung from vines, and howled at the moon from rooftops. i've passed whole evenings ensconced on windowsills drinking wine from bottles, and spent whole afternoons looking up thru sun-filtered leaves at the sky.


i haven't done any recreational reading, but i've found the act of sitting down to read a difficult one to commit to. i've been restless and noisy lately, a development my parents no doubt regret. since my fascination with the percussive arts has come to a recent boil, they've been trying to divert my energies toward the piano. but since i injured myself during finals week [oh yes, it has been a while: i ran into a concrete wall with my arm while rushing to class and probably fractured it. it swelled up to twice its natural size and then turned a dark purple. the bump has lessened, but a lump remains, and i've been a little worried about my inability - still! - to put pressure on it] piano has been kinda difficult. trills, for example, are inadvertently syncopated, since i can't seem to move the fingers fast enough [that was another thing that was injured in the collision: my knuckles!]

anyway, what i HAVE been up to is trying to find a place for all this stuf i've accumulated in the past year. and, i'm organizing my bookshelf in preparation for SENIOR PROJECT. yes, the huge 80-page thesis i must complete for my defunct degree is nigh. and eventhough i have been writing and preparing for it since basically my sophomore year, i am still worried about it. and so, i am gathering all the hard materials i've been collecting since my freshman year and organizing them into stacks in my room. virtually, i've been collecting research articles and pdf's that are filed away in folders on my mac. i'm working them into chapters soon, and it's exciting to see some form come from all this madness.

other various things: i'm going to Mongolia in less than a month! yippee and yikes at once! i have to find another sleeping bag soon, since the one i have is much too small now and not nearly as warm as i need for the below freezing Mongolian nights. i also have a paper and research to finish b4 i can leave the country, so whew! i am kinda exhausted just talking about it.

but anyway, the REAL point of this post is to share with you the project i have recently started. in the past year i've been taking media aesthetics classes, which was great, b/c i got to watch beautiful films and talk about them all the time. problem was, i never got to make any of my own. and this flies in the face of my own philosophy about being a producer rather than just a passive consumer of cultural products. and so, i have undertaken to make some movies [pardon, FILMS] this summer.

on my list of to-do's:
-video-document the Mongolia trip (i need to buy a new camcorder for this!)
-begin/finish(?) the Students for Staff documentary i started
-do something with all the dozens of video clips i have from the past year...

starting with an idea i had today for a video called Bird Flight, a response/rxn/derivation of Stan Brakhage's Moth Light.


whereas Moth evokes the life (and death) of a moth thru the cutting and pasting of pieces of its actual habitat, i will seek to evoke the life of a bird thru the documentation of its death, thru the cutting n pasting of images it encountered before the moment of its fall. and thusly, i hope to evoke something of a mirror on human life as well.

if i can just get my damned iMovie program to cooperate for a friggin second!!

so stay tuned, somethin's gonna come...
-stephan!e