378. The Elephant and the Oak Tree Overspill // Song-Poem for Music Video Called "Perceptual Relativity"

Perceptual Relativity Poem / Song. Page 1.

Perceptual Relativity Poem / Song. Page 2.

PDF file for the Perceptual Relativity Poem / Song:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/perceptualrelativity.pdf.

Spillover from writing The Elephant and the Oak Tree (EOT). The concept for this poem came back in a trying time in the Fall of 2005. I was driving late at night and experienced the notion of relativity with the outline of a car in front of me. At one point I asked the question: Is the car coming closer or farther from me? Or is it of fixed distance, and it's changing size and shape? How will I ever come to know? Coming to think about it, I remember being on Martin Luther King offramp nearby UC Riverside.

The poem came later, and flashes of network-based photographer, e.g. branching networks in biology and geology, ripples, dunes, biological formations that seem to have mathematical rhythmicity to them. I am gathering a set of photographs related to this concept. The poem/song/future music video is intended to have a techno trance feel to it. I can't help flashing to a god-forbid beer commercial that showed the fast-paced succession of flora on a tropical island. It was phenomenal special effects for a biologist. And of all things, it was a beer commercial--Corona beer, I think.

I was about to use this song as a concept for a video for the Coastal Fund, but it never happened, which is just fine. My mind crafted a collage of scientists with different hats which perceive different things around the coast of UC Santa Barbara, which is still in my head, and I can use it for my own purposes.

This song/poem is associated with EOT because the main character goes through perceptual relativity throughout the entire story and struggles to figure out where she is at in space and time, and whether she should zoom in or zoom out.

278. "The Elephant and the Oak Tree" Baggage and Backstory (poems, songs, abstracts, summaries, communication theory, pitches to agents, Dr. House)

In a nutshell, I could say that "The Elephant and the Oak Tree" has a lot of "baggage" and "backstory" in terms of historical attempts to write the story (formulation in Fall 2005, three conscious trials to write the story), and attempts to tell the story to notable figures in academia and the book publishing industry. I am hoping now that I have my Question Reality manuscript off my chest, now that I am surrounded by a most inspirational (even mystical and magical) audience (Tariel, Oscar, my roommates, CCS, UC Santa Barbara, Toastmasters, Santa Barbara Writers Conference), that the accumulation of failures of the past shall now lead to some degree of success. Or at least some degree of "self satisfaction of completion" and "an efficiency mechanism for distribution" of such a story.

I will further elaborate "the backstory" in a future blog, but this blog is an organized accumulation of "formalized documents" that were attempts in writing "The Elephant and the Oak Tree." They will not be included in the final bookform product, but are organized enough to see the light of day within a blog. These documents may serve some good use in the (very) near future.

Page 1 of EOT rough-draft 2-page pitch to Agents and Editors Day at the 2008 Santa Barbara Writers Conference.

Page 2 of EOT rough-draft 2-page pitch to Agents and Editors Day at the 2008 Santa Barbara Writers Conference.
PDF file of EOT rough draft 2-page pitch at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/1eotpitchsbwcolderversion.pdf

EOT abstract first formulated for the a CV/resume application for the Blue Horizons program in 2007:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/2qreotabstractbluehorizons1.pdf

EOT abstract formulated and modified for the CV / resume application for the Blue Horizons program in 2007:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/3qreotabstractbluehorizons2.pdf

EOT abstract formulated and modified even further post Blue Horizons:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/4eotabstractevolved3.pdf

PDF file for the EOT Abstract submitted to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Pacific Division in Hawaii in June of 2008:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/5eotabstractsubmitcampaignsaaas1.pdf

The tragedy is that I was never able to attend the conference. Two weeks before applying for airline tickets to go, two major Hawaiian airlines (included ATA) closed down the ticket prices jacked up close to $1000. I could not afford this. Nor could I deal with two conferences back to back (right around the time of Santa Barbara Writers Conference).

Dr. Carl Maida of UCLA pushed my presentation towards the direction of Communications and Campaigns analysis. I guess more formulated-audience analysis. Dr. Robert Chianese (English literature professor) was more intrigued by the content of the EOT story. I started getting depressed how the communications field parameterized human behavior--religion, race, political affiliation, socioeconomic status--the very parameters I am trying to lift up and disqualify myself from. I think this abstract will serve of GOOD USE in terms of future work with campaigns analysis and any other research under the sphere of Dr. Ron Rice's research. But in the end, I will want to understand modern human communication from an evolutionary psychology perspective.

Two communication theories I subscribe to is "sense-making" and "communicating communicatively," which is figuring out the knowledge baseline of your audience, and building from there. The whole Pete-Sadlerian process of "figuring out what they know and don't know, and then build from where they know." This is such a "duh" theory. I am sure it's a Chinese Koan. But it's nice to know it's formulated now.

PDF files of variations of the "Perceptual Relativity" and "Ecological Relativity" poems that try to identify the image as the "leg of an elephant" or the "trunk of an oak tree":

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/6elephantoaktreepoemrelativity1.pdf
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/7elephantoaktreepoemrelativity2.pdf
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/8elephantoaktreepoemrelativity3.pdf

PDF file documenting the story structure of an EPIC EPISODE OF DR. HOUSE (remember that witty, cranky doctor?! I love him to intellectually emotional tidbits! Hollywood has some hope!)
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/9drhouseshiftingparadigmscommpercept.pdf

Though this document will not be included in EOT, it has the SAME MESSAGE as EOT. There is a feedback between perception and language and how shifts in one lead to shifts into the other, which can also lead to effective problem solving. In this case, in the parallel story of trying to identify a stuffed animal as a dog or a bear, Dr. House came to realize that he was diagnosing a patient with a certain disease, which placed a mental frame of perception--leading to no solutions. If Dr. House lifted up the pre-existing diagnosis of the disease "bear" and considered it to be a "dog," suddenly House rushed back to the patient and swiftly figured out the problem and cured the patient of her ailment. In concern of human-environmental relationships, the university suffers from the "same problem" of "original definitions," such that academics are stuck within the mindframe of existing definitions/conventions, but if you find alternative, new definitions, then it becomes much more clear on how to solve and manage problems. The house case study was MEDICAL. My story is ENVIRONMENTAL. That was perhaps the most clever plot out of any of the House episodes. And in final note and quote of House, "Death would be a bad symptom." And Dr. Wilson, "What is rational versus what is the law are two entirely different things. Go ask OJ."

PDF files for the SONG "The Elephant and the Oak Tree and the Rest of the Zoo." http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/10elephantoaktreerestzoosong.pdf

Let's just say I wrote this song OUTSIDE the context of the basic matrix plot structure of the story. It is tragic to think that MOST if not ALL of this song will NOT be included in the parable. The ostrich and the peacock are asides. I don't want to repeat myself too much and the song has repeating messages. I'll see how it goes. In short, the song needs renovation and a total MAKEOVER.

PDF file for Question Reality Long Story Short:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/11questionrealitylongstoryshort.pdf
I started writing this also in attempt to write EOT right before the AAAS conference in Feburary of 2008. I think this above document is drawn out. I think I was struggling writing it simply because I didn't have QR off my chest as a concrete, completed manuscript.

Page 1 of Victoria's "Biography Sketch" intended for EOT in the manuscript attempt before AAAS in February of 2008.

Page 1 of Victoria's "Biography Sketch" intended for EOT in the manuscript attempt before AAAS in February of 2008. Here is the PDF file:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/12victoriabiographysketch.pdf

I think the Biography Sketch is "whiny" like I was some kind of complaining butthead. I had such a hard time describing myself in a WORD. a BLURB. Now, I just tell people I am a Ph.D. student in environmental media at UC Santa Barbara. It's not official yet, but I am a Commonsenseologist Wannabe in the world outside the university and I am an ecopistemologist (subdivision Ecological Cosmology) in the university. That's it. So simple. I don't need to write a long two-page rant of who-in-the-hxll I am! Oh well. Achieving Brevity Takes a Long Time.

Intellectual Spectatorship: Why I Hate Critiquing Films, A Bug to MAKE Them

I have a very difficult time sitting around and "critiquing" films for class. I feel like this standoffish "intellectual spectator" who has nothing better to do than bxtch about what's been made than make something myself (Pardon my crassness, but I am a bit moody this morning).

I met a guy who bxtched to me for a long time about this physicist who wanted to study his skateboarding. What's the point? I mean. Just learn to skateboard yourself, would ya? Do all the tricks. "Physics intellectual spectator" is a little bit different than being a "film intellectual spectator" because well, not everyone has the malleability, testosterone-levels, and resources to become a skateboarder. So why not study it? And through this process, innovate through engineering?

Why I hate critiquing films for class? Because I have so many ideas I need to just go out and MAKE films. I want to be INTELLECTUAL MANIPULATOR of reality, not the spectator. Just like this guy who found his center of mass early on his life before he became 6 foot tall (as myself), I am a person who finds great ease in putting two-and-two-and-two-and-two together to make some multi-correlative representation of Reality (well, at least to my mind).

The worst part is that when I watch a movie, I am analytical, but not only that, I get an EXPLOSION of ideas. I become vulnerable and go through this competitive ego fest with the invisible film-maker (who I just see his or her film and not meet the real-live human) by exploding with 101 new ideas for the films I could make that would be a unique spin-off to whatever you did. I just got majorly inspired to do something REALLY WEIRD with my crab project based on watching Koyaanisqatsi (and to let you know Godfrey Reggio is now TOP of my list for film-makers, I felt like my teachers exposed me to a buried treasure. I plan on tracking him down in my one-day trip across the country. He is in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the SAME location as the "other CCS" that houses outside the box physicist Brian West, spearheading universal scaling laws in biology).

God, I mean, the Koya-blah-blah movie (I should just call it "the K movie") had no direction, and it was intentional, but I DIDN'T LIKE that, and thankfully since no one knows me, I am going to make something similar but ENTIRELY based on the concept of the ARTISTIC/QUALITATIVE/PHILOSOPHICAL meaning of scaling laws in geology, biology, ecology, and human ecology. AND perceptual relativity. I am already racking up a VERY GOOD COLLECTION of PHOTOGRAPHS. Just keep compiling that, and then start stitching stuff and then "filming." Will have to talk to Martin Kennedy about this. This is pretty big. I have to do this. The movie will have DIRECTION, but that same creepy gothic music (church and primal and arabic all at the same time) (more Rite of Spring directionalish, story-tellingish) time lapses, precise "seeking the pattern and breaking it" composition, spacetime warps, distant-observational to being manipulative and "on the human factory treadmill" rather than "watching the treadmill from the distance").

(See? It's not apparent on a daily basis--I just dress around and go to school as a slob--but I have my competitive ego too. It's bowerbird related. Reality-constructionism-related. It's the "evolutionary arms race" in who's more outside-the-box creative than the other person. My neurons fly and connect at the speed of light after a movie, you know... which makes it very PAINFUL for me to watch movies in the first place.)

So, now you know my weak spot. I have an ego too. I'm not sure it's the size of Katmandu (as perhaps that of Dr. Milton Love), but I try to make my bower as big as Katmandu. I try to mentally consume everything. So my mind has a huge understanding of Reality, but my place in it is so small. I realize I am relatively small, but at the same time, since I as a Geobum wannabe, realizing that I am so small, it makes me feel that a person holding a calibrated geological viewpoint is so... sooo... grand... Hopefully, no one reads this. It gives away a good chunk of my own mystery. *sigh*