511. Full Blown Song Entitled "Old Coat" Featuring Metaphorical Landscapes as Clothes, Music Video Planned

You can find the PDF of "Old Coat" at http://sites.google.com/site/stokastika2/oldcoat1.pdf.

I invented the song after indulging "Nature's Metropolis" by Dr. William Cronon (a new academic idol I have, may I add), post being exposed to "G" music video idol, and while driving down to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Conference down in San Diego. It's a very very simple song with a profound metaphor: wearing landscapes as you are wearing various forms of clothing. This metaphor can be extended... I mean most people's clothing wardrobes are quite extensive, but here I focused on an old coat (suit and tie and collar), a thin-worn t-shirt, and nakedness. The "old coat" embodies the notion of being in this formalized-anonymous-suit-and-tie city environment, worn out and disconnected from the landscape and oneself. The "t-shirt" was directly inspired by Cronon's accounts for connections and increasing disconnect between Chicago and its surrounding "hinterlands" that made the Chicago become what it became. There was a level of expansion and domination of Chicago, and then there were negative repercussions of this expansive, resource-draining behavior, and then some behavior modifications became apparent in order to better "manage" or "manicure" Chicago and its surrounding countryside... so, that's why though the t-shirt is highly used and abused, there is still some need to keep it in once piece due to its excessive utility. And of course, the last stanza is about the desire to escape all forms of humanity into more "naked lands" like the ocean (San Diego), and the desert (Bahia de Los Angeles).

The odd part about this song is I hear the music and I see the music video, and it's just wildly exciting to me. The music is voice, chorus, hand-clapping, best-case scenario drum kit, piano, pipe dream would be electric guitar (a la Chris Lods). But since I am limited in resources, I will have to rely on my own body as an instrument as much as possible. The voice is most certaintly some arpeggiating and very jazzy sounding. It's a piece of music that is up-beat and can most definitely be jogged to... it's so important for me to be able to jog (and dance to) the music I create. No point in making music otherwise.... I'm emotionally utilitarian, you see.

As for the music video, if I had special effects, I would use overlay of imagery on a white coat and white t-shirt, but I don't have that, so I will have to do cheap-o things, like simple box metaphorical overlays with landscapes, clothes, and the mind. The image sequences are not completely flushed out, but I plan on capitalizing the imagery to our trip to Baja California over spring break. Some random thoughts: Jules and I walking opposite directions brick wall, Jules walking across the camera in three or four different environments, in the same kind of similar clothes or myself, first part city scenes, old coat, suit and tie, excessive collar, the collar becomes a dog collar with spikes, choking around the neck, the office cubicle, the countryside would be in Baja California, some crops, Jules interacting with people, there could be imagery (could be shadowed) of swaying like a chimpanzee-gorilla, simultaneously clapping hands, stomping feet to the beats of the music, could also be Jules garden, there can be some time lapse in the city, time lapse a day in the garden... and then the bare naked land, Jules laying out in the desert, by the cactus, and Jules out on the boat in the middle of the ocean, doing his fishing, Jules crossing his fingers antagonizing Point Loma at a distance, scuffing it away. The ending is us driving and walking, in these different landscapes, walking stripping, taking off our clothes and being barren as with the barren land. Some slapstick, clapping, little kids playing So, just some sketch ideas... for now.... More ideas here to come. The most important thing is to identify the visual layers: (1) sterile environment, us trying on and taking off the different types of clothes, close ups and at a distance (2) the sterile, controlled environment, swaying around like apes, clapping and stomping (3) the different types of environments (a) cityscapes, urban, people from corporate buildings (b) suburban, the garden, the boat-dock, crops ag-land (c) naked land, out in the ocean, out in the desert in the middle of nowhere (4) any form of gaps can be simple lines, cartoon linear overlay.

423. Beginning of a Lengthy Poem/ Song: "The Tragedy of Nature Inside a Box" (Vision for a Cyclical Music Video)

Caption for Slide Show: Tragedy of Nature Inside the Box, Absurd Nature
I have decided to start an image collection of the "Absurd Nature" or nature that is unexpected, particularly with the themes of (1) manufacturing nature, as in natural history museums (2) conservation as consumption, selling nature for a human career or profession and (3) flash-freezing and manicuring nature, or humans attempting to control nature or impose a vision of what nature is trying to be, for example, "What kind of Garden of Eden do you want for the Santa Cruz island?" or "What kind of Japanese Garden do you want for the ocean?" or even the National Park System itself. All images will feed toward the pre-meditated music video entired "The Tragedy of Nature Inside a Box."

The Tragedy of Nature Inside a Box (Absurdity)

The tragedy of nature inside a box. [absurdity]
I need infinite space, an unconstrained plot [other wording for this!]
An escape route was a change of scenery,
But my dreams flew with my cash
And nature's sold back to me.
And a box within a box--
Just--simply ain't free.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE TRAGEDY OF NATURE INSIDE A BOX:
IN ORDER TO CONSERVE OR PRESERVE (AND CONTINUE TO RESEARCH) A CERTAIN SYSTEM (WHETHER "NATURAL" OR "HISTORICAL"), YOU HAVE TO (1) PUT OTHER PEOPLE IN BOXES (LAW) SO THAT THEY DON'T MESS WITH THE SYSTEM (2) MASS PRODUCE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SYSTEM (A) INFORMATIONALLY (B) PHYSICALLY-PLASTIC FIGURINES... JUST TO RAISE AWARENESS AND MAINTAIN A SALARY TO CONSERVE AND PROTECT THE THING ITSELF; IT'S ABSURD! IN THE END, EVERYTHING THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO THINK IS INFINITE IN NATURE IS ULTIMATELY PLACED AND CONFINED IN A BOX (in a large-scale society)

I had a very encompassing, entrenching sequence of images pass through my head during the second day of the COMPASS science communications workshop. Particularly when marine biologist / science communicator Elizabeth Neeley gave us a tour of her very-cool pet pea project on saving deep-sea corals "Too Precious to Wear" (http://www.tooprecioustowear.org/), and how this campaign penetrated into the elitist fashion industry of New York. My brain couldn't stop cranking on working on this song... and this plot line for a music video.... It started coming full circle... and in a full, cross-generational cycle!

MUSIC VIDEO SKETCH FOR "THE TRAGEDY OF NATURE INSIDE A BOX:"
Basically, the film / music video sequence started with a redwood tree or a pristine plot of ocean (and I'll just assume for now it's the redwood tree, because I have thought about the redwood tree frame of reference for quite a while).
**Camera focuses on a pristine redwood tree, zooming out, then a scientist comes into the picture
**the scientist and the artist takes multi-dimensional samples, and creates multi-dimensional artistic representations of the tree [unfinished: classification of environmental scientists map, all types of data is collected on a flipping salt marsh]
**zooming out, the scientist leaves these ropes that protect the tree (she/he has a badge that allows her/him to cross the rope boundary), then the scientists steps to the car and it turns out the tree is not only surrounded by ropes/fences, but it is completely surrounded by encroached parking lot
[[**if I were working with the ocean situation, it would be 3 square miles surrounded by an arbitrary fence (fish in a box, fishermen in a box, scientists can go in and monitor, underwater Yosemite, how come it costs so much money to leave a plot of land alone), and the fishermen were placed in a box, placed in chains, that law places chains, ropes around these supposedly infinite, unbounded regions, same with the Sarengetti, it's tragic]]
[[**and just with the ballona wetlands, the tree is surrounded by lots of NGO noises, hoo-haas, save the redwood tree from logging, save the fishes, save the birds, etcetera, picket signs all around the flipping redwood tree, and just like La Bufadora, a parade of local mom and pop shops making and selling hand made trinkets of redwood trees on a one-mile parade to the dxmn redwood tree]] (localized representation)
**the scientist goes back to the university and (1) publishes a paper (2) surrounded by media sharks and gets interviewed 5000 times (3) gets publicized by several media sources (4) the scientist has sketch drawings / photography which is sent to his/her agent, which is then transformed into (a) coffee table books (b) post cards (c) plastic figurines (d) stuffed animal redwood trees (e) redwood trees on t-shirts and stickers and pins and high-end dresswear
**the designs were shipped to China to be mass produced in a massive factory setting, all representations of this one tree, where they harvest resources from all over the world in order to make these representations of redwood trees (or fish, whatever) (global representation)
**then the redwood tree representations were redistributed back to America and Europe and Australia (which was considered worldwide) all of this one dxmn redwood tree or plot of land or ocean that was being protected (essentially mass-produced plastificated "nature")
**then there was a little boy or girl who went with his or her quasi obese mom or dad in the grocery store surrounded by plastic and food-like substances; they live in a city, and mom and dad earn a good living working for some corporations; and for some reason, though the kid had all these toys and their parents could by all these toys, then for some reason this kid has an arbitrary fixation on this plastic redwood tree in a Walmart store of sorts and that he begged for this tree and held on to it
**finally it was time for the family to go on a "cocoon vacation" because their parents were fed up of work; and they went on a fancy coccooned "land cruise" and were shuttled everywhere they wanted to go; the little kid (now with dulled stimulation from the plastic figurine), still clutched his toy through this cocoon vacation in hope that one day he will see the redwood tree
**the family went all over the American west and this kid was posed "standardized" distant photographs of the same kid in different backdrops, the kid looked rather apathetic while his mom made him pose in front of these places; the family looked distanced, withdrawan, distraught when going through their whirlwind tour; the kid and the family was in a cocoon box vacation and then they created these artificial boxes with photography
**and then finally, the family and the tour headed toward the famous redwood tree, and the kid became excited again, similar to the beginning of the music video, from zoomed out to zooming in, the kid marched through all the clutter surrounding this redwood tree, the locals selling crxp at their stands, the hordes of tourists, the pissed off loggers (fishermen and DFG and coast guard if fish), the NGOs and their picket signs, and the massive parking lot, then down to the rope and the fence
**then the little kid went up and stared up and up and up and up into the great big branches of the redwood tree, clinging to his toy, and the rope, and was just stupified, and then the boy saw that same scientist/artist in the beginning, and the boy was extremely jealous; he climbed over the fence and tugged on the scientist's t-shirt who was collecting data and drawing sketches, the boy showed the scientist his little toy redwood tree and then he streched his neck up way way far up and asked: "Is this that?" "Yes, indeed!" perked the scientist. And the researcher clutched the boy's arm and guided his hand to touch the tree... and it seemed that all the chaos and clutter and media and government and NGOs and facade representations of the redwood tree dropped out of the boy's memory like flies sprayed with windex
**it was the first time in the boy's life his droning apathy was transformed into inspiration
**the boy corresponded with the scientist for years to come and one day that boy became the same scientist and artists, and though he was sad all he wanted to do was to study this beautiful redwood tree, he had to play the game and mass produced the representations of it to the rest of the entirety of this society just to save it and leave it alone... SADLY...
**and that is the catch 22, the paradox, the oxymoron, the irony, the tragedy of nature inside the box

**they irony is you have to mass produce the representation of the real thing just to protect it and leave it alone; the irony is that it costs so much money just to leave a piece of land alone... and that in the end, there is no more infinity, no more Wildwest, no more vast, unspoiled land, but everyone ends up being stuffed in a box, humans, trees, and fishes included....

**a major point about open space is providing open space, infinity... but now... we're all in a box.
**the largest catastrophe of today is the SCALE OF OPERATIONS OF THIS SOCIETY. Because of it's relative size, I am placed in a position to mass produce representations of the things I love just to keep the things I love alive, and I can continue researching them....

379. Song / Poem "Purpose or a Process" Read to Dr. Barry Spacks Poetry Course

Here is a poem/song called Purpose or a Process. PDF file:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/purposeoraprocess.pdf.

I read the poem to Dr. Barry Spacks' poetry class last week and it was well received. I was asked to read it twice. Dr. Spacks mentioned that the title was very intriguing. The week before, when I was alone in my room in Goleta for about four or five days, I included Purpose or a Process as a "Sample of Five Poems that Question Reality." It may stay in the collection, but it may just have to stand on its own.

When I first crafted this poem, it actually emerged as a song, full blown with imagery. It poured out of me as a clear music video, during the Fall of 2007 when I was hanging out with my good friends Oscar and Dulce (I'm still in great touch with Oscar, of course!). My brain somehow was appalled by the Manicured Aesthetic, Pure Perfection of the Paseo Nuevo Mall. Perfect clothes. Perfect people. Perfect make-up. Perfect displays. Perfect, like some kind of Gattaca situation. And then I overlaid the imagery of clothing with machines, with the robotic motions of ships and transport, and the final railroad tracks of workers manufacturing these clothes in foreign countries. And I was angry and helpless all at the same time, because I asked whether a global society could operate in any other way. Someone will always be stuck with the dirty work. It's a matter of how society addresses the value of "dirty work." With imperialism practices, the dirty work is given to the disadvantageous group, whatever group that may be. Before it was posed as "slavery" or "caste system," and now it's posed as "free trade" or "capitalism." Tragic, eh? What delusion in all these stupid social science terms masking the underlying ecological transactions of our leaf cutter ant human selves! And the other issue is to overlay human beahvior with the behavior of multiple species of organisms and geologic phenomena, very much like a Godfrey Reggio film. The music for this poem is very primal drum-beat heavy. Not too much melodic variation, but very deeply profound and gothic vocals. I already have it sitting in my head, waiting to blossom one day :-).


When I presented the poem to the class, I was very explanatory. I was explaining who I am and where I come from, which is complex. I don't talk about anorexia, but if you keep prying me, I will reveal to you the dark source of all my light. First of all, I explained that in science, there are some fundamental issues in the philosophy in terms of "what is" versus "what ought to be." The notion of collecting data and observing the world, or actually learning something about the world and making decisions about your life and this society... the overall greater role of science in society. Hence, the dualist issue of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Gonzo Principle. Observer Effect. Interactor Effect. Do we do environmental science in denial of its implication for behavioral or societal change, or do we accept the need for a collective stimulation-response effect of a social organism (hence, the notion of "panarchy"). Flow of Knowledge --> Action.

Then, in the end, when you finally acknowledge that you know something and you are ready to change your world and collective behavior, then you start to realize that you as an individual are part of a vast, vast system. And you feel... absolutely helpless. How can one individual change an entire society? Besides Obama. We're fxcked. As my mother ingrained in me, "The only person you can change is yourself," which is a superb null hypothesis to start with. Which is why I live in this modern society for amusement, but I am mentally divorced from it, and I am ready to live in the boonies and hunt and fish. Can't wait! The vastness of society, this sense of helplessness.

Then you ask, is it a purpose, you impose a will or a purpose? Or you take a step back like an alien, like a scientist (observer-based scientist) and watch life as a process, because your relative sense of purpose is so diminuitive, you are swallowed into the realm or machine of process.

In the story, the two main characters make a huge epiphany, and if everyone saw what they saw, if everyone knew what they knew, then all the creatures would change their behavior. Then they came to realize that they can't snap their fingers and the creatures will change. Telling a story is futile, that experience combined with exposure to the story will one day allow the other creatures to snap... in their own terms. But at least through the process, the two characters found each other, and sought refuge in each other's company though the world operated in another spectrum, another dimension of perception and change. So, the story ends in tragedy, but also in simultaneous triumph. Finding friendship admist destruction (very much like the end of Fight Club).

Aside: Last quarter I mapped my soul on the previous existing scientific literature.

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.

147. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab:" Pre-production Package

Here is the link to the ENTIRE preproduction package pdf:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/1preproductionmerged.pdf

Link to the treatment: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/3worldseasiestcatchzenofrockcrabfina.pdf

Link to the Cast / Crew: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/4castandcrew.pdf

Link to the Proposed Budget / Timeline:

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

Link to the Working Script / Sketch for Trailer / Music Video:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/6workingscript.pdf

Link to the Shotlist: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/7shotlistdonetobecompleted.pdf

Link to the Talent / Model Release Form: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/8talentmodelreleaseform.pdf

Link to the Location Release Form: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/9locationreleaseform.pdf

I don't know why it took me so long to get to the point to finally place the preproduction package on line! Finally, it's here! I think Michael Hanrahan made the students construct a pre-production package for this course, not necessarily because our short, student films really needed something this elaborate, but I feel he was giving us training wheels so that we can expand on our skills in the NEXT project :-)

I vividly remember working on the preproduction package "overtime." Both Maria de Oca and I turned in our package late... then again it's "twice as much work" simply because we were the only ones doing "solo" projects. Last night (March 18, 2008), we watched the three Greenscreen projects, and I had come to realize that larger groups in film production are "random conglomerations" of a film, but if you are solo, or a very small crew, there is a greater likelihood of consistency or flow of thought throughout the entire film.

There are certain things I think in large production groups that are "anti-environmental," sorry to be so extreme. One, large production groups are usually centralized in power, rather than decentralized and fostering more individualized and localized creativity and individuality. Secondly, inclusion of a large group involves high degree of "division of labor," and then each individual becomes responsible for one part of the film, rather than having a more holistic understanding creating a film. This is one point I will make to the Coastal Fund: it's not the zen of rock crab, but it's the zen of film-making. A huge reason why we humans do not relate to environmental problems is that we don't have a systematically holistic understanding of what other humans do; we are overspecialized and do not experience, nor witness the nuts-and-bolts of other people's labor, nor their interactions with their environments. So, I can argue to the Coastal Fund, instead of playing a mocu-carbon-offset game in film production, I will approach environmental problem solving through maintaining "small-scale-zen-film-maker" production operations, such that I will impose as much work upon myself and least on others.

The next round of shooting, I am now honing into "shooting like an editor" (Oscar's famous quote!). I know exactly what I want. As soon as I have a solidified script, I am good to go!

Pre-Meditations of Shifting Baselines

Here are three documents that show my pre-meditations of the Shifting Baselines music video. As you can tell, I was beating my head against the wall with stale thoughts---in short, I have been pre-meditating for way too long!

This document is the "first final round" of lyrics for Shifting Baselines, with additional music ideas:
http://www.geocities.com/stokastika1/shiftingbaselinesfinal1.pdf

This documents demonstrates how much of my poetry/song writing revolves around the idea of shifting baselines:
http://www.geocities.com/stokastika1/shiftbaselinesbackgroundlyrics.pdf

And this document reveals my initial "naivete" about how to think about and construct movies, particularly music videos... in which now ideas are coming more clearly...
http://www.geocities.com/stokastika1/shiftingbaselinesvideosketchSTART.pdf

For the last month, I have been thinking too much about my thinking. *sigh*