brucine (broo'-seen), 1) n. Pharm., Chem. a bitter, poisonous alkaloid, C23H26N2O4, obtained from the nux vomica tree; 2) n. Bruce Bortin's 'low-impact' weblog

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Before the SF Girls Chorus


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Go Kitania!  Good job.  Y'all made an exquisite sound, which my crappy cellphone videocam just butchered. But you were great!

xxBruce 

[Part of the before project] 

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Detail of Vessel


Detail of Vessel, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

Fritty!

Blue Vessel


Blue Vessel, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

I got a chance to blow a piece the other day.

Dan & Grant


Dan & Grant, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

Final day of glassblowing for the year. I love these guys.

Shruggy the Sock Monkey


Shruggy the Sock Monkey, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

From Cathy.

Monday, December 19, 2005

West Oakland Ginkos


West Oakland Ginkos, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

West Oakland is planted in ginkos, honeysuckles, royal palms. Over the weekend, the stormy weather brought a lot of the ginko leaves down. Here they are, on the ground by my bicycle, layered & generally fucked with videoly.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Before Mary Shows Up


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I ambushed Mary on her way home from the Parkway last evening.  She saw Goodnight and Good Luck; said it was good.  I had stayed at home to cut video, natch, but I thought I'd go meet her as she walked home.

Another piece from the before project

Saturday, December 17, 2005

At Amnesia


At Amnesia, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

Skull/spine/elephant thing. I like it.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Before the Shut-Ins


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The Shut-Ins held their release party for "A Very Shut-Ins Christmas" at Amnesia last night. Here they are, right before they played their first number. Part of the "Before" project.

Before the Exam


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I'm doing a series of short pieces about what happens in the time surrounding the event.  Temporal equivalent of negative space kind of thing.

Here's the orchestra, they're going to play a lot of Beethoven or whatever, but before that, they'll play the "An Orchestra Tunes Up" song.  I love that song. 

 
Here's Glen Moriwaki's Art-103 class at CCSF, right before the final exam began.

Monday, December 12, 2005

T-10 Video Festival


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21 Grand, a downtown Oakland gallery, held their T-10 Video Festival last weekend. Open call, all pieces must be under 10 minutes long. Here's a short pan of the crowd right before the festival started last night.

Ego Candy Dog Toy


Ego Candy Dog Toy, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

From the Department of Baffling Commercial Utterances/Asian Branch

Raffi & Tree


Raffi & Tree, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

Saturday, Mary & I biked up to Dented Foods to pick up our xmas tree.

Later, Cathy, Lynne-Rachel & Raffi all came over to help Mary trim the tree.

Raffi did a great job trimming the xmas tree. Especially as she's a total rookie. Way to go, Raffi!

Raffi ties a bow


Raffi ties a bow, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

It involved bunny ears

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

57|ckrD00d [Sticker Dude]


57|ckrD00d, originally uploaded by dumbeast.

On our flight home from the East coast on Sunday, Mary & I had aisles across like we always do. In the seat in front of Mary (my seat's surf-seat) was a postmodernage cyber-warrior guy with the rectangular glasses, a laptop running XP with three different browser icons on the desktop and the mousse-tousled hairdo.

During the half-hour wait in the runway before taking off, when we weren't allowed to use electronics, this guy was writing careful notes in one of those Moleskine notebooks. The cover had been decorated, completely covered with stickers. Didn't seem to be much more to the design concept than must have adhesive backing.

So I'm reading a magazine or something; next time I glance over at this guy, he's using a single-edged razorblade to pry up a sticker and reposition it just so, right where it belongs. So I guess there was more to the sticker composition than I was aware of....

That task completed, he put the blade into a little plastic wallet and put it away. I'm looking around the plane..did anybody else see this? No, just me. Hmmm.

It's been a long day of travel after a very difficult trip, and I really don't want to queer this flight, so I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut. Guy seems harmless; once we're airborne he powers up his laptop and starts browsing this morning's boingboing, so he's probably a kindred soul at some level, although first time he gets up for a stroll, it makes me a little nervous. But then he comes back to his seat with an Airline biscotti. If I was going to blow up a plane, I don't think I'd be chowing down on grade 'D' gourmet snackies right beforehand.

So what's the story with this guy? He was very nonchalant about bringing a razorblade aboard the airplane and using it in front of God and His Flight Atterndants and everybody. How did THAT get past the metal detectors, while (I've been led to believe) the eyelets in my sneakers would send the TSA into CODE RED URAL BASILISK/DEFCON 5 ALERT? Why would he want to risk the consequences of getting caught, for the sake of repositioning a sticker, right now, can't wait until we're off the plane? Or the risk of somebody seeing him on the plane like I did, but snitching and having the ensuing onboard freakout screw up a planeload of peoples' lives for the next day or so?

In the aisle next to his seat, I notice the cardboard packaging from the razor blade. I pick it up on my way back from the head, and write him a little note on it, then paste it onto the back of one of my cards. The note says, Dude, WTF?

I figure he might be able to explain a few things to me. My card has my email on it, so he'd be able to respond. Thing is, I don't want to give it to him in flight and freak him out. I was hoping to catch up with him once we were safely on the ground, at baggage, but he wasn't there.

So StickrDude, if you happen to see this, please get in touch. A comment at this blog would be appreciated. WTF?

Friday, December 02, 2005

Last Wednesday, I travelled into NY to meet Tomas & Mary at monkeytown

http://www.monkeytownhq.com/monkeytownhome.html

for the SloMo Video Festival.

http://www.slomovideo.com/index.html

OH JEEZ. I can't work this terminal thru this interface. Ramona just came into the room and said "I won't bother you."

Brucine out

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