Another New Texting Phenomenon

You’ve experienced and loved SongBomb©™, and now I have created a new texting phenomenon that is tearing up the charts of telecommunication!

It’s called…

Poem Invasion®©™

The rules are simple:

1.  You must first receive a text. (This adds to the “sneak attack” nature of Poem Invasion®©™, because the sender actually brings it upon themselves.)

2. You must respond to their text with a reply that rhymes with what they wrote. This will result in a stanza of poetry. (Extra points are awarded if you can also make the two texts rhythmically work together.)

3. Even though rhyming is difficult, it is immensely important to try to keep the conversation on topic. This way you can keep it going as long as possible.*

4. If the person you're Poem Invasion®©™ing gets uncomfortable and asks something about your conversation rhyming, quickly make one last line and say goodbye. (It’s kind of like the movie Inception; once the people become aware that you’re messing with their world, they’ll turn on you. In a Poem Invasion®©™, a sure sign of this is other party ending her or his texts with words like orange, month, or purple. Get out as soon as you can; they’re on to you!)

*In the event that the person you’re Poem Invasion®©™ing replies with “What?”, you are allowed to text them back with a simple, “Whaaat!” However, this transforms Poem Invasion®©™ into:

Rap Attack!!®©™

The rules of Rap Attack!!®©™ are almost identical to Poem Invasion®©™, you just have to add the words yo, krunk, and the suffix -izzle as much as you can. 

 

An Example of Rap Attack!!®©™

Friend: Kissing my boyfriend is such a drag. I wish he were taller.

You: Well if he ever needs a boost, just give a little holler!

Friend: What?

You: Whaaat!

Friend: What are you doing?

You: I’m krunk, yo! I’m on a boat, yo! Look at me, you mizzle fizzle, check out what I’m brewing!

(Any reference to I’m on a Boat automatically gives you extra points.)

Friend: You’re being weird.

You: Whoa! An insult from my bro! I guess I should watch out where I’m shavin’ my beard!

Friend: What?

You: Whaaat!

Friend: Orange orange orange  

You: Okay, see you at dinner. Bye.

It is encouraged to publish the work on facebook or submit it to a literary magazine as unintentional poetry. It's highly, highly conceptual.

“Why I’ve sucked so hard at blogging lately” or “Is Brian posting on some invisible blog we don’t know about?” or “I wish I could juggle better”

So it’s been three weeks since I’ve posted something, which is, like, unheard of here at Popcorn Day. I’m so sorry, my dear readers.

I planned on this, my senior semester of college, to be busy, but controlled.

Eighteen credits = doable.

A job = possible.

A blog = yes! Plenty of time! 

All was going according to plan until I realized that this was my last semester in which I can present the musical I’ve been writing for four years, Forwards & Backwards, to the only people that care about it here at Bethel. 

Our official picture:

 

[This is a link to the Facebook page of Forwards & Backwards so you can see what we’re doing and the music I’ve written. Follow us and COME TO SEE IT ON NOVEMBER 20TH, PEOPLE!]

That being said, "Popcorn Day time" has become "Forwards & Backwards time", and I’ve neglected you.

The bad news is that I’m probably going to continue neglecting you until after November 20^th, when maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to breathe a little bit. I’ll come back around Thanksgiving to find a gray and emaciated Popcorn Day with sunken eyes and stuff it so plump with holiday spirit that the walls of its stomach will explode. The life that comes back to Popcorn Day will be more inspiring than that horrible Christmas Shoes song (I recommend that you don't click that link), and the world will start spinning again, I promise. In the meantime, I have to be crazy someplace else.

To keep you entertained until then, here are links to my most recent sculptures. They’re web-based, so you can all see them! Yippie-kai-ayyy!! 

602 Free Cups

 You Say You Spilled (But I Say Bullshit)

Anyway. Catch you on the flipside, readers. 

Where I've Been and What I've Dreamed

I figured that I should probably post something, given that I’m about to receive The Worst Blogger Alive Award from you, my faithful followers. You have still been checking, though; I’ve seen on my Analytics page that I average about six blog visits a day, which makes me feel like you are going to my blog, seeing “One Very Busy Night In My Head” for the hundredth time, shaking your head and saying, “How has it come to this?”

Actually, I doubt that any of you are that interested in my blog.  Not that that bothers me, necessarily; I’m just so vain that way.  (I probably think this song is about me.)

If it makes you feel any better (it makes me feel less like a blogging jerk, at least), I have been pretty busy.  Here’s what I’ve done lately:

1. Become obsessed with the process of bookmaking, which I’ve learned from my bookmaking class.  I’ll show you some of my projects sometime.

2. Starred in a one-act play at my school.

3. Listened way too intently to Renaissance through Rococo Art History lectures every Tuesday and Thursday.

4. Dreamed more than I ever have before, and stupidly forgotten most of them.

5. Won Bethel Idol singing competition! My winnings: $200 and the fear that someone will confront me about how I am supporting a form of idolatry.

6. Finished Harry Potter Four…Oh my gosh can you believe that Mad-Eye Moody?!

So, even though I’ve been busy, I thought I’d give you a little sump’m sump’m before I head off to California for spring break with Bethel Choir tomorrow, even though this post is probz a little bit too long.

Here’s a dream that I had the other night—one that I remember, anyway…

In my unconscious, I visited a very peculiar town.  Nestled in a small cranny somewhere in the United States (probably in a state, I’m guessing) was a tiny village that spread out vertically instead of horizontally. Let’s call it Whoopsy-Daisyville. Why not.

Whoopsy-Daisyville rested on top of a perfectly measured inverted square the size of a city block. The buildings in that block were dank and gray, dusty with the remnants of years and years of movement that happened above them. Mostly deserted, these dilapidated structures were company to the occasional stray cat or runaway kid that chose to lurk in their shadows.

I was invited to walk around by an elderly man, the kind of guy who still goes running all the time in a t-shirt tucked in to his elastic-waisted windbreaker pants, and sports a walkman (yes, an actual, prehistoric walkman) clipped to the same waist band. Let’s call him Silvio.  He also had a cat.  Let’s call him Tangerine.

Silvio and Tangerine took me on a tour of this town, Whoopsy-Daisyville, an organized mess of stairs and buildings, painted only in the colors or the new Sharpie Pens: Orange, Red, Blue, Green, and Purple (pretty much all my faves).  As we walked over and through purple bridges and green stairways, red rope ladders and orange houses, I wondered how this place was supported. It seemed as though it was only kept up by its numerous walkways. Another mystery that slipped into my mind was that there didn’t seem to be any problems with shadows, regardless of where these ladder-hoisted buildings and walkway were. I was amazed.  Popcorn Day weather.

[I'm trying hard not to listen to the fact that the Art Minor inside of me is ranting about how the bottom of this drawing has two vanishing points.]

We toured the whole town, up and down, Tangerine jumping from railing to landing ever so often.  Silvio waved to a person walking a schnauzer-like dog, merrily. I also spotted a man riding a bike. (How the hell can you ride a bike with all these stairs?) We strolled through a fresh market, a coffee shop, a park made for kids, and finally Silvio’s home. Like all the other buildings, multiple stairways and ladders came in and out of it. The house was adorned with giant windows and hanging flower baskets in the doorway (just flowers in these, though; no popcorn). The blue porch had a walkway up to garden on the roof, which had not only vegetables and flowers, but big trees as well. Most of the houses had them.

It was the most lovely and confusing day.  I knew I wanted to stay there forever, though, in the sun, smelling flowers and waving at dogs, walking around with Silvio and Tangerine…it would have been great, but somewhere in there I woke up, and all I could do was sketch it.

Have a nice spring break, everyone. I’ll have more to write about in a week or so.

Blue Trees

I was away from Blogsville this week because I had a major test, a 10-page exegesis paper, and a less important art project due. Knowing me, I'm sure you're confident that I put more time into the art project than the other more important assignments. Who gives a pretty crap. I was given permission to make another StopMo animation! Many, many hours later, about 600 photos, 12 camera batteries, and a colossal mess on my desk later (dot dot dot, enter the pic)...



...I've got a pretty wonderful 2-minute animation called Blue Trees, including my own original score! Hope you enjoy.



Here's a higher-quality version on YouTube. Darn you, Blogger...only giving me 100MB to work with!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaquhsGKPB8

The Fraidy Cat Lion, By 3rd Grade Me.

My parents finally found it.  As I mentioned in Lallapalooza of Lions, the lost book I wrote as a 3rd grader has reemerged, and as promised, here it is. Notice how my drawings now are really not too much better than those from ten years ago.

By Popular Demand...

Well, actually only by two people saying I should post it...

Here's a 5-second StopMo I did right before I went to bed the other night. It's not much, but it's kinda fun. Also, it's the first time you readers of my blog get to hear me sing in the 5-second score. 

Here it is on YouTube. 

I Planned To Clean My Room...

...but first I decided to check my blog.  And then I looked at a cool blog I'm thinking of following by an artist who uses Stop-Motion animation (think Gumby or the original Rudolph movie). And I pondered, hmmm...I wonder how he did that. Can I do that?

Which sent me to google. To Wikipedia. To a groovy site saying that I can make my very own StopMo video with my digital camera and iMovie on my Mac. And now it's 1:30 and I'm posting what I've been working on for the past few hours. The quality is low, but I posted it on YouTube so you can see it better. And I performed the original 15-second score, haha. 1:30 in the morning. 

And my room still isn't clean. 

Avoiding the Box, Kicking and Screaming

I have a new obsession.  Usually my obsessions are okay, but this one scares me (and my parents) a little bit.

Christie talked me into taking a 3-D art class at school with her this semester. (You can all blame her.)  Having to fulfill the requirement, I took the class and now have fallen hopelessly in love with sculpting, building, nailing, gluing, sawing, plastering, and creating things.  In love enough that I’ll be talking to my advisor tomorrow about the possibility adding art to my study program. 

Which will add another element to my major that, on paper, will make me about zero dollars as a grown-up.

My Major Program:

• Reconciliation Studies:
• A semi-academic area of study which focuses on fixing all the broken relationships in society. We look at ways to eliminate racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, economic disparity, and all the other problems in our world.  Pretty lofty, huh?
• Spanish
• Still undeclared, but I am receiving a Spanish-major-like education.
• Art
• Are you kidding me?

Why couldn’t I have just stuck with Biblical and Theological Studies like I was so committed to as a freshman? At least I would have been able to get a low-paying, un-luxurious, but at least stable job when I left college. But darn me and my freaking mind and damn passion to avoid staying in the lines at all costs.

Hey, at least I’m paying loads and loads of money to learn things that excite me instead of paying loads and loads of money to be stuffed inside a box and rolled down a banal track until I’m old enough to retire, right?

I sure do hope so.

Wish me luck. 

(P.S.: This is totally and example of a Thing That Holds Things that I don't like.)

Witnessing Momentary Performances

Last week I marked two calendars, made major plans, and got really excited to go see a man with a white hat pushing a bicycle stop to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Lee Walton is an Experientialist artist who has set up seven performances in the Minneapolis area over the next three months. I could go on and on trying to explain this guy, but I suggest you just go to his website to experience his work for yourself.  Or hey, come to Bethel! I’ll treat you to a smoothie at Royal Grounds.

Anyway, a week before Friday, these words were put on the wall of Cuzzy’s Bar in Minneapolis.

Like I said, I marked my calendar, and Christie and I made a date to go watch, sure enough, at 6pm, a man with a blue hat pushing a bicycle eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So random, yet so deliberate.

I’m currently obsessed with his work. Here’s a schedule for the next six performances. I’ll be going to all of them. 

Outside of Barbette Restaurant 
1600 W Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55408 
Wednesday, September 30 at 10:00am 
Person with wiffle ball bat walks curb before finding a penny

Across from the Black Dog Café 
at the corner or Broadway St. and Prince St, Lowertown, St. Paul, MN 
Sunday, October 11 at noon 
Person walking with purpose stops to answer cell phone, turns 360 degrees

Outside of Whitey's Saloon
400 E. Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis, MN 
Tuesday, October 13, 2:00pm 
Person sitting with legs crossed, drinks a Pepsi while thinking about an old friend.

Outside of the Red Stag
509 1st Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN 
Monday, October 19 at 11:59pm 
Person with backpack relieves an itch

701 Washington Ave. N (between 7th Ave. N and 8th Ave. N), Warehouse District, Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, November 1 at 1:00pm 
Person walks by wearing mostly blue carrying 2 gallons of milk.

Bethel University Campus, Brushaber Commons, 2nd floor
3900 Bethel Drive, St. Paul MN 
Thursday, November 5 at 4:15pm 
Two students with brightly colors shoelaces kiss before going separate ways.

The Clay Version Of Me.

Christie and I were staying late in the 3D Design room to work on a sculpting project this evening. Finding the art room to be much more fun alone late at night, we swung from a chain used to lift big art pieces and made a 5-minute likeness of me. I'm responsible for the body and Christie sculpted the head. It's like i'm looking in the mirror when I look at this bad boy.

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel