3 realities. The everyday consensual. The Eleven Islands. The future.
Author: Rita de Heer
Writing is what I do. What I think about. What I meditate on. What I dream up. Listen to. Imagine. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I eat. And I walk. Pull out environmental weeds. There are a thousand more things I do, though writing comes into a fair few of those things too.
I’ve been here a month now and thought I knew the old woman’s habits pretty well. At 9 p/m she says “Bedtime!” And shuts me up in the shed. I’ve struggled but so far she has won. That could change today.
See me lying strategically in front of her on the couch? Right where she can see me at all times, to remind her that she hasn’t filled my kibbles bowl. What she usually does after cleaning my litter tray?
Before she sat down she set three bowls each with three kibbles in them as far apart in the unit as she could find, it seems like. Huh?
Oh wait! Last night when she caught me up trying to escape the bedtime routine, she said, “You’re getting to be quite the heavyweight. Is it possible for a cat to put on a kilo in 30 days? Guess you don’t get much exercise!”
I bet the new kibble bowls are a strategy to get me to walk more. I ate the ones in the kitchen. She did not leap up to give me more. I’ll just go and sit beside her on the couch. Maybe I’ll get some action then.
I was astounded after five minutes watching and listening to discover this is out here … in the public domain … for free! Or more to the point, whatever you’d like to pay!
Both sound and visuals are impressive. I’ve enjoyed about twenty minutes of it, so far. While I’m listening to the gorgeous soundtrack interspersing the songs, I’m studying (enjoying!) the visuals.
An amazing amount of work has gone into them! It’s possible of course there some AI involved but so what? There’s such detail in each frame as to have required a great deal of work by the humans involved … cutting and pasting, detailed and intricate prompt engineering if any, hours upon hours in the workshop designing the different elements, composing the frames, researching the stories. And that’s just the visuals.
‘Page ends’ are a narrow strip between frames, and bear at least six little vignettes. The page ends do repeat every so often, but not frequently enough that I got bored seeing them again.
The ‘folk’ being extolled here is, I assume, the Old English/European Celtic culture. All the symbology points to it including Joan of Arc, The Green man, Wood Witches and stags. The European landscapes are varied with farm land, hills, forests, valleys and villages. The skies change from rain to stars to clouds and sunny gloamings. The ‘real’ rain drops that spill and spatter down the still frames slowly passing right to left are another creative strategy that help to tie everything together and set a bright tone.
With the pictures resembling high class black and white woodcuts, the ambience could be darker than it is. I think the gorgeous background soundtrack–of bird song, rain, and other natural sounds–does a lot to ameliorate the visual darkness. I can’t get over the bird song … seldom have I heard birdsong complementing vocals so well!
It’s obvious there is at least one very creative human being at the head of this production, though I would expect there to be more like a dozen creatives involved in this work of art. And my hat off to them! I’m a fan from this minute!
Thank you, Ogden Fahey for alerting me to this amazing production!
Have just added in the left front leg. This knit has got to be one of the most challenging knits I’ve attempted so far … and I began knitting when I was nine.
Juffrouw Krauweel taught me and about twenty other 9 year olds when we were in Grade Three.
Juf stood in front of the class with her big knitting needles calling out the steps for each stitch … insteken, omslaan, doorhalen, af … (I can’t remember the last word in Dutch, maybe later)
I was an independent hussy where knitting was concerned and knitted without patterns most of my life.
This time however I’m following the directions stitch by stitch.
Lol, that doesn’t look so good for a couple of reasons. But the turning-a-document-into-a-pdf process should have its own verb by now, it’s such a common operation. Of course, there could already be one and I have missed it. Let me know?
When I first started blogging, I’d laboriously do the formatting off-line, then when I copied and pasted into the blog … flit! All the formatting was lost and I’d have to start again. So for me, turning something into a pdf is nearly always about preserving formatting, especially when I started posting up Bosley’s Builders.
The hold-up had two prongs. One, I needed a word processor other than MS Word for the operation. MS Word have lost my custom. Not at all important in their scheme of things, I’m sure. But say a million of us decide not to fork out either the monthly or the yearly cost? They’ll sit up and take notice then. When I saw that they don’t sell copies outright anymore, I was gone.
So, Scrivener is it. I’ve been using Scrivener for a good few years for preliminary drafts. Their latest version has the possibility to save documents into pdf mode. They haven’t put their prices up and they don’t profiteer by forcing people into a perpetual loan situation.
The second prong of the hold-up has been me coming to grips with writing and formatting Bosley’s mob into Scrivener in the first place.
Would you belive I’ve been here for almost two weeks?
This is me at my breakfast. The old woman gives me canned salmon for breakfast and dinner. Sounds special, I know. She thinks I’m too bony, the breeze will blow you away she said.
But she gives me titbits to try out at lunch time and if I don’t like them she’ll hide them in the fish at dinner time.
The other day I ate a scrap of omelette I’d politely left at the side of the bowl. She does not take no for an answer. One on her scorecard.
Mind you, I had a bit of cooked chicken today and it was delish. Bring it on. Right mow she’s out there on the balcony.
At her gardening. Where’s the garden I might ask, when it’s just leggy plants in pots, so elongated they might run away. We’re waiting for grow-lights to come in the post.
Rita de Heer 