Ten minutes to write a scene of great happiness
Ten minutes to write a scene of sorrow, anger, despair
Thirty-five minutes to merge them and make peace
A SCENE OF HAPPINESS
Perhaps it begins with a sound
Tick tick tick ticktickticktick-bounce-ticktick-tick
Rice landing from east, north, south, west
He is right behind you
Your him
Right behind you
That southern James Dean
Tearing up all kinds of shit south of the Mason Dixon
Jumped the tracks and reeled you in
You are squinting, head up in that fancy hat
Your beautiful face
Shining
The two of you
Pelted with the rice that later fell from your coat
When he removed it in the place
I would eat onion rings some 35 years later
You, shining
A SCENE OF SORROW, ANGER, DESPAIR
Begin with a color if you’d like
Yellowed
Those papers you had
Yellowed to Strom Thurmond
(Your daddy said one time that he shoulda killed that bastard when he had the chance.)
Yellowed to what’s her name Representative
Your third appeal to be found disabled
Widow’s disability something or other
Yellowed papers carefully tucked away
I am the keeper of all the things and memories now
And I’m struck blind
Howling at your ghost
That was finally deemed yellowed by too many years of records of
Shock treatments
Pills
Deep purple despair
They finally believed you
Found you profoundly disabled and eligible for those benefits
Because you lost and lost and lost
It was 1990
How did I not know
GALACTOMERGE
Yesterday I touched your wedding dress
Yellowed
Stiff
Brittle
You were hardly bigger than a cardinal
The one who is you and visits me now in the spring
I sat on the floor
Fingering through layers of satin
And lace that broke in my hands
I had a surprise ceremony
Quietly snipped every yellowed thread
That held a button or a bead
Dropped them into a tiny box
Tick tick tick-bounce-tick
They will turn into something else later
Or maybe they just did
You had a life
I have found it seven thousand times
In your pocketbook
The kitchen drawer
Those bibles still holding notes that you made and left
(Did you know I would find them?)
The glove box of your car
The towels that were more than the shelves could handle
(Because if one towel was good, 97 would be almost enough)
The room under the house where you kept a ladder and hoe
The cup by your chair holding the pens you stopped trying to use
The hangers now stripped of your clothes
I needed to see that photo
The one I found yesterday
You were so happy
For a moment I did not know your face
And those papers I found yesterday
And the journal kept by your sitters making note of each day and each each each time
You took two of those
Or one of those along with two of the other
Often only an hour and some change apart
No wonder you slurred through the phone
Me, on the other end, trying to run with concrete feet
It was 2017
How did I not know
I think I can set you free
Now that I have seen that 1957 face
The one in the photo
It’s what I needed to begin prying my fingers
From the wall of the tunnel
Those yellowed papers at one dark end
That radiant photo face at the bright other
I howl one last time into the dark end
It howls back in ripples ripples ripples r i p p l e s
The faint touch of the last on my back
As I turn to face the bright end
Your radiant face far, far away
I will get there
This is what I know.
BOBO
My brother’s Velveteen Rabbit for 54 years. His right ear still jingles.
Photo © Jane Dorn
A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home. —Rumi
What. Even.
I asked a six year old what my movie should be about, and this is what he told me.
You can see more work on my webpage: www.biancagiaever.com
If you liked the music in this film check out the webpage for the band Alpenglow: www.alpenglowmusic.com
Photo © Jane Dorn
I think it was in the time of spring 2012, when I came across David Shiyang Liu's lovely piece of work about Ira Glass. It was the most inspiring and motivating video I had ever seen in my life. I watched it over and over again, listened to Ira Glass' voice, and told myself, that I am not the only person who is constantly disappointed about the gap between one's taste and one's skills. Later in 2012, I decided to do my own filmed version of Ira's interview - using my own language to tell his message. It took me about a year from concept to upload.
I made it for myself and for anybody who is in doubt about his/her creative career. I also think that Ira Glass' message isn't only limited to the creative industry. It can be applied to everyone who starts out in a new environment and is willing to improve.
THANK YOU
Ira Glass, whom I've never met in real life, but who had such a big influence on my development. Thank you for telling beginners what nobody else does.
David Shiyang Liu for the video that inspired me to start the project. You all should watch his awesome kineticTypo-version here: http://vimeo.com/24715531
The people from current.tv who originally recorded the interview with Ira Glass. See the relevant part here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY
The people from Magic Lantern who gave DSLR videography a new dimension (I chose this project to be a test run with the RAW plugin)!
Steven Sasseville for painting the "taste" painting for me.
Pedro Sousa for his advice and working his ass off at the "creative work" chalkboard.
Wolfgang Kraus for letting me borrow his sound equipment.
Kai Löhnert for working out on his birthday in the "fight" take.
Wolfgang Hendrik Schnabel for giving me the museum-like atmosphere and his silhouette in the painting takes.
Hermiyas Ötztürk for his hairy "good enough" hand.
Orange Hive Studio for light equipment and location.
Mima and Heinz Sax-Schmitz for the location of the "ambitions" take and finding me the "finish 1 story" typewriter.
Joyce Chen (https://vimeo.com/clownmori), Soufiane Mabrouki (http://vimeo.com/user21466567), Damien Tsenkoff (https://www.behance.net/damtsnkff), Nikita Samutin (www.baselinedesign.ru) and Andrej Mikula (http://amara.org/en/profiles/profile/65015/) for taking the time and patience to create Chinese, Arabic, French, Russian and Slovak subtitles and dissolving language barriers to make even more people understand Ira's words.
A SPECIAL THANK YOU
Solveig Gold for being the most patient and supporting person in my life. She appears in a lot of scenes in this video.
Jutta and Uwe Sax for several pieces of equipment and their support.
Today I learned that a two-inch-long piece of Scotch tape is capable of knocking the wind out of a full-grown orphan. Bittersweet surprise.
Photo © Jane Dorn
This road, this sky, these errands kept me going while my mother was dying. Just a two-lane road off the highway, it was the route I took to pick up the medications that hospice ordered for her. For the last two months of her life, I would stop the car, get out, take a photo with my phone each time the sky said HOPE.
At first, I thought my mom had likely taken this photo. On second glance, it appears to have been taken from the height of a tadpole-baptizing girl or her slightly older, taller brother.
I saw Lynda Carter once,
(before she was Wonder Woman)
riding in the lead car
a convertible
in the Dothan, Alabama
Peanut Parade.
Dothan was full
of Christians and tadpoles.
I tried to make Believers
of my creek-caught critters,
saying to every damn one
I baptize you
in the name of The Father
The Son
and The Holy Spirit.
Amen.
as i caught and moved them
(cupped in a creek-water-wrinkled paw)
from one Cool-Whip bowl of muddy water
to another.
But back to Lynda Carter
and how she rolled through that town
of lost tadpoles,
their small muddy evangelist
watching
just sure
for one moment
that she was
somewhere.
—Dorn
Subscribe to Sub Pop's YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/subpoprecords Daniel Martin Moore / Sub Pop http://www.subpop.com/artists/daniel_martin_moore "In the Cool of the Day" from Daniel Martin Moore's 01/18/11 release, In the Cool of the Day http://www.subpop.com/releases/daniel_martin_moore/full_lengths/in_the_cool_of_the_day Directed by Kevin Bayer / http://www.softcitylights.com Order the Album iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in-the-cool-of-the-day/id411536786 Amazon http://amzn.com/B004DDKPDC Sub Pop http://www.subpop.com/releases/daniel_martin_moore/full_lengths/in_the_cool_of_the_day Like Daniel Martin Moore on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/danielmartinmoore MySpace http://www.myspace.com/danielmartinmoore Daniel Martin Moore on tour http://www.subpop.com/tours/daniel_martin_moore Sub Pop Records http://www.subpop.com Follow Sub Pop on Twitter https://twitter.com/subpop Like Sub Pop on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/subpoprecords Follow Sub Pop on SoundCloud http://soundcloud.com/subpop
EVER
by Meghan O'Rourke
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine-gutting-never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
WALKING ON WATER (MAYBE BAREFOOT SKIING), ASHEVILLE NC
Photo © Jane Dorn
ZAP SHACK SELFIE TRIPTYCH
Recently shown in the Artbomb Studios Spring Exhibition. I tried to take a photo each day I was at the Cancer Institute for treatments. These are three of 31 or so. I lost count of days, treatments, and photos along the way.
Photos © Jane Dorn