Invisible Cinema

The Girl Who Knew the Future (Remix, Part 2) by Jennifer MacMillan

Come let me kiss you on the brow
You who are nimble as a flame
Yours is all its pain
All its ardor and all the glitter

- Apollinaire

Download TheGirlWhoKnewtheFuture_2nd_remix

The mindful blogger?

"Just realizing meaning of mind
Encompasses all understanding."

-- Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, The Outline of Essential Points

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"'Thinking,' as my father used to say, 'is the natural activity of the mind, an expression of the mind's capacity to produce anything.'"

-- Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Joyful Wisdom

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"Similarly, we know we have a mind, but its features are blurred by overlapping thoughts, feeling, and sensations; thoughts and feelings about our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, thoughts, feelings, and sensations about our thoughts about our thoughts, feelings, and so on."

-- Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Joyful Wisdom

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"There's an old, old story drawn from the sutras, in which the Buddha compared the futility of looking for the causes and conditions that give rise to certain thoughts to a soldier who'd been shot by a poisoned arrow on the battlefield.  The doctor comes to remove the arrow, but the soldier says, 'Wait, before you pull out the arrow, I need to know the name of the person who shot me, the village he came from, and the names of his parents and grandparents.  I also need to know what kind of wood the arrow is made from, the nature of the material the point is made of, and the type of bird that the feathers attached to the arrow were taken from . . . ' on and on . . . By the time the doctor had investigated all these questions and returned with answers, the soldier would be dead.  This is an example of self-created suffering, the kind of intellectual overlay that inhibits us from dealing with painful situations simply and directly."

-- Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Joyful Wisdom

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"To the extent that one allows desire (or any other emotion) to express itself, one correspondingly finds out how much there is that wants to be expressed."

-- Kalu Rinpoche, Gently Whispered

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"Oneself is one's own refuge, what other refuge can there be?"

-- The Dhammpada

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"The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."

-- Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Call for Poetry Submissions - Leonard Cohen's b-day!

(I'm doing this!!!  xoxo J.M.)

CALL FOR POETRY SUBMISSIONS

In honour of Leonard Cohen’s 75th birthday (September 21, 2009,) the Foundation for Public Poetry/Fondation Poésie Publique is seeking submissions of poetry(poetic responses) based upon Leonard Cohen’s poetry. A maximum of seventy-five poems will be selected for this publication.

The publication is a fundraising initiative to help support the commencement of a Leonard Cohen Poet-In-Residence program at Leonard’s old high school(Westmount High.)

All submissions will be considered to grant the Foundation for Public Poetry anthology rights. Submissions should include a note of reference to the Cohen poem which the author is responding to. Authors should also include a three-line biography and complete contact information.

For more information, or to submit, please email: publicpoetry@gmail.com

or see FAQ in the [comments link] below.

Deadline for submissions is July 12, 2009.

FAQs

ACCEPTANCE OF PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK

We will accept previously published work, but our preference is original material composed specifically tied/linked/inspired by a Leonard Cohen poem. We request reference to the poem’s title (and the book title if known.)

For previously published work, please include details of publication(publisher and date) with the submission. Where the publisher has copyright, the author MUST have the publisher send an email granting anthology rights to the Foundation for Public Poetry.”

ACCEPTANCE OF POEMS BASED ON COHEN’S SONGS

We will accept poems based upon Leonard Cohen’s songs. However, our preference is original material composed specifically tied/linked/inspired by a Leonard Cohen poem.

The Camera-Microscope: An Interview with Jennifer MacMillan by Sara Blechman

I would like to share this interview that Sara Blechman and I conducted for Lynne Sachs's Media Mavericks course at NYU!  It truly was an immense honor . . .  Please download it here.  :)  xoxoxo  -- Jen

The Camera-Microscope
An Interview with Jennifer MacMillan
By Sara Blechman
May, 2009 

Download Media Mavericks interview

Surprise

"You're walking down the street, on your way to meet
a friend for dinner.  You're already thinking about what you'd
like to eat, savoring your hunger.  Come around the corner
and--oh no, a lion!"

-- Robert Sapolsky

(This excerpt has been taken from the book, JOYFUL WISDOM by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, as an example of dukkha or suffering, as the basic condition of life.  Why does this idea seem so freeing?  . . . Stay tuned!  :)

The Girl Who Knew the Future (Remix) by Jennifer MacMillan

The Girl Who Knew the Future (Remix) by Jennifer MacMillan (2009) super 8 to 16mm, 1 min. silent

A remix of a film I made 7 years ago, inspired by Guillaume Apollinaire's, "Les Collines," Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War.  Captured on Super 8 and transferred to 16mm using the optical printer, this b/w film is grainy, glittery, and French!  I'm bringing it back . . .

"I've traversed the glowing sky
Where life is a melody." 

- Guillaume Apollinaire

Where is my vote?

"Stereotypes do not do justice to those in the opposition. Protests have swept up a broad river of people in Tehran -- young and old, dressed in traditional Islamic gowns and the latest Western fashions."  -- NYT, 6/18/09

Photo: The New York Times

Black Rain by Semiconductor

BLACK RAIN (2009, 3 mins., video) by Semiconductor

Black Rain from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

"Black Rain is sourced from images collected by the twin satellite, solar mission, STEREO. Here we see the HI (Heliospheric Imager) visual data as it tracks interplanetary space for solar wind and CME's (coronal mass ejections) heading towards Earth. Data courtesy of courtesy of the Heliospheric Imager on the NASA STEREO mission. Working with STEREO scientists, Semiconductor collected all the HI image data to date, revealing the journey of the satellites from their initial orientation, to their current tracing of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Solar wind, CME's, passing planets and comets orbiting the sun can be seen as background stars and the milky way pass by. As in Semiconductors previous work 'Brilliant Noise' which looked into the sun, they work with raw scientific satellite data which has not yet been cleaned and processed for public consumption. By embracing the artefacts, calibration and phenomena of the capturing process we are reminded of the presence of the human observer who endeavors to extend our perceptions and knowledge through technological innovation."

-- Semiconductor

Commissioned by Animasivo Mexico City, 2009

Excerpts from Apollinaire "Les Collines" (1917)

From:  "Les Collines" by Apollinaire/Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War (c) U. of California Press Berkeley

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Come let me kiss you on the brow
You who are nimble as a flame
Yours is all its pain
All its ardor and all the glitter

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Helpful spirits wander
And mingle among men
In these times that overtake us
Here nothing ends nothing begins
Look at the ring on your finger

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I was begging another time
But was given only a flame
That burnt me to the lips
No word of thanks could I say
Torch nothing can extinguish

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Of suffering and kindness
Beauty will be composed
More perfect than the beauty
That arose from symmetry
It snows I burn and I tremble

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. . . the maitre d'hotel
Pours them an unreal champagne
It foams up like a snail
Or like a poet's brain
And all the while a rose was singing

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And the third number is the lady
Going up in the elevator
She keeps going going up
And the light keeps spreading out
And those clarities transform her

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But these are petty secrets
There are other deeper ones
That soon will be unveiled
And divide you into a hundred pieces
Still having one common thought

Film-makers' Coop Gets A New Home!

475 Park Avenue South!  :)

“I was in a position to help, and I thought that I should,” Mr. Cohen said. “They are a wonderful group doing important work, and there is no other place to go and see this kind of thing. They needed a storage space for their archives, and this meets their needs.” 

- Charles S. Cohen, NYT/ 5/27/09

Photo Credit:  Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times