29 April 2009: American Indian; Where

Where are the trees near enough to Kenilworth to have dropped the stick on the glass awning? A student hanging around like a dropped penny may have lobbed it up. Where the trees grow may be close enough for the wind to have blown the stick to its resting place. However, the stick is of a fair size and would have required a robust breeze. Where the stick originally landed is marked by a shadow of dirt and minerals. The wind is capable of moving the stick, at least a few inches. Where from and how far? It was likely thrown.

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The video today had to incorporate "Something Native American," at a loss, I used a location that I was at anyway for grocery shopping near some paths down to the MKE river. I had a water bottle on me. The water leads out of the urban environment into a green space as a representation of the Trail of Tears.

28 April 2009: The Color Blue; 3rd Person

Kathy Sennott wrote her name on the title page of a copy of Great Jones Street, her printing was a rectangle that would prove a T-square to be at 89 degrees. The writer didn’t notice this when he first flipped through it. He did notice, though, that a previous owner had been in conversation with the copy by underlining, bracketing, and making notations on portions of the text. Thorough at first, or enthusiastic at least, the highlighting of passages and phrases slowly waned up to page 100 but picked up around 180 and remained frequent through the final 40 pages.

27 April 2009: Pointed Upward; sdrawkcaB

“’.tis I ereH’ ?gniyas eht wonk uoY” ,namow gnitiaw a ot dias moorhtab eht detixe enac sih dniheb gniklaw nam A .dekool I .em dniheb htaerb delahxe na saw erehT .ti depparwnu ,regrub dnoces eht pu dekcip I setunim wef a retfA .elttes ot nageb doof ehT .elbat eht no detnalp swoble dna tsif a ni rehtegot depsalc,sdnah ym no nihc ym detser I .notrac yrf eht otni ti depleh dna repparw tsrif eht dlepmurc I .esaerg gnideelb ,renil repap eht pota tas seirf denahpro wef a dna ,depparw llits ,sregrub eht fo enO .ytpme sdriht-owt saw yart ehT

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The video today had to be shot with the camera pointing up. The second shot is less extreme in its upward tilt, but the ground has a definite slope up, away from the camera, that is not easily perceived in the macro shot.

A mirror may come in handy for today's text. Start reading from the bottom. The obstruction was courtesy W.M., and proved rather frustrating. The image is taken from a meal at a franchise of everyone's favorite fast-food mega-chain.

26 April 2009: Quiet & Still; Multiple Haiku

Growing through plastic
woven in chain link fence a
tree reaches for you

Leaves have not returned
Branches clamor atop each
other waiting for

sunlight and summer
to loose the knots of winter
tied in wet black boughs

Fingers touch your cheek
Roots nudge against the sidewalk
The fence scowls in grey

metal and plastic
strips the bark Green flesh is bare
washed clean in the rain

A split-end like hair
cradles rain droplet with light
A lens A rainbow

Plastic is broken
Arms wrestle the metal fence
trunk has grown around

the chain New born buds
leaves in waiting look at you
say Do not pass by

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Both of today's obstructions were contributed by classmates, as were many of the other obstructions that may be drawn during the next few weeks.

The video was to be shot of the "most quiet and still place you encounter today." That place is a roundabout near my apartment. In a residential intersection a block from a busy commercial area, the roundabout seems to me a sanctuary, an island, that no-one enters. Amid the traffic, commerce, and life that surrounds, the roundabout is a mechanism for the smooth flow of a day that sits in meditation.

The text was dictated to be "made entirely of haikus [sic]." I interpreted this to mean that it should be a piece made of a series of traditionally metered haiku linked together. In walking past a neighboring yard, I noticed for the first time a small tree that was planted in the yard that had grown through the chain link fence with white plastic strips woven into the fence for privacy.