Soup, Snow and Stuck

I finally found the time to make my winter soup, a "recipe" based on my mom's which is basically throwing all the vegetables from the produce dept into a big pot and simmering for hours.

In this case I used: a turnip, a beet, potatoes, garlic, onions, a jalapeno pepper, carrots, swiss chard, a can of tomatoes, mushrooms and lots of water. It takes a while to chop everything up but I am lazy and leave everything in big chunks.

A glass of wine or two later and you have a tasty broth to chase the winter chills away. I enjoyed my hearty soup with some toasted olive ciabatta bread and brie. Yummmmmy.

Wednesday it snowed! Lucy and I took an early morning jaunt through the woods and it was magical. That first layer of snow sticking to trees and underbrush transforms the woods into an enchanted playground.

Lucy, a dog who has probably never encountered snow before now, was so pleased about an empty snow-covered field that she dashed around in excited loops and made me smile so much my face hurt.

Stuck in VT, the arts & culture video vlog I make for Seven Days has been doing really great recently. It won a couple of awards and I've been getting a lot of helpful feedback. The rest of the year's vlogs are already booked with some interesting stuff I am looking forward to.

And if this article is correct, my job might have some security as newspapers across the country embrace video content. Hell yeah.

And I am getting unstuck from VT for a bit! Upcoming trips to NYC and SF which will entail some work projects and some fun visiting time too. It'll be nice to get a change of perspective so I can come back to VT fresh and ready for another year of Stucks.

2008, are you really only one month away? And what does the future hold? Does Goma have anything to do with it??!

It's Official!

“The still must tease with the promise of a story
the viewer of it itches to be told.”

Cindy Sherman

As of this week I am officially working full-time - drum roll please - at Seven Days as a videographer/fresh-n-hot content provider. Yowzer!

This means I will continue to make the weekly arts & culture vlog Stuck in Vermont (and am shooting a particularly fun one tonight in Montpelier) as well as doing ads and editorial vids.

And after a week of 7Ds meetings and a Friday staff meeting that involved a feathery strawberry shortcake, I am brimming over with sugar, excitement and ideas for the weeks to come. YIPS!

There is this funny thing that happens when things finally converge onto the right track in your life (ever suspicious, I am furiously knocking on wood as I say this). It is almost a little frightening to get your dream job and dream house (more knocking) in the same week. Eerie even, and ever so suspicious. You start to look for holes in the paperwork, there must be a catch here, right?!

If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already.. the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.
- Cindy Sherman

The first artist that really captured the essence of what I wanted to do when I grew up was Cindy Sherman. Her series of grainy black and white photographs of herself playing different working women on average moments in average days in their average lives each told a story far beyond the 2 dimensional image.

That is the sort of art I always longed to make. Something that told a story in a way you hadn't heard it before.

I've tried different story-telling mediums like zines, comics, paintings, and the written word. But digital video and the internet became my favorite tool as soon as I could access it.

I am still learning how to tell stories better and in a more cohesive way, trying to hone my deep, rich, resonant grandpa story-telling voice. But all that I really care about is that I am on my way. And the journey will be a wild one.

Oh, and I get to work with the coolest group of people at the best damn media conglomerate newsource in existence. Life is good. Thanks Cindy Sherman for pointing me in the right direction. One foot in front of the other...

Winter's Nutty Kernel

“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
Henry David Thoreau quotes (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862)

Fall is on its way out the door and our yard is littered with multi-colored leaves (yes, I have a date with a rake this weekend - and by rake, I do not mean a dissolute man in fashionable society). It is a strange time of year. In the midst of this massive seasonal transition, as if on cue, my entire life has turned upside down as well.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. - Helen Keller

Sometimes it is hard to let go of the past. Especially when it affords us a certain amount of comfort, stability and regularity. But this comfort can be misleading and will often prompt us to put off much needed changes in order to cling to its tattered shores.

Life does not accomodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition. - Florida Scott-Maxwell

Ultimately, as scary as the road less traveled may be, what choice do we have but to grit our teeth, close our eyes and step off the ledge - trusting in our gut that we will hit solid ground evenutally?

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. ~Soren Kierkegaard

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.”
Walt Whitman quotes ( Poet, 1819-1892)

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted.”
Bible quotes
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. ~Andrew Wyeth"Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it." ~Henry David Thoreau, 28 November 1858 journal entry
Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966