Damn me for leaving my good camera at home. Just needed to get that on the record before I begin this brain dump, because I’m still kicking myself some four days after the fact. By now I’m certain to have lost your focus, so let me back-peddle to Saturday night and fill in the blanks.
I did a decent job of finding something interesting and enriching to do with my evening. The digital film festival Resfest was in town and I decided to take in four hours worth of short films. I’m finding myself drawn more and more to the prospect of working with moving images, even if it’s only as another in a long line of hobbies. Taking in a sampling of the best examples produced with digital tools that I’m starting to introduce myself to seemed like a good use of free time to me.
The first 2 hours were spent watching “Shorts #3″, which included a fairly wide range of subjects. My favorites were “Grasshopper” (an interview with an enlightened man drawn over in an ever-changing sea of artistic style), “Bicycle Gangs of New York” (half music video, half documentary of those who ride the NY streets on two wheel power) and “Nothing” (the life story of a man raised as a bank robber who brings transcendental meditation to English prisons).
The next two hours were spent laughing, cringing and repeating the process courtesy of the collection of shorts called “Bushwacked!”. Got a guess as to the primary subject matter? While clips like BOOM! and The Voice (among others from Johan Söderberg) focused more on G.W. himself, my favorite focused its crosshairs on something just as harmful to the world at large: the World Trade Organization.
Called “The Horribly Stupid Stunt (Which Has Resulted in His Untimely Death)”, this piece of reality gone humorously right was propigated by a group called The Yes Men. It seems that someone accidentally mistook the group’s site — GATT.org — for the real trade organization and extended an invitation to speak at a conference to the group. Of course, they accepted and it all goes downhill from there.
But all this still doesn’t explain why I’m cursing myself for leaving my camera at home.
Well, the films were being shown just a few blocks from Ground Zero and just happened to coincide with September 11th and the resurrection of the Tribute in Light. Coming out of the theater you couldn’t help but look up into the towering beams as they projected into the heavens. The beams were illuminating either passing birds, bugs or dust that kept weaving back and forth through the light, which to me seemed like souls of those lost in the towers climbing upwards.
That’s why I’m cursing myself. Such a great opportunity for a moving, memorable picture and I left my gear back in the crash pad in Weehawken. I tried to get something on visual record by using my camera phone, but the quality is sub-standard to say the very least. I guess I’ll just have to look at brooklynvegan’s shot from across the East river and continue to curse my own forgetfulness.
Tags: Personal