Have been permanently housed since August 15, 2009. Many thanks to all who have helped along the way. -- mwb

Monday, March 30, 2009

Recent Advocacy Efforts

*Updated*

Read commentary I wrote during the wee hours of an all-night I pulled Saturday evening (March 28th), which relates to some of my recent advocacy efforts concerning mental health, homelessness and housing pertaining to Vermont and cross-posted on four different blogs, here (via Green Mountain Daily) as well as, here (via Beyond VSH blog), here (via Vermont Watch blog) and, here (via iBrattleboro).

*Update*: Video version posted online (via Seesmic):


*Note*: last updated on Friday, April 3, 2009 at 3:33 AM (EDT).

Friday, March 20, 2009

My Video Reply re: What is Art?

My long, windy and wandering video reply to (make sure to max your volume as high as you can, due to my having to try to be quiet and not wake anyone as well as also because of the background noise the laptop computer makes for some reason unknown to me):

Description:
a late comer's reply to a really good question, one open to potentially infinite discussion & while there is no *one* answer or even a limited set of absolute answers, there are plenty of answers much as there exists many different pieces of various sizes and shapes to any given puzzle and this is a huge, ever expanding one as the process of art continues to unfold & evolve ...

Video: Lyrical Answer to "How Are You?"


Background, history and lyrics, here (Wednesday, October 22, 2008).

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Big Dreams, Tiny Houses


Video Credit: Eva Sollberger, Stuck in Vermont, 7Days, here (11/19/2008).

Additional information as well as several related photos, here (via Tiny House blog; 11/22/2008).

Read more about Peter King as well as his Vermont Tiny Houses dream and projects, here (via Burlington Free Press; 3/7/2009).

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Another Way Inspired Computer Art

After doing some off the cuff experimenting over night with computer generated art (here), drawing from the photo I took a few years ago of the Another Way Drop-In Center building (to the right, click onto photo to view enlargement), I used it to create what turned out to be a series of additional computer generated art thanks to features and tools of a image tool program I use for creating blog banner and such (more details about it at bottom of post).

Please keep in mind that these are merely the result of artistic expression and, not at all a statement of any sort. The title for the final version (or, really, the series itself) came out of other factors, including what came to mind from viewing and reflecting upon the final version. Had only used the photo of Another Way at random and with nothing in mind either before or while working on it during the process of the evolving four part series.

Below is the final version and, following it, is the three other versions in reverse order they were created (click onto each of the photos in order to view enlargements):

Death of One,
Birth of Another






My laptop deserves some of the credit, as does the Paint.net program I use to create such.

The rest, truth be told, is inspiration from God knows where: i.e., what I term as: from the source(s) unknown department.

Computer Art

New World


Had been playing around with some computer art and this was among one of the results (click onto photo for enlargement).

Below is one of the versions the above was formed out of the process of my playing with the various program tools used to create the computer generated art (click onto photo for enlargement).



Below is a remix of the above (click onto photo for enlargement).



One last version drawn from the above remix (click onto photo for enlargement).



Could not resist one final version of the above item (click onto photo for enlargement).

Thursday, March 05, 2009

New Intense Debate Commenting Features

Thanks to new plugin features the Intense Debate commenting system has recently included amongst its offerings, anyone posting comments to my blog can now post video comments via Seesmic -- without needing to be a registered user with the service, here (via Seesmic blog).

It is hoped readers will avail themselves of this dynamic feature, as the Seesmic video service is built to provide conversations. Seesmic is to online video what Blogger is to blogging or what Twitter is to online social media.

In addition, other plugin features also now allow for readers to add smileys, as well as to be able to include embeds of YouTube videos related to a given blog post or comment. Another plugin allows me to add polls to the comment thread of a particular blog post so readers can vote or voice their opinion in answer to the poll question.

Enjoy.