Neolowhatnow?

An important step toward becoming a successful poet is the mastery of the art of the neologism. A neologism is a "new word," or a new meaning for an existing word or phrase. Language itself is a dynamic process, and we must do our part to help create a direction toward which natural communication flows. This is, of course, what we will be practicing this time with our daily Moments.

To be sure, however, we will put a little constraint on our new expressions. And since this is Kentucky, we will do our part to add to what is affectionately known as the Redneck Dictionary.

If you are not familiar with the Redneck Dictionary, you may be wise to watch a few performances by comedic legend Jeff Foxworthy. The object is simple: reinvent the definition of a word by listening to how it sounds in a sentence with your best southern drawl. For example:

HEAVY DEW - phrase. A request for action.
Usage: "Kin I heavy dew me a favor?"

ALL - noun. A petroleum-based lubricant.
Usage: "I sure hope my brother from Jawjuh puts all in my pickup truck."

(Both of these terms lifted from http://www.countryhumor.com/redneck/dictionary.htm)

Sure, you may think this is goofy. It is; that's the point. It's both creative and fun, which is perfect for Moment art.

Of course, too, this could fit into a style of constrained poetry. It could also be viewed as a sort of riddle, a confusion of the signifier and signified. Or heck, call it a monostiche if you're particularly fond of literary terms.

Either way, we're having fun. You may find that it isn't so easy to create one that is clever, humourous, and relevant.

Now to be fair, here's mine:

Mausoleum: (verb) To remove something would serve no purpose.
Usage - "Mausoleum there; they dead."

Until next time, happy neologinatin'!

-SRT

A Moment in the Park

Time:
     Saturday, June 11     9:00am - 12:00pm

Location:
     Big Rock in Cherokee Park
     Park Boundary Rd
     Louisville, KY

An opportunity to compose creative Moments while walking through beautiful Cherokee Park!

I will be working on a project involving art, poetry, and minimal interactivity with Google Maps. I would like to invite everyone on this day, at this time, and weather permitting, to meet me at Big Rock in Cherokee Park (Louisville, KY) to come create Moments along with me in the early morning. A small workshop will be held before we begin for those that are not familiar with daily Moment art.

We will be creating small 5-minute Moments of art/poetry/photography/whatever at certain stops along the Scenic Loop around Cherokee Park, and utilizing the tour guide feature on Google Maps, we will create a different kind of tour around the park, a less actual, but more imaginative, tour to enhance the experience of travelers around the park. These tours will be available via my website, www.sonnyrae.com.

You may choose to participate in the tour project, or you may come out and create Moments for your own benefit. Either way, I hope some of you can come out and take a leisurely stroll around the park, 2-3 hours, as we spend a morning creating works of art that have no other purpose than to be.

I will have some paper and pens/pencils, but if you would like to work in a different medium then please bring these items with you.

When we are finished, you may bring your Moments home to polish them up, then email them back to me to place in the tour. Else, you may decide that you've said what you've needed to say and I can take them that day. Or, you may decide that you'd like to keep your Moments to yourself, and that is perfectly fine too. Remember, however, the purpose of the daily Moment art is to create something out of one unrefined moment and give it freely and unashamedly to the world.

I will be happy to entertain any questions. For those of you unfamiliar with daily Moment art, please see my website at www.sonnyrae.com.

I hope to see many of you there. The more people that participate in this Google Maps tour project, the more successful I believe this interactive journey can be for the audience.

Until then!

-SRT

Another Atari VCS Game Poem

Hello artists!

I just wanted to pop in to mention that I've begun another game poem for the Atari 2600. Following up on where Indentures at an Exhibition left off, and second of a triptych, the game will focus on the experience of driving through afternoon rush hour traffic.

I am hoping to make this the most maddening Atari experience that I can.

Without yet getting into the rhetoric, I will only briefly note that this game poem will feature an original homemade Atari cigarette controller, which will be controlled by breath, in addition to the normal joystick controller. As soon as the game poem is finished, the plans for the controller will be released freely as well as the game poem itself. Don't worry, very minimal electronic experience will be required, i.e. soldering.

For now, I can offer you a screenshot of where the game poem is now in development:

I'm very excited about this project overall, and cannot wait to let you all experience it when finished.

Until then, I hope you all are successful in continuing your daily Moment art routine! I will have another creative Moment generation idea ready for you all here soon.

-SRT

Minutes to Make a Movie

I came across this website earlier this year, Xtranormal, and found it to be an incredibly fun way to express one's creativity. The purpose of this site is to allow you to make animated shorts quickly and easily, and with no programming experience. All you have to do is type out some dialogue, and the computer-animated actors perform your dialogue/monologue for you. The website is free to use and free to generate high-quality animated short films.

Naturally, I had to give this a try.

In a little under an hour, I was able to make a decent little short film. Taking some poetry I had written for one of my daily Moments, I inputed all the text, added a few camera changes and gestures (the site explains how to do this, and is as easy as placing a camera icon within your text), and voila, I had a cute little animated spoken-word short:

This Moment took very little time to accomplish, and I had felt quite tickled at having a computer-generated reader for my poetry. Sure, it was nice to feed my ego, but the best part is when you are finished with your project, it will be saved on the website for all the world to see. Remember, letting go of your Moment and allowing the world to enjoy it is an important part of the daily Moment art routine.

So, for this week, I invite you to compose some poetry, prose, any sort of word-based art, and use this free website to bring your Moment to life in a vividly digital manner. Have fun with it. And please, if you create one, no matter how happy you are with it, post the link in our daily Moment art forum; we would all love to see them!

Here are a couple more I created, just for fun:

-SRT