Linguistic Breakdown

“Breadcrumbs [Крошки]”: Bits and pieces of where...

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:13:08 -0400

“Breadcrumbs [Крошки]”: Bits and pieces of where I’ve been, all leading to nowhere, or the wild blue yonder. Starring Bruce Willis, Homer Simpson, et al.

“Construction [Стройка]”: The music of multicolored...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:38:12 -0400

“Construction [Стройка]”: The music of multicolored bricks.

A few words

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:36:00 -0400

These video postcards from Kazan are all under a minute, and most clock in around thirty seconds. I am inclined to explain why.

When in the process of rendering movie files in Final Cut Express, my laptop computer overheats and shuts down. I thus have to keep my movies relatively short.
These things are actually fairly labor intensive, and my time is limited. I treat them as experiments: some stick, some don’t. Better to give it a go and have it be done with than work and work and work on one thing that totally blows.
You know what, when I watch things on the Internet I like ‘em to be short. So I make what I like.
All footage, save for that that makes up “Meat House,” is taken with my point-and-shoot digital camera, which is primarily intended for quickie snapshots. Audio, too. This is what I’m working with, people.
They are postcards, and language has broken down.

“Look Out [Осторожно]”: Look out of windows for the...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:24:24 -0400

“Look Out [Осторожно]”: Look out of windows for the missing. Accompanied by a lousy Russian rap song I recorded off TV.

“Crusade [Крестовый поход]”: Putin’s Army,...

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:50:00 -0400

“Crusade [Крестовый поход]”: Putin’s Army, Korney Chukovsky’s Moydodyr, Bulat Galeyev’s Video Baby. Don’t worry, it was just a koshmar (or perhaps it is koschunstvo).

“Overboard [За борт]”: Let’s not get carried...

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:29:16 -0400

“Overboard [За борт]”: Let’s not get carried away.

“Homesick [Скучать по дому]”: In Transformers 3: The...

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 11:19:00 -0400

“Homesick [Скучать по дому]”: In Transformers 3: The Dark of the Moon, the city I now call home, Chicago, is destroyed. What made the film worth it was the sequence, duplicated and repurposed above, that aped 9/11. Here you get a little of that and a little of a building my husband thought was a prison, but is in fact a rather alien home to the Chuvash State Opera and Ballet Theatre.

“Seasick [Укачало]”: One day after the cruise ship...

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:33:00 -0400

“Seasick [Укачало]”: One day after the cruise ship Bulgaria sank near the Kazan port, we headed out on our Volga cruise—from Kazan to Nizhny Novgorod and back again. 128, including 59 children, died aboard the Bulgaria; on Tuesday we were watching reenactments on Russian TV.

With static, Hedgehog in the Fog, tank tops, and seagulls.

“Meat House [Меат Хоусе]”: ...

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 08:20:00 -0400

“Meat House [Меат Хоусе]”: “I’ve never seen such a large quantity of meat in one place.”

“Framework [Остов]”: A tribute to Who Framed Roger...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:11:00 -0400

“Framework [Остов]”: A tribute to Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Кто Подставил Кролика Роджера).

“Beating [Битье]”: A police officer tells an...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:11:00 -0400

“Beating [Битье]”: A police officer tells an elderly couple where not to dance; a beatboxing contest ensues. Onlookers look on.

“Nosebleed [Кровотечение из носу]”: The trip from...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:10:00 -0400

“Nosebleed [Кровотечение из носу]”: The trip from Kazan to Sviyazhsk, excerpts from the Prokofiev-Eisenstein letters, a passage from the Kazan section of Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible score, static, the threat of a nosebleed. A high-concept not-dance of uncertain character.

“Breakneck [Сломя голову]”: The Russian TV show Odna...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:09:00 -0400

“Breakneck [Сломя голову]”: The Russian TV show Odna Minuta and the ballet Anyuta (adapted from Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck”).

The first in the Linguistic Breakdown series: “Breakdown...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:06:00 -0400

The first in the Linguistic Breakdown series: “Breakdown [Поломка].” It seems like every night I’ve spent in Russia I have wound up watching a terrible exercise show devoted to breakdancing. Then I made a short movie about it.

(All subsequent movies take up the theme of dancing and/or television, unless they’re “Meat House [Меат Хоусе],” in which case their theme is Meat House.)