Run VI

Click to view

My first version of this was about half this length. I chopped it down to create a non-stop barrage of boys running and shouting. Total mayhem.

But the boy complained. He had seen the unedited assembly and loved it. When I presented him the finished piece he was mad that I had wrecked it. To humor him, I reassembled the four original shots and let him watch that a few more times.

Then I looked back at my "official" edit, and my heart sank.

The boy's edit was better.

Sure in the raw footage there are moments of dead space, and some awkward transitional framings, but in attempting to remove the rougher bits I had taken out all sense of context, of pacing, of beginning, middle, and end. It was just a bunch of random shots stitched together. Maybe I could have slapped on a pop song and turned it into a music video. (Maybe I'll still do that.)

For now, however, consider this the boy's first project as editor. I can't wait to see what he's making when he's five.

Length: 2:50

Rocks

Cousins throwing rocks into the water.

Length: 1:25

Click to view

Stomp Rocket

From back in January, a moment of play with a favorite Christmas present. In this one you can catch a look at the old front yard.

Length: 0:53

Click to view

Red Light

Because who wants to come to a stop?

Length: 0:44

Click to view

Story Time #10: Hyperlexia

I hadn't originally intended to do seven videos about the boy this week. But on day two, Josh left a comment asking me to explain where such a little guy was going on a school bus. This video attempts to answer that question. But for those of you (like Josh) who've only ever met the boy through this videoblog, this may leave you with more questions than answers.

I knew it was going to take me all week to put together this one, so I filled the remainder of the days with unpublished videos from the past. I think it does create a bit of an arc to the week, and it's perhaps fitting that with this video I cross over the 100 video milestone.

Length: 4:16

Click to view

Those of you following a link about hyperlexia can click in the right column on the video category "story time" to see videos of the boy reading/reciting.

That'll just about do it for Videoblogging Week 2007.

Tags: videobloggingweek2007,hyperlexia

Pillow Fort

Cuteness in low light conditions. (Some people on older monitors or on PCs won't hardly be able to see a thing, here. It's all in the audio, anyhow.)

Length: 0:41

Click to view

Made it to Day Six of Videoblogging Week. Tomorrow's a traveling day; I may need to post #7 early.

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

Scary

"Is it scary?" is what we've asked him in the past, so it's what he says himself when he's feeling scared. Especially when he's having fun.

Length: 0:31

Click to view

Day Five, still alive. It's Videoblogging Week.

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

One Shoe On

A frequent morning stalling tactic, in which the boy demonstrates some small amount of rhythm. Until, that is, he attempts to talk and walk at the same time.

Length: 1:19

Click to view

Barely made it in under the wire for Day Four of Videoblogging Week. The first two posts were same-day videos, but these last two have been dug up from the archives. I may need to keep doing that for the next couple of days...

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

Story Time #9: In the Night Kitchen

Another bathtime recitation, this one from the Maurice Sendak classic.

Length: 1:26

Click to view

This is day three of Videoblogging Week.

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

Bus

Today we put our three year old onto a school bus.

Maybe you should read that last sentence again.

Length: 0:50

Click to view

It's Videoblogging Week. We're two for two.

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

Gym Tumbler

From the boy's weekly gymnastic class.

Which at this age pretty much involves: jumping.

And being hurled.

Length: 1:05

Click to view

Well, it's Videoblogging Week again. We'll see if I can post seven videos in seven days. Without just digging into my unused video archives.

Tag: videobloggingweek2007

Story Time #8: Trashy Town

Sometimes when reading a story, it's difficult to stand still.

A super cute book we discovered via one of the boy's many Scholastic DVDs.

Length: 0:53

Click to view

Story Time #7: Dr. Seuss' ABC

Last week this was the answer to the question: "What's your favorite book?"

Length: 1:10

Click to view

Story Time #6: Chrysanthemum

This continues a run of "Story Time" episodes you'll see in the coming weeks, as the boy's been on a bit of an oral interpretation tear of late.

Here the Master Thespian "reads" from Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes. The Scholastic video adaptation features a brilliant voice performance by Meryl Streep, but here the boy riffs on his mother's vocal inflections. I make no money if you buy the book or DVD from Amazon.

The fact that his back is turned (and that a conversation is going on in the background) reinforces our sense that he is performing this entirely for his own enjoyment.

Length: 1:18

Click to view

Story Time #5: Oh Say Can You Say?

The boy's diction has taken a giant leap forward, as evidenced by his handling of this tongue twister from Dr. Seuss.

Length: 1:00

Click to view

Naked: The Remake

All this summer, the boy would take time before his bath to re-enact beats from his earlier video "Naked". This version, shot in late July, is the most comprehensive version I captured with my camera.

These days my main problem with recording the boy is that he interrupts the proceedings and asks to watch the instant replay, so that he can already start to re-enact his last few behaviors.

I do so fear I am scrambling his brain.

Length: 1:01

Click to view

Christmas Carousel

A trip to the Tilden Park Carousel on a night in late December.

Length: 1:02

Click to view

Yellow Frogs

The boy and his cousin check out the Panamanian golden frogs in the Valley Children's Zoo section of the Oakland Zoo.

From the exhibit's information sheet (seen briefly):

The female is larger than the male. The male climbs on her back to "claim" her for his own.

Thumbnail photo by Bradford deCaussin, whose stunning images of reptiles and amphibians are a lot more detailed (and in focus) than what I was able to capture here.

Length: 1:04

Click to view

Run V

Running. Shirtless. And with a balloon.

And still in command of mommy and daddy.

Length: 1:16

Click to view

Bowling

In which the boy learns a new activity.

Length: 0:39

Click to view

Run IV

It's only funny until someone gets hurt.

Length: 0:38

Click to view

Wedding

Congrats to Matt & Elise.

Even if the boy isn't paying much mind.

And thanks to the guests for the world class ad hoc string bandaging. (Seen/heard here: Stephanie Prausnitz, Barbara Hansen, Evie Ladin, Dan Kluger, Ed Rudolph, and Martha Hawthorne, with calling by Amy Hofer.)

Length: 1:10

Click to view

Cookie

When presented with his first home-baked chocolate chip cookie, the boy is unsure quite how to proceed.

Length: 1:33

Click to view

Mirror VI

In which the boy encounters a dance studio mirror.

Length: 1:29

Click to view

Run III

Daddy steps in to help demonstrate the difference between "stop" and "go."

And the boy gives a shout out to Magic Monkey Bob.

Length: 1:08

Click to view

Run II

Here the boy runs through the house with his good buddy J,
back in their salad days when they could walk (or run) about
in broad daylight with pacifiers in their mouths.

Both have been in detox for a few weeks now, and both are taking it one day at a time.

Length: 1:09

Click to view

Story Time #4: Dreams

A recitation in motion.

A passage from "Dreams" by Ezra Jack Keats.

Length: 0:41

Click to view

Gordon

For those who've never taken holiday on the island of Sodor, Gordon is the big, blue steam engine who pulls the Sodor express train. (Where anyone is heading on Sodor in such a hurry has never been made quite clear.)

He's also kind of a bully and a blowhard.

Still, the boy seems attached to him. Also: the boy has a runny nose.

Length: 1:24

Click to view

Swing II

As a parent, I hope I am remembering correctly how centripetal force works.
Because otherwise: yikes.

Length: 0:26

Click to view

Swing

An alternate reading of "How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night."

Length: 0:37

Click to view

Update
This video was featured recently on THE PAN.

Mood Swing

I've come to learn that two year olds are not as "terrible" as the cliche would suggest.

They're merely bipolar.

Length: 0:46

Click to view

[Have a couple of monologues I'm itching to record, but the ambient pollen conditions have absolutely shredded my vocal cords. One's a post-Vloggercon reflection, so I'm hoping it won't be dated by the time I can get the fershlugginer thing online.]

Strawberry

The joys of late spring.
Length: 0:28
Click to view

Photo: Riv

Story Time #3: How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?

Buy the book. Or the DVD.

Alma Gloeckler retired from the classroom after teaching my brother's first grade class, but she stayed on at the school as a one-to-one reading instructor. I was fortunate enough to spend time each week in Miss Gloeckler's supply closet of a room, but the environs never mattered to me so much as the access to new and interesting books.

My brother recently shared some reminiscences of Alma on the occasion of her 100th birthday. One reflection stood out for me as something I'd not been wholly conscious of.

When she read to us...she announced the author and illustrator with a reverence that we began to hold these professions in higher esteem than any other we'd previously considered.

As you'll see here, the boy's auditory recollection indicates we've been doing the same for him.

Moreover, my respect for authors, of children's literature in particular, led me to police myself a bit on this one along the intellectual property borderline.

With luck it won't diminish what is quite possibly the cutest footage I have ever captured of the boy. Although if you're an English reader you may need to go back and watch it a second time.

Length: 2:28

Click to view

Mirror V

If there are any child development specialists viewing this, please stop me before I turn my boy into Norma Desmond.

Length: 0:46

Click to view

2 Baseballs: Special Edition

Re-edited, or rather de-edited. When I first posted this last summer I was so timid that I overtrimmed the shot, removing twenty seconds at the front end that I feared might try my viewer's (sic) patience. But since the boy and I occasionally sit and view raw movie clips in iPhoto, I had the chance to revisit the source material. I realized I had made a mistake.

Hence: as it was meant to be seen.

Length: 0:55

Click to view

Security

Seconds after turning on the camera, the boy experienced a seemingly unprovoked anxiety attack, and quickly sprang into action to soothe himself, with the help of a few of his standard accoutrements.

We are growing ambivalent about the chomper (binky), but at this point we're grateful he knows how to ask for what he wants. (Of course, when what he wants is: more TV, we're more likely to say no.)

Length: 1:03

Click to view

Hike II

A trek through the bamboo in our overgrown back yard.

And he's quoting, from Jane Yolen & Mark Teague's How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?

The line: "Does he* up and demand a piggyback ride?"

Length: 1:40

Click to view

*A dinosaur, in this case an ankylosaurus, who is leaping at his human mother in a pose less evocative of a piggyback ride than of a painful mauling. Other than that, it's a delightful book, and our current bedtime favorite.

Balloon

Length: 1:25

Click to view

No Time for Easter

We spent far more time preparing the boy for Christmas (and you can see how well that worked out) than we did for Nana's easter egg hunt. So it is perhaps unsurprising he was more interested in her back-to-back Rev. Awdry storybook--featuring "Edward and Gordon" and "Edward's Day Out."

Length: 2:16

Click to view

Naked

One proposed "theme" for Videoblogging Week 2006 was "Vlogging Dangerously," and a great number of participants took up the challenge, or at least used the idea as a launchpad for their creativity. In the small fraction of videos I've watched so far (criminy--make seven videos AND watch what everyone else is doing? I'm not made of time.) the theme has yet to strike a match. (I do quite like Zadi Diaz's multi-episode riff on secrets, but she got bogged down midweek after her stunning and complex mashup of news clips related to the Scooter Libby prosecution). I guess what I'm mostly noting at this point is the level of privilege enjoyed by videobloggers (yes, it's a democratic participatory medium, but the price of entry pretty nearly requires us to be digital landowners--computer, camera, high speed internet), and that from the place of comfort we inhabit, danger seems a pretty abstract term.

The exhortation to recognize the trap of comfort and to risk stepping outside of it I do take to heart, but it's not something I can really address in my life or my art in a single week, nor (I wonder) with a video camera in my hand.

So in the meantime danger (and cute) seekers will have settle for this: a pre-pottytrained toddler running around the house without his diaper on.

Length: 1:34

p.s. Figure I'll tag this one as No Derivatives. I haven't seen much in the way of toddler remixing, but I'd like to contain the damage I'm already doing to the boy's high school rep.

Click to view

This is the seventh of seven videos I'll be posting this week as part of Videoblogging Week 2006.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Budge

Barely 10 months ago,* I was lamenting that the time and energy I was expending attempting to elicit a laugh out of the boy was time and energy I wasn't spending making movies or doing something "creative."

Some days, I've discovered, you get to do both.

Length: 1:02

Click to view

This is the sixth of seven videos I'll be posting this week as part of Videoblogging Week 2006.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

*Before I'd even heard of Rocketboom, or videoblogging, or FireAnt, or RSS 2.0--with enclosures.

Mirror IV (Sunglasses III)

The mirror is no longer the place for funny faces.
Now it's all about the attitude.

Length: 1:57

Click to view

This is the fifth of seven videos I'll be posting this week as part of Videoblogging Week 2006.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Balance II

Of course, he still has trouble with slopes.

Length: 0:19

Click to view

This is the fourth of seven videos I'll be posting this week as part of Videoblogging Week 2006.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Balance

The playground up on the hill is ringed by a concrete border just wide enough for a toddler to use as an imaginary balance beam.

His skills are increasing.

Length: 0:14

Click to view

This is the second of seven videos I'll be posting this week as part of Videoblogging Week 2006.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

The Walk Home

After an hour of running around at the playground, the boy will often request (demand?) to be carried home, rather than make the trek on his own two legs. In this case the free ride creates the opportunity for him to recite some of the rhymes he's been learning from Uncle Don's Playground, an album downloaded from Kiddie Records Weekly.

Warning: extreme sweetness.

Length: 1:57

Click to view

This is the first of seven videos I'll be posting this week as part of Videoblogging Week 2006.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Railroad Baron

Advice to parents: if you're about to get started with Thomas & Friends, buy into the "Take-Along" diecast universe, like Target sells. The wooden sets'll kill you.

Not pictured:
Toby $9.99
Trevor $12.99
Mavis $10.99

Length: 1:11

[Creative liberties taken.]
[Music: "Cranky Beats", created in GarageBand, with apologies to Alec Baldwin]

Click to view

Beach Balls

Ben's friendship with Oliver is uniquely participatory. Even with his same-age cousin, Ben still mostly plays in parallel (in which neither toddler appears to pay attention to the other). But these two love to get each other going.

Length: 1:46

Click to view

Speed Sock Skating

Cousin Liam leads the pack at his Olympic-themed fifth birthday party.

Length: 1:50

[Creative liberties taken.]
[Music: Isaac Hayes - "Truck Turner"]

Click to view

Hike

The boy heads off-road.

Length: 2:00

Click to view

Categories: the boy

No

Ben and his friend Oliver have a good laugh--
we think at the parents' expense.

Length: 0:40

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Slide II

Nothing special. Except that a couple of months ago he couldn't do this by himself.

Length: 1:18

Click to view

Categories: the boy, real-life

Story Time #2: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

At two years and one week old, the boy is perhaps* David Foster Wallace's youngest fan.

Length: 3:27

Click to view

Categories: the boy

*An assertion made without knowing whether DFW has himself a small niece/nephew/cousin or other small child in sufficient interrelational proximity to hold such a title, and by dint of actually knowing him a fan not of his work but of the man himself. Of course watching the video it will become clear to most viewers that the boy is arguably less so much a fan of DFW than of the work of the employee or contractor of Little, Brown responsible for the hardcover book design.

Monkey Hear

In which dear friends Evie and Bryce swing the heck out of young Ben, and teach him a couple of new words in the process.

Length: 1:27

Click to view

Categories: the boy, real-life

Mirror III

In which the boy breaks one of the cardinal rules of videoblogging, as articulated by Josh Leo in a rant from last April.

The child development books we have don't have much to say about a toddler's interaction with a flip-out LCD viewfinder.

Length: 2:19

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Downpour

A Northern California rain starts acting Midwestern.

Minutes earlier we had stepped outside, believing the rain was done for the day.

My parental instinct to protect the boy from any possible discomfort was setting off emotional alarms, but rationally I was aware we were mere yards away from the bathtub and a fresh change of clothes.

Of course there were the other internal alarms, both emotional AND rational, about possible damage to the camera, that ultimately wound up getting me to stop the shot and run to the porch for shelter.

We played outside for another few minutes and got very wet indeed.

My wishes go out to the thousands in Napa and Sonoma counties for whom this rainstorm has been anything but play.

Length: 1:16

Click to view

Categories: the boy, real-life

No Time for Christmas

We worked diligently to introduce the boy to the applicable concepts: christmas trees, santa claus, sleigh, bag of toys, reindeer, chimney. He even had a Playmobil nativity scene, which he cleared out daily to make room for his train engines.

What I now realize is that neither "Twas the Night Before Christmas" nor his other Christmas-themed books actually get to the part where the children open the gifts in the morning.

Hence, this developmentally appropriate response.

Length: 3:22

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Run

When we bought the house he wasn't walking, but I imagined one day he'd enjoy running around the loop of hallway that connects the kitchen to the rest of the house.

Little did I know.

Length: 3:11

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Mirror II

In which a mirror and an LCD viewfinder spin the boy into a Lacanian recursion loop.

Length: 1:57

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Too Early

The boy's awake. We're... less so much.

Length: 3:45

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Pumpkin Patch

The boy wouldn't wear his costume.

But he did enjoy the pumpkin patch.

Length: 1:33

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Story Time #1: Caps for Sale

The Boy reads "Caps for Sale", by Esphyr Slobodkina.

Length: 1:53

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Sunglasses II

Hëmmi. Hëmmi. Hëmmi.

Length: 1:02

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Triumph Child Restraint

What can I say. The Boy loves books.

Length: 1:31

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Slide

Taken the same evening as 2 Baseballs. The boy's first solo flight down a tunnel slide.

Length: 0:28

Click to view

Categories: the boy

Sunglasses

A bit of a trifle. Right now I could use a bit of a trifle.

Length: 0:24

Click to view

Categories: the boy

puyddiG

I'm sick to think of the children the boy's age killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. They could number in the dozens. Or worse.

And the total loss of life looks to be in the thousands. What a nightmare.

Today as I post this I wonder about the Hayward Fault killing us and this video surviving us on the internet. As videoblogging spreads around the world it's inevitable that somebody's going to die with their videos still online. I haven't trawled the discussion boards enough to find out whether people are thinking that way in the context of OurMedia's pledge to host files "forever." To whatever extent their pledge is true all of us could be dead with our videos still online.

Which returning to the context of today, the start of September 2005, perhaps some of the dead in Louisiana and Mississippi have left behind text blogs, or flickr albums, or other kinds of web ephemera that persist even if their houses and all their belongings have been submerged or simply swept away. I'm sure examples of this will emerge in the coming weeks, drawing out the grief of those of us who spend too much time looking at a computer screen.

But it's not any more tragic than the death of someone who'd never sat at a computer, let alone posted anything online. And given the economic dimension of this disaster there will likely be a large number of those.

I'm sick to think of it all.

Oh, the video? It's kind of funny. I think he even knows it.

Length: 0:58

Click to view

Categories: the boy, comedy

Insomnia

The Boy can't sleep. Daddy and his camera aren't helping.

Length: 2:01

Click to view

Lake Calhoun

From The Boy's first encounter with a lake. He's "tinned out" quite a bit since his first encounter with a wading pool. That was ten months ago.

The 32nd Street beach at Lake Calhoun, just a few blocks walk from the main drag of Uptown in Minneapolis, features a swimmable beach and a most excellent tot park. The July heat wave had just broken a few days earlier, so there were no crowds in sight.

This snapshot has also been posted over at Minnesota Stories, a daily videoblog produced by documentary filmmaker Chuck Olsen that welcomes unsolicited submissions. (So long as they're about, well, Minnesota.)

(Of course, you don't need to be from Minnesota to subscribe to the feed.)

Length: 1:22

Click to view

2 Baseballs

From the FAQ of Ourmedia, a heroic band of true believers whose efforts and server space have made much of the new Matchbook Films possible (and yet, I surmise, may not be parents themselves):

Q: Can I publish the miles of video I've shot of my darling children?
A: If you must. Keep in mind, though, that Ourmedia spotlights creative culture, and so we prefer finished, edited works that others would care to view.

Does this video qualify as "creative" or "edited" or as something "others" would care to view? Do any of my clips about The Boy?

I understand the trepidation. Like tender, romantic love, the love of a parent for a child is nearly impossible to turn into good art. I can count on one finger instances I have witnessed.

I stayed up late last night to scan through a 60 min DV tape of my darling child. There was plenty there that captured his personality, that I will treasure in years to come when he is distant and hostile and I want to remember what it was like for him to enjoy my company. But I wouldn't post any of it here.

How is this clip any different? Why do I watch it over and over again? Is it merely because The Boy is my own?

In what context might this be art?

Length: 0:33

Click to view

Beach Grape

With the wind sound, the exposure, and the low frame rate this one feels a bit like old Super8.

The title is self-explanatory.

Length: 0:24

Click to view

Mirror

Part of being a first-time parent, or at least a first-time parent with a history of compulsive intellectualizing, is simply sitting back and observing your child's behavior as if s/he were a case study in human brain development.

Jacques Lacan or his adherents might have something to say about this interaction The Boy had with his own image back in March, when he was fourteen months old and not yet walking on his own.

That said, it's also pretty funny.

This one's longer than my three-minute limit, so: oops.

Length: 3:40

Click to view

Hat

My first same-day shoot --> post. Future videos will travel back in time to earlier stages in The Boy's development, but here you see him in his present-day form.

Nearly eighteen months old. Walking... or rather lurching. And the word of the day:

"Hat"

Length: 1:19

Click to view

In the pool

Recorded at seven months, when The Boy was at perhaps the peak of his Michelin Man phase. His first time in a wading pool, or sitting upright in any body of water.
Length: 1:11

Click to view

Daddy's Little Helper

The boy's first mashup, from back when he was just two weeks old.
Length: 0:37

Click to view

When I first finished editing this I considered going back in and rotoscoping in the white cord, because it's pretty hard to see with the night vision. That idea lasted about twenty five seconds, before I fell asleep from exhaustion.



[Creative liberties taken.]

Hiccups

2 months old, and already enthusiastic.
Recorded March 2004. Length: 2:40

Click to view