The Cemetery Far Away

Posted on September 22, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

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David Friedrich- The Cemetery Entrance

The Cemetery Far Away
for Natascha

I’m writing letters to you in dreams
I am making movies too,
It’s so one-sided, just my voice,
I only hear me speaking… never you..

I am talking to wolves in my sleep
who tell me, they have nothing to eat.

I am feeling this winter will be cold
the clouds eat up the pale days
Here it’s always warm and rainy
but I sense the rain will turn to haze.

They say today, they’ll finally put you in the ground.
It’s so hard to imagine you, enclosed, being lowered down.

I’m processing the process as I speak
The days are so much longer, than before
and yet I seem to get less done, hour after hour
I just need you to answer me again, once more.

They say today, they’ll finally put you in the ground.
I try not to imagine you, enclosed, being lowered down.

I’m writing letters to you in my dreams
I am making movies too,
It’s so one-sided, just my voice,
I only hear me speaking… never you.

I am talking to wolves in my sleep
who tell me, they have nothing to eat.

It’s just hard to imagine you at all in your real life
I never saw your town, your house, your smile
I never got to hear your voice, your Germain humor
how can I picture you today, being carried down that aisle?

They say today, so far away, they’ll put you in the ground
It’s too hard to imagine you, enclosed, being lowered down.

Karima Hoisan
September 22, 2021
Costa Rica

 

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How Can You Come To Me?

Posted on September 17, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

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How can you come to me?
If I never even heard your voice
call my name?
Will you come in a written chat,
imposed over the clouds,
or across the scrim
of my closed eyes?

Will your words just enter me
without words, so I feel
you are here now?
In silence.. I will just know?
Will you come to me as a warrior,
a slick hip city girl,
my precious little “Natskies “
peeking around corners,
going round n round?

What role will you be wrapped in
or maybe not in actor form..
just Mein Direktor,,
escorting me to my place?
Asking me to sit here please,
and in your very Nat-way,
when I say, “Oh Nat I miss you”
just wink and answer, “I knew you’d say that”

Karima Hoisan
September 17, 2021
Costa Rica

*Footnote The image is taken from one of our videos,
Where Nat played my daughter: https://youtu.be/pHJOJH0gWDw 

 

 

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For Natascha

Posted on September 16, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

Creativity in grief, has always been a way of dealing with pain and loss.
5 unrelated things happened for this simple little visual poem to come alive.
1.I shot my bedroom window in the wind on my iphone…
2. I wrote the poem, the night of Nat’s passing… (which you saw here)
3.I composed a simple melody on the piano…
4.I was given a “Mirror room” by Sylvira Halcyon in Second LIfe
and so  I danced in front of it and filmed it.
5.I recorded the poem…
I hope you find it worthy to put it all together….For Natascha.

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Tribute For Natascha Randt at MachinimaMondays

Posted on September 14, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

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Yesterday, Chantal Harvey, renowned machinima maker in  Second Life, prepared the setting for a very moving tribute for our beloved Natascha.
40 people attended and the audience at many moments was as affected as I was. There was something special in the air, it was palpable people were emotional and expressive. I had to turn off my microphone several times, overcome, seeing our past works, displayed on the big screen, and read the outpouring  of amazement and admiration for what we were showing..
 For Randt & Hoisan, it is the end of an era..it is the close of an unusual creative partnership, that might come (with luck) once in a lifetime. For me personally, the close of an incredible friendship, that spanned 28 videos and almost 10 years,
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I know the perception is changing about “the validity” of the virtual. Before it was seen as pure escapism, a silly hobby, a place for losers (they once said on The Office) a fantasy world, pixelated cartoons, a game, but….. oh my look again….!
Our virtual world brought two creative people together from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and let them meet each other, begin to work together, grow and develop together as serious machinima artists and change two people so different in so many ways, into The Team.. .. that is what Nat called us! That is what everybody called us! They even called us, The Dream Team:)and that is what we became.
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The people who came are real people.. with real feelings and that was felt so strongly by everyone there.
We were saying good bye to a legend, who left an incredible legacy, her own and also with me. This event was proof, that virtual worlds are so much more than a game. People commented in chat while I was speaking… it was a sublime and beautiful, very moving moment at times..

I will include the livestream on YouTube.
It is long , so feel free to watch it in parts. It went over an hour and 20 minutes.
Our host, Chantal was so amazing and accommodating and compassionate.. She allowed me to improvise, change the program and just talk about what I was moved to say. I am forever grateful for her kind heart and her very touching reaction to the event too.
I have no words to express my gratitude for being invited to honor, my friend, my creative soulmate, one of the greats in Second Life and anywhere, Natascha Randt.

  • Thank you Alba Rocca for these photos.

    Goodbye Nat…
    I will miss you and miss you and miss you day after day after day after day……
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Tribute for Natascha Randt Monday, Sept. 13th 1pm slt

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

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This Monday, September 13th, I have been invited to speak about Natascha, as an innovative and prolific filmmaker of Second Life, truly one of the greats of our virtual world.
Chantal Harvey, who heads the group, MachinimaMondays in Second Life,
invited me to talk about Nat, our movies we made together and her passions as a filmmaker, with her group of machinima makers. Chantal kindly let me invite all who might be interested, and I expect we will have quite a crowd at this event.

I feel this is still a bit early for me to be speaking in public, but I do it to help honor Nat’s memory as a woman who made a mark in the virtual world of machinima.
I feel truly privileged to be asked to do this, and with all the love and pride for Nat, I will be showing 5 of our own videos (Randt & Hoisan) and one of her many plane videos in her massive YouTube Channel of over 500 videos!! Take time and explore her channel when you can!
I will use Nat’s own words to discuss her process and our process in taking an idea and starting from scratch and seeing it as a finished machinima on YouTube.
All those reading this who have an avatar, please join us.

Where: MachinimaMondays  Click to get a  url
When: Monday, September 13th, 2021
Time: 1pm SLT or (PST) to 2pm SLT
I hope you can make it and if you can’t, Chantal told me it would be live streamed
so it will be available on YouTube at anytime.

I will be giving out beautiful votive candles made lovingly by Menubar Memorial to those who attend.  I invite you to visit at any time a humble memorial dedicated to Natascha, that I have erected on our sim,
LINC Memorial   (click the link)
You can rez and leave a flower or a candle, something you feel is appropriate and sit quietly and listen to the wind-chimes, the wind, the birds and remember Natascha in life.
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I will write below again, the poem, I left as a comment, for those of you who didn’t read it. It sits on her memorial in Second Life, for anyone there who would like to read it too.

Fly
for my film partner Natascha

The rain feels like a curtain,
closing down our stage.
I’m so numb..but not uncaring
In my frozen way… I am pure sadness
that solidified and can no longer move.

Please don’t confuse my dry eyes
with indifference…
I am not shrugging, I’m flailing; I’m falling.
I’m not strong, I’m a toneless voice,
my tongue in shreds.
Only disbelief is the solder
that holds me together.

Some things are beyond repair
some souls must go
because if they stay
their life…
will be no life at all.
And so when we least
expect it,
they de-materialize
and fly away..
We are left in shock
We are numb or weep
We refuse to accept
they’re gone…

but they are free…
Oh, they are free…..

Fly high Nat..the sky always called to you.

Karima

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My Poem”Winter Coat” on MaticadoresUSA

Posted on September 9, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

Adriana – Oil on Panel | Artist Jeremiah J. White

My poem, written for my mother, “Winter Coat” is now up on MasticadoresUSA.
I hope you will read it there and visit their beautiful website showcasing so many wonderful, talented poets. I am sorry I am so late in announcing this..I am dealing with grief.
Thank you to MaticadoresUSA and especially to Gabriela Marie Milton for choosing this poem and for being so supportive of me.  It means a lot to me personally.
You can read it here at MasticadoresUSA
Likes and comments much appreciated there:

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Very Sad News

Posted on September 4, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

catwa2

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know who Natascha Randt is and was for me.
I have some very sad news…Natascha Randt, my beautiful creative partner and best friend in Second Life..passed away this morning in Germany. She was trying to hold out until Sept 7th, where they would give her an artificial heart, to buy time until she could have a transplant. She was 40 years old. There will never be another like her for me.
I don’t feel I can write much more at the moment…..

Rest in Peace Nat..

This is the very first collaboration we did in 2012 for The UWA Machina Contest.
It was the beginning of a partnership in video making that lasted until today..with 28 completed videos to show for it.
Winner of the 2nd prize of the MACHINIMUWA V and winner of the OPEN THIS END CINEMAPOP AWARD OF EXCELLENCE IN FILM

In Nat’s words:

This is our Costa Rica-Germany-Connection video for the MachinimUWA V challenge: “seek wisdom”. Karima Hoisan and I, we are on a journey to discover where we can find wisdom…

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Settling In To Reality

Posted on August 31, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

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Settling in to reality..

when everything we used to do
when everything we used to see
when we had hopes and dreams
when we worked together in a room
and laughed together on the weekend…
that when, when, when is gone.
People we loved are gone,
Our easy breezy days of living
Gone…

As we settle in to reality.

I only hope there comes a time
when children will watch the LCD
and wonder if this is a horror movie
they are seeing, instead of a scene
from 2020…
where people hide their faces
and there’s emptiness in the streets
and so much anger, violence, fighting
road rage, domestic abuse and killing sprees…

Settling in to reality.

Then there are:
the apocalyptic forest fires
the heat waves,
the flash floods
the hurricanes…
one after another,
coming so fast,
we are running out of names.
The days are shorter,
weeks disappear
we wonder if our planet
can hold itself together
another 100 years?
Jobs are scarce,
love is scarcer…
If you find either,
get down on your knees.
Nothing is promised,
because promises are hard to keep.
In the shifting shades of grey of every day…

Settling in to reality.

Karima Hoisan
April 31, 2021
Costa Rica

*Footnote..My muse went on a bummer..Sometimes I just
have to let her…

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Please Sit Down….

Posted on August 28, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

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Someone wished me a beautiful night…

It is a beautiful night,
the temperature
just right,
the feeling of the air,
that wraps around me
is a caress,
it’s like a kiss,
that lasts forever.
A subtle whisper in my ear:

“Go out and walk my night”
don’t trap yourself,
behind your curtains and glass;
“Walk out… into
this beautiful night
Because you can
and I want you to see
What I have prepared
for you.”
“Sometimes,
I just feel like sharing..
You have been a past
admirer of my work.
I have left you in awe
I have left you in tears,
but never
were you unmoved.
I do like to show you
my mind,
my love is here too,
just all in tiny little doses
You can drink very slowly.”

I have walked for an hour,
on an empty beach
there is a glow on the water,
there is a glow on the sand.
I feel almost like crying
I hear without hearing
a sound, it tells me
someone loves me,.
It stays so close
and I know it loves me.
I look up,
almost dizzy,
from so much feeling.
I do invoke a twirl
a perfect twirl
and if I’m being
watched
I am not being
judged,
not at all…
I’m just being loved.

“You might walk a night
like this,
again and again…
but tonight,
it’s not your choice,
but my gift..
just because I want to,
just because I can
You don’t have to thank me
I do it, because I love to
because I want to give it
to you…
Now,
please sit down..
and don’t anticipate..
Close your eyes…
Let me show you,
what I have for you…
I think you call it grace. “

Karima Hoisan
August 28, 2021
Costa Rica

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Switching Places

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Karima Hoisan

Slide1

You taught me to read
between your lines
right from the start.
“It’s not what I do
it’s what I say,
It’s not what I say,
It’s what lies beneath.”

I translated you
for your family
who barely understood
your quixotic mind,
your mood swings,
your unreal expectations.

They loved me
and still do
even though this calling
I left years ago.
They keep my picture
in a frame
in the dining room
and I hold them
in my heart,
until the end of days.

If it’s true,
we did not last
forever,
happily ever after,
we both were open doors
that we walked through
into each other’s worlds.

How can I thank you
for the fact that
You gifted me a family,
and I provided
a new country,
and it seems
switching places
was good for us both.

Karima Hoisan
August 24, 2021
Costa Rica

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