“pale blue under a desert moon glows those moving beasts of burden…”
Desert Loon was born from my nostalgia for the desert. I coaxed my muse out of inertia this week (I have been under the weather) by first writing a musical piece that made me see the images to write the poem. This happens to me sometimes, where I need the music first to see clearly the imagery. I invite you to click on the .mp3 link here to listen to it with my recitation. I will add the words to the poem in a comment not on the post, because I do encourage you to listen to it first, before you read it. Close your eyes, and take a moonlight caravan ride, where strange sounds assault your imagination. Please click below to hear it and Enjoy!! Desert Loon.mp3 by Karima Hoisan
Well to say that Natascha and I were nervous was a total understatement today, as I sat crossing and uncrossing my legs, and Nat fidgeted in some carefully camouflaged dance moves. We were more than a full hour early for this prestigious and long awaited awards ceremony, and each minute we were getting more nervous. The setting was beautiful and ample cushions were starting to be filled in with the audience who came in a steady stream the last half hour. This was the most highly anticipated Art and Machinima Festival you could find on any grid, nothing else could even compare.
International… was such a part of the flavor and the magic (photo by Nat)
We were treated to a wonderful show of light, dance and precision by The ChangHigh Trinity Sisters to begin … Just beautiful!
Spectacular! (photo by Nat)
Our nerves were increasing with each particle burst..I will speak for Natascha here too as we were in back and forth IM’s and all of them said, “I am sooooo nervous”
A Grand Finale and then on to the prizes. (photo by Nat)
For a complete list of all the awards given I will refer you to the excellent re-accounting on the official UWA blog which you can find here:UWA blog post on the awards My little post today is just to share with you, my readers, a personal slice of the feelings emotions and surprises lived at this anticipated ceremony.
Posters of the films were also awarded prizes, and I want to point out that our film’s poster took a third place, designed by the artist Huntress Catteneo who took home 8000L$. I also want to congratulate my friend RAG Randt who took home 10000L$ for 2nd place with his great design of the Poster for the film “Running with Scissors” and of course to the winner of this poster competition, violette Naidoo (L$12,000) for the poster of the film: “The Last Syllable Of Recorded Time” Here they are below:
Congrats To The Three Winners (photo by Nat)
Audience participation was also rewarded with the lists that came closest to final judging. Congratulations to the winners of that, Samara Kasshiki, Chic Aeon, and Charles Hera.
OPEN THIS END AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE also gave out prizes to the competitors, who were chosen by their independent team of judges. I personally did not know about this part, so was happily surprised to see that our film,”Seek Wisdom” was included in a very illustrious group of four machinimas as winners in the category of OPEN THIS END CINEMAPOP AWARD OF EXCELLENCE IN FILM 2012. It was like a delicious taste of the succulent pie of recognition being served in this banquet of awards. Congratulations to our fellow winners, Hypatia Pickens, for “Still Watching,” pallina60 Loon for “Colours” and Spiral Silverstar, “Seeking Wisdom in The Stars”
Now..on to the main event…(photo by Nat)
Natascha and I were sitting in the front row, wringing the moisture out of our palms… our combined heart beats sounded like a syncopated House Dance rhythm. The adrenaline was making us hyperventilate..you know, all the symptoms of pre-panic panic attack.
The Moment of Truth begins (photo by Nat)
I will be very honest here, Nat and I believed we had a good film, we believed it when we mutually decided it was ready to be sent out into the world (as Nat put it) but knowing the competition, the level of artistic excellence that was being represented in the 51 entries, we considered it lucky and very honorable if we could place in any one of the ten places or the special prize. We were hopeful, but not totally convinced and so the nerves ruled, and we each sat silent in our own prayers. As I said I won’t list all the winners, and many joint winners of the night, I will just skip up ahead a bit to when JayJay Zifanwe, principal organizer and our host, had gotten to the Fourth Prize and we were still holding our breath, as we had yet to win. When we heard there was a four-way tie for Third Place we just went blue in the face, putting our breath holding into 4-Wheel Drive, and thinking, “Well this is it..it’s now or never.” This was our first time as entrants to this International Festival of 3d Art and film and I don’t know if others more experienced went through what we were going through, but I was almost ill by that point from the anticipation, and the unknown answer, to our thoughts,”Will they call our name?” I mean what a photo finish of greats he was calling out, Tikaf Viper for “Run Ram,” (who was my personal favorite to win First Place) Hypatia Pickens for “The Four Gods of Folly, Arrow Inglewood for “?” and and…you could have dropped a meteorite between us and we would not have noticed, we were hanging on this last unknown name,
“and… pallina60 Loon for “Colours” At that second I felt I had fallen down an elevator shaft and all my hopes for taking home a prize from the UWA V were laying dashed on the bottom. I sent off an IM to Nat, “Well it looks like we bombed out” and she answered, “Yeah”
“Well that’s it Nat, we bombed out”
So….please believe me, we were not sitting in our seats waiting to be called for the next prize, 2ND PRIZE IN THE OVERALL!!. I think when JayJay called out our film “Seek Wisdom” I thought it was any one of the others with the same name, but when I heard our names attached, I think I let out an OMG in chat and seriously felt light-headed and giddy and a little crazy.
That’s the slice of pie we took home, a really big piece too, that can be shared easily with all our friends supporters and everyone who believed in our little film. Oh, and we received 120,000L$ too… so, drinks are on us:) The grand First Prize was well-awarded to Tutsy Navarathna for ‘The Last Syllable of Recorded Time’ Congratulations Tutsy on your 3rd winning year in a row (2010 – 2011 – 2012)
I will repeat the words I said on The UWA blog, “So many people to thank, beginning with the organizers and the judges for this year’s UWA V Machinima Challenge. For me personally, this feels like a fairy tale, but looking back, I see many people to thank. I would like to first gratefully acknowledge the fate that brought me to SL, and all the people along the way who have encouraged me, first as a performing poet, and then a composer, and then finally a machinimatographer. My friends here, my partner, and many in RL too, who have encouraged me to try new things, and not be afraid to take chances. The final breeze blew in an incredible talent, who harmonized so well with me in the creative aspect. I am speaking of Natascha Randt, who made it possible to begin our Costa Rica-Germany connection and seek wisdom together. I thank you all, and am truly honored to receive this prize. I also want to include the judges of the Open This End Awards of Excellence, who voted for our film as one of the winners of the Open This End Awards of Excellence In Film 2012. My most sincere thanks for your consideration and your prize. Against all odds…I now put the 2nd Place Winner of the MachinimUWA 2012 for your enjoyment,in case anyone has yet to see it, and let out a great big and joyous, WOOOOOOOOOT!!!
I am proud to present our latest machinima effort, a new inspired collaboration with my friend and respected machinima artist, Natascha Randt. I know this was a hard poem for some to like when it was just a poem, as it concerns the low dip in the process of accepting the loss of a loved one. There are other, maybe better ways to feel while learning to accept that we will never see someone again, but I was recently reminded, that the process of grief is many-phased, and each one, while grieving, will do it, go through it, and survive it, in their own way. If you follow my poetry and this blog, you will see many poems, videos, and series inspired by one single muse. Her name was Umahmad and she was not virtual but very real.Yet in some sense she became a virtual muse, a haunting memory that helped me tap into a well of poetry, feelings and scenes, that flowed out of my pen for her since 2002. I have written hundreds of poems for her, and just recently was with her when she passed away. See post “My Gliding Beauty 1971-2012”
I showed Nat the recording just to share it, no other intentions in mind, and I said to her (using her quote always about being “lazy”)
“If I weren’t so lazy I would make a machinima out of this”
She said, “Tell me what you imagine it would be like?” and before we knew it, we were putting together an abstract city on one of my worlds on Kitely – Virtual Worlds on Demand. I laughed today thinking how two, self admitting non-builders could pull that off, but one of the flairs and the talents that Nat has, is a fabulous camera eye, and a wizard’s magic for editing and fx’s, so… I think even our strange city, my odd birds somehow fit right into the mood of the poem. We tried to capture in a few minutes with music, poetry and visuals the feelings of despair and nostalgia all mixed up, that can pull one down into a temporary Tar Pit of despair and inertia.
I hope you allow yourselves to be dragged down ( if only for a few minutes) in our “Tar Pit Never” mood. We promise… that our next project together, will be a happy, silly and light-hearted supermarket musical…or something on that order…maybe:)
Oh and a recommendation to play it in HD (720p) and full screen, for a brighter view of the dark.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 9th begins the Islamic celebration of a month of fasting from before sunrise to sunset, generosity and kindness to those less fortunate, and a time of personal re-evaluation, and a purifying of the soul. This is a re-posting of my post for Ramadan 2011. Last year I was fasting with a beautiful adopted family in Texas.. We never know from year to year where we might be, or where our holidays might find us…This year I am in Costa Rica and feel connected to all who will be fasting.. ****************************************************************** I wrote this poem below in 2007 when Ramadan was thought to fall on September 13th, and I was living in Jordan. It falls about 10 days earlier on the Gregorian Calendar every year.
I performed it yesterday in a reading at the Criss Museum in SL and a few people have asked to see the…
Please click the mp3 link to hear me recite this poem to its original music mp3 of poem
Tar Pit Never
for Umahmad
Another day without you.. just more tar pits, where before there was a dinosaur, just a vacuum where we gulp for air, floundering fish, upon the shore, and we are awakened by an eternal groan to start another day inside this hole.
The clock ticks with a mute shoved down its throat, like a symphony gone bad…while the audience goes mad, glued to the chairs, your dissonance is the final curtain call.
It’s so over.
You are a central park, with its monument that disappeared into the dark. You are an excavation, as big as a city, filled with muddy tears. You are a wanderer whose melody can be heard, just before the dawn… but never near. You are a night bird’s song, that went out at noon…and never did return. You are the definition of Never, that we can never understand… how we will never see you again. The birds…can’t find the trees, so they sing so sadly on the wing, and then they can’t find any reason to sing.
Belladonna,
my gliding beauty, you walked an inch off the ground. You could enter a silent room without making a sound. In a market of black-robed women, you were the first to be found. We walked as one, and when we knelt with our heads touching the ground, you pressed your shoulder into mine in perfect unison
as we bent down. I bless your grace and your profile your blood mixed in Iran, those two Iraqi pools that peeked out from clasped hands. We were just so new, two women who loved that we stopped our own heartbeats contemplating
the Above.
2002 Jordan ~*~
Glide Away for Umahmad
I trace circles on your arm to the chanted prayers of the Quran.
Every twisting curve I make is a switchback in our extraordinary timeline..our history written by a weaver, a true believer,
and you believed,
that all that was laid upon your back,
you could shoulder,
and not only support it, but walk carrying it proudly. Outside is Texas not Iraq,
but you sigh peacefully and ask for mercy,
god’s mercy after a lifetime of struggle…
the short straw in the deck of life…
even your lifeline stops half way down your palm. My friend,
who else in my life could have showed me the hidden gift of loving another,
as I learned to love you? From your lips I learned a language a culture, a truth. Your children were your wealth and your reason to live, to seek, to dream, to cross borders so that they might have a better chance..a better role in Life’s play. And now today I watch you prepare to set sail, your closed eyes opening slowly like spinnakers unfolding, and you look upwards, the purified face of one who is being carried to the other shore, and your last breath is the wind that finally fills them and they snap and billow, and there you go…you depart and glide away. July 3, 2012 Community Memorial Hospice Ft.Worth Texas
*My greatest muse, my deepest friendship, a truth more rare than fiction.
Gone From My Sight
by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast, hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me — not in her. And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
Menubar is in the competition for best poster for the MachinimUWA Challenge. He did one for Natascha’s and my film “Seek Wisdom” Isn’t it beautiful? Good Luck Menu…you deserve a win for this one!! WE LOVE IT!!
Ohh..I can’t wait to share this little film with all of you…a 4:30 min black and white machinima that took hours of rendering, discussing, and polishing but was soooo much fun to do, and renews my belief in the wonders of Second Life and the Arts, for bringing unlikely bedfellows into the same creative bed. This is how we made the Costa Rica-Germany Connection… and all because of a University (Western Australia) in a Continent Down-Under, that has sparked so many film makers to action and to letting their artistic and philosophic rivers flow, in one direction from all over the world. I was not even thinking of entering as my computer and software, and just everything, is not good enough to compete at this very high level,which brings the most amazing films and filmmakers out, for now the fifth year. Well we put our energies and focus to where our ideas were and this led to the completion of our project, which has been entered alongside so many other wonderful collaborations and individuals that sprang up for this grand event of 2012: MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom (5th UWA Short Animated FilmFestival. I hate to sound repetitive, and if I do, it’s only because I am once again so excited, but it is amazing how saying “Yes” to an idea and just diving into it, can be so rewarding. No boundaries, no cultural barriers, no prejudices, when creative people come together and start with just that little seed, and then work on it in a tight collaboration, until they see it bear fruit…ahh what total joy! What a harvest for the soul!! Please stop me… ( can hear Natascha writing “eeehm”:) I will let our film speak for itself, but I do want to publicly here on my blog, thank Natascha Randt for listening to my idea, my poem/soundtrack, and being brave enough, wild enough, crazy enough and clever enough (smiles) to come up with the perfect visual style to complement it and make it whole. I give you now “Seek Wisdom, born from a wonderful creative friendship..This is our first and I sure hope it won’t be our last...
Here is a little teaser that I hope whets your interest in seeing the whole machinma….SOON!
The final film will be our entry in the UWA Machinima Challenge 2012 “Seek Wisdom”
All I can say is, I am very excited about this collaboration with one of the machinimatographers I most admire, Natascha Randt…. Be teased and enjoy!!
I dreamed they shot me in the head, and I was not sure what that could mean, Maybe… now all my optimistic poetic dreams, my fantasies, could finally leak out upon the floor, And not be contained like stagnant water in a jar, already over flowing from useless hoping.
Was it my death or my release, when they put that revolver against my ear? But when I heard the boom, I sang a warbler’s tune, and walked away unscathed. I warbled and the most beautiful notes preceded me, surrounded me, and flowed out of me.
I felt a peaceful calm for my execution, an acceptance everything was the way it should be, And afterwards I walked around, showing my wound for the entire world to see, As if it were a gift just given, or a prize I’d won, or an honor newly bestowed upon me.
My one shot execution, became a singing celebration, where others rejoiced my good fortune, For I was still alive, and I could even sing, with more feeling than before, reborn by this gunshot, I opened door after door with only notes that rang out in my ears, washing all the unreal away.
While all the while, what never really was, still dripped from my clean small caliber bullet-hole. I had smiles and trickling tears and euphoria lit my face in rose colored lighting.
I needed no words. My sentence ended with my execution.
I awoke to a new day, where clean sheets replaced the soiled.
Karima Hoisan June 16, 2012 Arlington Texas
*one of my very few gunshot dreams…ever. Maybe because I am in Texas now and the N.R.A is strong?Any interpretations are most welcome🙂
I found this image on the web at a site that featured some works by Beau Stanton. He has some interestingly beautiful, some a bit disturbing art. You can find it hereArt by Beau Stanton
Digital Rabbit Hole 