poetigress | Entries tagged with friday finds

Again, a lot of the people who are likely to read this journal have probably already seen this, but I know there are some who haven't. (Besides, things like this are worth watching even when they're not the big viral thing of the moment.)

Interpretations of this animation vary, but this has been quoted as a comment from the artist:

"As for the story: the butterfly dragon, a symbol of imagination, enables the little deer creature to express his creativity by teaching him how to paint. The mask, representing the deer's imagination, is blessed by the dragon and transforms him into a creature similar to the butterfly dragon. Essentially it's about unlocking the 'god' inside us all. :)"

The artist's website can be found here.

Current Mood: calm

Probably everybody's seen this already in one major news outlet or another, but just in case, I give you not merely the world's smallest frog, but the world's smallest vertebrate:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16491477

Current Mood: fascinated

Apparently this poem has been making the rounds since about 1994, but I first encountered it when it was posted to the

poetry community here on Dreamwidth.

http://poetry.dreamwidth.org/108156.html

You can find more about the poet and her other works at her website:

http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/

Current Mood: touched

Maybe I need to drop the "Friday" part of the "Friday Finds"... XD Anyway, have a fun light show:

In other news, the folks at Anthro Dreams are still putting the finishing touches on my novel By Sword and Star for a planned January release--more on that as things get set. I'm also polishing up my goals for 2012 (one of the unwritten ones is to update here a little more often and with a bit more depth and personal notes), and I've put in an application for one of Odyssey's online writing courses, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll get into that.

All for now...

Current Mood: busy

It's been a very long week, and therefore I'm watching Muppet Show and Sesame Street clips on YouTube. XD

Always loved this song...

(Count yourselves lucky -- this week's Friday Find could have been Bert and Ernie with "Dance Myself to Sleep."

...

Oh, what the heck.)

Current Mood: amused

Video quality is atrocious, but you can still get the gist of this classic little cartoon that I first saw on Sesame Street:

Kind of the precursor to Simon's Cat, one might say. :)

Current Mood: okay

(Yes, it's technically Sunday, but oh, well.)

Though I've never had that much interest myself in the fursuiting (costuming) aspect of the furry fandom, I've been amazed by the quality of this designer's work for a while now -- especially the "quadsuits," made to be worn by someone on all fours using arm stilts. I was particularly impressed by this one, but the other videos are worth checking out as well.

Current Mood: busy

This week's Friday Find is... well, actually a whole gallery of works. Artist Mark Villarreal set up his own personal challenge to create a rabbit painting for every day of the Year of the Rabbit. So far he's at #167, posted back in July. I don't know if he's still plugging away at it or not, but even if the project doesn't get completed, some of the individual pieces are remarkably creative. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there could be so many ways of depicting the same basic animal -- but it's still marvelous to look through.

Go browse some bunnies:

http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/gallery/whiteafi/

Or sample some of my favorites:

http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/6081999/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/6031662/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5932824/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5890378/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5884140/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5661912/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5599480/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5280838/

Current Mood: creative

This Friday, I'm sharing a Celtic rock band I've seen perform twice now. I think my favorite of their songs is still "Finnean's Dance," but that might be tied with several others. :)

http://www.coyoterun.com

(And yeah, I missed last Friday... was away from the computer all day, and then got hit with about 8 inches of wet snow Friday night, leading to a power outage all weekend. One of those times I'm glad we have a woodstove out here.)

Current Mood: busy

This week's find is a poignant bit of flash fiction by

celestialgldfsh about a mother, her autistic son, and the end of the world.

http://www.everydayfiction.com/a-dance-to-end-our-final-day-by-beth-cato/

Current Mood: busy

A fun little animated short showing what can happen when people are -- or aren't -- willing to work together. I don't know if the animator had any part of US politics in mind when this was made, but that's one of the interpretations that came to mind when I watched it. :)

"Bridge"

http://vimeo.com/27299211

Current Mood: content

A creative look at what "real" Smurfs might be like. Not as cute as the cartoon sort, but far more fascinating...

http://www.natehallinan.com/gallery/Smurf/Smurf.html

Current Mood: amused

In the category of "People I Went to School With Doing Cool Stuff," I give you an artist's website:

http://www.walkertufts.com/

I'm still exploring it myself, but so far my favorite is picket wheel.

(And -- assuming, of course, that this is the same Walker I knew back in high school -- dude, seriously, maybe some contact info on your website?)

Current Mood: fascinated

Today's Friday Find is a viral video set to the final speech in The Great Dictator.

(I will try to be pleased at how many good comments this received in the journal where I first saw the link, and not depressed that so many people seemed to have no idea who Charlie Chaplin was, let alone having seen this particular movie. *sigh* Only 34, and I already start to feel old. I suppose I should get used to this.)

Current Mood: touched

Silly, catchy, all-around fun. I recommend playing it fairly loud. :)

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4133907/

The artist's website can be found here. (I should probably note, though, that "The Happy Song" is pretty different from his usual work, which tends toward cinematic-feeling orchestral/new age instrumentals.)

Current Mood: calm

This week's finds are poems. I used to read a lot more poetry than I do now (and certainly wrote much more of it than I do now), but these really caught my attention and made me feel they were worth sharing.

The first two were posted by readers to the

greatpoets community on LiveJournal:

"Library," by Albert Goldbarth:
http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3243336.html

"Changeling" by Loren Eiseley:
http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3243102.html

Incidentally, the DW community

poetry also has a lot of good stuff posted that's worth checking out. Here are two that were posted there:

"How to Read a Poem: A Beginner's Manual," by Pamela Spiro Wagner:
http://poetry.dreamwidth.org/150643.html

"Ravens," by Theodora Goss:
http://poetry.dreamwidth.org/146946.html

Current Mood: enthralled

This week's Friday Find is fiction -- a fun twist on a faerie curse, by Tessa Gratton:

http://merry-fates.livejournal.com/105812.html

Current Mood: accomplished

Will have a general update later today, but for now, in the interests of 1) updating here on a more regular basis, and 2) making this journal about slightly more than just me and whatever I'm doing, I've decided to use Fridays to post links to interesting writing/music/art/whatever I happen across that I think deserves a signal boost, even if it's only the tiny one I can offer here.

I'm starting off with singer/songwriter Zoe Mulford, whose work I first heard at a local music festival several years ago. To listen to her songs is to listen with a perpetual lump in your throat -- and yet wind up smiling. Her lyrics have the trick of being both accessible and inevitable, without feeling forced, and in her songwriting she seems equally at home with poignance and humor.

You can listen to a few of her songs on her website:

http://zoemulford.com/music.html

And you can find a list of her albums (available from CD Baby and, for the two earlier ones, from iTunes) here:

http://zoemulford.com/products.html

Enjoy!