Yodeling Storytellers in the Woods

Remember This. Tennessee 2013.

The music and stories the girls come home with are usually pretty colorful. Campfire songs I've never heard of, 2-day adventures in the woods gathering forrest food for a stew, more plants discovered that contain strong enough fibers to fashion semipermanent necklaces, and days of journal entries that need to be written out before they lose the details.

A few trips ago, they call came back from camping howling the songs of Doug Elliot. Sharing now.

Doug's stories derive from his unique lifestyle as well as his deep interest in plants, animals and people. Since humanity's beginnings our connections with the natural world have defined us and made us who we are. Elliott's stories explore and celebrate the rich diversity of that special human connection to nature. His programs are textured by his use of traditional lore, regional dialects and accents, and enhanced by his soulful harmonica playing.

Storytelling and education go hand-in-hand. For millennia, storytelling has been an invaluable tool for passing information, values and wisdom from one generation to the next. 

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Xylem in us all.

Example of a cross section of a (woody) stem. Used with permission from Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture by Jeffrey Winterborne. http://www.hydroponicist.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue in vascular plants (phloem is the other). Its basic function is to transport water, but it also transports some nutrients through the plant.

If the xylem is the conduit for passing water and nutrients within plants,  this and any blog are also xlyem. We are the roots drawing nutrients from the soil and our thoughts to transport them to you, the flower.

I had the good fortune to take a class with a video professor in the early nineties that influenced me deeply.

Paul Ryan taught an upper level Field Production class that went beyond the traditional scope of using video cameras and microphones properly. He introduced us to the use of Ta'i Chi to control our bodies while shooting 'hand-held' cameras. Professional cameras you see news photographers lugging on their shoulders are pretty heavy. This approach, lowering your center of gravity and shifting your weight consciously from leg to leg, allows one to walk with a smooth glide producing less camera shake. You get a freedom of movement that a tripod cannot emulate. Your shots gain a fluidity that you can only draw on a storyboard as a curve. 

The other major focus of Ryan's class was to bring in the concept of Earthscore to video production. He has several video examples at his site, earthscore.org.

While at the Sequatchie Vally Institute a few weeks ago, I thought of Paul while shooting this video. The camera was much smaller than the one we used back then. This video doesn't have a lot of camera movement in it, but is full of movement. What I'm doing here is describing the water.

This is a bit of a stretch, but conceptually, the stream bed, this medium and this conversation with each other is a fluid transfer of nutrients, ideas, stories, experiences. 

Why Not? Google+ Comments...

Google 貼牌冰箱（Google Refrigerator） (Photo credit: Aray Chen)

In the past week, Google+ has blazed its way into the Blogger comment world. Initially I was really happy to see it. Your comments here appear on your G+ stream, giving them an audience to your followers. The promise there is an easier way to spread your work across the social space.

Why Not?!

Notice that all the Google Kool-Aid in the fridge is gone.

I started seeing discussions and interactions on my G+ stream instead of just the one-liners and direct links to everyone's posts. Leading into the posts from the comments gives me an even more targeted or curated selection of links to explore.

I said I was "initially"happy, because my jury is still out. I'm still looking at it. When you have an occasional party that people aren't showing up for anyway, you have lots of time for experimentations like this. The real tests will be by those who have a huge audience to lose if it the commenters don't follow you into the Google space. (But who doesn't have a Google account these days? Who doesn't have a couple by now for work, personal, research, etc.)

Do you use Google+?

Did you notice the change on peoples' blogs?

Did you notice that you could change your whole commenting scheme at all? Care?

Did you switch it on just to see what would happen?

(If you usually have 50+ comments on your blog, did you see more or less after switching?)

Did you go back?

If you have a link a poll. I'd love to see it.

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