NativeDreamer

The weekends are always my time to catch up on French. It's getting easier; I don't have to strain to pronounce the words, although I'm certain my accent is still horrible. And at last, I don't feel guilty when I study. My guilt sprang from spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get the basics and thereby causing household matters to suffer.

Yesterday I read the comments section of an article in the NYTimes about illegal immigration in the USA and that old chestnut came up concerning why people who come here don't learn English. When I see it, I know that person has probably never seriously tried to learn a second language or he or she would know how ridiculous that sounds. For me, a poor language learner, learning Spanish is tough enough. I wouldn't want to have to learn the endless irregular pronunciations found in English.

Years ago, someone from my writers group, a man who taught French at the university and who had spent years in France, criticized a Latina he disliked, saying she hadn't bothered to learn English even though she'd lived in Tucson for years. He thought she was a lump of a person, stupid and graceless. He justified his attitude by saying that as a child, he'd had to learn English. I bit my tongue and didn't reply since disagreement with folks in that group set nerves on edge. But I thought him very ignorant and arrogant to compare the language learning ability of a child with that of an adult. It's apples to oranges since children are natural language sponges with their brains for the most part geared to acquire language. It was hard to believe that a language teacher would take that attitude. Surely he must have seen some adult students struggling and failing to learn French in his classes? The U of Arizona requires that all students take a language for (I believe) 4 semesters and most of them will never use it since they are only fulfilling a requisite.

When I look ahead at how much I will need to learn to speak French, I get a sinking feeling. I'm still working on Spanish, which is consummately useful in my part of the world. French is not. It's a lark, something that will help me when I write my next couple of books. It takes a real effort to continue with it, unlike Spanish, which has many built in rewards.

I briefly worked with a woman from France when I filmed this last video project. Perhaps it was just her personality but she was rather demanding, picky and negative. She was also very full of herself. On the other hand, when she chose to be, she was extremely charming and vivacious. All and all, a very fiery person. I think she fits my image of the French and I wonder if I will ever get on with them.

The Qi Gong form that I'm doing is geared to opening the heart. The man who invented it says it helps one love unconditionally.

I'm not sure what that means anymore. I thought I knew what it was in my '20's but somewhere in my '40's I stopped believing in such things--like Santa Claus of the heart.

Last night I watched an episode of Exposé about impoverished men from India who were trying to get jobs in the hotel business in Jordan, and who had been rerouted without their consent to work for the military contractor Halliburton in Iraq. When I saw four of the men holding signs in front of the camera before their execution by anti-American forces in Iraq, I started to cry. It was too poignant and unjust to tolerate. But I didn't have time to think of that before my emotional outburst.

Is that an indicator of an opening heart?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/expose_2007/etools/essay.html

Something rather nice is shaping up. 4 of us from my October Qi Gong class got together to do Qi Gong tonight. I brought the dvd I just got, which has the master doing the form. We did it together for an hour. There's this special thing that happens when you get a group of people together to do Qi Gong. The more people there are, the stronger the effect. My hands were hot when I finished and the shoulder pain I've had for the last month was noticeably better. They are a pleasant group of women and I hope we can continue with this.

I told the woman who's hosting it that she's got a great location for Qi Gong practice since she practically has the Tucson mountains in her front yard. I found out years ago that those mountains amplify energy work like Qi Gong and shamanic drumming. Doing that near them sets up a mighty buzz if you're sensitive to that kind of thing.

Friday and Saturday I uploaded the video footage onto my hard drive. I'm told if you upload video footage from your camcorder to your computer, it wears out the heads of the camcorder/camera. One of the staff at AT said he knows of at least two cases where people with very expensive cameras had problems with the video heads after 6 months of use. What they use at AT are tape decks. I wish I had one. He said I might be able to find a used one on Ebay for $600 which is the cheapest he's seen.

I've finished taping but I'd still like to snap some photos to add. The interview footage turned out fine. I was worried I might lose a key interview because there had been some lines in the footage when I went into the 100% zebra setting. Only after I'd shot the interview did someone at AT tell me that when there's too high a percentage of overexposed area in the 100% setting, it can create audio noise. One guy said it rarely happens but then another staff member said it's common. The first guy had told me that when it happens, the noise will be present in the entire clip. That had me sweating. Then I found out later that the audio noise is only associated with the footage where the overexposure occurs.

It's been like that since I started working with people at AT: I get different info depending on with whom I speak. It can be very confusing.

Anyway, the video looks good. The interview where I used only one light is drab with a two dimensional look because there's no back lighting. However, the rest is fine. The only thing is, the guy has a really straight, expressionless face so I'm thinking I will minimize his part of the video and put his voice behind B roll footage that shows landscape and examples of what he's talking about.

There is a substantial amount of the footage that's pretty mundane. The challenge is to mix and match clips to form an interesting story. I love the footage from Agua Caliente Park. I filmed some water that looked only so so with the naked eye but the video had caught beautiful shapes and colors. I was excited to see that and now I wonder what other things that I film will show unexpected, enhanced views.

Yesterday I spent the entire day taping video and doing interviews.

I found some desert not too far from my house with natural landscape and no homes. There were gusts of wind blowing somewhere around 45 miles an hour or more so it was difficult to get the shot, which was a slow panning of the landscape. I spent an hour on it and finally got something satisfactory. Then I rushed to a home on the far east side of town where I did a couple of interviews. Returning to my car, I drove to an area rich in mesquite trees, a special part of Tucson that has a great feel to it. I finished the day taping asphalt surfaced streets and parking lots for visuals of urban heat islands.

When I dropped off the equipment, I felt jubilant. Today I'll try to get to the media lab and transfer the tapes to my hard drive so I can start editing next week.

It was a lot of work. By the third day I felt extremely comfortable with the camera and the audio system. Lighting still needs work but hopefully I'll soon get it. I can practice using lights at home with my camcorder until the next time I use professional equipment.

Today didn't go as well as yesterday. I went to the location early to set up the lights and decided to use the classic 3 point lighting approach since the room had terrible lighting. The larger key light was fine. Then I tried to do the the other two without success. I couldn't figure out how to attach the lights to the stand. I wonder if my lighting kit is missing some clips? I ended up using the umbrella on the key light. The result was so so and the guy had a terrific shine on his forehead and nose, exactly what you don't want to see on video. But what could I do? I didn't have pancake make-up, which somebody had suggested I use, because I don't know how to apply it. Even if I had it, would the guy have allowed me to carefully make him up when he was at work? I couldn't ask the TV station about this because it's been closed that last few days.

I was flustered by the problems with the lighting so I forgot to do a white balance before shooting. I hope when I view the tape that the colors won't be dreadfully out of balance. I can't reshoot the interview.

By the time I got out to the desert this afternoon the light was failing. I shot anyway, hoping it would look OK. Tomorrow I'll try again, closer to home. I still have two more interviews tomorrow before I return the equipment.

Tired. Must get some sleep. I'm waking up in the morning after 5 hours and dragging through the day.

Today was my first day taping the new video project. I went to Agua Caliente Park to see the ponds. Two are dried up and the last is being fed by the thinnest stream of water that trickles 6 gallons a minute over a lip of rock. In spite of its size, the water was loud, it's gurgle resonating in playback of the tape.

I returned home at 2:30, really tired. Kicking back with a bowl of cherries, I reviewed what I'd taped and then finally dragged out the cumbersome lighting kit in order to tackle the task of how to set up the lights. I hadn't a clue how to arrange the barn doors of the key light but I did get a light reflecting umbrella attached. I wondered if I could substitute the umbrella arrangement for the three-point lighting I had planned to do at the next shooting since I no longer had the energy to organize that set up.

Later that evening I got lucky because the light at the site was good and I didn't need extra lights. I got to work immediately, setting up the tripod, programming the camera and attaching the microphone. After listening to a volunteer working at the phone bank, I asked the director if I could mic him. He was doing a good job at getting the message out, asking voters to contact senator John McCain and ask him to support the climate bill that's making its way through the senate.

At one point I saw a large envelope on the table with elegant handwriting addressed to McCain. As I listened to a volunteer ask someone if they would write to McCain, my eyes traced the writing on the envelope. I was dead tired and lulled by her voice. Then I got an idea: have the woman recite the phone message as if she were making a call while I focused the camera on the letter. I covered the return address with a cell phone and we did it. The two other people were excited about the idea and we ended the evening on a high point.

Tonight T and I are discussing the questions he'll ask the man from the city council committee tomorrow. I don't know how to light two people facing each other in an interview, so instead, I'll use a videographer's trick. T will ask the questions outside of the camera's range and the man interviewed will include the question in his reply. I'll edit his replies into the video and include B roll footage of local places and other things that exemplify the points covered in the interview.

It's starting to gel.

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Balloon launch
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An excellent conversation tonight with one of my Spanish friends. I told her about The Cove and she followed the topic with interest. I enjoy speaking with her because she likes to discuss current events, movies, books and many other subjects. Her curiosity matches my own, which is rare. She has a beautiful voice that soothes.

I once mentioned on a language forum that I thought women from Madrid had the loveliest Spanish accents of all. Somebody replied with a snide response that suggested I was delusional.

It's true that people from Madrid speak very quickly, so unless they slow down, you miss the flavor of their accent. They enunciate very precisely. The women have this rich warmth to their voices that washes over you. I could listen to my friend speak for hours.

The French is coming along very slowly. I don't have time to study grammar. Instead, I listen to Pimsleur tapes before sleep and watch an occasional movie dubbed in French. It's no longer a struggle to imitate the sounds but I'm sure I still sound pretty rank. With my limited time, it seems like the best course is to learn the basics and work on perfecting my pronunciation. As beautiful as the language is, I still feel a greater fondness for Spanish because I've had 2 1/2 years of quality experiences with Spanish speakers around the world. I hope I'll eventually have those with French speakers as well. But I may have to look for that outside of France. The French I've met seem much pickier and more judgmental than most of the Spanish speakers I know.

I saw the movie The Cove today. It was incredibly good, very moving--a mission impossible adventure flick with great heart. It's fortunate WWII happened a long time ago because the evil Japanese fishermen of Taiji Japan who harass the people trying to get the story about their secret yearly slaughter of dolphins come across as aggressively ugly and brutal and would have magnified antiJapanese sentiments of the '40's. After these men stab to death trapped and terrified dolphins, they light up their cigs and enjoy swapping tall tales around the campfire about what the world was like when whales filled the seas.

The man who captured and trained the female dolphins that played Flipper in the 1960's TV series, Ric O'Barry, is courageous and fiercely committed to setting right the mistake he made of getting the world to fall in love with captive dolphins. He's a magnet, drawing others to the cause, brilliant people who invent, plot, and take risks to film the dolphin slaughter. This is beautifully done. The opening scene of the movie has infrared night shots that render sleuths and landscape into ghostly shapes that haunt the cove, like the souls of the 23,000 dolphins killed there each year.

These heroes inspired me with their love for their dolphin friends. When O'Barry held up the computer screen and showed the International Whaling commission, the organization which had banned him from their meetings, the carnage at Taiji, I cried out of sheer admiration. It was wonderful to see a human at his best and triumphant.

Violent and beautiful, The Cove won't be seen by most Americans. It's not a Michael Moore documentary so it's playing at the local art house.

http://thecovemovie.com/the_cove/synopsis.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo&feature=fvw

I voted today, although it was difficult to do. First, they changed the poll location because of having to combine multiple precincts in order to manage an expected small turn out. Finding the site was a challenge. Next, something unprecedented happened. I got to the polls and was told my registration had lapsed and I was on the inactive list. It didn't matter that I'd voted in every election since first registering here over a decade ago. T had voted earlier without problems and we're both registered at the same address.

So I had to fill out this special form that was supposed to reregister me. The person who helped me assured me that my vote would be counted, but then, when I handed her the ballot, she handed back a receipt with instructions to call the clerk's office 10 days after the election to find out if my vote had been counted.

That pissed me off, and as I left the parking lot and stared at a wispy cloud laid on a clear blue sky, I wondered if something else was afoot. Republicans purging democratic voters? It's happened in Ohio. Why not in Tucson? Or better yet, maybe it was because the one democratic council member I didn't vote for (a rare act) was a powerful witch. I had campaigned for her and other democratic council members the week before, but today I changed my mind and decided not to back her. It happened because this afternoon I visited an agency located in one of the neighborhoods of her ward, and once again, had trouble finding parking. The parking scarcity occurred after the council member arranged for parking in neighborhoods near the university to become resident only for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, creating a sort of legal gated community without walls that keeps out the rest of Tucson. As I made my way back to my car, I thought about how greedy it was for residents to control parking every minute of the day. Other places at least have the decency to lift the permit requirement during some part of the evening, but not these guys. And the council member had been in on their plan.

When I got home, and before heading out to vote, I sent her an email explaining why she'd lost my vote. It was particularly satisfying because I knew she's having a rough time of it and may be defeated because of how she'd handled a boondoggle project that had cost the city over $70 million. She needed every vote and my email would sting.

But, as I said earlier, it was I who felt the sting of being expunged from the voters' list. Coincidence? Witch craft?
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