YouTube - 16: Moments
A friend sent this 4-minute video, which he found on YouTube. I think it's awfully good to be just floating around like that, but if filmmaker William Hoffman is hoping people like me will help spread the word, I'm happy to oblige.
A very few of the images might make you wince, but if the film has a flaw, it might be that it's a litte too feel-good and sentimental. However, I've been hooked for some time on the importance of realizing that time goes by in moments--whatever else it does, according to folks like Einstein. I humbly submit that most of us don't pay enough attention to the fleetingness of things; otherwise, we'd all be filmmakers, photographers, and poets. Or sky divers?
About 20 years ago, I came up with "The Lyric Moment" as the title for a course on poems under two pages; the colleague who taught it agreed that most short poems, even those with some narrative line, amount to a capturing of moments, often moments of epiphany.
So this 4-minute film is right up my alley, and I hope it's substantial enough to be worth your time, but light enough to be a welcome splash for the first day after a long weekend.
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I'll take a look, but have you seen this?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.badwritingthemovie.com/bw/Home.html
Yes, I heard the one guy sneeringly use the word "epiphany." I realize that (beginning?) writers need to be kicked in the head concerning the grandiose and pretentious, but I'm afraid I react almost as strongly to the many established writers who are all to happy to do that kicking. So "badwritingthemovie.com" might be a useful evil, but I don't know if it's a necessary one. Do you hear an arrogant, bullying tone in those clips taken as one whole, or am I just Mr. Touchy Feely?
ReplyDeleteI think perhaps you're taking it too seriously. You know what would be fun? If some of us broke out some writing from when we were 17-20 years old and shared a paragraph. Because we all save that shit, even though I personally have never looked at it.
ReplyDeleteAH, you've given me, and therefore the lucky universe, my post for today.
ReplyDeleteThe YOUTUBE makes me want some moments of life back. The ones I missed, the ones others saw, the ones we shared.
ReplyDeleteSo tell us how your course went. How was it received? What was the outcome???
It is one thing to look at photos from where you were 17. It is totally another to read what you wrote when you were 17... They aren't in the same universe, tho both are snapshots of where you were in time. One is laughable, one is frightening!
ReplyDeleteI ain't going back to read my shit just to be reminded how hopeless/
helpless I was!!!
Aw, cummon. I think we should all open one of those dusty notebooks and share one. The most outrageous. If you two do it, I will.
ReplyDeleteBrenda, yeah, I think the "Moments" video had an effect like that for me. It might hold up to several viewings for just that reason.
ReplyDeleteActually, the colleague taught the course, but she was struggling for a title. It went very well, as I recall.