equivocality — Jeff Ngan's collection of thoughts, experiences, and projects, inspired by pretty much everything
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17 Aug 10
0

Transplant

I got the chance to work with Team Emily to doc­u­ment their lat­est artist vision, titled Transplant. The bril­liant concept:

This sum­mer, Emily Comeau (a fibre artist from Quebec) and Emily Cook (a book and paper artist from Ontario) will be col­lab­o­rat­ing to cre­ate an immense and inter­ac­tive tun­nel book made from local plant mate­ri­als to install in a bar­ren patch of city.

Transplant is an out­door liv­ing book instal­la­tion. Constructed from found nat­ural mate­ri­als both liv­ing and dead, this instal­la­tion is sub­ject to the whims of nature and the designs of man. Each page of this book resem­bles an arch invit­ing the audi­ence to enter the immense tun­nel book. Within the pages are paper pock­ets where seeds will begin to sprout as the struc­ture is grad­u­ally beaten down by the weather. Additional arches/pages will be added through­out the exhi­bi­tion as the evo­lu­tion of decay and growth take over. This evo­lu­tion speaks to the ebb and flow of con­struc­tion and decay as the man­made world inter­acts with the nat­ural one. The story of this project is one of trans­for­ma­tion and recla­ma­tion of the urban land­scape by nature. It is the story of a cycle of decay and rebirth and of a bal­ance that can be achieved when nature’s col­lab­o­ra­tion is desired rather than fought

The sun­light com­ing through the seeded paper is such a won­der­fully strik­ing image. This is just the first arch­way, con­structed on the lawn at the Ottawa Arts Court, which is a very high-profile place (you can see the Rideau Centre right across the street). More details and orna­ments are planned as the project con­tin­ues over the next year.

My desire to record things comes from the fact that most things in this world are so ephemeral. This being a struc­ture that can dis­solve in the rain, as well as being an area fre­quented by drunks1 and home­less peo­ple, meant I was pretty adamant about doc­u­ment­ing the whole process.

  1. As we were leav­ing the area at the end of the day, some guy just up and peed into the bushes next to us. [↩]
tagged with #art / filed under Daily Life Video
28 Jul 10
1

Fell in love with a beard at 160 Workshops

I could explain how awe­some this night was, but I think this beard speaks for itself.

It’s a custom-made piece by Emily Comeau — named the Smirkin’ Merkin — and a pro­to­type for Jesse’s merch. As a per­son who’s never even come close to hav­ing a beard, I wanted to keep it SO BADLY even though it was brown and didn’t match the cur­tains (or the car­pet, for that mat­ter). I wore it for the first song I played, but it got way too warm to keep on in a house full of people.

beard

 

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tagged with #music #self-portrait / filed under Daily Life Video
27 Jun 10
23

Bobby's number two

I’ve been itch­ing to play around with some new footage lately cause I love edit­ing and it’s been a while since I had a good story to tell, so when Tiana invited me to Bobby’s sec­ond birth­day party, I couldn’t resist. I also recently pur­chased some new gear in prepa­ra­tion of a wed­ding I’ve been hired to film in the Fall (with a sec­ond one poten­tially lined up), and I’ve been look­ing for an oppor­tu­nity to field-test a new bag, shoul­der strap, and monopod.

I tend to get really shy at Tiana’s par­ties cause I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know any­one else there, but she does a good job of mak­ing sure I’m never left alone for too long and included in most con­ver­sa­tions. She’s also the only other per­son I know to actu­ally design cus­tom invi­ta­tions. This time, how­ever, she was sport­ing a perky new hair­cut, and no longer a veg­e­tar­ian (for now). Such is the power of St. Hubert.

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tagged with #kids #parties / filed under Daily Life Video
07 Jun 10
0

Jesse Dangerously — Halifax Rap Legend (Live @ Zaphod Beeblebrox)

The last stop of the 1000 Crooked Miles was right here at Zaphod’s in Ottawa. The last song of the night was Jesse’s (who was head­lin­ing) with a per­for­mance of Halifax Rap Legend, the beat taken from his upcom­ing album.

I know of no other rap­per who can use the expres­sion “rest­ing on your lau­rels” in their rhymes. I sus­pect this is why MC Chris once named him as the only rap­per he liked.

hugs

Hugs after the show.

tagged with #concerts #music / filed under Daily Life Photos Video
28 May 10
7

The saddest fact in life is that our cats will die before us

When I was young and a cat food com­mer­cial came on where the kit­ties would nuz­zle their owner after receiv­ing a por­tion of Brand X, I’d think to myself, “Those are prob­a­bly spe­cial cats, the way they use perky mod­els to por­tray every­day moms in clean­ing com­mer­cials. I won’t ever have a cat like that.”

But I was wrong.

She fol­lows me around the house, she sleeps under the blan­kets in the crook of my arm, and I can’t imag­ine my life with­out her.

tagged with #cats #Dolly / filed under Random Video
08 May 10
11

Goodbye, St. Louis

Working hard and play­ing hard. It felt like vaca­tion even though I was down there for busi­ness, just because I ended up doing so much stuff packed into four nights. I didn’t stop mov­ing once I touched down and ended up learn­ing so much, sim­ply by con­stantly being around the right people.

Goodbye, St. Louis. We’ll see each other again soon enough.

Many, many, many more pic­tures under the cut.

Kissing on the pier

I’m not sure what the nature of their rela­tion­ship was. Both African-American girls, one clearly older than the other, kiss­ing for sev­eral moments.

Across the river is Illinois.

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tagged with #food #travel / filed under Daily Life Photos Video
03 May 10
10

Famous Blue Raincoat (ukulele cover)

Almost three months ago, I walked into a music store and bought a ukulele. I didn’t even know the frets on the ukulele (or gui­tar, for that mat­ter) were raised; I thought they were just lines painted on the neck used as guide­lines for fin­ger posi­tions. Ever since, it’s filled a void in me. A void I didn’t even know existed until I found myself feel­ing empty when I didn’t get a chance to play.

Famous Blue Raincoat is one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs. I wish I could write let­ters like this.

I haven’t quite fig­ured out what kind of style or genre I want to apply to the ukulele, but I think my singing abil­ity (or lack thereof) will limit me to the soft Sam Beam folk sound unless I started tak­ing singing lessons. Borrowed in my inter­pre­ta­tion is a vari­a­tion of the pick­ing pat­tern Cohen uses in a lot of his ear­lier songs, such as Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye, adapted for the soprano ukulele.

While my brain picks out the mis­takes and details I need to work on when I see myself play, I try to keep in mind the words of my Tai Chi teacher, “We’re never as bad as we fear nor as good as we would like”. I don’t think I’ll ever be sat­is­fied with my musi­cal abil­ity unless I could com­mit a lot more time to it. Unfortunately, that would mean less time for another hobby, so I have to accept that this will prob­a­bly be close to the limit of my abil­ity. Hopefully, I’ll be able to clean things up in another few years. Patience will come from learn­ing to be sat­is­fied from the act of play­ing itself, and not the mas­tery of it. For now, this’ll serve as record of my progress.

tagged with #music #self-improvement #ukulele / filed under Random Video
18 Apr 10
9

Next To You

Found footage, cap­tured with my small CCD cam­corder. It strug­gles in low light sit­u­a­tions, but when I brought up the lev­els in post, out came this amaz­ing grain that gives it such a wist­ful texture.

When watch­ing this, my eyes tend to grav­i­tate to her hands; the way she moves them with a light, but firm touch, whether it’s get­ting Dolly to sit down, or brush­ing cat hair from her nose. They were artists hands. Not par­tic­u­larly strik­ing, but filled with del­i­cate dex­ter­ity. Sometimes, I’d kiss the tip of each fin­ger, and she’d tease me by pulling her hand away before I could finish.

It must have been one win­ter morn­ing, after a run out to Second Cup with their holiday-themed paper cups, watch­ing The Blue Planet in the com­fort of a blan­ket with a cat by our side.

Only after find­ing this footage did I start to believe that my mem­o­ries were real, and not just imag­i­na­tions caught between the haze of desire and denial.

We existed. We existed.

Even if only for a few moments, as won­der­ful as they were fleet­ing, one of them cap­tured in 24 frames per second.

tagged with #love #memories #muse / filed under Daily Life Video
03 Apr 10
10

Make Hymn Cry + Cover

In the win­ter I made a short video teaser for Jesse’s upcom­ing album by get­ting him to per­form a song off it called Make Hymn Cry. As the only ukulele piece on a rap album, it def­i­nitely stands out.

Then it dawned on me this morn­ing to see if I could cover it. As I was try­ing to fig­ure out the chord pro­gres­sion, I real­ized it’s a fairly sim­ple song that only alter­nates between the G and C chords. The strum­ming in Jesse’s video is slightly sim­pler than on the album, the lat­ter of which is the pat­tern I use in my ver­sion, and includes the pick­ing arpeg­gio for the sec­ond verse.

Still, it took me half the day just to get com­fort­able with the strum­ming pat­tern because it’s syn­co­pated in a way I’m not used to yet, the rhythm at the end of each bar divided beyond eighth notes into six­teenth notes. This is what long week­ends are for.

The main thing I’m con­cen­trat­ing on is count­ing the beats so I can strum off them and keep track of where the extra strum is at the end of each bar. The next is try­ing not to speed up, which is a very bad habit of mine, regard­less of instru­ment. I also need to pay atten­tion to softly rest­ing my hand on the strings when tran­si­tion­ing to the sec­ond verse; firstly, to pre­vent the last chord from ring­ing too long, and sec­ondly, to phys­i­cally feel where the strings are so I can get my thumb on the C string. I’m def­i­nitely not good enough to know where it is at all times. Most of the rest came by itself (i.e. I’m not con­sciously focus­ing on it), prob­a­bly from already lis­ten­ing a few times to a pre-release copy of the album Jesse gave me.

The phrases of the lyrics are also syn­co­pated against the strum­ming; it always feels like your strum­ming is late because the first word of every line falls on the beat before each down-strum), which adds another layer of com­plex­ity. The fact that I made it through with­out any major mis­takes but fucked it up right at the very end1 is why I can’t stop laughing.

My singing is strained cause I’m try­ing to project above the strum­ming to stay in bal­ance, but it’s clearly out of my com­fort zone. I’m not good enough to strum softly with con­trol yet, so I cheated and just raised my voice. The thing is, I never prac­tice singing when I’m prac­tic­ing my play­ing, usu­ally because I need to con­cen­trate on one thing at a time. Singing prac­tice is also bor­ing by itself, so I never do it, even though I should.

Anyway, I had a good day after learn­ing this lit­tle piece, and being able to fig­ure out the chords and the strum­ming was prob­a­bly just as fun as being able to play it.

  1. I lost track of the extra strum in the sec­ond last bar! [↩]
tagged with #music #ukulele / filed under Random Video
23 Feb 10
2

Cranium Party 02

Cranium Party invitation

The sec­ond Cranium Party went exceed­ingly well, even though not a sin­gle one of my core friends was there. In fact, aside from Jess, it was an entirely dif­fer­ent group from last time, and none of the four groups of peo­ple knew each other, but that didn’t stop it from being an awe­some party and every­one got along famously. Through the night, I heard peo­ple ask­ing each other, “And how do you know Jeff?”

People brought all sorts of snacks, but more impor­tantly, they also helped me eat them. Of note was Audra bring­ing a tub of green tea and honey vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream, which I had never even heard of before.

To make it inter­est­ing, I told every­one that the los­ing team would have to per­form a tal­ent. Some came pre­pared, oth­ers came with the atti­tude that they wouldn’t lose.

Audra’s tal­ent is speech writ­ing, but since she couldn’t per­form that, she did a ren­di­tion of a song she wrote with Jesse three years ago about their cat Zoey. And the song wasn’t just a short jin­gle, it was a full piece with proper song struc­ture and clever rhymes. If only I wasn’t laugh­ing so hard that I kept shak­ing the camera.

Sergei didn’t have a tal­ent pre­pared, but since I knew that he used to study mar­tial arts, I asked him if he could demon­strate what he knew. He sug­gested that he could blow out a can­dle with a punch, and no one was left unmoved.

Shawn brought his beau­ti­fully carved didgeri­doo to play as his tal­ent. Even though he didn’t lose, peo­ple were still intrigued enough that they wanted to try it. And, of course, Jesse added his own flavour at the end.

tagged with #parties / filed under Daily Life Video
06 Feb 10
3

my friends are fucking awesome

Cause stuff like this can hap­pen any time.

(I love Audra’s laugh. Conversely, I hate mine.)

(+50 bonus points if you get the song reference.)

tagged with #friends / filed under Daily Life Video
17 Jan 10
4

Cat Stretching

When you have a cat, every day is filled with moments like this.

(I can tell she’s purring just from the way her stom­ach moves when breathing.)

(Compare this to a very sim­i­lar clip I made of Dolly six years ago to see how far I’ve come with video.)

tagged with #cats #Dolly / filed under Daily Life Random Video
03 Jan 10
9

Holiday 09-10

A few moments from the past hol­i­day, which has been lovely, if a lit­tle hec­tic. I’m cur­rently wind­ing down from all the extra stim­u­la­tion, but feel­ing good and recharged.

tagged with / filed under Daily Life Video
26 Dec 09
8

Ryan's First Birthday

A video I shot as a Christmas present for Aaron and Karen. This was the first day I tried my “poor man’s steady­cam”, and aside from a few shaky shots from fid­dling around while try­ing to cap­ture every­thing, the pan­ning works very well.

I was think­ing about sav­ing the video for when Ryan gets mar­ried, but fig­ured I may be dead before that hap­pens, so I decided to give it to them now. There are so many notes in the pro­duc­tion of the video that I feel like I need a 10-minute direc­tors com­men­tary to cover all the details. Alas, I’ll leave the insight up to the viewer.

How can so many peo­ple love one lit­tle boy? It seems almost impossible.

tagged with #Aaron #children / filed under Daily Life Video
16 Nov 09
13

Birthday Weekend

At The Japanese Village

I prob­a­bly looked like this the whole week­end, cause it was non-stop awesomeness.

The Japanese Village

Last week, Aaron asked me if I wanted to go to The Japanese Village. I thought it was just to hang out, since we hadn’t had a guy’s night in a while, so I didn’t clue in that it was for my birth­day until the day of. Aaron told me I could order any­thing I want, as it was his treat, but I ordered the only thing I ever get when I’m there; the filet mignon cooked medium rare, which I think is the best in the city. It was good to hang out with him and Trolley again.

And, of course, silli­ness is always present with these guys around.

John in town

Chilling on the couch

John’s been work­ing two straight months, with­out a week­end off. The last time was when he came to Ottawa to visit. Between all the activ­i­ties, we only had enough time to watch one movie — American Graffiti — and between the two of us, we could sing every song that came from this film based in the 60s (me cov­er­ing The Platters, him cov­er­ing every­thing else).

I usu­ally only get to see him once a year, so twice in two months was a spe­cial treat.

Cranium Party

I’d love to do games nights on a reg­u­lar basis, but peo­ple aren’t avail­able on the same days, so I used my birth­day as an excuse to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble together for a giant Cranium party. I told them that instead of giv­ing me a present, they should just come to the party. It worked, and we had enough for four teams of three. Some peo­ple also brought snacks, like honey mus­tard pret­zels, car­rot cup­cakes, and freshly baked choco­late chip cookies.

It was the high­light of the weekend.

Dim sum with my dad

John and dad at dim sum

On Friday, my dad called me to wish me a happy birth­day, and told me he was in town for 10 days. We made plans to have dim sum. John came too, which is always inter­est­ing to see his reac­tions to what food is as the token white guy. I had a phoenix talons for the first time1, because I was feel­ing adven­tur­ous, and I have to say that they weren’t bad, but I didn’t care for them either. They’re too hard to eat, and the sauce wasn’t to my taste. It was strange to see both John and my dad at the same place, and in Ottawa instead of Toronto.

I told my dad he could prob­a­bly sit and observe one of my Tai Chi classes, so he could see what I do, but he wasn’t inter­ested, and I’ll admit that the indif­fer­ence hurt a bit. Afterward, I asked John what he thought as a 3rd party observer, and he told me I had a good rela­tion­ship with my dad. I’ll take his word for it.

I needed this

I needed this week­end so much. To recharge. To stop think­ing about things. To get com­pletely wasted. It felt like it was my birth­day the whole week­end, and I won­dered what I did to deserve it all.

  1. It wasn’t the taste, but the look that has always pre­vented me from try­ing them. [↩]
tagged with #Aaron #father #food #John #parties #self-portrait / filed under Daily Life Photos Video
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