My 1975 Film: Mind Games

This is a Super 8mm film that I made in 1975, at the age of 17, but only recently converted to digital format so that I could share it with the world.

It is basically the story of a little stick man who is seduced by the promise of quick joy and happiness through drugs.  Essentially, it is my imagination of an acid trip, created about 3 years before I first experimented with LSD.



Some of it still impresses me; other parts underwhelm me.  All in all, I am pleased with what I achieved in this film, given the primitive equipment I had to work with.  The camera was a non-zooming, non-adjustable focus plastic camera that my dad bought me as Sears for $10.  It was a gift to me for Christmas, 1971.  Animation was a challenge, because it did not have a single-frame feature.  Rather, I had to quickly press and release the trigger, like a drag racer side-stepping the clutch.  Sometimes this ended up shooting 2 or 3 frames.  So, the results were not consistent.

For sound, I had available two cheap cassette tape recorders and a "record lathe" (a cheap, hand-me-down portable phonograph from my uncle).  For the parts in which I have 2 songs playing together, I first recorded Song 1 from the phonograph onto the first tape recorder.  Then I played Song 1 on the tape recorder while playing Song 2 on the phonograph.  To fade the songs in and out, I controlled the tape recorder volume with my left hand and the phonograph volume with my right.  Primitive stuff.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of this film are the trippy, psychedelic colors, which an artist friend described as being "like a live Kandinsky painting".  I produced them by various techniques.  For some of the footage, I began by using my mom's Clorox bleach to strip off all the color from a section of scrap film.  I then used every technique I could think of to mark the film:  I burned it with a match, colored on it with colored Sharpie markers, used India ink on it (the black India ink soon cracked, making beautiful hexagonal crystal patterns), poked holes in the film with needles, scratched the film.  For other sections, the base image was created by filming a projected slide image while continuously changing the focus on the slide projector.  It then added color and other effects over this manually.

Here are some still frames from the film:

Miss Galaxy

Here is yet another poem I've written for my wife:

Miss Galaxy

(for Cynthia Lou Erlandson)

Some three cubed years ago, I felt your pull:
The heartward tugging of a heart most full.
The law of Isaac Newton bade me enter,
Falling through your gates, to find your center.

To know your inner depths, I chose my goal,
And rocket toward the center of your soul.
I’m eight-point-two-eight parsecs closer now,
From speeding quick as Einstein will allow.

Your bright and fiery acts of love, your suns,
Go blazing past me as if shot from guns.
Though some are dim and in periph’ral vision,
Others, closer, scorch and risk collision.

My world, my heart, my Apostolic See,
My burning love, my own Miss Galaxy.

© 2012, Paul Erlandson

Episcopal Church Prays for AIDS to spread?

From here and other places:


Early reports indicate that the proposed changes to the liturgy that The Episcopal Church will consider at its General Convention this summer will include a "Litany for the Planet" that contains this prayer:

On eukaryotes and prokaryotes, archaea and viruses; on microbes of endless variety, the complex and the simple, Creator have mercy.

I thought that The Episcopal church had lost its ability to surprise me.  I have grown so used to its godless innovations and overturning of sound doctrine and worship, that I thought I'd "seen everything", as the phrase goes.

But the proposed inclusion of a blessing on viruses (not on those who suffer the ravages of viruses, but on the tiny creatures themselves) has proven me wrong.  There is no limit to the insanity of The Episcopal church. 

One can only assume that this is a petition which asks God, among other things, to bless and propagate the common cold and the AIDS virus.  Most interesting.

Weight Training for Women over 40.

If this video is not able to convince women over 40 to train with weights, then I don't think anything really can.

At right in this still from the video is Cynthia Bridges, who was the model for one of my paintings (below):

And here is the short YouTube video.  Time to visit the gym, ladies!

You Verbing Noun-of-a-Noun!

Dark Benedition, a collection of science fiction stories by Walter M. Miller, Jr., has a great deal to commend it.  I am nearly through reading the collection, which has many great stories.

One little unexpected gem was from a story called The Lineman, in which one character insults another with this most genericized insult of all time:

You Verbing Noun-of-a-Noun!

I thought that was mighty clever.

A Collect Against Identity Theft

I tend to worry about a lot of things.  Prayer helps me not to worry so much.  

And, to be honest, the Book of Common Prayer has most of the worries of life pretty well covered.  But in cases where modern life has spawned new fears, troubles, and dangers, I sometimes compose new Collect prayers.

Here is one, which beseeches God to deliver us from identity theft.  I humbly submit this for consideration for inclusion whenever the next legitimate BCP revision occurs!

O Almighty Father, who didst identify with mankind in the Incarnation of thy blessed son Jesus, vouchsafe to keep us from the trouble of identity theft; and, that we may spend our days in tranquility, grant to the perpetrators of the same repentance and the grace to find their true identity in thee. Amen.

Chevrolet = Volt Cheer

As I was getting ready to exit westbound I-696 at Southfield Road this morning, the van in front of me suddenly started blazing amber warning lights.  As I tapped the brakes, I saw that it was one of those rescue vans, such as gets sent out by AAA to rescue stranded motorists.  The driver was slowing down the vehicle and pulling it over to the curb.

What I saw next filled me with cheer, for the stranded vehicle was none other than a Chevrolet Volt with a dead battery!  The first of many such dead Volt sightings I hope to make.

My reasons for hating electric vehicles (and hybrids) are many, and I don't intend to document them in this blog entry.  But I wanted to document my first sighting of a Volt owner who tried to go just a little too far on his battery, and got stranded.

One wonders if the buyers of the Volt and of BEVs in general take into account all the towing expenses they will face, when making their cost-benefit analyses in advance of the purchase?