Monday, December 12, 2011

A Conclusion to that Saga of the Instrument

Well, Friday, we finally put an end to this "instrument" project by grouping the students and allowing them to work out a song, or the closest song-related thing they could muster. Several were good.
My instrument, which you saw in the previous video on my blog, broke. Three times. On the day of the performance. I'm sure you can imagine my glee.
I am also supposed to describe (actually, we were supposed to take a video or pictures, but since I had neither a video-maker or a picture-taker, I shall have to hope that a description with words will build an accurate representation of the happenings of Friday in your head.) what happened, and people's instruments on that day, and that description is this: We were in a large room that looks remarkably like a test chamber from Portal, with linoleum floors. People are everywhere, holding odd objects. There is a boy with relatively long dark hair, parted down the middle, with an odd look on his face as he plucks several rubber bands strung around dixie cups, masked by a cloth suspended around them. The sound is remarkably good for such an instrument. There is a girl with a bright, shiny, round face laughing as she plays a pvc pipe with a hole cut in it, a piece of metal inside the hole. There are an astonishing amount of shakers, rattlers, rattle-drums, and mild stirrers, decorated in an assortment of ways.
I hope this was both entertaining and informative.
Thank you.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

An Instrument

Hello, once more. Last time I spoke with you, I gave you a most wonderful children's story about a yam named Yammy. I hope you enjoyed that. Anyway, I have once more been given an assignment from the authorities of my institution of knowledge. In this project, we had to create an instrument, to, of course, expand our creativity and openness to al varieties of sound and culture. I have been instructed to make a post on this blog about the creation of this piece, and that, I shall:

This thing was originally a container for cocoa, but then I attached to it a long metal ruler and drilled through that ruler to create holes to string through a variety of strings, including rubber bands. Then I covered the entire instrument with duct tape. Then I decorated it with swirlies. Because everyone loves the swirlies. I have also been instructed to make a video:



Thank you for watching that video. You may realize that the video cannot be heard. For that I blame the large quantity of people in the room. You may also have noticed that those arms were not the withered, old, saggy arms of an incredibly old person trying to appear young. For that I thank plastic surgery. That voice is also not mine. I hired a young person on the street who had the best sounding voice for that job. You will never find me.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Yammy


Preface to Yammy:

I HAVE FAILED YOU. Yammy was going to be illustrated, and perhaps in some later version it shall be, but now it isn't. I made early illustrations, so I know what they look like, and they are intended to be between those gaps in the text, and I would like them to be there, but, alas, I am lazy in that I want not to draw final pretty versions and impatient in wanting to share it to all of you. Ignore, in the title, the "Illustrated", imagine it, more, as a promise of illustration. Or, perhaps, one of you is an artist who would like to illustrate it yourself, hmmmm? And save me from this predicament (be your illustrations beautiful enough, of course), hmmmm? Here, laying in front of you, is Yammy. Please, enjoy. I am demanding you. ENJOY.


Yammy: The Journey of a Yam: An Illustrated Bedtime Story for Young'uns
Your friend, Anonymous (AKA Byron)


When Yammy was young, Yammy lived with his mother. She, a kind and loving mother, raised Yammy to be gracious, sweet, and humble.

Yammy was more sensitive from the other vegetables. His dear mother always protected Yammy from the things he was scared of. When the deadly Crow screamed in the distance, she held Yammy close to her and rocked him. She protected Yammy, telling him to remember, always, that “You are but a yam, Yammy. never forget.”


And Yammy would never forget those words, they would be eternally seared into his mind, for they were the last his mother would ever utter before being wrenched from his life by a cruel pair of five headed beasts.


Yammy knew what he had to do. He could not simply let his dear mother be taken. He had to pursue her, and defeat those two abducting beasts that haunted his nightmares. Yammy was alone.


Yammy began to venture from his home onto the forbidden Featureless Expanse. He came upon a group of carrots playing games. They asked him whether he'd like to join them, but he declined, saying, “My mother was abducted by a pair of five-headed beasts. I venture now to find her, across the forbidden Featureless Expanse and, when all is all, I am but a yam.”


So Yammy left the carrots and journeyed further, until Yammy reached a gigantic forest filled with large flowers and sparkly magical lights floating through the fragrant air. Yammy was so awestruck he nearly forgot his entire purpose of finding his dear mother, until ringing through the air the terrible screech of the terrifying Crow reached his shivering ears, sending pounding through his mind the absence of his mother's soothing voice. Yammy hid from the sharp talons and bloody beak of the crow, rocking slightly and whispered to himself, “I must remember, I am but a yam, I am but a yam.”


When the crow finally flapped away, Yammy rushed to the end of the magical forest, and in front of him were a plethora of hills. Perching upon the horizon, a factory, rumbling, spitting steam and belching a column of smoke into the cloudy sky, glistened. Yammy knew instinctively that his mother had been taken to that factory, but just as he began out into the hilly terrain, a tendril of icy wind slapped him, cutting his young skin, revealing the orange meat underneath. “I cannot do this!” Yammy cried out, “I am but a yam!”


However, Yammy bravely persevered. He struggled through the frosty mounds. The cut on his face stung severely, the snow that was thrown from the sky covering the ground, filling his cut and masking his face so he could barely see his goal, the gleaming, smoke-spewing factory.


Yammy was shivering and badly weathered by the time he finally reached the factory. He was given a small relief from the nearly sideways blowing blizzard in the shadow of the tall building. Yammy found a door ajar just enough for him to creep inside. he shook with fear as he went through the doorway. Once inside, Yammy's vision blurred but for a singular figured picked from the crowd in the factory. It was his dear mother. Their eyes locked and filled with tears as she was precisely and brutally chopped in half, each piece placed neatly into a box containing those before her.


Yammy, struck by shock and sadness, was unable to move. He lay upon the glassy floor, body torn and heart broken, until he was discovered by the two beasts and was limply tossed upon that chopping block his mother had been killed on previously. Just before the silencing slice of that cruel blade, Yammy whispered, to no one in particular, “I am but a yam.”


However, if he had lived to know it, Yammy would be happy Sammy found him yummy.




Eh? Did you enjoy it? Because I made this for YOU.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Because I am Supposed To

Hello, again. If you had read the very first post I created, you would know that the reason this blog was made was simply the whim of the schoolmaster, forcibly done in class. I did not assume that they would make us do anything in that class (called New Works (and frankly, the purpose of which is as vague as the name)) again. However, today, I arrived in class with an odd project (make circles on a page because it is creative!) and I was told that we would be scanning these and putting them on my blog, which is this. So, that is what I am doing.

So. There it is. Isn't it wonderful?

Yes. 

Saturday, October 29, 2011

In The Spirit of Halloween

As many of you may have noticed, the pagan ritual of deception and disguises festival is once again upon us. A friend (a very involved friend. Do you remember "there's, like, nothing"?) has advised me to share unto all of you what is known as a creepypasta. To the best of my knowledge, this is nothing more than a childish ghost story (Or story of similar hauntingness, be it deranged axe murderer or mildly unsettling demonic television station) told to spook young internet-goers into thumbs-upping or fanning or favoriting or liking something the author approves of (usually the author.). Now, I shall title my humble attempt at this "creepypasta"


CRADLEROBBING AXE MURDERER POISON BABY KILLER GOES TO THE ABANDONED WAREHOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF A COTTONFIELD FOR UNKNOWN REASONS
By Your Friend, Anonymous


Frederick was having a bad day. Well, most days were bad for Frederick. He was what many people would diagnose "a grumpy old man". His favorite pastime was prunes. There was a person. He was chasing Frederick. Luckily, Frederick kept his big old fashioned camera with him at all times.  He snapped a photo.
Obviously, a person was chasing him. This person had his arms outstretched. Frederick was breathing. Heavily. His heart pumped. Pump. Pump. Pump. This man, with his arms outstretched, ran Frederick from the city, where he had previously been, to a rural area. It was filled with cotton plants. If Frederick had more time, he would have picked a piece of cotton off the ground, but he didn't, because a man, very scary, was chasing him. The blood was running through Fredericks veins at an extremely fast pace. Frederick knew instinctively that this man wanted to drink it, which was the reason for him running. Frederick realized he was running towards a warehouse that was in the middle of the field. It was covered with mold and moss and mildew. It was a place one would normally avoid, which was, as Frederick realized with great chagrin, unfortunate, because if this terrifying man behind him wished to cut him to pieces inside this warehouse, people wouldn't go near it, because people don't usually go near places such as that. However, Frederick was not able to veer his course because that might cause imminent death. Once he reached the warehouse, he was tortured brutally and killed. They say his ghost still moans.

I think we can all agree that I am Edgar Allen Poe incarnate.

(I am so proud of myself. Although this post was not the best thing ever, it had a TOPIC! PROGRESS!)

Friday, October 21, 2011

One Post

I realize how incredibly depressing I am. I have made one post and then neglected my readers. You all have been screaming at me "Byron, Byron! You're posts bring joy to my eyes! I laughed, I cried, your first post was wonderful! I can't stand another second without an addition!" and so, I have decided to appease you mobs of email-flinging fanpeople. Of course, I can't yet again ramble for another page, and a good friend of mine says (and I paraphrasing, I do not have fantastic memory) "your wordwall is amusing, but it is nevertheless a wordwall, and that will not do. Splice your posts with links and pictures, it makes all the difference." And since he is a good friend (recently, he said, and I repeat verbatum "It's without, like, anything." So), I shall take his advice and format, because format is the key to success. I shall now add a picture.
 As you can see, I am a fantastic photographer. I will tell you that one of these legs is mine, and I know plethora of people you are, one of you will have a supercomputer connected to CIA databases that will analyze this picture and the combination of camera type (based of the string hanging down into view in the bottom right corner, which I allowed to happen because it makes it rough and real.), shoe type (you can see two different kinds in this photo, I will not tell you which is mine) and oddly colored floor fuzz, and tell you, supercomputer controlling fanperson, exactly where this happened, and who I am, and how to find me, along with specific instructions of how to kill me (the CIA always studies the weaknesses of those under suspicion. Of course, since everyone is capable of crime, everyone is under suspicion.)That was a very long sentence. I rue the day I will be asked to read this at the signing of my award winning book composed of blog posts written as a smaller person.)
Argh! I told myself I wasn't going to ramble, and yet here I am, looking at my past ramblings! What can I talk about? What is there to speak of? The world? Boring. Fictional dream-world? Nonexistent. And boring. Reality (and fiction, for that matter) continues to stump me. I know what is interesting. Lies. And I already hear your thousands of voices, squeaking at me incessantly "But! You already said fiction is boring! Lies are the same thing!" No! No, I tell you! They are different. In fiction, you know you are being deceived. You are allowing your brain to be tricked. But lies are inadvertent (although, for the liar, it is quite on purpose) brain-tricks. So I think by peppering my posts with lies (as well as fiction, to keep you on your toes.), I will give to the world something interesting. And interesting has been in rather low stock recently. The most recent memes have been utterly uninspired. I call for a cleverness revolt! The citizens of the world need to break the chains of oppression! And who has been the slave-master? Quaker Oats! Down with the Man in the Wig! The oats they feed us in cookies and other "delectable" treats are actually mind controlling cell phone rays that are transmitted from the secret mafia radio in the head of the Statue of Liberty! The more oatmeal cookies we consume, the more we are in their hands! We must break free, otherwise... All hope is lost.

Oh, and

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Hello, and Welcome

Hello, and Thank You for intruding into my thoughts. I have been instructed to create a blog to appease you savage hordes of readers, no doubt ripping your own scarves with your teeth in anticipation for the next word to ooze from my fingertips onto your screens (I am a common user of online sarcasm, and I know that several of you people have trouble understanding sarcasm unless I'm making absurd loops and accents in my language, which you know is impossible under the circumstances, so please bear with me, and don't confuse my words for those of the perfect, undiluted, clear and precise Truth.), and I have also been instructed to introduce myself, and I do think that is appropriate since this is my first post. My name is Byron, and I am a student at Booker T Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. However, if you're to believe any of that is your choice. Why you should believe a word of some anonymous and (unless you're a hacker, and if you are, may I kindly ask you to stay out of my computer?) untraceable person spewing words onto the internet is beyond my reign of comprehension, because, in all likelihood, I am some creepy seventy year old man, hunched over his large white old computer, dying to somewhere, ANYWHERE appear a younger version of himself (or even better, not himself, but a BETTER, more educated, kind and wise version of the bitter self conscious creature that he (or, should I say, I, am) is.), even if it is on what the kids these days are calling the Information Superhighway. Now, to get on with it, more of my "self" that I have to tell you about. I enjoy, like many people, listening to music. Lately, it's mostly been Queen, Mostly being Killer Queen, which I am at this very moment listening to. I have created this blog because I have been directed to by a teacher in a class I am supposedly taking at this school that I say I'm going to. It's called New Works, and it is called an interdisciplinary class because we float through all different kinds of arts in it. I am supposing that the art they are trying to get us to practice in this class would be... Creative writing? So far, we have constructed shelters our of newspaper and tape, which I suppose were to get us thinking "out of the box" and think of interesting and useful solutions to strange problems. Before that, we had a kind of interpretive dance class for a few weeks to get us to let our emotions reign free. This writing has been fun. I think I might actually do this blog thing. I do thank you, though, for reading this far. I know that most people in this day and age would have gotten bored after the first sentence after they noticed there weren't any exciting profanities or links to videos of cats doing adorable things. Anyway, I hope you have gotten a good view of who I am from this. First post: done.