PlazaJen: Passion Knit

I tried to post this video early this morning & it didn't work, and then I forgot all about doing it. So now, I'm back & trying again & I think it's going to work, finally. Am I the only one who just shakes her head with amazement at the entity we know as "YouTube"? It as if the greatest invention we never even knew we needed sprang from the earth with a flourish and said, "Howdy! How'd you like to waste some time today?" Even my boss loves the YouTube.

I was thinking to myself, which I do in excessive amounts, always have, sometimes I even mutter, and as I am wont to do, I check in with myself and see how I'm doing, and then I search for words and images that might describe it, whether or not I'm going to put them in a blog. And I got the imagery of mercury balls, scattering across a flat surface. I remember when I was young, maybe 7 or 8, and I accidentally broke a thermometer, and proceeded to spend a fair amount of time captivated by the silver skitterings until my mother caught me. Then, later, when she was telling my dad about it, he had me retrieve the rest of the broken thermometer & we had some good times playing with the mercury (but not touching it, as I had been doing earlier.)

Sometimes the best thing we can do is not struggle. Not grasp. Not try to mold, control, compress, strangle. Just marvel. And many years ago, I had taped this video & showed it to my dad. We marvelled at the simplicity of the imagery, while also reflecting on the complexity of emotion, symbolism and commentary on human nature it made. If you've never seen it, thanks to our good buddy YouTube, now you can. It won an Academy Award in 1989, and I first saw it in Minneapolis at a Spike & Mike Animation Festival. I think it's as stellar today as it was 17 years ago.

Balance