October 24, 2008

Sneak Preview Tour of NPR's Election Studio

I just streamed a live 15-minute tour of NPR's election studio with NPR election producer Tom Bullock. Here's an archive of the video in case you missed it:

Posted by acarvin at 1:23 PM

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May 25, 2008

A Camel Eating Cantaloupe

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An animal trainer feeds a cantaloupe to a camel at the Leesburg Animal Park in Leesburg, VA.

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Tags: animals | camels | cantaloupes | fruit

Posted by acarvin at 3:02 PM

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May 23, 2008

Impromptu Interview with Jacob Soboroff of Why Tuesday?

So I was working at my desk yesterday when Weekend Edition Sunday producer Davar Ardalan suddenly appeared with Jacob Soboroff of Why Tuesday?, a nonpartisan group that produces a fascinating video blog about electoral reform. (In case you're wondering about the name, it's based on the question of why on earth U.S. elections are held on a Tuesday, when most people are stuck at work.) Jacob has been participating in Weekend Edition's Sunday Soapbox blog, which features political commentaries from video bloggers and podcasters, and he was in town for some meetings. (He's also headed to a Memorial Day clam bake at Joe Trippi's horse farm; hope he shoots some video while he's there.)

We ended up running across the street to the local Starbucks to grab a drink and enjoy the first tolerably warm temps we've had in a few days. It didn't take long for me to whip out my N95 and record an impromptu interview with Jacob about Why Tuesday? and electoral reform:

Posted by acarvin at 9:48 AM

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April 26, 2008

Riding the Wheaton Express

One of our favorite things to do when the weather is nice is to take Kayleigh to Wheaton Regional Park, just north of Washington DC, where they have a charming toy train that rides through the park. I thought it would be fun to stream a live tour of the train ride; here's the archive of the video I shot.

Posted by acarvin at 2:59 PM

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March 28, 2008

DC Cherry Blossoms Walking Tour

Today during my lunch break I streamed some live video over my N95 mobile phone from the Tidal Basin in Washington DC, home to the annual blossom of DC's famous cherry blossom trees. The first video didn't work so well - I had the video at such a high resolution the network crashed - but the second take worked like a charm. The video is about 16 minutes long, and features lots of cherry blossoms, some helicopters, and my disembodied voice talking about the history of cherry trees in DC. My wife Susanne and daughter Kayleigh even make a brief cameo - they were touring the cherry blossoms with my mother-in-law and I bumped into them near the FDR memorial. Enjoy! -andy

Posted by acarvin at 3:17 PM

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March 25, 2008

Live from the Salt Lick: BBQ and the Future of Mobcasting

I'm back in Austin, TX for a couple of days of NPR meetings, so last night I convinced my colleagues to make the 45-minute trek outside of the city to the Salt Lick, an old-time barbecue joint with some of the best BBQ in the area. While we waited for our table, I thought it would be a great occasion to break in my new Nokia N95 video phone. Using the streaming service Qik.com, I was able to stream a live video as I toured the barbecue pit, watching cooks slapping briskets onto the fire and slathering them with their tangy sauce. (I also managed to let the video keep recording after I thought I hit the stop button, so the end of the video is kinda funny.) This video is an archive of the live event.

As far as I'm concerned, being able to stream live video from a mobile phone to the Internet is an absolute game-changer. I'm hoping I can get some of these phones into the hands of NPR colleagues so they can test them out in the field, but imagine the possibilities when everyday people can press a button on their phones and start broadcasting. I keep thinking of the Tibetan protests that took place against the Chinese government, or the Burmese monk protests last year. In both cases, there was a limited pool of video available, and much of it came up after the fact. Imagine if a protestor - or a whole group of them - were able to broadcast what was going on around them in real time?

It's very much an extension of the mobcasting concept I advocated three years ago. Back then, I talked about using open source tools to allow protestors and citizen journalists to post audio and video to blogs and RSS feeds as events unfolded:

[W]ith the proliferation of video-enabled smartphones, it seems that it would be a natural progression to mobilize the millions of people who are buying these tools with an easy, no-nonsense way to capture socially-relevant footage and get it online in near-real time....
...A quick example: imagine a large protest at a political convention. During the protest, police overstep their authority and begin abusing protesters, sometimes brutally. A few journalists are covering the event, but not live. For the protestors and civil rights activists caught in the melee, the police abuses clearly need to be documented and publicized as quickly as possible. Rather than waiting for the handful of journalists to file a story on it, activists at the protest capture the event on their video phones -- dozens of phones from dozens of angles. Thanks to the local 3G (or community wi-fi) network, the activists immediately podcast the footage on their blogs. The footage gets aggregated on a civil rights website thanks to the RSS feeds produced by the podcasters' blogs. (Or perhaps they all podcast their footage directly to a centralized website, a la OneWorld TV but with an RSS twist.) This leads to coverage by bloggers throughout the blogosphere, which leads to coverage by the mainstream media, which leads to demands of accountability by the general public. That's mobcasting.

Back then, though, we were limited to somewhat crude mobile podcasting tools like Audlink.com and Audioblogger.com, both of which are now defunct. Today, we're seeing the deployment of new services that allow for near-real time audio and video posting, like Utterz and Kyte.tv. These services also incorporate social networking features that allow users to track each other's content, comment on it, and cross-post it to various social media sites, like Twitter or Facebook. And now with Qik, near-real time becomes actual real-time. Rather than waiting for you to finish recording your content before posting it from your phone, Qik streams it with just a 5-10 second delay. That's not so different than the delay you see in "live" broadcasts on TV news or radio.

In some ways, the term mobcasting is more appropriate than ever: groups of people using mobile phones in coordinated actions to cover an event without any easy way to censor them. It's both exhilarating and intimidating at the same time. It's just a matter of time before there's another government crackdown, police beating incident, voter intimidation or other incident that authorities wouldn't want the rest of us to see. But we will see it. Live. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:19 AM

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March 12, 2008

Billy Bob Thornton vs. the Studio

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Actor Billy Bob Thornton, speaking at the 2008 SXSW festival in Austin, TX, describes the fight he had with a Hollywood studio over his creative independence while making the film All the Pretty Horses. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 9:33 AM

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February 19, 2008

Unveiling My $17 Burger at the LA Biltmore Hotel

Posted by acarvin at 9:21 PM

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February 11, 2008

Studio 4A: Inside NPR on Super Tuesday

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On February 5, I spent the better part of the night working at NPR, helping out with online coverage of Super Tuesday 2008. One floor above us was Studio 4A, NPR's broadcast command center. Inside, dozens of NPR staff worked to bring live coverage of the voting results, including making projections for every primary and caucus that night.

I spent some time visiting Studio 4A observing the action. I'd only planned to take some still pictures, but ended up shooting this video as well. Because I didn't have a proper video camera with me, the audio is somewhat embarrassing, but at least the visuals will give you a sense of some of the things taking place behind the scenes. Included in the video are Featuring Beth Donovan, Ken Rudin, Ron Elving, Ellen Weiss, Robert Siegel, Michelle Norris, Mara Liasson, EJ Dionne, Scott Simon, David Folkenflik, Andrea Seabrook and Nina Totenberg, among others. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 8:36 PM

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Anonymous Protest Scientology in Washington DC

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Footage I shot for Rocketboom at the Washington DC protest against the Church of Scientology by the group known as Anonymous.

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Posted by acarvin at 12:12 PM

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January 17, 2008

Feeding the Giraffes

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Video of me hand-feeding the giraffes of the Brevard Zoo in Viera, Florida.

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Tags: animals | Brevard Zoo | giraffes

Posted by acarvin at 1:26 AM

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December 30, 2007

Reliving My Grandparents' Wedding

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When I visited my parents last February, I spent some time examining a small reel of 8mm film - footage from my the wedding of my grandparents, Cy Kaplan and Theresa Goldman, in December 1938. The film was practically falling apart, and much of it had been damaged years ago when my grandfather had someone clean the film, and they ended up corroding it instead.

I spent a lot of time investigating ways to restore and digitize the film, along with a number of other reels we had from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. So you can imagine my surprise when I came back to Florida to see my parents and grandmother this week, and they told me that a cousin of mine had given them a copy of all of the footage on a DVD. It turns out that when my grandfater had the film restored, they got transferred to a VHS copy. A cousin had a copy of this tape, so he decided to burn it to DVD and send it out to the family.

A couple of nights ago, we spent the evening watching the footage, largely at half-speed, so my grandmother could identify people for us. Even though she's 92 years old, it's amazing how many people she could spot almost instantly. She also got to see footage of her parents, who died more than 60 years ago, for the first time in decades.

Since I've been documenting my grandmother's stories on this blog, I thought I'd share her wedding film as well. It's about seven minutes long, including the very end of the ceremony, the wedding reception, and brunch back at her family's house in Chelsea, MA the next day. I know it might not be very interesting to everyone, but having it in digital form means the world to us. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 6:33 PM

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December 26, 2007

A Christmas Lumiere

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This is a short video I shot in the style of the Lumiere Brothers, who made experimental films in the late 1800s.

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Tags: 1890s | Christmas | film | Lumiere

Posted by acarvin at 3:58 PM

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December 3, 2007

Matzah Ball Madness!

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Ever wondered how to make matzah balls? Want to become a king (or queen) of kneidlach? Just in time for Hanukkah 2008, here's a chance to watch me in action, demonstrating how to prepare my grandmother's matzah ball recipe. It's a very simple recipe, including four eggs, a cup of matzah meal, a tablespoon of either chicken fat (schmaltz) or vegetable oil, and salt and pepper. Normally I use vegetable oil and an electric whisk to whip up the batter, but for this video I decided to stick with old-school methods, including the schmaltz and a hand whisk.

Technically, these matzah balls are considered "floaters" (as opposed to "sinkers") but they're still pretty dense. If you want to lighten them even more, add another tablespoon of oil or schmaltz, plus a tablespoon or two of chicken stock, to the batter before incorporating the matzah meal. If you like sinkers, add a quarter cup of extra matzah meal and then refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. I should also note that the recipe I make is very peppery, so if your don't want a strong pepper taste to your kneidlach, then cut back on the pepper to half a teaspoon or less. Either way, it's always a good idea to start slowly with the seasonings, then test a dollop of the batter in the simmering broth, so you can taste the results before making an entire batch of kneidlach and regretting it. Lastly, you can also add diced celery to the chicken stock prior to cooking the matzah balls, but for whatever reason I neglected to do that this time around.

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 10:47 PM

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December 2, 2007

Scottish Christmas Walk

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Scenes from the 37th annual Scottish Christmas Walk, an annual holiday tradition in Alexandria, Virginia. Keep an eye out for a cameo by Virginia Sen. John Warner sporting a walking stick and kilt. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 8:26 PM

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November 17, 2007

Dulcimer Dance

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Maggie Sansone plays her dulcimer as three girls dance at the Maryland Renaissance Fair earlier this autumn.

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Tags: dancing | dulcimer | Maggie Sansone | Maryland Renaissance Fair | music

Posted by acarvin at 8:07 PM

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October 28, 2007

Martin Luther King III on Blogging, the Media and the Jena 6 Protests

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Martin Luther King III talks about the role that African American bloggers and media outlets, particularly urban radio stations, played in raising the profile of the Jena 6 defendants, leading to the massive protests that took place last month in Jena, LA.

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Tags: bloggers | civil rights | Jena 6 | Martin Luther King III | protests

Posted by acarvin at 10:30 PM

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Martin Luther King III Discusses Media Ownership

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On October 24th, IFOCOS and United Press International hosted a conference about journalism, activism and social media. Among the guest speakers was Martin Luther King III, son of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a veteran civil rights activist in his own right. During the Q&A, MLK III talked about how ordinary Americans are generous and very willing to offer assistance during times of crisis such as Hurricane Katrina, but the media often allows important stories to fall away from public consciousness, impacting the public's attention on the crisis. He continued by expressing concern regarding the impact of media concentration and cross-ownership at the local level, but the moderator then steered the conversation in another direction. So when the moderator opened the Q&A to the audience, I asked MLK III if he would like to elaborate on media ownership and its effects on the quality of local journalism. In this video, you'll see both his initial comments on media concentration, followed up by his answer to my question. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 6:48 PM

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Brookside Gardens in Bloom

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Last spring I borrowed a Nokia N93 video phone for a couple of months and shot some footage at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD. For some reason I totally forgot about the footage for many months, and just got around to editing the video. Better late than never, I guess. -andy

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Tags: Brookside Gardens | flowers | Nokia N93 | plants | spring

Posted by acarvin at 3:26 PM

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October 12, 2007

Train Goin' Home

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There's nothing like going home on a train. -andy

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Tags: Amtrak | going home | trains | travel

Posted by acarvin at 7:26 PM

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October 9, 2007

Horse Auction

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Last month, Susanne and I took Kayleigh to the petting zoo at Frying Pan Farm Park, a working farm in Herndon, VA, just a stone's throw away from Washington Dulles Airport. We heard the sound of an auctioneer emanating from one of the buildings there, so we went over and discovered a horse auction. Several hundred people were in attendance, with some ponies going for more than $10,000. -andy

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Tags: auction | Frying Pan Farm Park | horses | ponies

Posted by acarvin at 6:30 PM

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Sack Race

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A good-old-fashioned sack race at the Derwood Agricultural Fair in Derwood, MD.

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Tags: Derwood Agricultural Fair | fun | kids | sack race | sports

Posted by acarvin at 3:46 PM

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September 13, 2007

Praying Mantis vs. Bumble Bee

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A praying mantis stalks a bumble bee on a milkweed bush at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton Maryland.

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Posted by acarvin at 8:06 PM

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Kayleigh's First Steps!

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This afternoon, Kayleigh managed to take her very first steps on her own. She's been able to walk a few steps at a time when holding someone's hand, but this is the first time she was able to do it independently. We didn't have the camera rolling for the literal first step, since she did it unexpectedly. We started shooting video about 20 seconds later. Welcome to toddlerhood, Kayleigh!

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Tags: babies | milestones | toddlers | walking

Posted by acarvin at 7:11 PM

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September 4, 2007

Kayleigh Composes Her First Song

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Tonight during dinner, Kayleigh started making these hilarious noises, and then began to change pitch as she did it. I managed to grab a camera and shoot about a minute of her taking a crack at composing her first song. It's a real keeper. -andy

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Tags: singing

Posted by acarvin at 8:31 PM

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August 26, 2007

Butterflies

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Montage of some of the hundreds of exotic butterflies living at the Brookside Gardens butterfly pavilion in Wheaton, Maryland.

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Tags: animals | Brookside Gardens | butterflies | Maryland | Wheaton

Posted by acarvin at 5:45 PM

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July 25, 2007

Carvin's Eleven

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This is the story of how I accidentally carved the number 11 into my forehead today. -andy

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Tags: 11 | accidents | scratches

Posted by acarvin at 10:01 PM

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July 24, 2007

My Michael Moore Video

Here's the video I shot of Michael Moore during his appearance on Talk of the Nation yesterday. It's basically a five-minute highlight real taken from the 22 minutes of footage I shot of him. The raw clips are also being posted on YouTube. You can also find a higher-resolution version on the NPR Blog of the Nation site. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 3:12 PM

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July 7, 2007

Kong Nay, Cambodian Chapei Master

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When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, they killed nearly all of the country's intellectuals, artists and musicians. One of the few to survive was Kong Nay, a master of the stringed instrument known as the chapei. He was forced to perform songs praising the Khmer Rouge, and only managed to survive being executed when the Vietnamese overthrew the regime. Blind and in his 60s, he is one of the last chapei masters. Here he makes a rare US appearance at the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC.

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Posted by acarvin at 8:32 PM

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July 2, 2007

Unwelcome Questions for Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson

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Several of the Democratic presidential candidates took questions from the media following the June 28, 2007 debate at Howard University. As you will see in the this video, not all questions were welcome.

In the first part of the video, Dennis Kucinich is asked about anti-hate speech legislation, which the questioner frames as "chipping away at your constitutional First Amendment rights," irritating Kucinich. In the second part of the video, a person in the crowd of reporters harangues Bill Richardson about his participation in the Bohemian Grove Club, which the questioner refers to as place that conducts "mock human sacrifice." The questioner refuses to let up, even as reporters and bloggers in the crowd tell him to leave it alone. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 7:11 PM

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July 1, 2007

Waiting in Spin Alley

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Following the Democratic presidential debate at Howard University, the candidates and their proxies were expected to visit "spin alley," where hundreds of journalists were assembled to take their questions. Until the candidates showed up, though, spin alley is nothing more than a really crowded waiting room.

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Posted by acarvin at 7:15 PM

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June 29, 2007

Dramatic Sharpton

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For those Dramatic Chipmunk fans out there who watched last night's Democratic presidential debate and caught the Rev. Al Sharpton's scowl at Sen. Joe Biden, I present you with this short video.

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Posted by acarvin at 12:03 PM

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June 28, 2007

It's a Wrap

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Things are winding down in the media center. All the candidates are gone except Kucinich; he's been chatting with a bunch of the bloggers. I managed to talk with Dodd, Kucinich, Richardson and Gravel about the digital divide and other Internet policy issues, which I'll edit into a piece later. In the meantime, here are some parting thoughts - and sighs of exhaustion - as we wrap things up in the spin room.

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4), Flash Video (.flv)

Posted by acarvin at 11:57 PM

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Unvarnished: Scenes from the Media Center

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Thought I'd upload an unedited clip of the media center.

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4)

Posted by acarvin at 10:15 PM

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Greetings from the Presidential Debate Media Center

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Here's a short video I shot from the media center a little while before the Democratic presidential debate at Howard University got under way.

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Tags: election 2008 | Howard University | PBS | presidential debates

Posted by acarvin at 8:30 PM

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June 16, 2007

Meeting a Living Goddess: The Bhaktapur Kumari of Nepal

Who would have guessed I'd meet a living goddess this weekend.

Yesterday evening, we were walking past the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, heading to a restaurant for dinner, when an adorable little South Asian girl walked by in an ornate golden outfit and an extravagant tika painted on her head. I guessed she and her family were headed to some form of Hindu festival in the area.

"You won't lose her in a crowd," a man remarked as we crossed the street.

"She looks like a Kumari," Susanne said, in reference to the young girls of Nepal who are worshiped as living goddesses.

She did look like a Kumari, but Kumaris never travel. They barely leave their compounds, or so I thought. Susanne and I saw the royal Kumari of Kathmandu when we visited Nepal in 1996. She was cloistered in a special building that serves as her residence during her tenure, and we had to pay a small fee for the privilege of having her stick her head out the window and glare at us for a moment, clearly preferring to be elsewhere.

Selected as toddlers, always from a Buddhist family of the Shakya caste, Kumaris are picked based on 32 personal traits in a process that's sometimes compared to the rigorous process taken to select the Dalai Lama. Once selected, she's revered by the local Hindu population until she reaches puberty, when a new Kumari must be selected. And it's almost unheard of for them to travel.

As it turns out, she was a Kumari - the Kumari of Bhaktapur, the former royal capital of Nepal, and one of the three most important of the dozen or so Kumaris in Nepal. She was in the US for a world premiere of a documentary about Kumaris at the Silverdocs festival here in Silver Spring, and it was the first time a Kumari had ever visited the US. We were both pretty amazed that we'd gotten the chance to see her. Too bad it was just a fleeting glance crossing Georgia Avenue, though.

Today, we returned to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. A large stage had been set up for some kind of performance, and there were signs posted from the local Nepali American association. We stuck around for a while, and sure enough, the Kumari reappeared.

Once again dressed in an ornate costume, she was surrounded by a crowd of photographers and well-wishers. Given my previous experience with a Kumari, I assumed she'd be somewhat aloof, but she was quite the opposite. She smiled and shook hands with visitors, even giving a man a big hug at one point. She was also carrying around an enormous digital SLR camera, snapping pictures of her entourage when she wasn't posing for pictures with others.

Eventually, she settled onto a small chair that had been placed in front of the stage. Local Nepalis waited their turn to kiss her feet, then pose for a picture with her. An elderly woman cried tears of joy when she got to meet her. On stage, a troupe of dancers performed, while the Kumari snacked on a plate of crunchy chaat and spicy chana, posing for more pictures and playing with yet another camera - this time a digital camcorder.

I was amazed at how social she was. It turns out, though, as Kumari of Bhaktapur, she's not subjected to the same restrictions that her counterpart in Kathamandu faces. She goes to school and lives with her parents, though she still participates in daily religious rituals. When you ask her what her name is, she says "Sajani" with a smile. And when Susanne and I each put our palms together and bowed to offer her a traditional greeting of "Namaste," she stopped what she was doing for just a moment so she could do the same back to each of us.

I've posted a photo gallery on Flickr. And here's a brief video clip I shot of the Kumari on my mobile phone, in which several Nepalis pay their respects to her:

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I'm still smiling from the experience. Nepal is a very special place for us, and I am so happy to have met the Bhaktapur Kumari today. Welcome to America, Sajani. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 8:16 PM

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June 2, 2007

Happy Birthday Kayleigh!

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I can't believe it's been a year since Kayleigh was born! Today we celebrated her first birthday by getting her a vegan cupcake. Why, you may ask? It's because babies can't eat anything with eggs in it, so their first birthday cake has to be vegan. The recipes we found online all sounded pretty crummy, so we got her a little vegan cupcake at the Silver Spring bakery Cakelove. It wasn't exactly birthday cake but she seemed pretty happy with it.

Happy birthday Kayleigh!

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Tags: birthdays | Cakelove | cupcakes | Kayleigh Carvin

Posted by acarvin at 10:55 PM

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May 29, 2007

Toasting Eric and Kim at their Wedding

This weekend, my brother Eric married his fiancee Kim Noble in Philadelphia. I had the honor of being their best man, and their videographer shot footage of my toast at the reception following the wedding ceremony. And no, that's not me at the very beginning; that's the DJ introducing me. -andy

Click To Play

Posted by acarvin at 1:19 PM

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May 6, 2007

Defying the Fire: Rallying Behind Eastern Market

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On April 30, 2007, Washington DC's historic Eastern Market was ravaged by fire, gutting the southen half of the building and displacing businesses located there for decades. Its annual Market Day Festival was scheduled for the following Sunday, but they refused to cancel it. Today, thousands of people visited the market in a massive show of community solidarity.

Though much of the building was closed, that didn't dampen the spirits of the visitors and vendors lined up outside the building. I shot some video of the festivities, as well as the damage to the market's interior. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 5:20 PM

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May 3, 2007

Protests on Demand: The Floating Lab Collective

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Recently I was walking to lunch and I saw a group of people protesting for religious freedom in Vietnam. A little while later, I walked back the same way and saw the protestors again, but now they were protesting on behalf of dental hygienists. So I whipped out the only device I had on hand that could shoot video - my Treo 700p phone - and began interviewing them.

It turns out they're part of a group of performance artists called the Floating Lab Collective. They were offering "protests on demand." People could request a protest topic in person, online or by text messaging them, and the group would commit a certain amount of time to protest on your behalf. They would generate protest slogans for your cause, and even had a large banner with removable letters, so they could reorganize the text of whatever message you wanted the banner to say.

They were a fascinating bunch of people, but I hope I'll never have to use the Treo for recording video ever again. As you'll see, it looks like a distorted acid trip - so unbearably bad, I normally would never subject people to viewing it for several minutes. But it's not every day you get to see protestors on demand, so I figured why not? -andy

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Tags: Floating Lab Collective | performance art | protests | Washington DC

Posted by acarvin at 7:21 AM

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April 29, 2007

Harper's Ferry Arsenal Blues

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Last weekend we took a daytrip to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, perhaps most famous for John Brown's raid prior to the US Civil War. It was also home to one of the first two arsenals in the US, where the government would manufacture its weapons. That, plus its prime location at the place where Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia meet, made it a significant prize during the Civil War. It changed hands between north and south many times, and at one point it was torched by retreating Union forces, to prevent its resources from falling into the hands of the Confederates.

In this video, a volunteer from a local historical society in period costume talks about the arsenal ruins. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 10:45 AM

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April 13, 2007

Grandma's Stories: The Dairy Farm on Auburn Street

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My grandmother talks about her parents dairy farm on Auburn Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts, which lost some cattle during the Chelsea Fire of 1908. Photos of the fire damage courtesy of the Chelsea Historical Society.

Tags: Chelsea | farming | grandma | history | Massachusetts

Posted by acarvin at 10:55 PM

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April 11, 2007

Snapshot: Dizzy in Flight

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I happened to have my camera nearby when Dizzy made one of his vertigo-inducing jumps from our pantry to our dining room table. He does this at least three times a day, since we keep his food bowl atop the pantry so Winnie won't eat his food. -andy

Tags: cats | Dizzy | tuxedo cats

Posted by acarvin at 7:25 PM

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April 7, 2007

Project Hope International

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Christina Arnold of Project Hope International talks about the root causes of human trafficking in Southeast Asia.

Posted by acarvin at 10:25 AM

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April 6, 2007

Jonny's Busted Laptop

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Jonny Goldstein tells Beth Kanter and me about how he's using a binder clip and a sock to hold his laptop together.

Tags: 07ntc | videobloggingweek2007

Posted by acarvin at 8:10 PM

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April 5, 2007

The Four Questions (of Video Blogging Week)

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It's tradition for the youngest video blogger to ask the four questions during Video Blogging Week. The eldest then answers the questions, passing the knowledge down to the next generation of vloggers.

Tags: Passover | Seder | videobloggingweek2007

Posted by acarvin at 4:40 PM

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April 4, 2007

Grandma's Stories: How I Met Your Grandfather

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My 91-year-old grandmother talks about how she met my grandfather in 1936; she also recalls how her father once picked her up from school in a horse-driven sleigh, and how she rescued an old man buried in a snow drift.

Tags: grandma | grandparents | stories | videobloggingweek2007

Posted by acarvin at 10:40 AM

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April 3, 2007

Swing Set

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Kayleigh's got a new favorite pastime - the neighborhood park swing set.

Tags: Kayleigh Carvin | videobloggingweek2007

Posted by acarvin at 1:10 AM

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April 2, 2007

Cherry Blossoms in Washington

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Scenes from the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. I shot the footage using my new Sanyo Xacti HD2 camera in Web video mode. The results are really grainy, so I will probably shoot more cherry blossom footage next weekend in a higher-resolution mode.

Posted by acarvin at 9:11 AM

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April 1, 2007

Let's Go Fly a Kite

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Scenes from the Smithsonian Kite Festival on the National Mall in Washington DC. This is my first contribution to Video Blogging Week 2007, which kicks off today. -andy

Tags: kites | National Mall | Smithsonian Kite Festival | videobloggingweek2007 | Washington DC

Posted by acarvin at 6:35 AM

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March 18, 2007

Grandma's Stories: Dairy Farmers & Furriers

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In the latest installment of my conversations with my 91-year-old grandmother, she talks about her parents dairy farm in Chelsea, Massachusetts, other family businesses and their move to Worcester in the early 1950s.

Tags: family history | Grandma | massachusetts | stories

Posted by acarvin at 6:57 PM

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March 17, 2007

Introducing Dirty Diaper Diaries

Some of you may have heard that my wife Susanne and I have been putting together a new video blog about all the things we're learning as first-time parents. We're now ready to show off some of the pilot videos. The vlog is called Dirty Diaper Diaries, and Susanne has produced three videos so far. The production values still need improvement, and we're planning to buy some new equipment to help out on that front, particularly regarding the audio. So for now, we're interested in getting feedback on the overall premise and the video topics.

Here's a sample video, which focuses on everything you need to know about diaper bags:

Click To Play

We're hoping that other first-time parents will want to chime in and share their own stories, while more veteran parents can help share words of wisdom as well. I'm planning to implement a video commenting feature so people can reply to the videos with videos of their own. Hopefully I'll have something up and running soon.

Anyway, please check out Dirty Diaper Diaries and let us know what you think! -andy

Posted by acarvin at 5:49 PM

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March 14, 2007

Doodling Over Drinks With Hugh Macleod

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So Chuck Olsen and I had just finished shooting our interview with Dan Rather and we were having a drink at the Omni Hotel in Austin, uploading the footage to his laptop. Then a scruffy guy with an odd American-Scottish accent came over to us and send he was a blogger attending the "S-X-S-W" conference. We weren't sure what to make of him but he was nice enough. Then just as he was getting ready to leave, Chuck noticed he was wearing Stormhoek Winery shirt drawn by Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void fame.

"Are you a fan of Gaping Void?" Chuck asked.

"I am Gaping Void," the scruffy Scotsman replied. "I'm Hugh Macleod."

I'm so glad Chuck ask him that; otherwise we wouldn't have had the pleasure of his company over drinks. Hugh is best known in the online world for drawing cartoons on business cards, so Chuck and I had the honor of watching him in action, drawing a blank card for Chuck and doodling on one of my NPR business cards, all the while talking about his craft.

I shot around 12 minutes of video of him doodling and talking, and for Gaping Void fans, it would have been a crime to edit it down to the highlights. So here's the full video. Enjoy. -andy

Tags: business cards | cartoons | Gaping Void | Hugh Macleod | sxsw

Posted by acarvin at 8:42 PM

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March 13, 2007

Highlights From My Dan Rather Interview

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Here are some of the highlights of my interview with Dan Rather, which ran on Rocketboom today. We talk about media concentration's impact on journalism, the importance of media literacy when it comes to reading blogs, and his thoughts about starting his own blog.

Posted by acarvin at 11:05 AM

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March 11, 2007

Tesla Coil Rock

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When I was a kid, I loved two things unconditionally - the Red Sox and tesla coils. The Boston Museum had the biggest tesla coil in the world - I wanted one for Hanukkah. So you can imagine how giddy I was when I stumbled upon a pair of tesla coils at the geek fest organized at SXSW by Make: Magazine and Dorkbot. Unless most tesla coils, which just shoot out lightning, these coils are tuned to shoot lightning at different frequencies, generating music. In this video, Joe DiPrima demonstrates his mad, mad invention as it performs the 1812 Overture.

Posted by acarvin at 12:45 AM

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Armwrestlemania

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Bre Pettis and Chuck Olsen go head-to-head in an arm wrestling match. Cameo appearance by Amanda Congdon.

Tags: arm wrestling | Bre Pettis | Chuck Olsen | sports | sxsw

Posted by acarvin at 12:30 AM

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Mentolicious!

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Chuck Olsen sucks down a diet coke full of Mentos, whipped up by blip.tv's Mike Hudack. Mmm.... Mentolicious!

Tags: Chuck Olsen | Diet Coke | Mentos | sxsw

Posted by acarvin at 12:15 AM

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March 10, 2007

Bill Paxton Goes to Hollywood

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Actor Bill Paxton talks about how he broke into acting.

Tags: acting | Bill Paxton | Hollywood | sxsw

Posted by acarvin at 3:25 PM

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March 3, 2007

Grandma's Stories:
The House in Chelsea; Brothers & Sisters

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This video is the first in a series of interviews I did with my 91-year-old grandmother, Theresa Goldman Kaplan, in February 2007. She and I had never really sat down before and talked about her childhood, and she agreed to let me record it.

In this piece, she talks about the home she grew up in, near her family's dairy farm outside of Boston. We also learn a bit about her brothers and sisters, all of whom were much older than she was. She had a pair of older brothers, one of whom died after being struck by a baseball pitch as a kid; the other brother never fully recovered from the loss.Â

Posted by acarvin at 10:27 AM

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February 21, 2007

The Hotel Shower-Shampoo Disconnect

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Whoever it is who's designing the fancy-shmancy elongated bottles of hotel shampoo clearly never stepped foot in hotel bathroom, or they would have realized they'd engineered a really bad design.

Posted by acarvin at 2:10 PM

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February 17, 2007

Users, Power and Objectivity

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This 10-minute video features Jay Rosen, David Weinberger, Jeff Jarvis, David Folkenflik, Zadi Diaz and Michel Martin discussing the shift of power from media outlets to the public, and the reasons for objectivity in journalism, among other topics. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 4:56 PM

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David Weinberger: NPR, User-Generated Content and Trust

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Berkman fellow David Weinberger makes the case for NPR to trust the public when it comes to uploading user-generating content and discerning the differences between NPR content and user content. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 2:25 PM

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Rosen, Semple, Jarvis

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Montage of comments from Jay Rosen , Euan Semple and Jeff Jarvis from the social media roundtable at NPR.

Tags: Euan Semple | Jay Rosen | Jeff Jarvis | NPR | social media

Posted by acarvin at 10:30 AM

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Jay Rosen: Attention Grabbing vs. Attention Granting

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Jay Rosen of NewAssignment.net and PressThink explains why he thinks NPR is the opposite of attention-grabbing, and why that's a good thing. -andy

Tags: Jay Rosen | news | npr | nprsocialmedia | social media

Posted by acarvin at 9:10 AM

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February 16, 2007

Zadi Diaz: From the RNC to Nerdcore

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Zadi Diaz of Jetset Show talks about her life as a videoblogger, from covering the 2004 Republican National Convention to documenting nerdcore at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show. -andy

Tags: Jetset SHOW | video | vlogging | Zadi Diaz

Posted by acarvin at 9:00 PM

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In a World Where Everyone Creates...

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Jeff Jarvis, David Weinberger and Zadi Diaz discuss the evolution of the relationship between NPR and the people formally known as the audience, who are now content creators in their own right. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:25 AM

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February 15, 2007

Doc Searls: The Static Web vs. the Dynamic Web

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Doc Searls talks about two of the competing metaphors that exist on the Internet - the static Web vs. the dynamic Web - at an NPR brainstorming session today. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:20 PM

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February 9, 2007

JD Lasica and the Story of OurMedia.org

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An interview with social media advocate JD Lasica discussing the history of the pioneering video and podcasting service OurMedia.org, which he co-founded in 2005.

Posted by acarvin at 10:07 AM

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February 8, 2007

Roblimo's Words of Wisdom

Click To Play

A brief discussion on humanity's two oldest forms of recreation, as told by Robin Miller, aka Roblimo. Robin is a former Vietnam vet and NYC taxi driver; he's also the editor of Slashdot. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:19 AM

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January 27, 2007

United for Peace

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Video I shot for Rocketboom from the January 27 anti-war rally in Washington DC, featuring interviews with Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich.

Posted by acarvin at 7:50 PM

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January 2, 2007

21 Gun Salute: The Gerald Ford Funeral

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Video footage from the funeral procession for President Gerald Ford across from the US Capitol.

Posted by acarvin at 8:56 PM

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January 1, 2007

Panda Time Rag

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The rollicking pratfalls of Tai Shan the baby panda captured in one minute of ludicrous video cuteness.

Posted by acarvin at 9:55 PM

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December 20, 2006

The Three Wiseguys Visit Bethlehem

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My little contribution to the Christmas season. Happy holidays, everyone.

Posted by acarvin at 7:30 PM

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December 13, 2006

The NPR Holiday Road Race

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Today I got to observe my first NPR holiday road race. NPR staff were encouraged to form relay teams, wear ridiculous costumes and race around the city block surrounding NPR headquarters. Awards were given out for the fastest team, the slowest, the team with the most "NPR-ness" and the team most likely to have been formed simply to avoid working. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:39 PM

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November 21, 2006

Amanda's Big Plans

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In case you haven't heard the news, Amanda Congdon recently announced her upcoming plans. She's going to be videoblogging for ABC News while developing a comedy show for HBO. All in all, a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Personally, I think it was her dancing across America that sealed the deal. I can just see the suits at HBO watching her groove her way across the screen and saying to themselves, "Give this woman Ali G's time slot." She's a triple threat. She can vlog. She can act. And as I got to observe for myself at the White House a couple of months ago, she can dance.

Rock on, Amanda. Rock on. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 7:35 PM

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October 24, 2006

Ze Frank: The Unblinking Eye

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An examination of the sheer willpower it takes for Ze Frank to never blink in his videos - not that he's using editing to fool us or anything like that.

ps - If you haven't seen Ze's show before, please do so before watching this video or it won't make any sense. Trust me. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:05 PM

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October 23, 2006

Babytalk

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At 4am this Saturday, Kayleigh started babbling to herself. She hasn't stopped since then.

I dare you to find two minutes of cuter footage on a video blog. I double dare you.

Tags: babies | cute | funny | kayleigh | video

Posted by acarvin at 7:55 PM

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October 16, 2006

The Things I Do to Make Kayleigh Laugh

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You, too can play your baby like a tuba. It's also the first time we've managed to get a full-fledged laugh from her on video. -andy

Tags: 2006 | funny | kayleigh | laughing

Posted by acarvin at 10:05 PM

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October 15, 2006

The Good, the Bath and the Ugly

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Kayleigh's enjoying her bath - until she suddenly changes her mind. Yet another video shot with the Nokia N93 I'm testing. -andy

Tags: kayleigh nokia-n93 video

Posted by acarvin at 9:10 PM

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October 14, 2006

Saturday at the Ikea

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This is an eight-minute video I put together after spending the afternoon at our local Ikea, eating Swedish meatballs and searching for bookshelves. I shot the entire piece on the Nokia N93 video phone I'm testing out for a couple of weeks. The video is a mix of high-res and low-res video shot on the phone; the low-res was shot while I was driving, since I could sit the phone on my dashboard without having to hold it. Music by Swedish electronica band Beat Under Control, courtesy of Magnatune.com. -andy

Tags: ikea 2006 shopping video nokia-n93 meatballs furniture

Posted by acarvin at 11:05 PM

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October 13, 2006

Nokia N93 Test: The World Bank Atrium

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Here's a video I shot today of the World Bank atrium in Washington DC. This is the original video in its native mp4 format, shot at 320x240 pixels, 30 frames per second. I also shot a 640x480 version. It's a bit shaky since I'm still not used to holding the phone, and it seems to freeze every now and then - but that may be my Mac and not the video itself. Please let me know if you think the playback is smooth or a bit jittery. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:25 PM

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October 12, 2006

Nokia N93 Experiment: Dual-Mode Self Portrait

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This video is a pair of clips I shot with the Nokia N93 video phone. The first clip was recorded originally in mp4 format, which is very high resolution. As I was playing with the phone's settings, I decided to switch it to its video phone mode, which records in a lower-resolution 3gp format. The video stopped recording, so I had to start shooting again. I've put the two clips together so you can compare the quality of the two modes, as well as seeing what the modes look like in a mirror. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:50 PM

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Nokia N93 Experiment: Winston and the String

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The good folks at Nokia are letting me borrow one of their N93 video phones this month, so I've just started shooting some footage with it. This is a video clip of Winston playing with a string. The clip is actually a reduced-sized version of the original 34 meg mp4 clip, which I've uploaded here. Since that clip is too large for streaming, I made this shorter clip. It was shot in fairly low light, so the quality is somewhat granular. The audio quality is better than I expected, though. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:45 PM

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October 7, 2006

Waiting for Kayleigh to Say Something Notable

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Hanging out with Kayleigh at her grandparents' house in Colorado yesterday evening. If you wait long enough, you just may get to hear her say something. (Speaking of waiting long enough, sorry about the slow download - I don't have my laptop with me in Denver and I don't have the software to compress the video.)

Posted by acarvin at 4:10 PM

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September 26, 2006

I Swear He's Not Dead

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I managed to catch Winston on video in his favorite sleeping position. Do other cats do this? Beats me.

Posted by acarvin at 10:20 PM

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The Amanda & Andy Show: Strolling Through Dupont Circle

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Another walk with Amanda Congdon, this time along P Street in Dupont Circle, discussing her current five-week video blogging road trip across the US. Special cameo by Mario Librandi.

Posted by acarvin at 9:55 PM

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The Amanda & Andy Show: Strolling to the White House

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A walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with Amanda Congdon to the White House. Amanda wanted to do a little dance there.

Posted by acarvin at 9:10 PM

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The 2006 Virgin Festival

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Here's a three-minute montage of the sights and sounds of the Virgin Festival in Baltimore. The montage, which will air on Rocketboom, includes clips of Wolfmother, Gnarls Barkley, The Killers, the Raconteurs and The Who.

Posted by acarvin at 12:00 AM

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September 24, 2006

The Who: Can't Explain

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Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey kick off their 80-minute set at the Virgin Festival with "Can't Explain."

Posted by acarvin at 11:35 AM

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Gnarls Barkley: Chariots of Fire

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Gnarls Barkley, in its "chariots of fire" costumes, performs a snippet of Queen's "We are the Champions" as a lead-in to "Go-Go Gadget Gospel." -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:25 AM

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Wolfmother: Into Another Dimension

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Wolfmother performs "Dimension" at the Virgin Festival in Baltimore.

Posted by acarvin at 9:50 AM

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September 1, 2006

There's Something Missing From This Hallway

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This one's just kinda creepy. Clearly I've been spending too much time in hotels as of late. Like they say, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:15 PM

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Hello DC, Hello Ernesto

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Tropical Storm Ernesto and I arrive in DC at the same time. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:10 PM

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How to Carry a Bamboo Plant 400 Miles in a Toyota Camry

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A demo of how we stashed our one surviving plant in our car for our move to DC.

Posted by acarvin at 6:55 PM

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Stayover in Sturbridge

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Spending the night in quaint Sturbridge, Massachussetts, on our way to DC. One hour down, seven hours to go.

Posted by acarvin at 6:40 PM

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August 31, 2006

Almost Ready to Leave Boston

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A final look at our Boston apartment before hitting the road late Wednesday afternoon. We only made it to Sturbridge, MA that night, but managed to get to the Delaware Valley by the end of today.

Posted by acarvin at 11:00 PM

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Packing

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A short video I shot as we were beginning to pack our Boston apartment on August 29th.

Posted by acarvin at 10:50 PM

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August 29, 2006

Kayleigh & Susanne Are Ready to Move

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It's our last full day at our apartment in Boston, so I thought I'd check in with Susanne and Kayleigh to see if they're getting psyched to hit the road. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 2:50 PM

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August 26, 2006

Art Mob at the Public Garden

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This afternoon I tossed together a two-minute piece for Rocketboom on an art mob that assembled at Boston's Public Garden. At first I thought they were war protestors holding signs, but they were actually a group of photographers who were standing in a circle holding out large photos they'd taken around the garden. They decided to become a human gallery at the garden. Originally formed as a meetup group, they were asking garden visitors to upload their own photos to a virtual version of the gallery.

Posted by acarvin at 9:50 PM

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August 3, 2006

Rocketboom: Apply Directly to the Forehead

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Here's a parody I made for Rocketboom of those "HeadOn: Apply Directly to the Forehead" ads that are played to death on CNN. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 7:22 PM

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June 17, 2006

Hiccups

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Kayleigh gets a case of hiccups. Text effect courtesy of fd's Flickr Toys.

Posted by acarvin at 12:35 PM

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June 16, 2006

Gesundheit!

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Video clip of Kayleigh, hanging out and sneezing a lot. She doesn't have a cold - it's just a baby thing. Her eyes are starting to open, too.

Posted by acarvin at 2:45 PM

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June 3, 2006

Kayleigh's First Day

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Susanne serenades Kayleigh for the first time. Unfortunately the audio on my Konica camera was behaving really twitchy, so I'll have to get a better recording later this week.

Posted by acarvin at 10:55 PM

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The Birth of Kayleigh

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I just got around to editing a video of last night's birth of our little Kayleigh India Carvin.

Posted by acarvin at 9:50 PM

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Abby & Lily Send Their Congratulations

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Isn't this sweet? Our first video congratulations!

Posted by acarvin at 7:55 PM

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It's a Girl!!!!!

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Introducing Kayleigh India Carvin!

Five pounds, 12 ounces, born at 10:34pm ET on Friday, June 2, 2006 in Boston, Massachusetts.

More videos to come soon - as soon as we can get a bit of sleep first.

Posted by acarvin at 2:30 AM

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May 24, 2006

A Day of Out(r)age

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Video I shot for Rocketboom from today's rally at the Massachusetts State House in support of community access television and network neutrality. The US House and Senate are considering legislation that would take away local oversight of cable franchise agreements, making it harder for communities to get cable providers to invest in community television and local efforts to bridge the digital divide. The legislation would also allow Internet providers to favor their own content and discriminate against content produced by others. This means accessing content that isn't owned by the Internet provider could be slower, more expensive or both. Protestors argue that this is a violation of free speech and that the network underlying the Internet should remain content-neutral.

Posted by acarvin at 6:52 PM

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May 23, 2006

Dan Coughlin Discusses the COPE Act

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Dan Coughlin of Manhattan Neighborhood Networks gives an excellent summary of the COPE Act and how it would adversely affect public media.

Posted by acarvin at 8:54 PM

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Alyce Myatt, Public Media Activist

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Alyce Myatt's presentation at last week's public media meeting.

Posted by acarvin at 7:05 PM

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Public Media - An International Perspective

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My remarks at last week's Boston public media roundtable, focusing on public media and the digital divide from an international perspective

Posted by acarvin at 5:30 PM

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Public Media - Fred Johnson's Intro Remarks

Video of opening remarks by Fred Jonson at last week's public media roundtable in Boston.

Posted by acarvin at 5:09 PM

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May 20, 2006

Winston and the Baby Doll

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Winston, our orange tabby, meets his first baby doll.

Posted by acarvin at 4:40 PM

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Round and Round

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Video of Dizzy, our tuxedo cat, chasing himself in circles. No catnip was used to produce this footage.

Posted by acarvin at 4:25 PM

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May 13, 2006

Caffeine Overdose in Second Life, Take Two

Yesterday I posted a video of my Second Life avatar Abdi Kembla overdosing on caffeine while virtually attending the Beyond Broadcast conference at Harvard. But later I realized the video was missing something: metal.

tag: beyondbroadcast

Posted by acarvin at 9:34 AM

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May 12, 2006

Caffeine Overdose in Second Life

Video of my Second Life avatar Abdi Kembla overdosing on caffeine while watching the Beyond Broadcast conference at Harvard.

tag: beyondbroadcast

Posted by acarvin at 10:58 AM

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Beyond Broadcast in Second Life

Video of the Beyond Broadcast conference hall as seen through the virtual reality world Second Life. The African chap in the hat drinking copious amounts of coffee is my avatar, Abdi Kembla.
tag: beyondbroadcast

Posted by acarvin at 9:34 AM

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May 11, 2006

Vlogging for Alaa

Video of me encouraging bloggers and video bloggers to participate in the online campaign to free Alaa Ahmed Seif al-Islam, the Egyptian blogger who was detained during a pro-democracy protest earlier this week. The video is 10 megabytes; I've also created two smaller versions:
http://www.andycarvin.com/video/freealaa2.mov (10 megs)
http://www.andycarvin.com/video/freealaa3.mov (5 megs)

Posted by acarvin at 5:39 PM

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May 2, 2006

Si Se Puede! Marching for Immigrant Rights

Video from the May 1 immigrant rights protests that took place in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts. The video follows a group of 1,000 protesters from their rally at Harvard and along their four-mile march to Boston Common. I filed this story for today's edition of Rocketboom.

Posted by acarvin at 1:28 PM

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April 27, 2006

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

Video of my contribution to the handwriting meme over at Flickr. Yes, that's my actual handwriting. I shoulda been a doctor.

Note that I made "jumps" past tense. I guess I owe everyone an S.

Posted by acarvin at 5:38 PM

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April 23, 2006

The Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Video montage featuring the many creatures of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Music by Drop Trio, courtesy of Magnatune Records in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

Posted by acarvin at 4:11 PM

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April 21, 2006

The Great Mosque of Kairouan

Video montage of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, one of the holiest sites in Islam. Music by Solace, courtesy of Magnatune, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

Posted by acarvin at 1:56 PM

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April 18, 2006

Boston Marathon 2006

Boston Marathon winner Robert Cheruiyot, as seen in my video montage of yesterday's race. The video features footage of the wheelchair race, the frontrunners and the crowd celebrations.

Posted by acarvin at 3:35 PM

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April 9, 2006

Iceland's Golden Circle

Video montage of some of Iceland's natural wonders, including Geysir and the Gulfoss waterfall. Music by Barry Phillips, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 10:58 AM

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April 8, 2006

The Stockholm Archipelago

Video montage of the beautiful Stockholm Archipelago, as Susanne and I travel on the old steam ferry Storskär. Music by Barry Phillips, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 4:52 AM

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April 7, 2006

Spot Jill Carroll!

I went to Boston's Logan Airport last Sunday for former Iraq hostage Jill Carroll's return to the US. I expected a media circus; instead I got a game show. Welcome home, Jill.

Music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod and Super Password.

Tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 7:30 AM

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April 6, 2006

Tunisia Trek: The Ruins of Douiret

Video montage of the ruined Berber village of Douiret, in southern Tunisia. Music by Solace, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 9:00 AM

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April 5, 2006

Tallinn in Winter

Video montage of a snowy day in Tallinn, Estonia, shot by me in Novembe 2004. Music by Dufay Collective, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

Tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 9:16 AM

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April 4, 2006

Hong Kong Prayers

Video montage of the Man Mo and Pak Sing temples in Hong Kong, shot by me in May 2004. Music by Tilopa, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

Tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 9:05 AM

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April 3, 2006

Muscat Fish Market

It's that time of year again; Video Blogging Week 2006 runs all this week, April 3-9. The goal of this online festival is to get video bloggers from all over the world to post videos for seven days in a row. For me, I've decided to do a travel theme, since I never seem to run out of footage from all of my trips over the last few years. (I may throw in a couple of extra vlogs, far removed from the wanderlust theme, just for fun as well.) I also plan to experiment with soundtracks supplied by the amazing music label Magnatune.com, which generously makes their entire catalogue available to content producers on a noncommercial-attribute-sharealike Creative Commons license.

To kick off the week, I'm posting a video I shot at a fish market in Muscat, Oman. I visited Oman in October 2003 and did some of my earliest multimedia blogging there. I was also invited to go to Oman for a conference that started yesterday, but wasn't able to make it, so the video helps me live vicariously through the experience.

Video of a Muscat fish market, Muscat, Oman. Music by Solace, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.

tag: videobloggingweek2006

Posted by acarvin at 8:43 AM

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March 16, 2006

A Menace Most Fowl

"They came down the hill and followed us," she explained, recounting the frightening incident. "As I was walking faster, they'd walk faster."

"I heard a sound behind me -

"And then I felt the turkey's claw on my back."

So said Brookline resident Marianne Lee in a front-page story in the Brookline Tab entitled Turkeys on the Attack. Even though Brookline is surrounded on three sides by the urban jungle of Boston, we apparently have a turkey problem. Families of these sizeable birds are roaming the back streets of Brookline, emboldened by people who've taken to feeding them in recent years. Ever eager for edible handouts, they're now getting brazen and approaching people - and most people, it seems, do not like it.

Residents like Marianne Lee have complained to animal control but haven't produced any results. There's not much they can do, since the birds are endangered. About a year ago, though, I watched in wonder as a troupe of turkeys trotted across the street from our apartment. Eventually, an animal control officer drove by and dealt with them the only way he could - chasing them onto the roof of a church so they'd become someone else's problem.

Video of some Brookline turkeys strutting their stuff.

Posted by acarvin at 6:10 PM

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March 12, 2006

Happy Independence Day, Mauritius!

Video montage in honor of Mauritius Independence Day.

The Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius is a veritable paradise, but is going through hard times due to an outbreak of the mosquito-borne illness, chikungunya. Since the disease has scared away a lot of tourists, I thought I'd put together this montage celebrating the country's 38th anniversary since independence. The five-minute montage features footage taken from all over the island, including its beaches, national parks, pilgrimage sites and the national dance known as sega.

For more on Mauritius, visit my Mauritius diary and photo gallery. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 3:59 PM

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March 10, 2006

Fon: The Global Wifi Network

A video conversation with Martin Varsavsky, the founder of Fon, at a presentation he gave at the Harvard Berkman Center on March 3, 2006.

Fon is a global wifi network of individuals ("Foneros") who provide free or low-cost wifi in their neighborhoods. If they choose to offer wifi for free, they in turn can access any other global Fon hotspot for without charge. Foneros who charge for the hotspot can only charge $2 a day, sharing the revenue with local broadband providers.

The video is just over seven minutes long and 40 megabytes. If you prefer a smaller, low-resolution version, please cut and paste one the following URLs into your browser:

Medium size (15 megs):
http://www.andycarvin.com/video/fon2.mov

Small size (2 megs):
http://www.andycarvin.com/video/fon3.mov

Posted by acarvin at 2:30 PM

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March 2, 2006

Bathtub Antics

Early morning play time with our orange tabby, Winston. For some reason, he associates our bathtub with play, so whenever he really wants to play a game, he jumps in the bathtub and waits patiently. Music by Kevin MacLeod.

Posted by acarvin at 12:16 PM

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February 16, 2006

Scenes from a Blizzard

Video montage from the February 12 blizzard that dropped 18 inches of snow in Boston. The first half of the video features me out in the snow and scenes around Beacon Street; the second half showcases a massive Caterpillar bulldozer that was used to scrape away tons of snow from the entrance of our local Dunkin Donuts. Be sure to take note of my ridiculously warm faux fur hat I bought in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2002.

Music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod.

Posted by acarvin at 10:03 PM

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January 30, 2006

Tunisia Trek: Exploring Ksar Ouled Soltane

It seems that I'll never run out of cool footage from my recent trip to Tunisia. I just found enough video to put together at least a few more pieces; I may make a series out of it if I have enough time.

Tunisia Trek: Video from my visit to the Berber granary, or ksar, of Ksar Ouled Soltane. It's the best preserved ksar in southern Tunisia, and was featured in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

Posted by acarvin at 12:21 PM

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January 21, 2006

Carpet Waxing

Video of my recent adventure removing cat hair from a rug by covering the entire surface with duct tape and "waxing" it.

Posted by acarvin at 9:47 AM

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January 9, 2006

The Daily Grind: Two Camels at Work

Video montage of two friendly camels I met on the island of Djerba, Tunisia. Both had interesting jobs: one worked an olive press while the other mowed the grass. I even got to help the lawn mowing camel by providing extra weight on the rolling blades.

Posted by acarvin at 6:03 PM

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Impromptu Celebration

Video clip of Tunisian women participating in an evening procession in the seaside village of Sidi Bou Said.

Posted by acarvin at 3:20 PM

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December 2, 2005

The Bardo Museum

Video tour of the Bardo Museum, Tunisia's extraordinary collection of Roman mosaics hosted in an Ottoman mansion.

Posted by acarvin at 2:05 AM

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December 1, 2005

Tunis Combo: Malouf Musicians

Video of traditional malouf music performed in Gammarth, Tunisia, a suburb of Tunis.

Posted by acarvin at 4:01 PM

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November 29, 2005

El Ghriba Synagogue

Video of El Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, home to the oldest Torah in the world. The synagogue was bombed by Al Qaeda in 2002, killing nearly two dozen people and wounding more than 30 others.

Posted by acarvin at 11:39 PM

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Ksar Ouled Soltane Panorama

Quicktime VR video of Ksar Ouled Soltane in southern Tunisia.

Posted by acarvin at 7:52 PM

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November 28, 2005

Lablabi Mania!

Video of a Djerba restaurant making me a bowl of chickpea and bread stew, or lablabi, Tunisia's unoffficial national dish.

Posted by acarvin at 9:55 AM

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Djerba Shave: Tunisian Barber Shop

Video of me getting a professional shave in Djerba, Tunisia. Camera work by Marouen Mraihi.

Posted by acarvin at 9:50 AM

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November 17, 2005

The $100 Laptop: An Up-Close Look

Eight-minute video documentary of the prototype of Nicholas Negroponte's $100 laptop, which premiered yesterday at the WSIS summit in Tunis. Andy talks with the chief technology officer of the initiative and gets a first-hand look at this highly anticipated device.

Posted by acarvin at 6:47 PM

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November 16, 2005

Strolling Through Tunis Medina

Video of a tourist's POV walking through the ancient medina of Tunis.

Posted by acarvin at 8:57 PM

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Hey, Look! It's President Ben Ali!

Fast-as-lightning video of Tunisian President Ben Ali passing me in the hallway at WSIS.

Posted by acarvin at 8:43 PM

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Kofi Annan

Brief video clip of Kofi Annan's speech at WSIS today.

Posted by acarvin at 8:39 PM

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November 14, 2005

Swallows at Sunset

Video of thousands of swallows flying over Tunis at sunset. The sound they make is quite extraordinary. Too bad it never occurred to me that thousands of swallows produce copious amounts of bird droppings. Better go change my shirt.

Posted by acarvin at 5:14 PM

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November 7, 2005

Refugees: The Liberians of Buduburam

Video documentary of my July 2005 visit to the Liberian refugee camp in Buduburam, Ghana. I learn about the challenges faced by Liberians forced to flee their homeland, as well as some of the training programs available to them. I visit one of the camp's telecentres, as well as an women's literacy support group. Music used with permission of Alula Records.
Nine minutes, 50 megabytes.

Low-res version (20 megabytes):
http://www.andycarvin.com/video/refugees-low.mov

Posted by acarvin at 1:16 PM

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November 6, 2005

York Harbor Dam

Panoramic Quicktime VR clip of a dam in York Harbor, Maine. There are also larger versions of the basic panoramic photo pictured here.

Posted by acarvin at 11:15 AM

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October 26, 2005

Scenes from a Bangladeshi Telecentre

Video montage of a telecentre based at a girls school in Comilla, Bangladesh. The telecentre is run by Relief International's Schools Online program, which coordinates 20 telecentres across the country.

Posted by acarvin at 5:12 AM

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October 22, 2005

Rickshaw Traffic

Video of bicycle rickshaw traffic in Comilla, Bangladesh.

Posted by acarvin at 7:50 AM

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Tank Fishing

Video of men fishing in a 500-year-old artificial lake, or tank, in Bangladesh's Chittagong District.

Posted by acarvin at 7:46 AM

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Comilla Beat

Video of rickshaws passing through Comilla, Bangladesh, as smiths hammer on anvils in the background.

Posted by acarvin at 7:31 AM

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October 21, 2005

Dhaka Diary: Exhausted

Video diary recorded upon arrival at my hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh, nearly 40 hours after I departed Boston.

Posted by acarvin at 2:12 AM

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October 5, 2005

Al Gore Speech Highlights

Video highlights from Al Gore's We Media speech
(12 minutes, 27 megs)

tag: We Media

Posted by acarvin at 12:48 PM

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Tom Curley

Brief video clip of Tom Curley, CEO of the Associated Press

Posted by acarvin at 10:01 AM

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October 3, 2005

Jousting

Video of jousting at a Renaissance fair south of Boston.

Posted by acarvin at 5:14 PM

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Oban Harbor View, Part 1

Quicktime VR video of Oban Harbor in western Scotland, as seen from McCaig's Tower

Posted by acarvin at 4:42 PM

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Oban Harbor View, Part 2

Quicktime VR video of Oban Harbor, taken from Mhinister Crannaig (Pulpit Hill)

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Oban Harbor View, Part 3

Quicktime VR video of Oban Harbor at sunset, photographed from North Pier

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The View from Edinburgh Castle

Quicktime VR video of the view from Edinburgh Castle

Posted by acarvin at 4:34 PM

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September 20, 2005

Piper at the Gates of Dusk

Video of a man practicing his bagpipes as the sun sets over the harbor in Oban, Scotland. Not the best piper I've ever heard (video of that coming later) but it was still quite a nice moment.

Posted by acarvin at 12:01 PM | Comments (1)

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Scottish Dancer

Video of a Scottish girl demonstrating a traditional dance in Oban, Scotland.

Posted by acarvin at 11:54 AM

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Oban Overview

Video of Oban harbor in western Scotland, as seen from McCaig's Tower. I accidentally recorded a moment or two of blackness at the start of the video, so consider yourself warned.

Posted by acarvin at 11:50 AM

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Fun With Deer

Video of Susanne and me hanging out with a pair of deer at the Oban Rare Breeds Farm Park on a very rainy day.

Posted by acarvin at 11:45 AM

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The Wrath of Staffa: A Wet Day in the Hebrides

Video our hellish, hellish boat trip in eight-foot seas to visit Fingal's Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa. A beautiful site indeed, but we're still questioning our sanity over the incident. Amazing that Felix Mendelssohn survived to compose the Hebrides Symphony after visiting it.

Posted by acarvin at 11:38 AM

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September 9, 2005

Windsor-Cornish Bridge

Video clip driving through the Windsor-Cornish Bridge from New Hampshire to Vermont this Labor Day weekend.

Posted by acarvin at 11:42 AM

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August 24, 2005

Cat vs. Feather Toy, Part 2

Video clip of Winnie taking his turn with the feather toy, stalking it from behind my backpack.

Posted by acarvin at 9:03 PM

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Cat vs. Feather Toy, Part 1

Susanne and I picked up a new feather toy for our cats this weekend. Tonight they got to have one of their first workouts with it. Each cat has their own tactic for attacking the toy. In this first video, you'll see Dizzy standing and spinning as he goes after his favorite part of the toy - the handle, rather than the feathers.... -andy

Video clip of Dizzy and his feather toy. Incidental background music courtesy of Coheed & Cambria (he just loves playing to emo-core).

Posted by acarvin at 8:55 PM | Comments (1)

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August 21, 2005

Chhayam Drummers

Video clip of drummers and dancers performing a chhayam, a lively Cambodian procession, at yesterday's Lowell Water Festival. Later, the chayyam would weave its way through the festival along the Merrimack River.

Posted by acarvin at 5:40 PM

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August 20, 2005

Khmer Dance at the Lowell Water Festival

Video of a Cambodian dance troupe performing a blessing dance at the opening of the Lowell Water Festival, one of the largest Southeast Asian festivals in the US.

Posted by acarvin at 4:55 PM | Comments (1)

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Khmer Fiddler

Video of a Cambodian man playing a traditional fiddle at the Lowell Water Festival

Posted by acarvin at 4:25 PM

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Dragon Boats on the Merrimack

Video of dragon boats practicing for today's races along the Merrimack River for the Lowell Water Festival

Posted by acarvin at 4:12 PM

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August 18, 2005

An Evening with a New Yorker Cartoonist

Susanne and I had quite the social evening tonight. First, I swung by a gathering of Boston-area video bloggers hosted by Steve Garfield, where a group of us enjoyed some beers while chatting about video blogging, community media and other topics interesting to us media geeks. I then grabbed a cab and headed to Cambridge, where I met Susanne for an evening with New Yorker cartoonist Drew Dernavich. The event, hosted by the magazine and Grand Marnier, was an opportunity to sample a range of Grand Marnier cocktails on someone else's dime (their margaritas were wicked strong) and snack on as many crab cakes and asparagus fritters you could shove down your gizzard.

After 30 minutes of lounging, Drew Dernavich took the stage, which in this case was just the front of the bar. Unfortunately, the bar was configured as a long, thin space, so unless you were within 15 feet of the cartoonist or the PA system adjacent to him, it was almost impossible to hear a word he was saying. I made out a few random facts, though, such as it took him 12 years before he got published in the New Yorker, and that he studied sculpture in Italy.

After his presentation, he invited guests to chat with him and make requests for drawings. I had my digital camera with me, so I figured we could sneak back to the front, observe him in action, and maybe ask a question or two. One aspiring cartoonist asked him some questions about the biz, but after that, Dernavich started taking requests. After drawing a picture of a man covered in grass cuttings from his neighbor's lawn mower, Chewbacca-style, he made eye contact with me and paused to see if I had a drawing request. I drew a blank for a moment, but then asked him how he would portray Boston's notorious problem with bad street signage. (If you want to get lost in Boston, follow the signs and it's inevitable.) Dernavich smiled, paused another moment, and got to work, drawing a "Welcome to Massachusetts" sign almost completely obscured by a giant tree:

Video of Drew Dernavich drawing a cartoon of Boston's infamously poor street signs.

Before leaving, I asked Dernavich about the New Yorker's habit of running cartoons in which generic individuals are portrayed, rather than caracatures of famous people, as often seen in newspapers. Was this practice a challenge to him as a cartoonist, or did he find it liberating?

"I like it, because from a standpoint of being timeless, in a newspaper, what you find are cartoons being published about a specific politician or a specific event," he replied. "The New Yorker publishes ones that are... Well, even if you know it's in the news, still a lot of people will see it and say, 'I don't get it.' But if it's not about a specific event or a specific person, that way it can still be funny on its own, five or 10 years down the line, once that person's gone from the news. So I consider this more of an opportunity."

With that, Dernavich ripped the cartoon of the street sign off his drawing pad, rolled it up, and handed it to me. eBay, anyone? -andy

Posted by acarvin at 8:10 PM

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August 5, 2005

Kente Weavers of Ashanti

Last night, I put together a short video about traditional kente weaving in Ghana's Ashanti region. Kente, perhaps the most famous West African textile, is brightly colored, coming in a variety of patterns, some reserved for use by Ashanti royalty. The video was shot in the historic kente weaving village of Bonwire, about an hour south of Kumasi. Three weavers are featured, each using a traditional loom to make the cloth. The video also contains music performed by Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy, used with permission from Alula Records. There are two versions of the video: high resolution (13 megs) and low resolution (two megs).

Kente Weavers of Ashanti:
High res video
Low res video

Production notes:

The video was shot on July 23, 2005 in Bonwire village, Ashanti Region, Ghana, using a Konica-Minolta dImage A-200 digital camera. The Quicktime files shot on the camera were uploaded to a Macintosh G4 laptop and edited with Final Cut Pro HD 4.5. Both versions of the video were compressed using the 3ivx compression codec. Total editing time was about 90 minutes, including compression.

Posted by acarvin at 4:07 PM | Comments (2)

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August 4, 2005

Randy Mann Does the Verdi Dance

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Lowell Telecommunications Corp interviewing staff and community members about their local community media activities. As it turned out, video blogger Randy Mann was there. It was just a matter of time before Randy whipped out his video camera and started shooting me, so I had to return the favor. Here, you can see Randy doing The Verdi, as he puts it. Perhaps the beginning of a new dance craze?

Randy Mann Does the Verdi Dance

ps - Kudos to Randy for displaying his undying love for Rush on his vlog. Anyone who includes the numbers "2112" in their URL is giving themselves away as a partner in the law firm of Lee, Lifeson and Peart.... -ac

Posted by acarvin at 11:12 AM | Comments (2)

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July 25, 2005

Strolling Through Kumasi Central Market

Video montage of a walk through one of the largest open-air markets in Africa. Shot and edited on July 23, 2005. Music by Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy, from his album Afieye Okropong, used with permission from Alula Records.

Posted by acarvin at 7:34 AM

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July 22, 2005

Identifying a Murdered Liberian

A photographer circulates photos of a murdered Liberian man found outside the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. The actual photos are not shown in the video.

Video: Identifying a Murdered Liberian

Posted by acarvin at 7:27 AM

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Liberian Kung Fu Masters

A short video of some of the kids I met at the Buduburam refugee camp. Note how one of them yells out "Obruni" as he karate chops me - Obruni means "white man." :-)

Video: Liberian Kung Fu Masters

Posted by acarvin at 7:20 AM

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How to Shake Hands in Ghana

Video: How to Shake Hands in Ghana

Posted by acarvin at 7:05 AM

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July 21, 2005

Accra Taxi Ride

A couple days ago I shot some footage while driving in a taxi from BusyInternet to my hotel, 45 minutes north of downtown Accra. Here are the results.

Download the video

Posted by acarvin at 1:03 PM

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July 19, 2005

Smartphone+Bluetooth=Ghanaian Video Blogging Paradise

A few moments after I posted my blog entry about the potential use of smart phones and Bluetooth wireless as a workaround for Ghanaian video bloggers, lo and behold I was approached by Lebanese blogger Mustapha of BeirutSpring.com, who introduced himself and sat down to chat, one Mac owner to another. He then pointed out he had the new Handspring Treo 650 smart phone, which just so happens has both video and Bluetooth capabilities. Lightbulbs went off, and in a matter of a few minutes we were able to post the following video clip. I wonder if it's the first smart phone video blog entry from Ghana?

Andy and Mustapha try video blogging from Ghana with a smart phone:
Low bandwidth clip
Medium bandwidth clip

Posted by acarvin at 11:25 AM | Comments (2)

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Video Blog Test From Accra

I'm expermenting with video compression to see if I can work out the ideal size for uploading and downloading video clips here in Ghana. The bandwidth here is much slower than in the US, so I have to be careful about how large a file I post.

Here are two versions of some footage from the BusyInternet cybercafe, one low bandwidth and the other medium bandwidth. The low version is around 600k, while the medium version is 1.3 megs. (For those of you keeping score, the uncompressed version of this 40-second clip is over 30 megabytes - pretty useless here in West Africa.

Anyway, here are the results. Click on the appropriate link to try each version.

BusyInternet montage:
Low bandwidth clip
Medium bandwidth clip

Posted by acarvin at 8:50 AM | Comments (2)

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July 14, 2005

How to Pill a Cat

In case you're ever in a situtation where you have to give one of your cats medicine twice a day, here's a demonstration video on how to pill a cat. It looks worse than it is; our cat Winston actually begs for it twice a day. Please excuse the flickery video; my old Canon camera seems to be dying.

Posted by acarvin at 6:16 PM | Comments (1)

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July 13, 2005

Atlantic City Rough Cuts Open for Business

It's day two of our video blogging workshop in Atlantic City, and we've just set up our first video blog, Atlantic City Rought Cuts. In a few days, the site will be live at www.acroughcuts.com, but for now you can see the site at www.starw.org/acrc. Meanwhile, the RSS feed for the site is also available. We've posted several test blog entries and a couple of video blogs as well. Here's a sample:

Video of MLK Elementary School teacher Janine Riggins talking about their new video blogging project.

Posted by acarvin at 1:21 PM

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July 12, 2005

Atlantic City Rough Cuts

Olivia Caldwell Today I spent a wonderful day working with a team of nearly a dozen teachers from MLK Elementary School in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They're in the third year of a NJ Department of Education grant to use technology to improve student literacy, particularly in the context of exploring causes of bullying and neighborhood violence.

Now in its third year, the project is expanding to student video production, which is why I've come here for a couple of days. I spent the morning introducing the teachers to various documentary production basics, such as the roles of different team members (editors, researchers, producers, etc), a typical documentary production timeline and the mechanics of documentary storytelling. The group kept me on my toes, peppering me with questions all morning.

After lunch, we began brainstorming how the project would unfold over the course of the year. Rather than having students create their documentaries and call it a day, we're going to incorporate video blogging as a key tool in the learning process. The teachers will manage two video blogs, tentatively called Atlantic City Rough Cuts and Atlantic City Final Cuts. The Rough Cuts video blog will be used to premiere student works-in-progress - "rough cuts" of documentaries that need to be critiqued. They'll post them on the video blog as a way of seeking feedback from the public, particularly video bloggers from around the world. The students will then examine these suggestions, decide what's appropriate, and revise the videos, reposting them as necessary to the rough cuts blog. Eventually, when the videos are ready for prime time, they'll be posted to the Atlantic City Final Cuts video blog, for people who simply want to experience the final product.

As far as I know, this will be one of the very first times that video blogging is integrated into a public school curriculum, let alone an elementary school curriculum. The entire process of documentary production, from concept development to scriptwriting to editing, will be used as a way to meet state standards regarding proficiency in reading and writing. And if all goes well, we'll end up with a sizable collection of video shorts representing a diverse cross-section of life here in Atlantic City.

In honor of today's marathon training session, I've cobbled together a five-minute video blog of what we did today. Please excuse the really crummy narration quality - I forgot my headset mic and had to use my laptop's internal mic while its fan was whizzing away. -andy

Video of today's documentary and video blogging workshop at Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School in Atlantic City.

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Art Wolinsky Talks About Elementary School Vlogging

Video of Art Wolinsky chatting about introducing video blogging to students at Atlantic City's Martin Luther King Elementary School.

Posted by acarvin at 7:31 PM

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June 27, 2005

Let's Get a Cheese Steak

Video of Jim's Cheese Steak shop in South Philadelphia, taken during the June 2005 NECC conference.

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June 24, 2005

Royal Gate Ceremony at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Video clip of the opening of the royal gate at Gyeongbokgung Palace.

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Gyeongbokgung Palace

Video clip of Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea.

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June 22, 2005

Dune Racers of the Empty Quarter

Since I had more than 14 hours to kill on my flight to Seoul today I managed to put together a video of my sand dune adventure in the United Arab Emirates last month. Click on either the high-speed or low-speed versions below. -andy

Dune Racers of the Empty Quarter:
Broadband (17 megs)
Dial-up (2 megs)

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June 19, 2005

Fireworks at Jacobs Field

Video clip of fireworks at Jacobs Field in Cleveland.

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The Weirdest Thing I Saw in Cleveland

Video clip of mascots tussling to Black Sabbath's Iron Man at last night's Cleveland Indians game.

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Hey Beer Man

Video clip of a beer man at last night's Cleveland Indians game.

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June 16, 2005

Evening CTC Tour

Tonight at the CTCNet conference, I had a chance to tour two local community technology centers. Our first visit was to the Community Training & Technology Center (CTTC), run by the Cleveland Housing Network. The center focuses on improving local residents' financial literacy skills and prepare them for home ownership. Nearly 600 residents have taken a computer skills course there aimed to create a "culture of use" among novice users. They also have the opportunity to go through home ownership counseling and training, during which they learn how to avoid predatory lending practices and other potential hazards of the home buying process. Others come to the center for money management training and free tax preparation. They're also building affordable housing for chronically homeless families who enroll in their training programs.

We continued our tour, passing through numerous neighborhoods in which nearly all the buildings and homes were boarded up. Some showed no signs of development, while others clearly were being restored for the housing market. Eventually, we reached ASC3, the Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center. Wanda Davis, ASC3's executive director, and their resident VISTA volunteer introduced us to the facility. In one room, a group of senior citizens were practicing basic Internet skills, many of them working in pairs and assisting each other. We spent much of the time hanging out in the adjacent lab, enjoying some refreshments and talking about the challenges and opportunities for introducing Internet skills to seniors. The center has graduated around 200 inner city residents, the majority of whom are local elderly.

Here's a video clip of Want Davis talking about working at the CTC. I'll try to post more clips later but I have to go host a happy hour now. :-) -andy

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June 13, 2005

Dubai Creek: Day & Night

Dubai Creek: Day & Night
Download the video:
high res (broadband)
low res (dial-up)

This weekend, I edited a Web documentary on Dubai Creek, the waterway that passes through the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Many of Dubai's residents still utilize an old system of water taxis, or abras, to cross the creek.

The video, Dubai Creek: Day & Night, is four and a half minutes long, about the length of a crossing on a water taxi. The video offers a peek at life along the Creek during a daytime crossing from Bur Dubai to Deira, as well as a nighttime one in the opposite direction. Rather than narrating the video, I added occasional subtitles to supply additional information about the Creek and the abra water taxis. All visuals and audio were captured by me on location. (Look out for a cameo by me and Ivar Tallo of the Estonian E-Governance Academy near the end of the video.)

Please feel free to share this video; I'm releasing it on a Creative Commons Noncommercial, Attribution, Share-Alike license.

Production Notes:

The clips shown in this video were recorded in May 2005 during my second trip to Dubai. All clips were shot on a Konica Minolta A-200 8.0 megapixel digital camera. They were edited on a Mac G4 Powerbook laptop running Final Cut Pro HD, then exported to two Quicktime files, one for broadband viewing and one for low-speed Internet connections. Total editing time, including exporting, took approximately three hours.

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June 10, 2005

Video: Camel Riding in the Empty Quarter

Now that I've managed to solve the problem I've been having with posting video clips, I'd like to introduce a two-minute video of me riding a camel in the United Arab Emirates, on the edge of the Empty Quarter. Also featured in the video is Canadian e-government consultant Shauneen Furlong, whom I meant during my trip to the UAE. I've posted two versions of the video - one for broadband (12.8 megabyte file) and one for slower connections (1.7 megs). Enjoy! -andy

Camel Riding in the Empty Quarter:
high res (broadband)
low res (dial-up)

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Steve Garfield's Art Mob Video

Video blogger Steve Garfield has just posted a cool video blog about yesterday's art mob at the ICA. I even get featured in the video offering some armchair art criticism of Andy Warhol's Nine Jackies. -andy

Technorati tag: ArtMobICA

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May 25, 2005

Video Blogging from Dubai Creek

A brief video blog recorded along Dubai's Creek prior to heading to the airport to fly back to Boston. The video was filmed at a creek-side restaurant in Bur Dubai, while polishing off a pot of mint tea and smoking an apple shisha... -andy

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May 20, 2005

Riding the Creek

A short video of an abra water taxi in Dubai. Sorry about the video being shaky -- I was riding a boat at the time as well. -andy

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A Rather Spicy Video from Dubai

Here's that video clip from the Dubai Spice Bazaar. I hope it works this time - I'm not particularly confident in the way my new camera records quicktime files. -andy

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May 18, 2005

Carousel Ride

A video clip of children riding a small wooden carousel in Szentendre, Hungary.

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Hungarian Bakery

A video clip of a traditional bakery in Szentendre, Hungary.

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May 17, 2005

Hungarian Farm Video 1: Milk Cows

Last Friday I got to visit a small family farm in the Hungarian village of Gyorkony. Here is a video clip of one of the farmers herding cows into a pen to milk them.

milk cows

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Hungarian Farm Video 2: The Ostrich Dances

After meeting the cows at the farm in Gyorkony -- and tasting some fresh milk -- I got to visit their pen of ostriches. This is a video of the male ostrich dancing to show us who's boss. As you can see in the video or the picture below, the ostrich drops to the ground and sways back and forth. It was really wild seeing an ostrich do this in person. -andy

ostrich

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Swing Kids

During my visit to the Hungarian village of Csakbereny, I encountered a group of kids playing on a swing set. Here's a video clip.

swing kids

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May 5, 2005

Feline Screen Test

Here's another quick test of my new Minolta A-200 digital video camera, shooting in 640 pixel mode. This is a large (20mb) file of my two cats, Winston and Dizzy. Winnie is trying to take a nap on the bubble wrap that came with the camera, and Dizzy wants to play with him. This is taken at night with poor lighting conditions, so I'm impressed with the overall quality. I'll take the camera out later today and try a daylight test as well. -andy

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April 18, 2005

Marathon Winner Clips

A couple of video clips of the winners of the marathon: Catherine Ndereba of Kenya and Hailu Negussie of Ethiopia.

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March 31, 2005

Sega!

I've been at a conference today so I haven't had a chance to come up for any new material for video blogging week 2005. So rather than not contribute any video today, I figured I'd find some footage I hadn't posted to my blog previously.

So, without further ado, here's a clip I recorded in Mauritius last July of a dance troupe performing the sega, a traditional creole dance that blends elements of dance from Mozambique and India. Enjoy.... -ac

click to play

Posted by acarvin at 5:13 PM

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TakingITGlobal Documentary Now Online

Good news: the team at TakingITGlobal has managed to put its documentary, Local Voices, Global Visions, on the Internet, hosted at ourmedia.org. Click on the previous link; when you get to this page, click the play button on the video, and it will begin to download. It is a very large file - around 100 megs - but worth every byte. (You may recall I reviewed the video last week.)

Please set aside 45 minutes at some point to watch the video. It demonstrates the power of ICTs in the hands of youth, both in terms of the projects profiled and the making of the documentary itself.... -andy

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March 29, 2005

Thanksgiving in March

This morning, Susanne and I heard some squawking noises outside our apartment in Brookline, two blocks' west of Boston. At first I assumed it was Canadian geese, since we've been getting a lot of them flying through our neighborhood this week, but then I heard Susanne say, "Andy, come over hear quickly."

I walked into our office, and there outside our window was a family of four wild turkeys, absolutely enormous birds, strutting across our neighbor's lawn. Over the next few minutes they hopped across his fence, walked across the street (to get to the other side, of course), then hung out in the lawn of the Episcopal church until a Brookline animal control officer shooed them off, chasing them onto the church's roof and to the other side, where they could hopefully wander in peace along the forested Riverway.

I managed to catch a few seconds of video from my office window; I had to blow it up by 75% because they were far away at that point, so please excuse the graininess of the clip.

click to play

tag: videobloggingweek2005

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March 28, 2005

Mike's Pastry, Take Two

A few people have had problems opening up the .avi video file I used to record crowds at Mike's Pastry in Boston's North End this weekend, so I'm posting it again as a compressed Quicktime file. This should mean it'll download a lot faster as well. -andy

click to play

tag: videobloggingweek2005

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Easter Baskets Video

A four-minute video of everything you wanted to know about what Andy and Susanne got in their Easter baskets yesterday. Now we just need to make a Purim video retelling the Book of Esther with hand puppets or something... -andy

click to play

tag: videobloggingweek2005

Posted by acarvin at 9:13 AM

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March 27, 2005

Mike's Pastry

Susanne and I went to dinner at L'Osteria in Boston's North End last night. Since it was the night before Easter, the North End was overflowing with the local Italian community (not to mention a lot of Boston yuppies) scrambling to pick up last-minute treats for the holiday. To wit: here's a short video of the chaos at Mike's Pastry, which would be open til the wee hours of the morning satisfying customer's needs for lamb cakes and other Easter treats. Consider this a small, modest contribution to video blogging week 2005, which kicks off today. -andy

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March 24, 2005

Movie Review: Local Voices, Global Visions

I'm riding on an Amtrak Acela train through snowbound Connecticut right now on my way to the National Model United Nations conference, where I'll be addressing a group of 500 youth delegates who are conducting a mock World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). To psych myself up for the talk, I brought along a DVD of TakingITGlobal's new documentary, Local Voices, Global Visions. I got the DVD in the mail just before I left for India a few weeks ago, so this was my first chance to see it.

If I could snap my fingers and burn 100,000 DVDs in a flash, I would send a copy of this documentary to every K-12 school in the United States, then snap my fingers some more until they turned raw so schools and youth groups around the world could have a copy as well. This 45-minute documentary, produced entirely by young people, does an astounding job at capturing what's at stake with WSIS, which will have its second summit this November in Tunisia. And it demonstrates the vital role that youth can play in policymaking, whether related to the digital divide or other important policy goals.

The video profiles groups of young people from around the world -- Sierra Leone, Nigeria, India, the Philippines, Canada and Tunisia -- as they organize national youth campaigns to mobilize young people into the WSIS policymaking process. The documentary is broken down into segments, each one profiling youth activists and their work in their home country. We get to know Andrew Benson Greene and his colleagues in IEARN Sierra Leone as they teach their peers to use digital technology and create music as part of their country's post-civil war healing process. In Nigeria, 'Gbenga Sesan leads a national campaign to educate youth about the importance of participating in digital divide policymaking. In India, we meet a young woman who has opened up her home to a local orphanage so she can teach children computer skills. And in Tunisia, we learn about Marouen Mrahi, Rim Nour and their fellow engineering students as they galvanize Tunisian youth to participate in the next WSIS summit, which will take place in their home town of Tunis.

The documentary reaches its climax in Geneva during the first WSIS summit in December 2003. The young people profiled in the video, along with hundreds of other youth activists, organize seminars, participate in summit plenaries, and demonstrate ICT projects to government ministers. The summit is the culmination of more than a year of activities around the world, but it's quite clear that these young people have no plans of wrapping up their activities once they go home. For one thing, they've got another WSIS summit ahead of them in November 2005, but beyond that, you get to see how these young people are laying the groundwork for long-term initiatives to bridge the digital divide in their home countries.

I've met many of the young people profiled in this documentary in person, so it's great getting to see them in the spotlight, but it's not just because I know them personally. (Full disclosure -- TakingITGlobal is a strategic partner of the Digital Divide Network, and I donated some photos from the Geneva summit for the documentary.) Watching them speak, organize local campaigns and take action, I couldn't help but think these young people are truly the leaders of tomorrow. In all seriousness, I wouldn't be at all shocked if one of them - or even more - end up becoming heads of state in their home countries. They have charisma, leadership skills, articulateness and a profound grasp of policy issues. Not only does this video document the role of youth in WSIS, it documents national leaders in the making.

Beyond the amazing people profiled in the video, there's the high production quality as well. TakingITGlobal produced it on a Mac laptop running Final Cut Pro editing software (I note with some pride, as these tools are my own documentary weapons of choice), with all the work done by young people. Twenty-one-year-old Jarra McGrath traveled the world shooting the film, with TakingITGlobal's Nick Moraitis collaborating as co-editor and as narrator. Even the music is produced by youth, most notably the songs recorded by IEARN Sierra Leone. The documentary is a perfect example of how young people can be producers of high-quality content, from video editing to interstitial animations to the Hollywood-quality DVD jewel box packaging.

I do have one complaint, though; the documentary is not available online. If you go to the video's website, there's a short clip, but otherwise only contact information for purchasing copies. That's a real shame -- it would be an enormous public service to make the documentary, or at least more clips, available for noncommercial and educational use.

Otherwise, I can't say enough about this documentary. I am so inspired. It's reinforcing the creative buzz I felt during my recent trip to India, where I produced two documentary shorts on my laptop. My mind is racing with ideas, locations, editing tricks: I'm just dying to get out in the field and make more documentaries now.

But my short-term goal may have backfired. I intended to watch this video to get psyched for my speech later today, yet I may have to scrap my entire presentation for the conference. I'm almost - almost - tempted to shut up and let this documentary do the talking. With Local Voices, Global Visions, the youth of TakingITGlobal articulate the importance of WSIS better than I ever could with just an old-fashioned speech.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:59 PM

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March 14, 2005

Video: Baramati Bus Stop

This weekend I completed a short Web documentary on my visit to a mobile computing lab in Baramati, India last week. The video, called Baramati Bus Stop, is about six and a half minutes long. It explores the mobile computing lab, which features two dozen thin-client computers installed on a bus. I also show my visit to a rural primary school classroom, and meeting some of the local village children who aren't enrolled in school -- and thus have no access to the technology.

I've made two versions of the video, one without captioning and one with captioning.

Both versions of the movie are quite large - more than 45 megs. So you may want to let the video download for a brief time before trying to stream it. Better yet, download the whole thing first so you won't have to worry about it pausing due to bandwidth bottlenecks. The movie is released on a Creative Commons noncommercial/attribution/share-alike license, which means it may be viewed, disseminated and even edited for educational and noncommercial purposes.

For those of you who are interested in how I made the video, here are some quick tech specs. I shot the video on a Canon A60 digital camera, capturing about 15 minutes of footage, on location in Baramti, India. I uploaded this footage to my Mac G4 laptop and edited it using Final Cut Pro. Music was licensed from ProductionTrax.com; licenses for four songs cost approximately USD $30. For voiceover (narration) I used Final Cut Pro's voiceover tool, spoken through a LogiTech USB headset mic. Captioning was also done using Final Cut Pro. The total editing process, from uploading footage to exporting the movie as a Quicktime file, took approximately eight hours over the course of several days.

Anyway, please check it out when you get a chance and let me know what you think. -andy

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March 8, 2005

Video: From Baramati to Bombay

While returning from the Baramati conference to Bombay this Sunday afternoon, I recorded a series of video clips on my digital camera. On the airplane home, I edited them together into a five-minute video blog called From Baramati to Bombay.

All of the clips were taken from our car as we made the six-hour trek between rural Baramati and urban Bombay, so the video captures the shift in population density and development as it progresses. I decided against mixing in any music, mostly because of copyright concerns, so for now the audio captures whatever ambient noise was going on at the time, including goat herds, bullock carts, auto rickshaws and traffic. (I'm also trying to get permission from the Rajasthani folk band Musafir to use some of their music in the video for a future version of it.)

The file is more than 30 megs, but I've optimized the video for online downloads, so hopefully you will be able to watch it as it downloads. The video was shot with a Canon A60 digital camera, then uploaded to my Mac G4 laptop and edited with Final Cut Pro HD 4.5. The video is available on my blog under a Creative Commons noncommercial/share-alike license, so please feel free to use the video in part or in full for other purposes, as long as it's noncommercial in nature, you cite me as the source, and you pass along the same rights to others.

Over the weekend I will try to edit together the footage I took at our visit to a rural cyber bus in a farming village outside Baramati. I managed to put the clips together but still have to write and record the narration. Stay tuned... -andy

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February 22, 2005

Civil Society Presentations in Tuesday Plenary

Civil society representatives have just finished presenting their statements in the morning governmental plenary. Among the speakers were Tracey Naughton of the media caucus and a representative from OneWorld South Asia's Grassroots initiative.

Here are two short video clips of Tracey and the OneWorld representative. I will post transcripts of their statements as soon as I have them. -ac

Posted by acarvin at 5:20 AM

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February 19, 2005

Steve Garfield's Berkman Video Blog

Video blogger extraordinaire Steve Garfield has put together a 10-minute Web video covering last Thursday's Berkman bloggers meeting at Harvard. A production crew from ABC's Nightline was filming the meeting as well, so it was a sizable crowd, not to mention a lively one. We discussed blogging and journalistic standards for the better part of the meeting. Several Digital Divide Network members took part in the meeting, including Rebecca MacKinnon, Taran Rampersad, Doc Searls, Cedar Pruitt and myself. Check it out if you get a chance... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:33 AM

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February 17, 2005

Clarinet by the Gates

A man plays clarinet in Central Park during the opening weekend of The Gates.

Please check out the video of the clarinet player as well.

Posted by acarvin at 3:33 PM

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February 15, 2005

Going Ga-Ga at The Gates

Susanne and I just returned from a weekend in New York City, where I thoroughly immersed myself in The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Central Park art installation. As some of you know, I set up a community blog called The Gates @ Central Park, which allows anyone to post their own text, photos or mobile phone podcasts to the website. I posted several dozen entries to the site over the weekend, so please visit the site explore them in greater detail. In the meantime, here are some audio, video and photographic highlights from the weekend.

Videos:

Audio:

Pictures:

A gate flutters with Central Park West in the background.

Unfurling each gate took most of the morning.

You can see them in every direction.

A view of some of The Gates from across the lake.

The New York skyline in the background.

Row after row of gates.

Posted by acarvin at 3:24 PM

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February 8, 2005

Video and Pics from the Patriots Parade

Tedy Bruschi and friends enjoy the crowds at the parade.

I've just uploaded some pictures from today's Patriots parade in Boston. According to the news this evening, over one million people were in attendance. I was at the very beginning of the parade, near Hynes Convention Center, and the crowds were small enough that it felt more like a small-town parade. The weather was perfect for the parade, too - a little cloudy, but warm enough for light jackets. And because it was so close to my apartment, I was able to get back home and watch the parade on TV while I got back to work.

Along with the various pictures I took, I shot a few short video clips. Most of them aren't particularly interesting, but I did manage to record a clip of Tom Brady on a duck boat.

Anyway, here are some of the other pics I took at the parade. Enjoy... -ac

A Boston policeman waits for the parade to start.

Cops dominate Boylston Street prior to the parade.

A kid holds up a freshly painted sign.

Crowds enjoying the parade.

The Patriots cheerleaders.

Remnants of the parade.

Posted by acarvin at 7:36 PM

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Audio and Video from Last Week's Beercast

Greg Narain records at "beercast" at Cambridge Common; I'm in the top right corner leaning in a chair with the red jacket. Photo courtesy of Steve Garfield.

Beercasting update: Video blog pioneer Steve Garfield has just posted a video of our recent beercast in Cambridge. His timing is perfect, because beercaster Greg Narain has also just published the beercast in which I took part. Basically, it's a 15 minute conversation of a small group of us sitting in a pub, drinking samplers of microbrews while swapping travel stories from around the world.

I've never listened to a recording of me made at a bar -- perhaps a good thing -- but it's been fun listening to the conversation again outside the original setting and context. It's also interesting following the arc of the conversation. We started with the topic "cool sounds we've recorded in our travels"; eventually the conversation morphed into a series of adventures we'd all experienced in Turkey, which for some reason all of us at the table had visited at various points over the last 40 years.

I'd definitely do it again if I get a chance; beercasting is quite a cool way to kill time at a bar. :-) -andy

Posted by acarvin at 4:45 PM

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December 19, 2004

Ishtar Gate Video

Susanne and I went to see the movie Alexander the Great this weekend, knowing full well that it's supposed to be one of the worst epics ever made. In this regard, the film did not disappoint; it's giving us fodder for days of conversation on the hundreds of egregious missteps that Oliver Stone made in this trainwreck of a film.

Having said that, we were pleasantly surprised to see his depiction of Babylon and its famous Ishtar Gate: the souring blue-tiled gate leading to the heart of the Babylonian palace. Some of you may not know that the gate still exists, reconstructed in spectacular fashion in Berlin's Pergamon Museum. Here's a video of Ishtar Gate I took last month during my trip to Berlin. You can see Susanne at the beginning of the clip, gazing up at the gate. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:24 PM

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December 17, 2004

Vicarious Snowball Fight

This morning I woke up to a pleasant surprise: a sizable dusting of snow had covered the neighborhood during the early morning hours. As beautiful as it was, the dusting wasn't enough to make snowballs, so I'd like to offer up this vicarious snowball fight: a group of kids in Tallinn, Estonia, having a snowball fight outside their school, which I caught on my digital camera last month. Enjoy! -andy

Posted by acarvin at 8:27 PM

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December 3, 2004

A Very Vanderbilt Christmas

Yesterday, Susanne and I took our new car for its first weekend road trip, heading down to Newport, Rhode Island to visit some of its famous 19th century mansions. While Newport may be most popular in the summer, December is a great time to visit, because several of the mansions are decked out in full Christmas regalia.

It's only a 90-minute drive from Boston to Newport, so we arrived there just before lunch. We bought a multi-mansion pass that would allow us to visit the three mansions decorated for the holidays: The Elms, The Breakers and Marble House.

Our first stop was The Elms. Built at the turn of the 20th century for coal magnate E.J. Berwind, The Elms is a replica of Chateau D'Agnes in Asnieres, France. Entering the mansion, we were giving an audio guide, a small digital recorder with a room-by-room guide to the mansion. The audio tour took just over 30 minutes, leading us through the mansion's grand bedrooms, drawing room, kitchens and dining room, which was decorated with an enormous painting of Alexander the Great. I particularly enjoyed the part of the tour that led us through the kitchen and pantry: magnificent, spacious rooms that could cook a feast for hundreds of guests at a time.

After The Elms, our next stop was The Breakers. Perhaps the most famous mansion in America and the most visited tourist attraction in Rhode Island, The Breakers is the grand dame of Newport mansions. Constructed for Cornelius Vanderbilt in the 1890s, the mansion drips with opulance, extravagance, grandeur, excess. The Breakers is built around a two-story Great Hall, a magnificent space that could entertain hundreds of guests. At the far end of the Great Hall was a Christmas tree constructed entirely of poinsettia plants. To the left of the tree, a regal red staircase led to the second floor; from the base of the stairs you could see a huge painting of Mrs. Vanderbilt, just below a magical green skylight that had originally resided in the Vanderbilt's New York estate.

We didn't have an audio guide for our visit to The Breakers, which was a shame; the pamphlet given to us simply didn't convey the stories contained in the digital player we used at The Elms. Nonetheless, the mansion was magnificent, particularly the dining room. Inspired by Versailles and reminiscent of The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the dining room is perhaps the grandest eating hall in all of North America.

The third mansion on our tour was Marble House, another Vanderbilt estate. Constructed entirely of marble at a cost of more than $10 million, Marble House is a stunning site. The styles of the rooms varied greatly; in one corner of the house we found a monastery-like Gothic Room, complete with stained glass, while Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedroom looked like a suite suited for Marie Antoinette herself. While not as over-the-top magnificent as The Breakers, Marble House was actually more interesting because it came with an excellent audio guide. The guide conveyed the personality of Mrs. Vanderbilt and her daughter quite dramatically, particularly since it made it apparent that the daughter resented the mother's controlling nature.

After a brief stop at a local pub, we paid a return visit to The Breakers for a special treat. The mansion was open that evening as part of a holiday tour program that only occurs on Saturday nights each December. It's one of the few chances visitors get to experience the mansion at night. Top it off with live music and festive snacks, it was an opportunity we didn't want to miss.

The Great Hall of The Breakers. Click the photo to see a video of the "12 Days of Christmas" singalong.

Having just visited the mansion a few hours earlier, we didn't need the paper guides that were handed out at the entrance. Instead we strolled the house with confidence, quickly learning the location of all the main rooms. Several hundred other visitors strolled the mansion, some dressed in tuxes and furs, others in jeans and sweatshirts. In the Great Hall, an a capella group sang Christmas songs, while the Lower Loggia played host to a selection of pastries, as well as apple cider and egg nog. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take your snacks out of the room, and you couldn't hear the music from there, so I felt like we were always in a rush to nosh and get out of there.

Meanwhile, the singers led all of us in a series of Christmas Carols, the highlight of which was a tag-team rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas. The singers had the crowd break into different groups, each having a singing assignment. Susanne and I found ourselves in a the group singing "10 lords a-leaping" and "11 pipers piping." Some groups were better than others, several of them clearly taking their job quite seriously. The best group was the team singing "five golden rings"; the only group on the second floor of the Great Hall, the singers were loud, out of tune, and thoroughly entertaining. It was a wonderful way to kick off the holiday season.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 8:42 AM

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October 28, 2004

Photos and Videos from the Red Sox Celebration at Kenmore Square

It's less than 24 hours since the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years, and the helicopters continue to hover over our apartment near Fenway Park. I've never seen a city so happy: every is smiling, saying hello to each other, making eye contact -- almost unheard of in Boston!

To commemorate last night's big win, I've created a new website, Cursed No More: Celebrating the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series Championship. The website includes my photos from last night's festivities by Fenway Park, as well as a bunch of video clips that capture the excitement felt throughout the evening. Hope you enjoy it!

Posted by acarvin at 9:37 AM

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October 18, 2004

Fenway Chaos!

It's just before midnight on Monday night and Susanne and I just returned from Fenway Park. No, we didn't have tickets to the Red Sox game, but as soon as we realized the game was going into extra innings, we bolted from our apartment and sprinted the four blocks to the Irish pub An Tua Nua. Located as close as you can get to the Fenway parking lot, the bar was a wild mix of Red Sox fanatics and a troupe of black-leather goths, all united in Bostonian team spirit.

Of course, we had no idea the game would go on for another five innings, giving us plenty of time to curse Derek Jeter and agonize over David Ortiz getting robbed twice. So it was poetic justice that Ortiz batted in Johnny Damon to wrap up the game after nearly six hours of play.

The bar erupted into joyous pandemonium; we reveled in the moment for a while before grabbing our coats and sprinting yet again for the Fenway parking lot. As soon as we got outside you could here the roar of tens of thousands of people exiting the game; within a matter of moments we were in the thick of the crowd, celebrating like it was Paris for New Years 2000. (Quite seriously, I haven't seen anything like it since that very moment.)

We joined the crowd and followed it down Brookline Ave, enjoying the hordes of fans all the way back to our apartment, about a mile to the west. Along the way I took photos and video clips which I'm uploading at this very moment; so by the time you read this you should be able to click that link and see some of the footage I captured.

Wish I could get some sleep, but I'm still too pumped to relax... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:43 PM

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October 13, 2004

Winston's Revenge

An important lesson learned when it comes to cat ownership: shower your cats with affection, but for the love of God, don't smother them with it.

A case in point. Be sure to watch the video until the very end - otherwise you'll miss the punchline.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:47 AM

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October 12, 2004

Introducing the RoombaCam

Susanne and I returned home from Montreal around 8am this morning. Since our cats didn't know how to operate our Roomba robot vacuum during our absence, we needed to send our friendly vacbot for a tour of duty.

While the Roomba was making its rounds, I unpacked a few things from our trip, including my digital camera. I noticed our cats taking a greater interest in the Roomba than they usually do, so I decided to put my digital camera on top of the Roomba to see if I could make a little Web video from the Roomba's point of view. The first two attempts didn't work too well, as the bumper-car manouvers of the Roomba shook it loose very quickly. But a few strips of masking tape later, I managed to turn my little robovac into an cinematographer.

The video file is large - about 20 megs - but it's worth a look if you're curious about the Roomba, particularly in terms of how well it plays with cats, furniture, feet, and other things that get in its way....

Posted by acarvin at 8:30 AM

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July 29, 2004

Audio Blog and Video Clips from the Anarchist March

During today's anarchist march from Copley Square, I recorded an audio blog and shot several video clips. Click on the previous link to listen to the audio blog; otherwise, you can choose from the following clips:

Protest drummers
More drummers
March clip #1
March clip #2
March clip #3
March clip #4

March clip #5

Marchers' feet

Enjoy.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 3:50 PM

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Anarchists Descend Upon Copley Square

Around 1pm today, a group of several hundred anarchists held a protest at Boston's Copley Square. I arrived just as they were beginning to march around the perimeter of the square. Carrying signs and banners with various anti-war, anti-corporate and anti-globalization slogans, they circled the square counter-clockwise as rag-tag drummers banged on upside-down mop buckets.

Anarchists on the March

There were many media present, but for some reason I drew much suspicion from this apparently paranoid bunch. "Get rid of that camera, you goddamn narc," one of of them said as I tried to take a picture of several of them wrapping bandanas over their mouths. On another occasion, after videotaping drummers, one of the drummers demanded, "Give me your camera and show me what you just did." Gripping my camera tightly, I showed him several seconds of footage.

"I hope it meets your satisfaction," I replied somewhat sarcastically.

"Yeah, whatever," he said dismissively, returning to his music.

Eventually, the marchers decided to leave the confines of the square and began to march eastward on Boylston Street. A lone police car escorted them, clearing the way up front so they could make their way down the street. Next came a group of photographers, who never cease to amaze me in their ability to shoot pictures and walk backwards without tripping over each other. The photographers were followed by the protestors, sporting more bandanas to cover their faces than deoderant, as I discovered when the wind changed directions. Lastly, sweeping up the rear, a lone Nader supporter gleefully followed the posse, holding a tall "Vote for Ralph Nader" sign.

Che Guevara Chic was all the rage at the march

I followed the protestors for several blocks, who made a left turn for one block before heading west on Newbury Street. The anarchists made for interesting viewing for the denizens of Newbury, many of whom were buried in their lattes or their salad plates as the protests marched by them. Some of the diners looked on in interest or amusement, while a few skeptics shouted back at them, "Move along, move along!" and the like.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 3:40 PM

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Falun Gong Leave Nothing to the Imagination

Crossing through the Boston Common during lunch today I happened upon a large Falun Gong protest decrying the treatment of its practitioners by the Chinese government. When I lived in DC, the Falun Gong were a fixture of north Dupont Circle, where they camped out and meditated in front of the Chinese ambassador's residence. Here in Boston, though, they've added rather graphic visuals to their protest.

Along the main path that crosses through the Common, Falun Gong members have set up human dioramas depicting torture of their members. In one booth, a woman in a blood-spattered blouse hangs from two ropes as a baton-wielding thug stands behind her. To her left, an old woman sits on the ground, her right hand pressed onto a small table, as two men pull out her fingernails. Another woman

Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

The Video Archive

October 24, 2008

Sneak Preview Tour of NPR's Election Studio

May 25, 2008

A Camel Eating Cantaloupe

May 23, 2008

Impromptu Interview with Jacob Soboroff of Why Tuesday?

April 26, 2008

Riding the Wheaton Express

March 28, 2008

DC Cherry Blossoms Walking Tour

March 25, 2008

Live from the Salt Lick: BBQ and the Future of Mobcasting

March 12, 2008

Billy Bob Thornton vs. the Studio

February 19, 2008

Unveiling My $17 Burger at the LA Biltmore Hotel

February 11, 2008

Studio 4A: Inside NPR on Super Tuesday

Anonymous Protest Scientology in Washington DC

January 17, 2008

Feeding the Giraffes

December 30, 2007

Reliving My Grandparents' Wedding

December 26, 2007

A Christmas Lumiere

December 3, 2007

Matzah Ball Madness!

December 2, 2007

Scottish Christmas Walk

November 17, 2007

Dulcimer Dance

October 28, 2007

Martin Luther King III on Blogging, the Media and the Jena 6 Protests

Martin Luther King III Discusses Media Ownership

Brookside Gardens in Bloom

October 12, 2007

Train Goin' Home

October 9, 2007

Horse Auction

Sack Race

September 13, 2007

Praying Mantis vs. Bumble Bee

Kayleigh's First Steps!

September 4, 2007

Kayleigh Composes Her First Song

August 26, 2007

Butterflies

July 25, 2007

Carvin's Eleven

July 24, 2007

My Michael Moore Video

July 7, 2007

Kong Nay, Cambodian Chapei Master

July 2, 2007

Unwelcome Questions for Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson

July 1, 2007

Waiting in Spin Alley

June 29, 2007

Dramatic Sharpton

June 28, 2007

It's a Wrap

Unvarnished: Scenes from the Media Center

Greetings from the Presidential Debate Media Center

June 16, 2007

Meeting a Living Goddess: The Bhaktapur Kumari of Nepal

June 2, 2007

Happy Birthday Kayleigh!

May 29, 2007

Toasting Eric and Kim at their Wedding

May 6, 2007

Defying the Fire: Rallying Behind Eastern Market

May 3, 2007

Protests on Demand: The Floating Lab Collective

April 29, 2007

Harper's Ferry Arsenal Blues

April 13, 2007

Grandma's Stories: The Dairy Farm on Auburn Street

April 11, 2007

Grandma's Stories:
The House in Chelsea; Brothers & Sisters