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So I’ve jumped aboard the Flip Video bandwagon and I must say, there’s a great view from up here. I love this little thing! Relatively cheap (around $115), easy to use, easy to pocket, and it can be modded into an untold number of interesting new media contraptions just perfect for whatever videographic needs one may have.

I’m thinking about the Flip in terms of media access, both for the underclass and the disabled. With luck, I’d like to eventually connect one of these little guys up to a big button switcher for my friends/clients who struggle with muscle control. It may require a little soldering, as well as some creative tripod maneuvering, but it’d be great to see how the Flip can eventually be used by those individuals inhabiting a wheelchair. That’s a cinematic perspective that rarely gets shown. Maybe the Flip can correct that unfortunate cultural silence.

Alternatively, this Flip (I really need to name him) will serve as a backup camera for all my web-based video. Yan might actually get into shooting herself! Who knows?!

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All told we have four housemates: Paul, Deryn, and two cats named Fezzik and Inigo. Paul is the most musical of the bunch, probably owing both to a steady love of indy rock and his very human opposable thumbs.

Paul is ‘kiwi’ from Wellington, New Zealand, and he’s an all-around good guy. I can always count on hearing some fairly peculiar sounds wafting out from his red-lit, homemade studio. Every now and then, also, he’ll clue me in to some as-of-yet unknown band. He’s a great source of ‘cutting edge.’

Tragically, my relationship to music is not as well developed as it seems to be with Paul. I have a few things I like, but mostly I’m unimpressed. And now I’ve reached the age where keeping up with the ebbs and flows of music culture is exceedingly exhausting. I don’t know how Paul does it. It’s got to be love…

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We’ve been riding around on our bikes for a few months now. This footage was shot back in April… and Yan still hasn’t named the damn thing! Regardless, this purple little beauty has turned out to be a really good purchase. The fella who sold it to us explained that his girlfriend hardly every road it, and so, as Yan is quick to note, it’s practically new. There was a slight tear in the rubber casing around the front suspension, but that’s really just a cosmetic flaw, nothing big. Everything else is golden.

Honestly, there’s something empowering about a bicycle, both literally and metaphorically. For Yan especially, it is a symbol of independence. It’s a natural progression, I suppose. Crawl, walk, ride. Unlike the car, bus, tram, subway, etc., all of which do the hard work for you, a bike is still largely powered by human energy. In some ways, then, it is the ultimate in human mobility. That’s how I like to imagine Yan–ever moving forward, confident in her own ability to proceed and progress.

Ride on, Xu Yan!