This is from a couple years ago, and these are my photographs. These are from Lake Hood, Kincaid Park/Cook Inlet, and the home where I grew up in Wasilla. I’m noticing now that there isn’t a whole lot of mountain pictures. This is becuase in the Anchorage area, the mountains are kind of far-off…unlike Juneau where you can walk right up to the base of them and start climbing.
Juneau is also pretty magical, although it’s completely different than what you see below.
In the fifth photo down, you can see the mountains through the trees, if you look closely. I’m missing Alaska, so today was a great day to repost this. I might follow up with the winter version.
The photo above, if memory serves, is not even edited at all. Edited photo.
The photo directly above is not even edited. That’s the original in late September, Alaska at a hotel on Lake Hood and it’s just really that gorgeous.
Hiking path at Kincaid Park. I want to live in Kincaid Park. Beyond the trees you see here is the wide open and beautiful Cook Inlet.Sucker hole.Paved path at Kincaid Park. This one is also not edited and perfectly great natural. A scene from my father’s man cave.heh heh heh heh.Actual photograph of ducks taking off at the lake I grew up on. I edited a few to make them look like paintings. Sometimes you just get lucky. Try scaring shit out of some ducks by running at them. Then take a photo. That is what I did.Eating corn I threw in the water. They eat out of my Dad’s hand. My Dad’s plane. Natural / not edited. Kincaid, again. Never gets old.
“I see this as a realistic film about an unreality. The gestures, the sound, the human expressions all seem real, but reality is re-interpreted artistically. It becomes a kind of moving painting.” -Richard Linklater, Wired magazine
We sat in a dark room. The kitchen light flickered as everyone waited in silence to watch some movie Jake and his girlfriend were raving about.
Jake stood before us; a young crowd of punks, miscreants and arty types seated on couches and the floor. He bent down and carefully placed the disc in the player, stood back up, reached for his lighter… and inhaled a huge bong hit. Jake exhaled a long plume of smoke as he spoke to us:
“Ahem. {cough} I just want to warn you guys that this shit is heavy. The content is kind of hard to follow the first time you watch it. But it’s awesome.”
Jake pressed play and the film began.
We watched in rapt silence, awestruck from beginning to end. We all wondered what the hell just happened. Jake sent us on the craziest trip of our lives, but none of us had eaten LSD.
Inside the mindscape
Waking Life is about a dream experience that weaves science, history, and philosophy into a mesmerizing parade of sensory input. The film combines existentialism and other themes with visually stunning animation.
Director Richard Linklater shot the entire movie using a handheld camera. After completing the live-action footage, he hired a team of artists to paint over each frame using a technique called rotoscoping. The result is realistic animation – an effect Linklater describes as a “mindscape”.
The main character (Wiley Wiggins) doesn’t know his own name or identity, but viewers watch him float through various scenes where he encounters dream characters. The characters eventually begin to talk about lucid dreams and he realizes what’s happening. He discovers he’s trapped in a dream and fears he’ll never wake up.
Linklater’s handheld camera magic enhances the surrealism; the camera often pans into scenes at weird angles – zooming into rooms, zipping across an orchestra scene, floating over rooftops. Linklater and his crew shot footage from a hot air balloon to capture scenes where the main character floats through the sky over suburban neighborhoods.
As a viewer, you become absorbed in the wild visual flow while attempting to follow complex verbal insight with your ears. Classical music and tango heighten the beauty during scene transitions.
The major theme is awareness; accepting the moment and making the best of a situation within our limited toolbox. The film showcases activists, teachers, and thinkers of all ages. People in different phases of life may take different lessons away from this film.
You are the main character
Waking Life boasts many achievements, but the most impressive is the way Linklater pulls you into the film. The main character doesn’t remember his own name or identity; he could be anyone. He could be you.
One character tells our young protagonist that the image of himself that he views inside the dream is only a “mental model”.
The dream characters directly address your thoughts and feelings about the movie as you watch. It’s part of the film’s spooky genius. In one scene, a blonde lady (Kim Krizan) speaks about the history of communication and the difficulty of expressing abstract emotion:
“So much of our experience is intangible, so much of what we perceive cannot be expressed – it’s unspeakable. And yet when we communicate with each other and we feel that we have connected, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion… and that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.”
As you watch and listen, you experience what she’s talking about. The visual and thematic elements coming at you in this film are unspeakable.
She relates directly to your experience as a viewer, and she simultaneously provides insight into something important in your life. She addresses all those clusters of emotion in the past; times of trauma or perhaps elation when your personal experience escalated beyond what you could express in words.
She also delivers you into the “spiritual communion” aspect of her speech. You feel an uplift because she’s communicating a new insight into your mind. Here’s a human being expressing something either forgotten or never known by me… but now I know… or… maybe I remember. Collective conscsiousness.
Your brain lights up, electrical impulses dancing around as this stream of information enters the “conduit” she discusses. The animator illustrates your experience on-screen by drawing a crude visual conduit.
This is your dream.
This is also the brilliance inside the mind of Richard Linklater.
I read the script (found here) and realized the script is amazing on its own. Watching the film, however, is an additional layer of experiences and emotions that words on a page cannot replicate. Again, this exact issue is addressed in a scene called the “Holy Moment”.
Later on, the main character discusses his dream experiences with a new dream character. He describes feeling engaged in an active process. This confuses him because he’s been silent and passive during the dream. She responds that listening is not necessarily a passive act. Once again, this is also about your viewing experience.
Moving paintings – the dream comes to life
“This film uses dreams as a kind of operating system for the narrative, the hitch for most of the ideas. The realism of live-action film would have canceled out the ideas… This style of animation allows you to see a different state of reality.” –Rick Linklater, Wired Magazine
“It’s different from traditional animation; it’s on the computer, but it still involves a lot of hand drawing…it’s pleasing for people to recognize real motion and real expression but have this added layer of an artist’s sensibility. I wanted a very painterly look. With rotoscoping, you’re not required to come up with any original motions. You have to draw people’s facial expressions, have a good sense of color balance and design; all the skills that painters have.” – Bob Sabiston, Rotoshop creator and Waking Life Art Director
Animators have used rotoscoping since 1915, but Waking Life’s animators used proprietary rotoscoping software created by Linklater’s friend and collaborator, Bob Sabiston. While working on a different project, Sabiston demonstrated his Rotoshop software to Linklater and “something clicked”.
The animation conveys a coffee shop style of art; shades of brown and red mixed with yellow and blue. Sabiston limited the color range available to the artists to keep the appearance of the film consistent. Each artist showcases a different art style throughout the film, but the colors stay within an earthy palette.
Sabiston’s Rotoshop software is notable because the program features important advantages over traditional rotoscope. The first upgrade is interpolation.
Interpolation is a difficult concept to understand until you watch an animator demonstrate the technique. In a featurette, Sabiston demonstrates interpolation; he traces a line in one frame that will show up off to the side in the following frame. Doing so allows him to approximate the exact line or shape again on the following frame for consistency. The result is consistent lines in important places – such as chins and necks – and the animation flows more smoothly.
Another advantage this software has over traditional rotoscoping is “layering”. Sometimes a specific house or nature scene is required across many frames. The animator colors over the house once and places it inside one layer within the program, and that same layer can be used across multiple frames.
The result, like interpolation, saves animators time so they don’t have to redraw the entire scene in each frame. Despite these upgrades, rotoscoping still requires a tremendous effort. According to Wired Magazine, each minute of Waking Life’s footage took up to 250 hours to animate.
The featurette also provides an eye-opening glimpse into some of the film’s mysterious non-animation effects. The crew achieved a scene in which the main character floats above a car by suspending actor Wiley Wiggins with cables attached to his body.
Traverse the light and shadows
“I didn’t start out with such a set idea about what it was going to be like. The film is so much about its own process. It unfolds, and you kind of accept it the way your own life unfolds. Things come at you, and you either incorporate them or you don’t”. -Linklater, AV Club
The film’s content is optimistic at times, neutral and questioning at other times, and occasionally the subject matter is dark and pessimistic. It’s a mirror of our thought cycles as we pass through our days.
The optimistic characters shine with luminescence; light pours through their eyes and they emit an aura. They speak with their hands, palms up, gesturing with openness and freedom. The animators absorbed Linklater’s vision and did a phenomenal job using their talents to breathe life into this film.
I enjoy the film’s ambiguous spirituality. At one point the main character questions where all this new information is coming from. Is it being transmitted to him from an outside force? Christian viewers might see the information as sourced from God and the other dream characters as angels and demons, or perhaps ghosts.
Alternately, a science fiction enthusiast might interpret this dream as alien abduction. Maybe he’s been abducted by aliens and they’re tinkering with his brain while he’s asleep, using tools to activate specific memories from his readings of D.H. Lawrence, Sartre, science class, and the bible.
Maybe when he floats up to the sky he’s about to wake up, or maybe he’s about to die. Maybe the aliens are bringing him out of the dream.
By working with a team of artists and animators to manifest his vision, Linklater created a film that is also a learning tool. The themes would be fascinating enough as a collection of quotes or classroom talking points, but Waking Life stretches beyond the man-made, elitist borders of the literary and academic worlds.
Like an actual dream, it bursts through the confines of academia to reach a universal audience. The vehicle is art, but the driving forces are curiosity and fear of the unknown. The film entertains, but it also delivers viewers into introspection.
According to a commonly accepted plot interpretation, the dreamer is either dead or he’s about to die. A cruel irony unfolds as dream characters deliver useful insights; it’s too late for the main character to apply this insight to his life. This is frustrating to watch, until you realize it’s not about him.
You should visit it. 😁 However, be warned that her general tone and content are wildly different than mine (if you like my blog stuff). I like reading her blog.
After lamenting my difficulties in creating art in this space yesterday, the universe proved this was nothing more than a self-limiting belief. I had a lot of work to do, but I couldn’t shake the desire to draw. In the time before my journey… that other life which I am seeking a concise name for… […]
The pictures did not adequately capture the amazing magic of this thing. Then I remembered all about YouTube… and videos and stuff.
I was also just talking about SP, and I have the lamp sitting next to the SP flag. Which makes it even cooler because the flag features the same color palette as the lamp.
Therefore, it made perfect sense to me that I should also include the weirdest SP song in their entire catalog. This is a folky little weird-ass number called “Meladori Magpie”.
I recommend making it full screen to see the full magic. We have come a long way since people put oil drops on slides in the 1960’s and people manually moved the slides.
This post is a sequel to my (arguably better) recent post “My Psychedelic Experiences“. This is a republish, although this time I decided to start with the journal entries and end with the “poetry”.
When reading my “poetry” – bear in mind that I was between the ages of 21-24, and was high for 18 hours a day on strong Alaskan Thunderfuck weed.
Some of my attempts at poetry approached something almost good, while others are comical. Ex. “circles dancing on the road to fear” – like – wtf? Haha. It is pretty clear that I was a big fan of Jim Morrison and The Doors. Like many young rock n’ roll women.
I often wish I had written more journal entries from this time period. Unfortunately, I was often just way too stoned for something as organized as journaling. Seeing Ani DiFranco in concert pushed me over the edge…. to the point where I was so damn inspired that I just couldn’t help but journal about the event soon after. And then, of course, something that destroyed my world happened later on – and I had no choice but to write about it.
*
March 2004
Ani DiFranco performed Saturday night, downtown at the Atwood Concert Hall. Kat and I passed around the side of the building to the front entrance. As we turned the corner, it was Wyatt I first recognized – leaning against one of the pillars, guitar flashing as he strummed.
He was surrounded by a group of kids I soon recognized as my friends. I laughed, seeing them before they saw me. I approached, watching them immersed in their dream together and existing in the space of each other.
Jake was singing and playing. Wyatt accompanied him on rhythm with a sly smile. Nick stood, Eddie sat on a skateboard. Crystal sat cross legged on the cement.
Their faces broke into smiles as they heard my laughter and saw me.
I was laughing because on Friday night I had suggested that we go down to the street and play for change. Jake had said yes, we should play for the crowd outside Ani’s show. And here they were.
Wyatt wore his green robe with some kind of Egyptian looking design on the cuffs and edges. He looked like Dylan in Greenwich Village, which he would have thought a flattering observation if I had actually said anything.
Jake said his fingers were cold, but he kept playing anyway. A bum came over, stumbled over drunken words, and then pulled out a harmonica and played a solo for us. We stood watching awkwardly, glancing around at one another with smirks. After the bum finished playing, he wandered off and said we could find him a couple of streets over.
We went inside and they announced the show was beginning. When Ani began playing, the moment came alive beneath the stage lights. She poured manic acoustic soul-energy onto our heads as she sweated out images through poetry and rhythm.
After the show, we all went to Jake’s apartment for some drinking. Wyatt used his beer bottle as a guitar slide. After a while Jake suggested we walk over to Wyatt’s house to listen to a new recording of Crystal reading poetry over circuit-bending sound effects.
I noticed everything on the walk. A parade of sensation danced before me; the tall streetlights bathed the street orange. As usual, I made some remark about the beauty of the moment. As usual, Jake and Wyatt both called me a hippie.
*
Wyatt’s room is an incredible escape. For the past few years, Wyatt’s place has been the place to go for green, good company, and the constant flow of never-before-heard music.
In this room, we listened to Crystal read poetry, and also Wyatt and Jake’s band recordings, The Crooked Toys. Sitting on the bed, the bookshelf was five feet in front of me. It was full of vinyl records and subculture novels written by guys like Burroughs and Kerouac. The top used to be filled with empty Southern Comfort bottles. Each one stood like a memory in a cloud. An evening in which fun was poured out of the bottle like a hazy genie.
On this particular night, in post-concert excitement, the conversation played out as though we were in a documentary. Jake brought up an observation or a memory. He talked about summer 2001; the summer when I first met them. Back then they were loud, music-playing mohawked punkers living next to me – a never ending stream of rowdy energy. They were up all hours of the night partying. First they annoyed me, but soon I became intrigued by them.
Jake reminisced about the wildness of that summer. He would pause in a story-telling kind of way, and Wyatt would deliver a thought or memory in his quiet voice; measured, on the verge of something new. I never remember every single detail because we’re always stoned in Wyatt’s room. I stared down at our shoes as I listened. The carpet appeared to be 10 feet below.
November 2005
I’ve wanted to dive into my memories for some time now and write about them. I wanted to tell the story of the crowd and write about the last few years. I never got around to it.
But I never wanted to write about this. I never could have anticipated this. Wyatt killed himself on the 5th of November. Nick called me Sunday and broke the news. To use Jake’s word, it was “surreal”.
Shock penetrated every fiber of my being, as it did for everyone. Nick’s voice broke into sobs as he told me. I had to call him back because my throat ached so much that I couldn’t talk. He called back later and I told him I was coming over.
Nate and Ida came over to Adam’s house to join us that night. Nobody directly talked about Wyatt, although it hung over the room unmistakably, a dark cloud. It was awkward at times; the undercurrent of shock and sadness was so thick. But on the surface, it wasn’t doom and gloom the entire time. There was subtle laughter over a pool game and Nick’s cats.
Ida made strong white Russians for everyone. Too strong. The night ended in a sick haze of throwing up outside where the frozen air felt relieving on my skin. I stood with my arm against the wall, glancing up at the moon, thinking about how Wyatt had stood where I was standing. I crashed on Adam’s couch and woke up in the cold sunlight.
Driving the streets of Anchorage, all I could think this whole week is he’s not here. It goes around in my head like a mantra.
Everything is colorless, white noise vibrations like the feeling of being at work on a Monday morning when you are sleep deprived. Almost every night I’ve woken at 5:00 in the morning, thinking of him, having memories of all the interactions we’ve ever had. Remembering things, he said to me, said to others.
Work was awful. I made the mistake of showing up Monday. I had known Wyatt before I knew any of these people. There was a time a couple years ago when all I had in my day-to-day life was them… the kids, the artists, the lovers of visual art, of poetry, of reading, and above all music.
Wyatt was a uniquely important part of this scene, a huge part of that flow and now I see more than ever how he brought his influence to everyone.
Last night Wanda mentioned a few bands she would never have appreciated, if it wasn’t for him. Bob Dylan, Modest Mouse, Radiohead, to name a few.
Kat has a hand-drum sitting in her room. She sought it after Wyatt brought back a similar drum from India. A couple weeks ago I was thinking of getting a harmonica. Wyatt and his harmonica. Last spring, I wrote that I wished I could invade his book stash.
“Incredible” – that was Wyatt’s word, a word he used to describe things he loved. Wyatt was beautiful. Apparently, he was extremely unhappy sometimes. Despairing as all of us were and are sometimes.
He was always mellow, and now I realize his mellow nature was a deeper sadness. It goes without saying that all of us wish he would have seen things through that night so he could have had the opportunity to feel inspired again in this up and down roller coaster maze that is existence.
*
Undated
Euphoria madness, gates to openness
Rising falling reeling in time
Sneaky shadows cross the sunrise
Sadness darkens the path to your mind
Circles dancing on the road to fear
Leaving judgement to the blind
Triangular moods fade in the distant sky
And then appear next to you
Sometime in 2003
Everything is interesting on this drug. Memories are interesting. Music is beautiful, but then it always is. There are few things like the feeling of chills that you normally get when you love a specific song, combined with LSD. My Bloody Valentine, Jefferson Airplane, Radiohead. Where did this come from, and why does it make so much sense!? Matter and chemical. We are nothing.
heh heh heh heh. The one time I wrote while on LSD. Yes. So very insightful. heh. We are nothing, people.
Undated
Throw back the door
We lie in wait here
Marveling at the bottom of infinite possibility
Glancing upward toward a feast of language unwritten
Locked in the cell of our cells
And the guardsman say to Stay Put
The one standing at the entrance
Throws imagination at them
Like stones piercing through the night sky to the target
Of those who would block the glorious exit
Deliver the allies into enchanted places
Seen and unseen
New strange sweet open
Exerted expounded existing
heh heh heh. Nevermind my terrible fucking handwriting. It’s generally a bit better when I’m not high as fuck.
Spring 2000
If I could have illustrated it, I would have drawn the music in physical form, drifting from his instrument into my body. And the lighting would be an extension of the sound and emotion. Several times I felt my eyes becoming moist. If the true audience are those listening, I was the only audience. Only a few other people sat in the old coffee house, they were scattered and involved in their conversations.
(I am so glad I wrote about this – it was a solo guitarist doing a lot of Cat Stevens covers in a little coffeehouse in Wasilla, Alaska. Due to my choice to write, I can remember this incredible musician like it was yesterday. I was about 20 years of age at this time. I sat facing this acoustic guitarist and behind him were the most intricate and beautiful stained glass hangings against the huge windows, the best stained glass art that you can possibly imagine. This is a lesson about how you MUST write about experiences in order to remember them.)
Undated
Outside the window, staring at the ground, I hear it. A shimmering echo of ascending and descending busyness. It travels in a solitary way outside the limits of human understanding. Before hearing this well-crafted magnificence, I wanted to wander to the edge of my world and jump off into the black. Then suddenly I heard it. Combined with caffeine, it enchanted the colors right back and it deepened the hues, and it opened up the drive to create.
Undated
Momentum
The moment lies trapped
Inside the cruel
Unrelenting fist of time
You must peel the moment from time’s grip
Cast all doubt aside
For time is a universal illusion
Only distance is real
And distance doesn’t end
Undated
We put candles out to mask the other side
They wouldn’t know couldn’t know
Don’t step through the shields
And so, the scent flows
Vanilla, rose and the candles burn
Thru the haze that crows the space and reluctantly
Reaches toward the window
Eager to stay
And dance around the flames
Absorbing a new consciousness into fractured minds
Suffocated by too many dealings
In a world of thousands of universes
From their lost sea of ideal visions
But the sea roars on
And cannot be held back by futile barriers
Or hopes of retreat
It waits to break and roll back
Leaving beneath it a smooth new surface
Upon which minds bask, dance and receive
Masked activities are windows to the sea
And the candles burn on
Undated
Unharnessed illusion of a heightened perception circus
The ringmaster grins
He watches the walls and stairs breathing alive
As though
His eyeballs have been turned around in his head
So that they look upon his brain
And the strobe light flickering
Trance of neurons going haywire
Fields of red and blue explode randomly
Is the door raining drops of paint?
Of course not
The ringmaster reasons
But then
If he can see it rain
And watch it do nothing
In what he thought was reality
What is it really doing between the two opposites?
Perhaps there’s even more happening
Undated
Sweet haunting love
Chasing invisible muse, never catching
Elusive and beautiful
Eternal and mysterious
Everywhere
Undated
Where do the voices come from?
A thought asked
But was met with only silence
And the dark that soon gives way to dawn
Until we meet the light
The candle of her voice
Will refresh our souls and bodies
Winter 2001
It’s been too long since this invisible ghost has unleashed the tidal wave of uninhibited thoughts freely. Still, something is lost between innermost articulation and the stage that is paper. Wandering, wandering, wandering. Wandering through the black. There is no tomorrow and hardly any yesterday in times like this. Only the forward momentum of now. A stared into space filled with shapes, but a transcendent stare that moves steadily beyond it all. Craving a deep breath of release.
Stepping forward on a slippery stone and claiming a new voice unheard to vacant ears. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Fireworks streak down and fade in her mind. Unknown places that she might never go, but in solitude and half in the ground beneath the stars and trees, she builds a bridge of images. They call subtly from the distance when she’s buried in the squares and circles, far away, wound up all the way and clicking fast like a wind-up toy operated at the hands of another.
Traffic jerking, splashing puddles, city buildings grey and humming. The bridge calls out from the distance, layered with a translucent silvery charm, stretched comfortably across her mind like skin across a hand-made drum. Where does it go?
To oaks and willows swaying gently. To a sidewalk at dusk a child sees the blinking lights of what he calls a spaceship. He needs nothing more than his imagination and physical surroundings to lift him into the realm lying between.
The bridge travels on to a concert where the vulnerable empowered sway together. A few thousand or more separate universes unified, even with their divisions of countless complications, united into a common sound that somehow uncorks every individual. The bridge fades away, silhouette falling away with the disappearance of light. Back to the squares and circles.
Undated
At home again, looking up at the power lines. The sounds carry up to the cables and sing to ring forever from there.
Undated
Water and bread never got them thru
They carried a flag
For otherworldly consciousness
While the hermits of materialism stashed their goods and held fast
For something they didn’t know
“It’s all about reactions,” she said, “and how groups of earthly beings
In reality react to the nothingness they want to be somethingness”
Undated
Welcome to the haze
Come inside the maze
Brush strokes and patterns
Of words and intervals
Numbers
It’s all language
But
There’s no way out because
It shifts in cycles
So that
You hit a wall
When you believe you’ve hit the exit
Or the entrance to a new place in space
Where you want to be
So you linger on the path
Content to make the travel
Because you think you see
The closure just up ahead
Around the corner and beside the
Neon glowing scene
Of your dream
And then it shifts and you scream
Was a lie and you cry
But here comes the next optimistic bend
And you’re at it all again
Undated
Lie cry die
Keep it all inside
Fight lost try
Losing losing losing
Time
Work struggle lie
To gather a dime
Hide hide
Break slowly
You’re on the wrong side of life
Winter 2004
(Grace Slick Girl-Boner prose)
Blue green eyes, the color of ice and azure
pierce into you
She grips the microphone in her hand
She wears a dark towel with a belt wrapped around her waist
She sings so loudly, so passionately that the veins in her neck rise
As the muscles strain
Her hair is dark and long
Her voice is deep and low
Contralto
Winter 2004
A long time ago, jake sat in his living room leaning over the cd book, flipping through it and trying to decide what to listen to. Someone suggested The Velvet Underground. He said he didn’t like the because they didn’t give him “that rush”. I remember being intrigued and amused. Because I knew exactly what he was talking about. We all did.
Winter 2004
In a long slow dream, you thought you had immeasurable time and distance. It was illusion. It was the bending mirrors of a wishing pond. It was your swan gently gliding on golden conscious. It was images sketched in silvery hope and intertwined with a tunnel made of iron sound and whispered resolve. Cynicism descended like a poisoned waterfall drowning the universe. The curtains fell slowly and the darkness is still blinding. Now is the time again to reignite the fires, burn passion with the light long into the eve. Energy creates energy. Acceptance of their reality is the conspiracy of lost flight. Leave the hollow gutless growths in their lifeless forests. Rise instead to the shimmering echoes of the moment where genius awaits.
Spring 06, Fridge Magnet Poetry
Spring full wander
Evening black wild
Autumn Mushroom
Early morning breath
Yellow dandelion dream
Stream, harvest grass
In my blue winter thought
Summer dawn road
Must be here
Garden life thru roof
While I leave
Almost journey
Between sound
Rain Child Field
Watch this cold shore
We live
Laugh Shiver Cry
Drop Fall Stand Cry
Thereafter listen
Why
*thanks for reading
Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have. Mmm, LSD. Elementary as these little drawings may be, don’t dare think for a moment that I could draw even that much without a push from LSD. This was written on the back of the psychedelic spider-angel-bong thing. Too lazy to type it up at this point. “Take me back to the caverns, crystal light and reflection. What is real is only what you feel” Another LSD inspired drawing. Wyatt circa 2004.Nick circa 2004. My closest friend of them all during this time. Wyatt and Eddie. Circa 2002 or 2003.Jake and Wyatt, circa 2002. The kids were always happy as fuck in each other’s company. Beyond measure. And I was lucky enough to be a part of that for a few years. As time goes by, I realize it wasn’t just the weed. It was love. A few ofThe kids, circa 2002-03. Nick is that errant little bastard throwing up a middle finger. He couldn’t ever pose for a picture without flipping the camera off.
On a dark stage in 1967, the jazz-rock ensemble Jefferson Airplane perform the song “Crown of Creation” to an enthralled crowd. A large screen flashes a red sun behind the singers as they harmonize. Their voices shimmer and converge into one alchemy of sound as the rhythm guitar pulsates with the light show. The lead guitar cuts through the stage and twists out into the audience like a wild river.
From the first note of their debut album through the last note of 1969’s Volunteers, Jefferson Airplane were a musically diverse force that took the world by storm. They began as a local San Francisco folk-rock band in 1965, and within two years they skyrocketed to fame with the band’s two seminal hits, “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit.” For fans, however, the magic extends far beyond the band’s two hit singles.
The Airplane sound will guide listeners through an echo tunnel and into a world the band’s rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner once called, “The unbridled passion of the 60’s”. Jefferson Airplane soared to the top of the charts during a time when rock music was exploding with talent, new ideas, and technology.
The band’s professionalism and thunderous live performances attracted local San Francisco musician Grace Slick, the member who ultimately launched the band to superstardom.
Like all legendary bands, a mysterious element drove the Airplane’s sound. The songs drew from a dynamic color palette loaded with reverb and surrounded by layers of gauzy dreamscape. They were unique among other popular bands of the time for their ability to seamlessly combine folk-based music with jazz, blues, and psychedelia.
The music and the overall persona of the band were an ideology. Among all the other legendary rock bands from the 1960’s, it was Jefferson Airplane who cut directly into the heart of the scene. Their music represented the boundless optimism, joy, and romance of the era
My introduction to the Airplane began with Grace Slick’s face on the cover of her 1998 autobiography, Grace Slick:Somebody to Love?
One day, I wandered around a bookstore browsing for anything that looked interesting. I walked up to the front and turned toward the new release shelf. A shiny cover with a woman’s face captured my eye. I did a double take and froze. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life was staring me down with unnerving intensity. Grace Slick’s infamous “laser stare” stopped me in my tracks.
I immediately walked over to the book and opened it up. The first page contained several author quotes about drug experiences, trouble with the law, and various other comic tidbits. They were hilarious and I was sold.
After reading the book a couple of times, I finally picked up a copy of the Airplane compilation album, White Rabbit and Other Hits. I listened, and I was hooked.
As it turned out, this beautiful and funny Grace Slick was also a fantastic singer. The interplay between the various instruments and the two voices — Grace and Marty Balin — was unlike anything I had experienced. Complex layers of minor key madness danced around soft rhythm brushstrokes. The music flashed with colors while the lyrics evoked rich imagery.
Year by year, each album by the Airplane portrays a changing era. Their debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, reveals a more innocent, folksy vibe than later albums.
The album was released in 1966, right at the turning point before full-blown psychedelia and heavier rock hit the airwaves. The song “Run Around” is awash in late night carnival lights. Two lovers romance around the town walking along the waterfront, reading poetry and gazing at the stars.
Many songs on the album are folk-based, but it’s more than folk. The sound stretches beyond traditional folk into a sonic dimension specific to this band that defies both genre and description.
1967’s Surrealistic Pillow represents the big shift in the Airplane’s sound. Grace’s searing vocal on “Somebody to Love” drives the song forward while Jorma Kaukonen’s lead guitar slides out from underneath the ground and hangs on the ceiling. The album intertwines the Airplane’s earlier folk influences with a new power — bluesy and raging.
Surrealistic Pillow has plenty of quieter moments as well. The acoustic guitar in “Today” sounds like water dropping into a dark pond surrounded by neon flowers. The drums reverberate with pink hues.
“Coming Back to Me” features a flute backed by acoustic guitar, but again, this is no ordinary folk song. The imagery is so rich that you can see the protagonist. You are him. It’s autumn, you’re deep in the woods. You’re alone in a cabin. You look out the window — there’s the ghost of your lover. The purity of Balin’s voice lends itself perfectly to the song’s theme.
On their 1968 album, After Bathing at Baxter’s, the Airplane dived headfirst into insanity. At this point, everyone in the rock world was competing with Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix dropped into the scene and blazed fiery trails of new sonic territory. Everyone was floored by Hendrix’s sound, and all the popular rock acts of the day began playing differently.
As a result of Hendrix’s influence (and as a result of the emerging drug culture), some incredibly weird albums emerged in 1968. After Bathing at Baxter’s is one such album.
Baxter’s is a big yellow jazz room with wooden floorboards and xylophones. Men wearing top hats and red suspenders pound on drums. The guitar becomes a spaceship, Grace’s singing sounds tribal at moments, and the lyrics are surreal.
The song “Wild Tyme” has a marching band feel, the sound of excitement and determination. Flower children march through the streets and over fields. Now they’re pouring out of buildings and the crowd is growing. A couple observes all the changes happening everywhere. They’re wild with joy. They have each other, their friends — everything stretches out in endless possibilities.
“Saturday Afternoon” is another gem; hillsides full of people dance in the sun, and that persistent chiming guitar is a call to a greater power within.
The production and general sound of Baxter’s is bizarre. It’s like they’re playing underground. The band are down in the underworld playing through a bullhorn, and it’s connected to a wire that snakes up through miles of dirt and plugs into your stereo.
Crown of Creation is Jefferson Airplane at their best. The album combines all their earthy folksiness with striking moments of lead guitar and rhythm prowess.
The song “Crown of Creation” is one of my favorites; filled with ancient caves, meadows, and gold. Crown is darker than previous albums, owing partly to the increasing song contributions of Grace Slick. Always the darkest musical force in the band, Grace wrote scathing lyrics directed at society. The backing music was ominous and unsettling, but darkly alluring. Just like her beauty.
1969’s Volunteers has a few gems, most notably “Wooden Ships”, but this is the album where the band starts to lose me. The sound is almost country in places. This phase of the Airplane, however, was also a reflection of the changing music scene. The psychedelic 60’s gave way to a brief country-rock fad, shortly before heavier bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin stormed the charts.
“Wooden Ships” is the finest song from Volunteers. You can see and feel the boat crashing over the waves. You can taste the salt. The song is a fitting goodbye — Jefferson Airplane set a course away from popular music with one final and passionate song.
They would never return. But in their wake, they left an unsurpassed legend for generations to enjoy.
“We played at the Monterey jazz festival, and someone wrote a review. They said we sounded like a mule kicking down a barn door. We all liked that, you know! We thought, wow, that’s great. Among all these jazz guys we sound like a mule kicking a barn door.”
-Marty Balin
“Every time I hear “White Rabbit,” I am back on the greasy midnight streets of San Francisco, looking for music, riding a fast red motorcycle downhill into the Presidio, leaning desperately into the curves through the eucalyptus trees, trying to get to the Matrix in time to hear Grace Slick play the flute” – Hunter S. Thompson
Republish from April 2019. Long ago, I sat in my living room listening to Amnesiac by Radiohead with a head full of LSD.
I stared at the fireplace, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, watching the giant stones swirl in geometric patterns. Listening intently, I tried to understand the pops, clicks, and clanks of “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”. I was awestruck; everything made complete sense, yet it made no sense at all.
“Pyramid Song” started playing and I sat up. The flood gates of my mind opened; a river of emotion flowed into my ears and out of my eyes, a gleaming mirror formed in my field of vision as music notes danced on the surface.
Fog rolled into my living room. As the orchestra kicked up and Thom Yorke moaned wistfully, a lighthouse beacon appeared. I was on a ship in the ocean. I looked over the edge and saw those black-eyed angels Thom was singing about. I looked up to a dark blue sky laced with pink clouds above the twilight. The songs became stranger and infinitely more beautiful as the album unfurled.
Amnesiac isn’t an album on LSD — it’s an odyssey.
I can never fully describe the experiences I had listening to Amnesiac on acid. The description above is a rough, crude sketch that doesn’t begin to convey the level of beauty and strangeness I witnessed in that living room.
Amnesiac had a calming quality, but it was also brittle, vast and perplexing. I could drink in the cold passion while I wrapped my brain around the puzzles within the sound. I could never solve those puzzles, but I never tired of the effort.
Radiohead’s music has been the soundtrack to moments of intense connection and grief in my life. Looking back, it was the calming and therapeutic quality of Amnesiac that hooked me above everything else.
Now I’m returning to Radiohead for the same reason, exploring late period music I overlooked in the last decade and discovering songs that serve my journey now the way Amnesiac served my acid trips in 2003.
I’ve recently experienced severe anxiety. It’s subsiding now, but this Nightmare Land lasted nearly a month. When anxiety strikes, it’s like a series of waves crashing. When the tide goes out, you’re left with an ethereal, ghost-like feeling. That’s disassociation. This is your brain’s way of dealing with adrenaline overload. It’s almost like being high. It’s a welcome relief from the feeling that you will collapse from fear.
For that reason — the “high” thing — I’ve been purposely feeding it with Radiohead. Because nobody does disassociation like Radiohead. They’ve been doing it well for a while.
The album A Moon Shaped Pool is arguably Radiohead’s crowning achievement in otherworldly disconnection. Today I walked 4 miles in the sun listening to A Moon Shaped Pool, just floating along on my ghost trip. Normally while the sun is out, I won’t touch Radiohead. On a sunny day I usually prefer bombastic guitar-based music.
But not today… because it doesn’t matter what the weather is. I’m up here in my head. People pass by and they’re in another realm. I can almost pretend I’m invisible. They ruin it sometimes by looking directly at me, but not often because I don’t look at them.
But I have Radiohead.
I have the gothic choral strains of “Decks Dark” in my ear, and I could float up to the damn sky on the refrain if I wanted to. I could climb the arpeggios of “Present Tense” up to a rainbow. I don’t need to eat lunch or dinner to walk 4 miles, and I don’t need much sleep. I’m never tired and I’m never fully awake.
But I have Radiohead.
And I have Radiohead backward…. Backward, way back through the smoke rings of my mind…way back through the haze of all that weed I used to smoke. I see Wyatt when he was still alive, playing a Radiohead song on his acoustic guitar.
I see Wyatt before he killed himself and shattered the lives of everyone who loved him. Before the memory of 20-year old boys howling in pain at his wake, some of them quiet with tear-stained faces, before the memory of his stoic mom barely holding it together, greeting kids so bravely, hugging me and asking where I’ve been lately.
Before all this, I see Wyatt in his room.
I see Wyatt who idolized Thom Yorke before he became obsessed with Tom Waits, who he probably learned about from Thom Yorke. We’re in his room, just me and him. We’re smoking weed and he’s playing the riff to “Street Spirit” over and over again, getting it down.
Fast forward to a different night under the full moon shining down on Cook Inlet in Kincaid Park. There’s me, Wyatt, and two other boys trekking through the woods at night, climbing up an endless hill to gaze at the jeweled moon. Three of us took acid that night, and I wasn’t the sober one. Neither was Wyatt.
There’s Wyatt pulling out a spoon to show me the reflection of the moon on its silver rounded surface, as if he’d brought a spoon just for this occasion. We’re on top of a grassy hill overlooking the vast inlet below. We all have headphones on. I’m listening to OK Computer by Radiohead. I take my headphones off and I hear the faint, tinny scratches from Wyatt’s headphones. I ask him what he’s listening to. He tells me he’s listening to Ok Computer.
I smile wide and tell him that’s what I’m listening to. We didn’t discuss what we’d listen to beforehand. It’s not an album I listen to much anymore since I discovered Radiohead’s Kid A, but it seems right for the moment. Apparently, Wyatt thinks so too. I marvel at the synchronicity for a moment before getting lost in something else within that long magic night under the Alaskan moon.
Fast forward a couple of years later and there I am in my bedroom, still stunned in disbelief that Wyatt is gone. Listening to “How to Disappear Completely”. Listening to other Radiohead songs. Listening to other music I like that Wyatt also liked, laying there like a stone unable to move for days. Going over every memory I have of him in my mind from the past 4 years.
Last week I thought I was losing my mind; staying drunk to get food down on account of anxiety, hiking the woods during the day, and finding relief near the ocean. Then I returned, and I had Radiohead.
For a few days I couldn’t listen to anything but “Codex”. This song is a perfect example of Thom Yorke’s brilliance as a singer. You’ll first listen the song focusing on the sound, not paying attention to the lyrics. You’ll hear a word here and there. “Dragonflies… the water is clear…”, that’s all you can make out.
But it doesn’t matter because his voice is like a bell from heaven combined with a raw nerve. The whole meaning of the song is stretched out in every yearning moan elicited between his quieter moments of despondency. He soars up and bellows out that great beautiful bell-tone ache, then slides down quietly as if to say, “this is so sad, I can’t even”.
One day I looked up the lyrics. When you read the lyrics without listening to the music, they sit flat on the page. The words are so devoid by themselves that it’s almost comical. However, once you know the lyrics and then listen to the song again, the beatific emerges. Now this song is about getting lost in the serenity of the woods. You’ve done nothing wrong and you don’t deserve this. Here’s the clear water now. Take a break.
I love songmeanings.com. Looking up songs on this website is sometimes an exercise in comedy, but it always provides revealing insight into people’s lives. I looked up “Codex” on this site (found here), and as usual I’m entertained.
Many people think it’s about suicide. Someone thinks it’s about political conspiracy. Another guy thinks it’s about flying a military plane and carpet-bombing civilians. Someone else thinks it’s about Radiohead breaking up. Another person thinks it’s about Christianity and the clear lake is holy water.
The interpretations people come up with are a reflection of their own lives and beliefs, and that’s the genius of songmeanings.com.
The highest rated comment is my favorite, and I have co-opted it for my own purposes. The commenter posits that it’s about “the Buddhist spiritual cycle of life, death, and rebirth” — that it’s about “exploring the unfamiliar within ourselves and abandoning our previous shells”. He then provides evidence that one of the songs is titled “Lotus Flower” and other songs on the album follow a similar pattern thematically.
This is a beautiful interpretation, and I can no longer hear the song any other way. After reading this, “Codex” changed from being just a sad song about being isolated and needing a break to a song about experiencing sadness, but finding hope through a spiritual path.
The 13th Floor Elevators are the best kept secret in the history of 1960’s rock music.
My first encounter with The Elevators happened on a primitive version of streaming radio. This station also introduced me to The Who, Eric Burdon, The Stooges, Black Sabbath, King Crimson, and many other acts that I soon became obsessed with. It wasn’t “classic rock” to me back then. It was just this new, incredible music.
As with many other bands that I fell in love with around this time, I heard one good song and proceeded to immediately order a couple ofalbums from their catalog. When I heard the Elevators, I ordered their two legendary albums, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, and Easter Everywhere.
I sat in my living room completely enthralled by both albums. The first album mixed 50’s style rock n’ roll with blues. Roky Erickson’s voice arrested my attention right away; he moaned and screamed like a zombie possessed by electric current.
The lead guitar cut through the mix with alarming precision, and the overall effect was masterful. A kind of magnetic force or energy drove the entire sound which can’t be explained in standard music terms – there was a conviction, an absolute now or never attitude. It sounded like a group of fire and brimstone preachers decided to form a rock band.
The first time I listened, I sat cross-legged on the floor directly in front of my stereo. I put on Psychedelic Sounds and started reading the liner notes. The liner notes had this weird philosophical content. I was immediately puzzled. The writing was academic, but strangely esoteric. The text seemed a little heavy for the album opener; a country-fried punk stomper called “You’re Gonna Miss Me”.
As “Roller Coaster” began playing, I listened to the lyrics closely. At this point, I began to slowly piece everything together.
Here we arrive at the mystique of innocence – that moment of discovery when you absorb information for the first time, but you have no idea who the author is. You have no precedent for the information you are receiving – no historical context for whatever theory, song, or piece of knowledge imparted to you. It was just new, strange, and exciting.
I was blown away. Roky Erickson’s haunting, reverb-saturated voice blasted through the speakers and created a resounding echo in my living room. A very strange whooping sound flew back and forth across the speakers. I turned the dial up. The music shifted suddenly and dropped into a swirling whirlpool of menacing blues guitar and raga.
Easter Everywhere was different, but equally good. “Slip Inside This House” combined lyrics inspired by classical poetry with music that somehow matched the lyrical content. It’s still amazing to me that they pulled this off. It was a feat of genius. The Elevators completely outshined other underground bands from that era.
Their story is a sad one. The general narrative contains two key circumstances that contributed to their plight – an incompetent Texas record label, and their insistence on consuming LSD on a regular basis. Excessive drug use ultimately lead to mental health issues among several band members, most notably Roky Erickson.
Their live shows are the stuff of legend. People who saw them live in their heyday have said that the albums are nothing compared to their early live shows. They played live on LSD, and it apparently didn’t slow them down at all.
In interviews, people who went to their live shows in 1966 say they were the kings of the San Francisco scene. All of the Bay Area bands from this period went to see The Elevators, and they were all floored.
The consensus among people who knew them and saw their performances is that if they would have backed off the drug use and aligned themselves with a good record label, they could have been as big as the Rolling Stones.
The reality is that their situation was a catch-22. The Elevators whole philosophy (and all the strange power behind their music) was driven by consciousness expansion. They wouldn’t have remained the same band if they had cleaned up and started behaving. Instead, they became the very definition of a cult band.
Years later, I can still feel the chills rush over me when I play these albums. My heartbeat kicks up, the speakers magnetize my blood and I want to be inside of that strange musical canvas. I want to just walk right into that room.
These albums are best listened to by candlelight and without any distraction. This is music you cannot listen to passively. As with Jefferson Airplane, Jeff Buckley, Tori Amos, and The Smashing Pumpkins, you live inside of this music.
It is an alternate universe; a sonic island that redefines the concept of what music is. It’s a philosophy, an experience, and a dream – alive and pulsating in time. It shapes your mood and your perception of the environment around you. When you connect to music this good, you transcend your life. You transcend into a power connected to everything.
“Every day is another dawning Give the morning winds a chance Always catch your thunder yawning Lift your mind into the dance Sweep the shadows from your awning Shrink the four fold circumstance That lies outside this house Don’t pass it by”
March 23rd 2016 was a special night. A friend and I went to the famous Paramount Theatre in Seattle to experience my favorite band of all time.
Buzzed out of my mind on sheer anticipation, I spent the entire night of March 22nd walking around while listening to the entire Smashing Pumpkins catalog on shuffle. Afterward, I proceeded to watch several hours of DVD concert footage.
If I could only convince myself on a regular basis that I was going to see one of my favorite bands the next day, I would always be in a splendid mood. Maybe that’s the key to life – just willfully enter a state of perpetual delusion and stay there forever. Sounds good to me.
Luckily for me, I wasn’t merely pretending that there was a show the following night. There was a show, and it was my favorite band. I had not attended a Pumpkins show for sixteen years. Rumors were flying around that Billy Corgan had taken to playing classic songs again.
I couldn’t have been more excited. Somehow, I managed to sleep.
The next day, I drove into Seattle at a furious rate of speed. I met up with my friend and concert companion for a pre-show dinner and beer. We raced around the grey city together; the world whizzed by speckled with a hazy, dreamy sheen. The air was feather-light and pleasant against my skin, the pavement swirled in lollipop patterns beneath my skipping feet. It was the kind of moment people yearn for – the natural high of exuberant joy.
After dinner, we rushed off to The Paramount Theatre. The Paramount is gorgeous – it was the perfect setting for this show; ornate furnishings, chandeliers, and dim lighting. My friend and I took turns smiling at each other with idiotic pleasure.
Finally, we entered the auditorium and took our seats. Murky red lights glowed on the carpeted walls. Hushed voices whispered all around us, rising and falling in crescendos of excited anticipation. The lights dimmed, and Billy Corgan’s profile stalked across the shadowy stage. He picked up his acoustic guitar and stood in the dark.
I stiffened to attention immediately. I sat up straight on the edge of my seat, erect as a steel rod.
“Is that him!?” she whispered in my ear.
“F— yes, that’s him!” I whispered back impatiently, reeling with barely contained joy.
It was unmistakably Billy; his figure loomed over 6 feet tall, wearing his trademark black suit, sporting his notorious bald head. That was him. His long arm reached for his guitar. The house lights came up. He stood before us in a single spotlight.
The auditorium hushed.
He began playing “Tonight, Tonight” on acoustic guitar. I could feel my eyes welling up with tears. A pleasant shock overcame my senses; the moment was completely surreal. His voice carried through the air in front of me, emerging in real time and happening in front of my face.
They played songs that I never thought I would hear live. The whole middle section of the show was dedicated to the Siamese Dream era. They played a suite of four or five songs from Siamese Dream, including one of my favorites, “Soma”, reworked for piano instead of guitar.
I had to resist a very strong urge to run up to the front of the auditorium and stand under Billy, right in front of the stage. I wanted to run up and stand directly below him.
I had to resist this urge several times.
I have never experienced such a visceral pull before. I was being physically pulled by a force beyond my control. I maintained extreme willpower to resist that urge. Respect for both the band and the audience allowed me to hold onto my sense and keep my wits about me.
That experience recalls a memory from when I worked in a guitar store 11 years ago. I was the only female working at the store among several young men, all talented musicians. My co-workers and I would occasionally watch music performances on video when business was slow. One day, we watched footage of The Beatles performing in 1964. Young women threw themselves down and rolled on the floor. They screamed at the top of their lungs, flailed their arms, cried, and fainted.
The guys couldn’t believe it. They stared, awestruck and envious. “God!” one of the guys declared, “Those girls! Damn, girls were crazy back then!” I smiled slyly – the reaction of the boys was as amusing to me as the footage of girls in the throes of Beatlemania.
Years later, I now understand the tidal force that possessed those poor girls.
My fellow concert-goers were an experience as well; they were clearly hardcore fans. Everyone stood up after all the popular songs. They yelled, whistled, and begged for more. The men shouted, “BILLLLLLLY!” in long, drawn out howls. I surveyed the crowd in ecstasy. It was thrilling to be immersed in a symphony of devotion that mirrors my own. I looked around frantically, trying to drink everyone into my eyes and senses. Many were around my age, not surprisingly. Some were a little younger. My friend who attended is 10 years younger than I, but she claims she listened to The Pumpkins in high school. They are the new Pink Floyd. They span decades.
Billy’s star was shining as bright as ever that night. It was all there – flawless guitar solos, high clear singing, fascinating interplay with the other instrumentalists. My favorite part of the show was the look in his eyes during moments where he scanned the audience as we screamed and went crazy after songs. He looked like a little boy on Christmas morning.
As he scanned the crowd, his eyes lit up with love and appreciation. He smiled. The look in his eyes was genuine and unmistakable. His eyes shone with affection. Corgan has never been a guy to hide genuine emotions. So much of what he is (and what fans are) is The Child. That brief flash of his eyes was everything. He has a reputation for being the most arrogant and incorrigible asshat in the music world. Fans know a whole other side of the man – we laugh at the interviews, push them aside in amusement, and listen to the music.
As a bonus, Jimmy Chamberlin came out and drummed for a few songs. The crowd went apeshit when Jimmy emerged on the stage. A few nights later, original member James Iha also joined the band for a few songs in another town. I am horribly envious of the people who attended those shows. Those fans were damn lucky.
After the show, my friend declared this was the best show she’s ever seen at The Paramount. In 2015 she saw her favorite band, Modest Mouse, at the Paramount. She said that something was off with Mouse, that the sound wasn’t quite right.
I smiled broadly. “Well, of course, my dear,” I said in a tone of obvious superiority, “This is The Pumpkins, you see”.
I feel lucky that my hero is still alive. Above everything else, this is proof that the greatest talents of a generation do not have to die young. Great talents may release less exciting albums as they age, but you can still see them live.
I wanted it to last forever. Even now I wish I could jump back into the moment. But, like any good trip, you must come back sometime. Then you’re just left with the memory.
Linklater’s handheld camera magic enhances the surrealism; the camera often pans into scenes at weird angles – zooming into rooms, zipping across an orchestra scene, floating over rooftops. Linklater and his crew shot footage from a hot air balloon to capture scenes where the main character floats through the sky over suburban neighborhoods.
As you watch and listen, you experience what she’s talking about. The visual and thematic elements coming at you in this film are unspeakable. 
Later on, the main character discusses his dream experiences with a new dream character. He describes feeling engaged in an active process. This confuses him because he’s been silent and passive during the dream. She responds that listening is not necessarily a passive act. Once again, this is also about your viewing experience.
Another advantage this software has over traditional rotoscoping is “layering”. Sometimes a specific house or nature scene is required across many frames. The animator colors over the house once and places it inside one layer within the program, and that same layer can be used across multiple frames.
The featurette also provides an eye-opening glimpse into some of the film’s mysterious non-animation effects. The crew achieved a scene in which the main character floats above a car by suspending actor Wiley Wiggins with cables attached to his body.
I enjoy the film’s ambiguous spirituality. At one point the main character questions where all this new information is coming from. Is it being transmitted to him from an outside force? Christian viewers might see the information as sourced from God and the other dream characters as angels and demons, or perhaps ghosts.
By working with a team of artists and animators to manifest his vision, Linklater created a film that is also a learning tool. The themes would be fascinating enough as a collection of quotes or classroom talking points, but Waking Life stretches beyond the man-made, elitist borders of the literary and academic worlds. 
ZeroSpace 