Friday, April 2, 2010

I Sing the Body Electric (for Margaret)

[NOTE: I've since turned these macros into a video slide-show: I Sing the Captain Electric]

The pleasure Margaret's wonderful macros give, especially the one she made for my birthday, made me to want to make a mélange of my own again.
I'm not sure when Margaret's birthday is exactly, but I know she's an Aries like the captain, so it's somewhere in here.
This is dedicated to her, in thanks for her inspiration and with best wishes for her last year as a teenager.

Lines from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"
Click on images to embiggen.



















_______
Screencaps, as always, thanks to that treasure trove Trek Core.

20 comments:

Yvette said...

great!
kis
yvette

Ginga Squid said...

Hmmmmm, I'm begining to see the Captain in a new light! :)

momo said...

Lovely!

Marz said...

Now you've done it.

Fresca. Fresca! Bless you and that head of yours.

Here's where words find their limit:
I say it's Beautiful, with a capitol B, and that doesn't reach. All good, sweet, lovely, sighing, breaking, wonder-gorged, lustrous, aching, far-away, beneath the skin, beneath the water, space-dusted, mountain-topped things and feelings need to swim together in one word and they don't, won't. So I say in weak substitution: it's Beautiful.

And an interrogation of the unseen crafter:
- How did you know this was they very thing that needed to exist as a consummate tribute to the Captain? Some things you know you want before, and some things you realize you always wanted after the fact. I always wanted this to be made.

It is perfect, and Golden and Green, and I love it, and I'm going to read-see it again right now and "forever and forever. Amen."

P.S. -Your telethesia about my day of birth was close enough to stir-up suspicion, (elfish blood in you, no doubt). The day is Easter.

P.P.S.- To give vent to the tip of my enthusiasm.....WTF IS THIS I DON'T EVEN KNOW. YOU WIN EVERYTHING. WHEN WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR INTERNET?

ArtSparker said...

What a lovely tribute and birthday present.

Clowncar said...

I'm not sure I can ever read Whitman again without images of The Captain swimming unbidden into my head.

Is that a good thing?

Fresca said...

YVETTE: Glad to see you again!

GINGA: One thing I like about posting in the middle of the night here is that I sometimes wake up to messages from across the sea.
I'm glad I'm shining light...

MARGARET: It was all worth it (and you know how long these "little" things take) for your Whitmanesque comment.
"Wonder-gorged" and "space-dusted"--ain't that the boy!

I've had this poem in my mind for Kirk for a long time but just didn't have the oomph to put it together until your stuff reminded me it is our DUTY to keep mining TrekCore.

Also, with your tip about titling images, I finally figured out how to use the Pages (Mac iWorks) program I bought last summer, so I wasn't limited to iMovie small range of subtitling options anymore.
I really *loved* playing with the type fonts and placement!

I was also thrilled to learn that I timed this so well to match your actual birth date: ODE TO JOY!

SPARKER: Hm. I should really make a Spock one...
Btw, when's your birthday?

CLOWNCAR: Good? Are you kidding?
Whitman's all about "Captain, my Captain"!

Marz said...

I just read-saw this again (again again) and decided, for the time being, this shrine-creation is my favorite little bit of the world.

Fresca said...

MARGARET:
I tried to leave a comment on your blog 3x and Google ate it every time.
Maybe it's Good Friday hungry ghosts on the prowl?

But hey, I keep looking at these images with amazement at the Wonder of Jim, so there is good forces in the world too.

femminismo said...

I've got that Trekkie feeling, ooh ah, that Trekkie feeling. You certainly had me falling for Kirk there. I think I'll go find my husband now!

Jennifer said...

Oh MY.

*iz speechless for a moment*

Whitman is tailor-made for O Captain, isn't he? The lush, loving, lingering on the body (how does Walt make it so sacred at the same time? There's nothing lewd about it at all), and the way the soul is shown through the body. "The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward" is simply hypnotic--both words and images.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, inspiring not just for Kirk but for the passionate body in general.

Fresca said...

FMNSMO: You crack me up! : )

JEN: "The passionate body"--that's it.
While Whitman also celebrates the body of women in this poem, as you may recall, he really does a better job with the male body.

He seems so distant from women:
"OMG these alien beings can make babies! Wow. I'm just like... wow."

But with men, he's all-out fanboy, overcome with delight like a pig at its home trough.
Maybe it's that boyish joy that keeps it from being lewd?
Anyway, yes, tailor made for our Jim boy.

Annika said...

Oh, wow! Fffff-hooah. I'm afraid there's no way of communicating my feelings about this than the Dadaist. Wohoa. Eeee!! Or, to quote Hugo Ball: üüü üüüü.

Annika said...

(Hugo Ball is the only dadaist poet I know, the quote is from a poem called Karawane.)

mortmere said...

Oh my… this is simply fantastic, Fresca. The second image, with that caption, becomes a work of art in itself. Aww, the sheer beauty of it!

Also, I love the fact that you have a separate tag for ”Kirk’s body language”.

Iddy said...

Fresca, the imagery and prose presented is beyond description! 'Perfection' does not begin to express my thoughts on your blending of Whitman and Kirk--but it is all I have :)

Fresca said...

ANNIKA: & oo oo oo oo, too!
I had never heard of that poem (though I've always liked Dada--you will see I post it later, with a tip to you. Thanks!

MORTMERE: I thought of you when I made this and hoped you were still out there. I am so glad you like it!
Tags are funny things---sometimes it takes a while to realize posts on a topic are going to pile up.
But I knew early on Kirk's Body Language was going to be a theme of mine.

IDDY: Thank you!
I googled to be sure, but couldn't find any other mash-up of Walt & Jim---seemed like a marriage waiting to happen.
I'm glad I got to be the one to officiate.

Marz said...

Jesus Christ.
Was thinking about backs, which made me think of Captain, which made me think of this.
It's even better after a break.
I want this to play in slides on my wall every night before I fall asleep.
Oh, the last image. Oh oh oh

Fresca said...

M: I keep meaning to make this into a vid and set it to music (Appalachian Spring? Love Potion No. 9?)---I hope to get to it this summer.

marz said...

so yeah