Yvonne Studer 2011

Happy Birthday, Russ, and happy day to everyone!

There have been too many "toos" this year: too much work, too many extra events at my school, too little time to sleep. But fortunately there was also this day to look forward to. So I could barely wait for the last report meeting of the day to be over. As I left my school, the sun was shining (we'd been under a cover of fog for more than two weeks) and coming out of the building, I felt like William G. at the end of Turtle Diary, "Coming up on the escalator with my hair flying I felt as if I was coming out of a dark place and into the light, then I laughed because that's what I was actually doing." (ch. 53).

Earlier I had decided to go 4qating in the real world rather than the digital one this year, but as I didn't get home from work until late in the afternoon, I couldn't go on a very extensive tour. However, there was an ideal place for a quote near the block of flats where I live, the fence around a construction site on which someone had sprayed, "Wer es wagt, zu träumen, kann alles erk..." (Whoever dares to dream can ... everything.) The original word was "erkämpfen" (achieve something by fighting for it), but another sprayer had added his tag, so only "erk" remained, turning the sentence into a delightfully polyvalent message. It can now be read as "Wer es wagt, zu träumen, kann alles erkunden / erkennen / erklären / erklimmen" (Whoever dares to dream can explore, recognise, explain, get on top of everything).

The fence with its graffiti had been sending out signals to me for quite a while but I wasn't sure I would hang up an SA4QE quote there until The Last of the Wallendas And Other Poems, Russ's 1997 collection of poems, opened up to the poem "Long Green Dream". I knew then that the fence had to be this year's 4qation site.

Here's what I printed on a piece of yellow A4 paper:

Long Green Dream

Last night there came a long green dream,
it pulled in like a train.
I climbed aboard and found a seat, it started
off again
and chuntered on and on and on to oh, so 
many places
with place-names that I couldn't read and
hundreds of strange faces.
We journeyed half-again as long as any trip
should take,
and yet it got me back on time, and brought
me to Awake.

Best wishes from Yvonne

Also posted to Facebook

Olaf Schneider 2008

The Kraken speaks from the depths of the exobrain at 3am. Featuring Russell Hoban reciting his own poem from The Last of the Wallendas - an SA4QE exclusive.



If you have problems viewing the video above try watching it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnDx-Z8U-6o

You can also view the original Flash animation at the following link:

The Dream of the Kraken

NOTE: Be sure to have the sound turned on for this Flash animation, and to give it a few moments to load. It opens in a new window as it is hosted externally. You need to have installed Flash version 5 or later to view it. If you don't, download it for free.

Olaf Schneider 2002-2004

Interactive animations inspired by Russell Hoban writings

NOTE: Be sure to have the sound turned on for these Flash animations, and to give them a few moments to load. All open in a new window as they are hosted externally. You need to have installed Flash version 5 or later to view them. If you don't, download it for free.

Enjoy! - Olaf

Full moon spring tide turtle wind

An evocative extract from Turtle Diary. The Chopin nocturne of animated Hoban quotes.

Wheel of Action

A quote from Fremder with the words animated by a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Be warned, this is very science-fiction-like...

The rolling passage in the darkness of my mind

As thought by Sarah Varley on an Underground journey in The Bat Tattoo. Complete with authentic London Underground soundtrack.

"This is your life"

From the "Memory's Arrow" chapter of Amaryllis Night and Day.

Aristaeus's Story on the potsherds

"Broken pieces want to come together," said the brain, "they want to contain something..."

Another delightful piece from The Medusa Frequency.

Three o'clock in the purple-blue morning

An atmospheric extraction from The Medusa Frequency.

The Flickering

Flicker-film by Gösta Kraken, from Fremder and (in part) The Medusa Frequency.

What a convenience

One of my (many) favourite quotations from The Medusa Frequency.

Golden Windows Homeward

Video sequence from the Turtle Diary film with text from The Medusa Frequency.

The Mouse and His Child Dance

A short film of the original wind-up toy used by Russ at his lecture to the San Diego State University on October 17, 1990.

Nighttrain

An animation based on an excerpt from The Medusa Frequency.

Who left the yellow paper?

Inspired by the hibiscus light of The Marzipan Pig.

An animated Fremder cover

Animation of Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction placed on Fremder book cover; accompanied by Chopin’s Mazurka in A Minor, Opus 67, No. 4. Unfortunately it’s not the Ilse Bak recording...

The District Line at Notting Hill Gate

“A poem at its place” from The Last of the Wallendas.

Yellow paper virtually dropped by Olaf at Notting Hill Gate tube station, London.