The Moon Song by Haale. Filmed by Casey Meade.
18 March 2010
13 August 2007
Interdependence Day in Morocco 2006
Posted by Casey Meade on 17 July 2007
moments and concepts from the Interdependence Day gathering in Fes and Casablanca, Morocco, in September 2006.
Credits
Produced and edited by Casey Meade
Camera by Casey Meade & Waleed Zaiter
Co-produced by Manex Ibar
Special Thanks
Tommy Carr
Ghizlane Kounda
Zeyba Rahman
David Rothstein
24 March 2007
Network2.tv at Anjuna Market
Posted by Casey Meade on 9 March 2007
Links: Network2, Wolf+Lamb, Goa
This is my official entry in the "How To Watch Internet TV" Contest sponsored by Jeff Pulver and Network2.tv. It's true, this is basically a commercial for Network2. However, I wanted it to also stand on its own as a viable vlognomad peace, and I think it is successful as a window onto the Anjuna Beach Wednesday Market scene, a small slice of Goa lifestyle, plus a glimpse at the new Vlognomad/Projectile Arts base on the hill (Wired -- and unwired -- for broadband since two weeks!).
As usual, this post comes with an apology: this is my first time in an on-camera situation. I had some great talent lined up and I was planning to do the shooting, but things didn't work out quite so smoothly and I had to step in and be the "personality"... It was kind of fun and I think it worked out ok... Special thanks to Jeff Pulver for giving me incentive to wake from my narcissistic slumber, induced by the theft of my Sony T50 and iPod (along with all my photos and footage from Kumbh Mela and two weeks in Calcutta!). Sorry for the lapse recently. THANK YOU also to Wolf+Lamb. They're in Argentina. I'm in India. Why not collaborate... we all come out of Brooklyn, right? Enjoy.
-Casey Meade
Anjuna.Goa.India
10 March 2007
vlognomad [at] gmail [dot] com
11 February 2007
drumming, moments & bathing
Posted by Casey Meade on 2 February 2007
Links: Kumbh Mela, Ascetics With Cameras, Shiv
Subscribe: iTunes, FireAnt, RSS.
The most interesting things about the Kumbh Mela are certainly the immense multitudes of faithful, The Great Saints and the colorful variety of ascetics, this video focuses on our eclectic entourage hanging out downtown in Sector "Ponch" 5. Our little tent was quite a hot-spot... I counted 50+ people in and out over the 10-12 days we lived there (I'm sorry I couldn't remember the names of all the folks who appear in this video), not to mention all the lady saddhus who came in to do their washing. Nicole arranged the tent through Hari Giri before the rest of us arrived. Fernando, Shiv, Witt, Lorna, Serdar, Derya and I rolled in on the train from Delhi without any plan! Somehow I know something would work out. The ashrams that catered to western and urban guests were charging around Rs. 25,000 per person. We gave Hari Giri (and Dharm Giri) about 14,000 collectively. I don't know how he scored it from the Akhara. You never can tell how senior these guys are or how much money they have. I used to think they weren't even supposed to have money! It turned out that Dharm Giri was actually responsible and he didn't even know us at the beginning. Now he's our boy.
This year I realized that the Kumbh Mela is a social gathering as much as it is a spiritual pilgrimage. It's a chance for old friends to get together and hang out... friends you only see every 3, 6 or 12 years. For the Hindu Clergy, it's an industry convention: A chance to show off their new (and old... mostly old) tricks. For pilgrims, it's a day or a week or a month of vacation! And then there are the others: us... We are pilgrims of a sort, drawn by the intense energy and faith but not bound so much by the ancient protocols. Nobody resents us. Most people are happy we are here... not just a few because of the economic and reputable advantages of having foreign "chelas" (disciples). Some of the Babas just like hanging out with foreigners, precisely because we're not pre-coded by the often degrading layers of Hindu dogma. Nevertheless they get excited to enrich our lives with bits of Hindu wisdom and ritual... if they can communicate it. Those who come just for the spectacle won't come back again. I for one can't wait for the next Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, 2010. Each Kumbh Mela is a chance have an even better time than "last year" because you know more people and have more experience... like summer camp is for kids, or burning man for freaks in the US.
Casey Meade
Kolkata, India
2 February 2007
vlognomad@gmail.com
28 January 2007
Shahi Snan 1 - Kumbh Mela 2007
Posted by Casey Meade on 17 Jan 2007
This video's not perfect, I know! but I'm kind of giddy right now because I just successfully uploaded it in an internet cafe here in Allahabad, India, barely 24 hours after this procession took place. I was getting over a cold, and didn't go out yesterday morning... I had a 'been there done that' smugness with which I declared that I would stay and watch our well-placed, but very vulnerable tent. Cerdar, our default (but very skilled) videographer was even sicker with a migrane. So Fernando rustled himself and Shiva and Lorna and Witt Davis before dawn and set out to surf the the babas breaking toward the river. Fernando's never used this camera before... and I've never edited a piece, sitting on my nees in the middle of the night with people snoring and coughing all around me... like a symphonic crescendo of wheezing and hacking. (you try to make 5 million people to leave their viruses at home). So, it's not perfect, but it's here... and it is a pretty crazy thing. What is it? Good question. It all goes down again on the 19th and 24th and you can bet I'll be there to get another angle. So stay tuned, subscribe now via iTunes or FireAnt and catch the next vlognomad posts without lifting another finger.
You can also view exerpts from our feature documentary, Take Me To The River, shot at the 2001 Maha Kumbh Mela Festival here.
Casey Meade
Allahabad India
16 January 2007
Naga Babas - 19 January 2007
Posted by Casey Meade on 25 Jan 2007
So my awesome new Sony T50 digital camera records great videos, but I cannot figure out how to get the videos into Final Cut Pro WITH SOUND! If anybody has any insight into this problem, please email me immediately.
As a result of this minor obstacle, this second post from the Ardh Kumbh Mela features a little cultural clash of aesthetics. Maybe you don't think of Nouvelle Vagueâ when you're crammed into a crowd of 5000 excited and shivering naked men covered from head to toe with ash, shouting at the top of their lungs as they push and shove their way down to the river for a bath... in the midst of 18 MILLION other pilgrims.â But there's something about this music that brings out the sublime nature of that moment as I experienced it.
...And there's something about the lyrics that brings out multi-layered compexity of the Naga Babas. I have been spending a lot more time with them this time than I did at the Maha Kumbh Mela in 2001. At that time, I was so busy running around coordinating the production of Take Me To The River, that I had little time to actually sit down and try to get to know the environment that we were documenting. That was fine at the time, since we weren't trying to produce an analytical film. We wanted to capture the bewildering kaleidescope of aesthetic experience as we experienced it, as directly as possible. That was all we could do as a group of 20-something american artists with no previous knowledge of Indian or Hindu culture.
Now that I have had an opportunity toâ immerse myself in the Kumbh Mela somewhat deeper, I realize that the more I discover, the less I understand about the Kumbh, The Naga Babas, The Akharas, The History, Myths etc. It could take a lifetime of scholarly analysis to sort through the thousands of contradictions that dance around every inquisitive endeavor here. And then whatâ wouldâ be achieved? The essence of the Kumbh Mela is the aesthetic and emotional experience that gives it spiritual meaning to each individualâ separately. To take away it's mysteries and try to come to some conclusion, would be to distroy it... and whatever conclusion one comes to would certainly be wrong.
Back to Nouvelle Vague, those complex Naga Babas. Sorry for laughing... actually it's ok, laugh if you want to, just don't try to figure these guys out. The general consensus is that 50-70% of the Naga Babas and other aesthetic Saddhus are "fake". But which ones are fake and which ones are real? You may need to be enlightened to figure it out, I certainly can't. Almost all of them are quite enamored by money, in fact the whole akhara infrastructure and hierarchy is driven by cash. It seems those saddhus with seniority are the ones with the most money, generally (but not always) given to them as donations by their desciples. I'm sure many of the "fake" ones are very cool, and some of the "real" ones are jerks. You could try to ask one baba about another, but the response could be tainted by feuds that date back all the way to breakfast or back to the times of the Upanishads.
That's enough blabber from now. If I have come to any conclusions, I know they are wrong. Enjoy the video. Stay tuned for BabaVlog!
Casey Meade
Allahabad, India
24 January 2007
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