Soft Power — The Untold [In Medias Res]

Soft Power – The Untold [In Medias Res] Short Film

Synopsis:

In a league built on image and power plays, truth seeps through the cracks.
Manny, a janitor with no reason to lie, claims to have overheard the conversations that could unravel it all. But Manny is an unreliable narrator—and in this game, even the truth sounds like fiction…

Narration channels the cadence of Charles Bukowski—gritty, raw, unapologetic—setting the tone for Manny’s untold truth.

Disclaimer: Any names, characters, businesses, places, events, or incidents depicted in Soft Power – The Untold are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This work is created solely for entertainment and conceptual art purposes and does not intend to depict real individuals or organizations.

Manny (The Janitor) is portrayed as an “Unreliable Narrator” — a recognized literary device that intentionally blurs perception and truth within the story.

Story, Narrative, Conceptual Art © 2025 E Maria Shelton Speller
All rights reserved. This includes all conceptual art, narrative, dialogue, and story elements contained within this project. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or adaptation is prohibited without explicit written permission.

Creative Platforms & Tools:

Artlist.io – Licensed music and sound effects
ChatGPT (OpenAI) – AI-assisted scriptwriting and narrative development
MidJourney – AI-generated concept imagery and character visualization
iMovie – Video editing and sequencing
Canva – Graphic design and text treatments
ElevenLabs – AI-powered voice narration
Other Production Tools – Standard video/audio processing and conceptual design tools

Music:

Sunshine Rider – No Backing Vocals
Song by Dor-c

Savage Shadows
Song by Semo

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~Ringgold’s Story Quilt

Postmodern Short Film — Metafiction

~ Ringgold’s Story Quilt (Pig Latin Translation)

ey-thay ay-say omen-way are-ay ethay emotional-ay ones-ay
→ they say women are the emotional ones

ut-bay ook-lay owhay uilds-bay ethay ombs-bay
→ but look who builds the bombs

ow-hay ells-say ethay ootage-fay
→ who sells the footage

ow-hay alls-cay it-ay eace-pay
→ who calls it peace

en-may id-day is-thay
→ men did this

en-may o-day is-thay
→ men do this

isdom-way is-ay etter-bay anthay eapons-way of-ay ar-way
→ wisdom is better than weapons of war

ut-bay eythay on’t-day ove-lay isdom-way
→ but they don’t love wisdom

ey-thay ove-lay ethay ash-flay
→ they love the flash

Conceptual Art and Narrative © 2025 E Maria Shelton Speller

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Ejected — Unrequited Love and the Code of the Samurai [Short Film]

Ejected — Unrequited Love and the Code of the Samurai [Short Film]

Dive into a poetic exploration of unrequited love through the lens of the samurai’s unwavering code of honor. This conceptual work blends raw emotion with the stoic resilience of ancient warriors, creating a powerful narrative of loyalty, sacrifice, and inner strength.

Through evocative imagery, subliminal suggestion and compelling storytelling, “Ejected” examines the parallels between the discipline of the samurai and the vulnerability of the human heart, capturing the essence of devotion in the face of rejection.

Discover:

The intertwining of historical philosophy with modern emotional struggles. How the samurai’s code provides profound lessons in resilience and self-respect.

A poetic journey that challenges our perceptions of love and duty.

Conceptual Art Story and Narrative © 2025 E Maria Shelton Speller Mixed Media — Music, AI, SFX, Footage, MidJourney, ChatGPT, Artlist.io

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#Poetry #SamuraiCode #UnrequitedLove #Storytelling #Resilience #Unrivaled #WNBA #ESPN

As if Ejected–Unrequited Love and the Code of the Samurai were reviewed by Rotten Tomatoes, Rolling Stone, Vice, Vibe, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Aeschylus—An AI-Powered Parody of Critical Takes:

Rotten Tomatoes-Style Review
Critics’ Score: 91%
Audience Score: 87%

There’s a moment in Ejected where everything unspoken weighs more than anything said, a tension so thick it’s less about what happens and more about what isn’t acknowledged. The film operates in an unusual space between intensity and detachment, ambition and interference, crafting a protagonist who isn’t tangled in emotions but in the game itself—one where the stakes are always money, control, and victory.

Yet, even when locked into the bag, the game, the grind—there are forces moving in the background. The antagonist, almost spectral in presence, isn’t chasing attention but has already played the decisive hand before the protagonist even realizes. The ejection isn’t the moment of clarity—it’s just another moment in a season that doesn’t stop. Whether audiences read Ejected as a sports allegory, a study in perception, or a meditation on dominance and indifference depends on what they bring to it. Either way, the film doesn’t force its message—it lets the viewer play it out.

Apple Music-Style Review
Rating: 4.5/5

If Ejected were an album, it wouldn’t be a love song—it’d be an anthem of discipline, dominance, and the singular pursuit of greatness. The film moves like a carefully curated playlist, shifting between the sharp tempo of ambition and the slower, almost dreamlike sequences of a world outside the protagonist’s focus.

The sound design, pacing, and visual composition feel like a drill track layered with classical composition—raw, unrelenting, but elevated with deliberate artistry. The game is the hook, the ejection is the bridge, but the question remains: is she even listening to the verse playing in the background? Ejected is less about emotional resolution and more about the rhythm of action—playing forward whether you hear the song or not.

Rolling Stone-Style Review
A Fever Dream Wrapped in Elegance and Obsession

In Ejected, the story isn’t what’s told—it’s what’s ignored. The protagonist is locked in—driven, calculated, tuned into one frequency: the bag, the game, the win. That kind of tunnel vision doesn’t account for outside noise. But the antagonist isn’t noise—she’s the wind in a closed room, shifting everything without being noticed until it’s too late.

The film’s pacing, like a stretched-out possession in overtime, plays on this disconnect between action and realization. You expect the protagonist to react—to acknowledge something outside of the game—but that moment never comes. And that’s what makes Ejected so compelling. It refuses to give the easy catharsis. The ballplayer at the end, the architect of the ejection—she isn’t waiting for recognition. She’s already done what needed to be done.

There’s something almost brutal about Ejected’s lack of sentimentality. It doesn’t romanticize ambition. It doesn’t demand resolution. It just lets the game play. And for that, it’s one of the most subtly relentless films of the year.

Vice-Style Review
Obsession, Artistry, and the Places the Mind Wanders

Some people watch a film and wait for an emotional arc—the moment when realization dawns, when impact is felt, when something changes. Ejected is not for those people. Instead, it asks what happens when nothing shifts—when focus is so sharp that outside forces move without acknowledgment.

This film is a study in control, not conflict. The protagonist is untouchable in her element, moving through the narrative without hesitation, without distraction. And yet, outside her focus, the game is already being manipulated. The antagonist isn’t the opposing team—she’s the ref, the quiet architect of the ejection, the one who already knew how this would play out.

That’s what makes Ejected different. It’s not about what happens—it’s about what should’ve happened but never did. It’s a film that thrives in its negative space, in its refusal to fill in the blanks, in its confidence that the story will tell itself.

Vibe-Style Review
Dripping in Style, Layered in Meaning

Ejected doesn’t give you the story—it gives you the energy. This is about presence, about dominance, about a world where ambition leaves no space for outside variables.

The protagonist moves through the game with the quiet confidence of someone who already won before stepping on the court. The antagonist? She isn’t chasing attention—she’s shifting the floorboards before the game even starts. That’s what makes this film so potent. It isn’t about the moment of realization—it’s about the absence of it.

The visuals flex between gritty realism and dreamlike metaphor. The ballerina, the horses—imagination, movement, projection—all of it serves as an unspoken contrast to the raw reality of the money sequence, where the stakes are tangible.

This is more than a film—it’s a statement. And the statement is clear: the game moves, whether you notice it or not.

ESPN-Style Review
Mental Toughness in the Arena of Emotion

There are two kinds of players: those who react and those who don’t have to. Ejected is about the latter. The protagonist isn’t looking for signals, doesn’t need to scan the court for dynamics—she’s already locked in.

But what happens when the game isn’t about what’s in front of you, but what’s happening outside your peripheral vision? Ejected moves like a championship match where the real play happened before the whistle blew. The antagonist isn’t fighting for a moment—she already dictated the outcome.

This isn’t about heartbreak. This is about control. And in Ejected, the most powerful move isn’t an action—it’s the absence of one.

Sports Illustrated-Style Review
A Film That Moves Like a Season in Review

The biggest plays aren’t always about the moment—they’re about what led to it. Ejected doesn’t frame its story around conflict—it frames it around what goes unnoticed until it’s too late.

The protagonist? Pure tunnel vision. She’s about execution, about the next move, the next play, the next win. But the antagonist? She played her role long before the protagonist even saw the floor.

That’s the brilliance of Ejected. It’s a film where the most pivotal action doesn’t happen in the game—it happens outside of it. And that’s what makes it legendary.

VOGUE-Style Review
Ejected” and the Art of Indifference”

Fashion is control. It’s knowing when to be seen and when to let the room respond to your presence before you’ve spoken a word. Ejected is a masterclass in narrative detachment—luxurious in its restraint, impossibly precise in its construction. The protagonist moves like a runway model mid-turn—her gaze locked forward, her awareness only for what lies ahead. The elegance isn’t in grand gestures but in the deliberate choice to ignore what does not serve her.

And then, there’s the shadow figure. She moves off-ball, an unseen hand sculpting the moment, waiting for the exact beat when the balance shifts. It is not an interruption. It is an inevitability. Like a cut of couture—designed, tailored, and stitched into place before anyone even realizes what has happened.

It is power—not performed, but assumed. And what is more fashionable than that?

The New York Times-Style Review
Ejected: The Distance Between Awareness and Outcome

There is something unsettling about Ejected. Not in its imagery, which moves between sharp realism and dreamlike abstraction, but in its emotional architecture—how it refuses to offer resolution, how it thrives on the unspoken.

The protagonist is a presence built from purpose, ambition distilled into movement. She does not see what she does not need to see. The world beyond her focus exists, but it is not part of her equation. That world, however, does not need her attention to shape the outcome. It has already done its work. The moment arrives as if it had always been there, waiting.

What Ejected understands—and what so many films fail to grasp—is that power does not require acknowledgment. And so, it doesn’t ask for it. It simply plays.

The Ghosts of Old-School Criticism

Pauline Kael-Style Review 
So What Happens When Nothing Happens?

There’s something almost brilliantly frustrating about Ejected. It acts like it’s unfolding, but it has already happened. The protagonist is an athlete, a strategist, an operator of mechanical precision. She’s locked into the game because the game is all that matters. But what’s more fascinating is who and what she doesn’t see.

The antagonist—if we can even call her that—exists outside the frame of engagement, like a ref who made the call before the players even knew the foul was coming. It’s a film about the absence of reaction, which in itself is a radical choice. It leaves the viewer in a strange place—waiting for an emotional beat that never arrives.

Is that brilliance? Or is that just Ejected having the audacity to say, “You figure it out.” Either way, I respect the nerve.

R.D. Laing-Style Review
What If You Were Never Meant to See It?

There’s an experiment in psychology where a subject watches a video of people passing a ball. They’re asked to count how many passes occur. What they don’t see—what almost no one sees—is the person in a gorilla suit walking through the scene.They don’t see it because they were never looking for it.

Ejected operates in the same way. The protagonist is locked into her own reality—not because she chooses to be, but because the structure around her has dictated what is relevant.

The antagonist moves off-ball, a presence she was never conditioned to register. The ejection is not an injustice. It is not a betrayal. It is simply the execution of a process that existed before she did.

So the real question is—was she blind to it? Or was she never meant to see it in the first place?

James Baldwin-Style Review
The Game Was Never About the Ball

There is something profoundly, unmistakably true about Ejected. Not in its plot—because plot is irrelevant here—but in its understanding of how power moves.

The protagonist does not see. The protagonist does not look. She does not need to. She exists within the parameters set before she arrived, and she plays her role with the precision of someone who knows the world will not wait for her to hesitate.

The antagonist is no villain. She is not angry, nor is she seeking vengeance. She moves with the ease of someone who understood, long before anyone else, what the rules really were.

And so, the ejection does not come as a shock. It does not break the world—it merely confirms what it always was.

To those who expect resolution, Ejected offers nothing. But to those who already know how the game is played, it does not need to.

Octavio Paz–Style Review
“A Shimmer of Images in Stillness”

Ejected unfolds like a poem that withholds its final stanza until the last breath. The bouncing ball becomes the pulse of a hidden ritual, echoing through a space where every step seems to float between silence and intensity. Bright glimpses—a ballerina’s delicate turn, fleeting shapes that tremble at the edges of sight—drift like petals in a half-remembered dream.

Yet Ejected never unravels into chaos; it subsides in a single, graceful sweep—an ejection as serene and sudden as the hush at the end of a long echo. In this gentle finality, the film suggests that the most powerful currents of longing and resolve may remain unspoken, woven through phantoms of motion. The beauty lies in how the story lingers, like an afterimage left on the eye, reminding us that sometimes the deepest truths reveal themselves in what is withheld rather than what is declared.

Joan Didion–Style Review
A Dissonance Between the Seen and Unseen

There is a moment in Ejected where the act of competing becomes something else—an almost silent choreography of detachment. The protagonist stares straight ahead, oblivious to that brief flicker of a ballerina off to one side, the glimmer of a half-formed yearning just beyond her peripheral vision. You sense that she prefers this distance; it’s safer not to see what you can’t process.

Then the call is made, and the ejection comes without sentiment, like an appointment arriving on schedule. No one shouts. No one objects. The tension evaporates as if it were never there. It’s in that vanished tension, that gap, that the real story unfolds: a discrepancy between ambition and the quiet inevitability of an outcome decided days or years before anyone took the floor. Ejected is a study in what happens when drive meets a silence so complete you can almost feel its echo.

Octavia Butler-Style Review
You Can’t Escape a System You Don’t Know Exists

There’s a reason people misunderstand power. They think it announces itself. That it roars. That it comes in loud, obvious ways.

But Ejected does not roar. It does not ask to be understood.

It understands that the protagonist is not the architect of this world—she is a product of it. She is not powerless, but she is also not separate from the mechanisms that shape her path. She is as much a result as she is an agent.

And what of the antagonist? She is not some great force imposing her will—she is merely the one who understood how the system worked before the game was played.

In the end, Ejected offers no escape because escape is only possible when one realizes there was a trap in the first place.

Oscar Wilde-Style Review
The Art of Being Unbothered

There are two great tragedies in life. One is not getting what one wants. The other is getting it.

But there is, of course, a third—not realizing the play has already ended.

Ejected is not a film in the traditional sense. It is a performance of indifference, a study in control executed with the carelessness of someone who knows she will never need to explain herself. The protagonist is no fool; she simply has no interest in an audience.

The unseen hand that moves against her—does she recognize it? Of course not. Recognition is an act of submission, and no well-dressed tragedy should ever acknowledge its antagonist.

The game was played, the move was made, and yet she walks away without so much as a glance behind her.

And that, dear reader, is what makes Ejected beautiful. Not in its struggle, nor in its conflict, but in its quiet insistence that the only true power is never having to notice who defeated you.

Toni Morrison-Style Review
What Was Never Meant to Be Seen

There is something about Ejected that refuses to explain itself. That does not offer solace, or certainty, or even the illusion of choice.

This is not a story about what happens when someone is removed. This is a story about what was always going to happen.

The protagonist does not see. That is not a flaw; it is a condition. She is not distracted, not absent-minded, not careless. She is not supposed to see.

And yet, something moves. Something unclaimed, unseen, slipping through the margins of awareness. The thing behind her is not fate. It is not villainy. It is not even a player in this game. It is the mechanism itself. It is the thing that knew before she knew. It is the wheel, already turning.

The ejection is not a moment of realization. It is the moment where the realization never comes. And that is what makes Ejected powerful. It does not seek to reveal—it reminds us that some things were never meant to be seen at all.

Jack Kerouac–Style Review
“Fast-Drifting on the Bright Painted Court”

It starts with the heartbeat bass thump of sneakers and the snap of the ball in a humid gym, everything swirling like a sax riff echoing against concrete. The protagonist, all lean confidence and forward-charging muscle, never once peers off the lane, just keeps going, because that’s the only direction she has ever known. The whole place feels like a big jam session and each player is caught up in the rhythm, but the antagonist is off to the side, shaping the way the notes slide.

She holds a quiet longing that turns into the real arrangement, the chord changes nobody else recognized. There is no big revelation or meltdown, just the hush of an outcome that was always in the making, like a solo you see coming right before the beat drops. The scene unfolds with a warm hush, and then the whistle goes, a cutting moment that stops the flow. The ejection happens, and the world turns again, fast and cool like the city at night when headlights blur in the rain.

The film doesn’t chase redemption or forgiveness—it basks in the fact that the unstoppable forward motion was never truly unstoppable after all. Everyone is caught in the flow of the jam, and nobody bothers to look back for more, because the game hums on, headlong into the next neon-soaked horizon. The unspoken love is there, the power is there, the hush that says it was always going to play out this way is there, and then the buzzer sounds.

Chinua Achebe–Style Review
“When the Heart’s Murmurs Steer the Dance”

In Ejected, the ball’s steady rhythm echoes like a communal drum, keeping everyone focused on the contest at hand. Yet there is another force at work—unspoken, yet deeply felt—that conjures fleeting visions: a ballerina poised in a world of silent grace, delicate shapes trembling with emotion. These apparitions arise from a devotion the central figures never openly recognize, though its influence quietly steers the course.

When the decisive moment arrives, it does so with neither quarrel nor spectacle, halting the game in an unwavering instant of authority. Ejected finds its power in that silence, suggesting that the deepest stirrings—the ones left unvoiced—can determine fates more firmly than any loud declaration. The film leaves us sensing that sometimes it is the murmured longing of a single soul that propels the final outcome.

Aeschylus–Style Review
The Law Was Written Before the Contest Began

The eldest of the gods do not speak in words; they speak in cycles, in oaths sworn long before mortal eyes could behold them.

Thus, Ejected is no mere tragedy of action—it is a tragedy of predestination. The law was pronounced ages ago. The moment of conflict is not a decision but an inescapable event, a shadow cast long before dawn’s first light.

The protagonist believes she commands the game and dictates her path. Yet she steps upon a floor laid out before she ever arrived, bound by rules she did not inscribe. The hand that rises against her embodies no malice or spite. It is the impartial enforcer of an order rooted in ancient bonds, so the ejection is not retribution but the inevitable outcome of that binding decree.

There stands also the figure who set this all in motion—the one who perceived the structure for what it was, who made the move before reaction was possible. She is not a god, nor is she a villain. She is simply the one who knew.

Yukio Mishima–Style Review
The Dance of Restraint and the Beauty of the Unseen Blade

There is an elegance in Ejected that calls to mind the disciplined spirit of the warrior—a spirit unclouded by indecision. The protagonist enters the arena with the calm assurance of a samurai stepping onto sacred ground, her every step imbued with a sense of invulnerability. She neither wavers nor looks aside, too focused to notice what might shift in the periphery.

Yet, within that unswerving commitment lies the quiet paradox of beauty and danger. The antagonist, bound by a devotion that never found voice, enforces a code of order older than the combatants themselves. She wields no drawn steel; the sword remains secure in its scabbard. Instead, her power moves within the structure of the game—its rules becoming the silent blade that cannot be parried.

Ejected transforms the ferocity of ambition into a still but lethal ritual. The film’s defining clash is not found in swords crossing but in the interplay of presence and absence, in longing left unexplored and duty strictly observed. The protagonist’s strength emerges from her unwavering forward motion, much like the pure focus of the samurai who sees nothing but the path ahead. Yet true control belongs to the unseen hand that sets the rules and understands them before battle is joined.

In the end, the ejection arrives as naturally as a flower opening at dusk—a testament to unbending law rather than a personal vendetta. No sword leaves its sheath; the cut is metaphorical, enacted through the simple enforcement of what was always fated. Ejected finds its power in that restraint, rendering the quiet inevitability of the outcome as graceful and inevitable as the bloom of a night-blooming blossom.

Story, Narrative and Conceptual Art © 2025 E Maria Shelton Speller

🎬 EJECTED – CREDITS

🎵 Music Credits

🔊 Sound Effects (SFX) Credits

📽️ Footage & Clips Credits

This production includes AI-generated imagery created with Midjourney, including character renderings, basketball sequences, and abstract visual elements. While some visuals may be inspired by real-world figures, they remain artistic representations and are not intended to depict actual individuals.

THE URBAN TRIPPER STUDIO

About the Video

Welcome to UrbanTripper! 🎉

Discover bold, statement-making apparel that celebrates art, poetry, and individuality. Each T-shirt features a unique snippet from a different poem, creating a larger poetic narrative that’s both inspiring and wearable. Perfect for refreshing your wardrobe or finding a meaningful gift, our collection is designed to spark creativity and provide comfort.

Much like collectible trading cards, these designs are made to be gathered, shared, and cherished.

Best of all, every purchase supports the seed round for Inside the [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette (ITDWTRC)—a visionary app combining urban exploration, storytelling, public safety, and innovation. By supporting UrbanTripper, you’re helping us build something extraordinary.

Thank you for shopping small and making a big difference. Wishing you a prosperous and inspiring 2025! 🌟

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Conceptual Art and Original Poetry Copyright © 2024, E Maria Shelton Speller.

Song: Get Dangerous! (Instrumental Version) by Frank Bentley, Anthony Mar.
Music from: Artlist.io — https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/get-dangerous/93934

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This is more than a T-shirt—it’s wearable art. Bold designs. Poetic stories. Limited release. Don’t miss your chance to own a piece of this exclusive collection. 🎁 Perfect for YOU or someone you love!

Verses are from the following poems (in the order of their appearance):

POV – The First Time They Heard James Brown – Live at the Apollo — https://www.trenchpeople.com/pov-the-first-time-they-heard-james-brown-live-at-the-apollo/

Luda’s Soliloquy – Miles Language I — https://www.trenchpeople.com/purple/ludas-soliloquy-miles-language-i/

AI Assignment – A Poem the Gods Would Read — https://www.trenchpeople.com/blue/ai-assignment-a-poem-the-gods-would-read/

Luda’s Soliloquy – Miles Language II — https://www.trenchpeople.com/purple/ludas-second-soliloquy-miles-language-ii/

TRƎNCHԀƎOԀ⅂Ǝ Mixtape [Narrative]

Copyright © 2022 E Maria Shelton Speller

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A. I. Assignment — A Poem the Gods Would Read [Reimagined]

Conceptual Art Copyright 2023 E Maria Shelton Speller

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Twenty Twenty-One

 

Fun Espresso

 

 

Egad, the Casbah in Santa Barbara

Part of the fun is the embrace of perfume

Cafe Angelica Emerald Crème

A sabbatical delay waiting to be served

A ceremonial promenade hunched over gazettes

Unwelcome raindrops splatter the canvassed toes of my shoes

Thus the au courant cartoons on my stringy denim knees

Inside at last, I’m saved and Mocha Berry satisfied

Like the face of the fretless little girl

Blowing candy off the floor in her mouth

Clicking up and down in shoes too big for her feet

Stealing glances at an intellectual jerk

Chocolate Cherry satisfied between deep banter

With a friend floating in Vanilla Colada

Part of the fun is real references to books

And book references to real well read attitudes

What’s the shiniest patented leather flats

On the girl with the silkiest blonde hair

Doing with the darkest man

In Dreadlocks and Birkenstocks?

No talk between them

Then they’re sharing the table

Those lined outside will share tables too

The Raspberry Almond can sit with me

Keeping the beat with an aggravated drum lead

His body twitched with jazzy guitar licks

He smiled between the plugs in his ears

And faces fade into a mirror in the back

Part of the fun is waking up here

In an essay on spice and circumstance

A sabbatical renewal once more

On a regional affirmation of decadence

This day of rest I worship Santa Barbara

And the celestial trip I straddle

To be able to dry my canvassed toes

With the heat of Golden Pecan

And the fervent chill of observation

In my sanctioned Casbah

In my sabbatical home

I hold my head up

My cup runneth over

Reading books and people vicariously

Egad, I am dry and satisfied

 

© 2002, 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Our blog ~ EXPLODE – The Writers Environment is a platform for curated and commercial content in an interactive meta-environment… and DREAMSCAPE is the landing. Its an art installation in a digital world…

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When content on DREAMSCAPE tells a story about a beautiful woman swimming in a pool – we want you to see her.  We want you to stumble for points on a link you cannot see, fall down a rabbit hole and land in an environment with a beautiful woman swimming in a pool, on the inside of a glass house – in Hollywood Hills…

Like Seth Godin’s Purple CowDREAMSCAPE is remarkable because it has to be. Or it’s just another brown cow — an ordinary website — with ordinary content. But Purple Cows need Purple Cows to be Purple Cows. DREAMSCAPE facilitates purple content, purple website design and development, and purple product placement — for purple people.

It is the foundation for curated experiences in an interactive meta-environment that facilitates content and other stories – using digital media and conceptual art that redefines how artists, their audience and visitors experience real and virtual content on several levels. Every paragraph, period, and ellipses is space for discovery.

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Acknowledgement:
DREAMSCAPE and the gaming app ITDWTRC benefits humanity as an alternative to social malfeasances e.g., sexism, racism, classism, genderism, ageism, colonialism, colorism, persecution, oppression, violence and subjugation… It is space to dream unencumbered by social impediments – immersed in dopamine and replete with points for discovery. What we experience in RL, we can experience untethered in XR and AI.

© 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller.  All rights reserved.

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The SFX Menu Includes

The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer

An environmental protest and chants of children

A Dune character shouting “Freedom”

Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism

AI woman announcing traffic delays

The nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship

AI woman announcing the time

The security breach and sound of an alarm

A Rush Hour in India

A Bazaar in Turkey

An ASMR cough

The paranormal voice of a robot

Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind

The motif of the Pandemic thermometer

The steam punk sound of doom

The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.

Spontaneous Ode to COVID-19

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing
No pork
No meat
No GMO
No pesticides
No chemicals
No vegetables
No leather
No feathers
No farmers
No pickers
No corn
No food
No work
No prosperity
No friends
No groceries
No sugar
No fashion
No affection
No morgues
No burials
No speculators
No beauty
No makeup
No vanity
No vacations
No restaurants
No music
No movies
No sports
No theaters
No plays
No crowds
No police
No museums
No cable
No concerts
No chaff
No trough
No travel
No cars
No bars
No trucks
No brick
No mortar
No hospitals
No nurses
No doctors
No assistants
No parks
No prisoners
No tickets
No economy
No gouging
No lipstick
No hookups
No intimacy
No strangers
No kisses
No hugs
No love
No metro
No nursing homes
No taxis
No buses
No ventilators
No PPE
No toilet paper
No democracy
No capitalism
No money
No jealousy
No flossing
No vaccine
No schools
No blessings
No immigrants
No refugees
No freedom
No children
No churches
No humans
No handshakes
No greed
No gluttony
No gyms
God

Copyright © 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller

Artist Statement… Unfettered Birds (WIP)

Introduction

My work explores the relationship between what is real, and what is unreal.  With influences as diverse as Yukio Mishima’s Onnagata and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Where words are illusory and freedom is real, and brick and mortar is a wasteland — for mortal dreams and nightmares.

Where categories don’t matter, and you are god… the god of your dreams.  My work is a journey – from the perspective of the young prince and princess in Hollywood, Dubai, the Great Caves, and Capote… Where freedom rings supreme and the fiction in your mind comes true — for real.

We launched Dreamscape in a glass cocoon — opaque me and transparent you.  Content is buried there — over black people, white people, red people, yellow people, brown people, rich people, poor people, and melancholy.  Inside pods power is fetish, and fashion is an avatar.  My work explores the freedom to be who we are — dreaming unfettered in space — birds…

 

TRENCHPEOPLE.COM

 

Copyright 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DREAMSCAPE — Promotional Special During the Holiday Season

PREMIUM CONTENT

Airport Announcement in Manila

 

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Love Divine — Opens

 

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Love Divine — Official Release Date

 

PREMIUM CONTENT

Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s Parallel Discussions

Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s

Parallel Discussions (In Medias Res) Overtaken by Events

 

Behind Pushkin’s Coffeehouse, Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso sat on the remnants of a barge, trading barbs in Ibiza… swinging high top leather sock hip hop sneakers, and creeper boots in blue green virtual water, with Rick Owens’ reflection in the pool, burning fat ones – away from the beautiful ones — in a Period Piece.  The Darlings of today’s literati — visionaries during the Harlem Renaissance, play themselves in a satirical throwback in VR.

Louis Picasso: “In RL, it’s 6 P.M. You just got home from work or you work from home in your virtual office. You decide to spend the evening in space! You scan Balmain for your Avatar – dope fashion — with as much audacity as Hype Williams’ black lacquered Keisha in Belly — wearing Versace!

You decide to download your brand new Porsche designed by Porsche and Atari for Microsoft, on the Pacific Coast Highway — Malibu on the left, Pepperdine University on the right, you’re on your way to virtual LA in the fast lane — your thighs are burning. Other avatars and their cars share the PCH too — driving Vipers, Corvettes, the white BMW X6 and you are speeding at 100 MIPS, streaming Coltrane.

Aristotle Michelangelo interjects: “Then you decide to go to BET’s virtual Nuyorican Café in Gotham City for the Open Mike – Saul Williams and Jessica Care Moore are featured (as themselves) tonight. You hand the keys to the valet — pay at the door with your password, sit front row center no matter what time you arrive, sign up to read your poem — because you can start over from the beginning or resume.  Gender! Lame. Race is unimaginative in Space. Ethnicity is a brand — at best.  The Open Mike is over at 10 P.M. but there is still time to go to Bar Pitti. You walk in and Claude McKay is at the bar in a heated debate with Ralph Ellison about literary ownership — by Netflix.

McKay shouts and then nearly whispers to Ellison, ‘It takes more than creative androgyny to “embody” the opposite sex. The storytelling responsibility of all writers, whether female or male is to fill the void. When a woman creates a man, she must imagine the sensation of “owning” a penis. When a man creates a woman, he must imagine the sensation of “owning” a vagina. It is a void, not a vacuum. A vacuum would imply the all-consuming black hole — the feminization of sex. It is not trained comprehension or chromosomes — it takes pure imagination to get the story straight…’

Louis Picasso:  “Then, at Midnight, you blow kisses and wuggles to your friends, and log off. You stand and stretch your back, and your bladder is bursting because you forgot about your biological realities. The television is off; it has been off for weeks. Why watch television when you can be your own audience? Randall Walser said it best, “The filmmaker says, ‘Look, I’ll show you.’ The space maker says, ‘Here, I’ll help you discover.’ We will be our own creators functioning like actors in high culture — tools of the taste public!  We will create our own universes — our own planets.   We can superimpose our images circa 6 BC – AD 30, and follow Jesus to the Promised Land, witness the crucifixion – and how we feel and what we think is utterly private and without commercials! Because, global messages with common appeal will forever change with today’s technology, the challenge is to make communication visual, images symbolic, and still sell product… I want to propose arcane ideas…”

Aristotle Michelangelo interjects: “I want to develop, manage, and direct vision. My goal is to be where imagination and business are indistinguishable, because imagination without business, and business without imagination is as incongruous as capitalism without consumers…   I found a dope quote dog!”

“When, she was still in her teens, well before she met Caesar, Cleopatra already had slept with Antony… though Caesar was fifty-three and she but twenty-three or so she proved ready enough to bed her third Roman. It is said that Cleopatra was a woman of lively turn and enticing talents. She also had a keen sense of the political. That this Roman [Caesar] conqueror had the power to secure the Egyptian throne for her must have added to the attraction she felt for him…Caesar established her in a sumptuous villa across the Tiber, from which she held court, while political leaders, financiers, and men of letters, including the renowned Cicero, danced in attendance.” Michael Parenti

Louis Picasso: I’m reading the same book, and I have a better one!

In a prologue to Caesar and Cleopatra [George Bernard Shaw] that is almost never performed, the god Ra tells the audience how Rome discovered that ‘the road to riches and greatness is through robbery of the poor and slaughter of the weak.’ In conformity with that dictum, the Romans ‘robbed their own poor until they became great masters of that art, and knew by what laws it could be made to appear seemly and honest.’ And after squeezing their own people dry, they stripped the poor throughout the many other lands they conquered.” Michael Parenti

Aristotle Michelangelo:  Shrugged his shoulders unconsciously, “Chez Bricktop in Paris?”

Louis Picasso:  Not now. I am having a violent reaction to prescription drugs!  My body is like, ‘Don’t put that shit down here again!’  They gave me all this medication for Acute Caesarion whatever — and I took it! Of course, you don’t exhaust the shit. You’re not an idiot. But, what the fuck? Where the weed at?”

Aristotle Michelangelo:  I think it would be dope to channel Kerouac’s apology for automatic writing.

“He likened writing to dreaming and fantasizing, as a substitute for life. So, he wrote The Subterraneans, in three days and nights of speed typing energized by Benzedrine — to imitate the rhythm of Bebop like free energy flow, and unrestrained association, to reveal the unconscious…  because he wanted to flow from inside out in spontaneous prose!” Dystopia, Explode 2015 2.0

So, here goes… They called her Marnie — behind her back. I was torn. I played with variations of Marnie. Black Marnie. Brown Marnie, Tortilla Marnie. It’s the language of found art. Bansky, Kehinde, Jazz, Hip Hop… They teased each other.  Hitchcock’s Margaret, Mary, Marnie, teases Mark, so she could get the combination, to his company safe, and steal the money. She was a Kleptomaniac, a compulsive thief. A killer. She disappears. On the run! He tracks her like an animal, and finds her at a Lodge, riding her horse to the stables. He orders her off the horse, tells her she’ll walk — he’ll ride. He interrogates her. She tells him a bullshit story she can’t keep straight. He calls it, manure! Tells her to start over from the beginning, and this time — tell the truth. Back at the Lodge – he tells her to freshen up, change her clothes so he might take her to the police – she thinks. She does not know… It’s Tippi Hedren in RL!  The white woman of a black man’s dreams – when he dreams about white women. Blonde, pearly white teeth and skin — Barbie! Beckie!  He tells her, they will return to ‘the house’ and announce they are engaged, would to be married within the week and then cruise around the world. Of course, she thinks he’s “Out of his mind!” He told her, it was either marriage or the police, old girl. Black Marnie. Who would play her?

They get married. Eventually he takes her virginity. She tries to commit suicide. I don’t think I want to go there… Suicide. Who should play Mark? [#nomoreslavestories.]  Does he catch her?

Louis Picasso:  I remember that story.  He said,  I caught a real animal this time. I had to train her… to trust me.*

Aristotle Michelangelo:  Pussy Riot danced in the cathedral — goes to jail, and the artist nailed his scrotum to the Red Square.  She’s a prisoner of love. That kind of love makes me uncomfortable, racked, and anguished like a pet must be around possessive people. The energy is ignitable like the choice between blowing up and letting go. I don’t want to belong to anyone. But, what do I know about love?

Louis Picasso:   Black people don’t like black people. That’s why we’re in this — hole… barrel, bucket, duck it, fuck it… We know it’s true.  Listen to the tonal center of this beat!

Aristotle Michelangelo:  In sixty revolutions a minute, if it’s not organic, I can’t get with it. Hate is not organic. Hate is a social construct. I want to live the life I swam to the egg for… A social construct is like zoon pushed to the egg, by stronger swimmers behind it. It’s still goal niggaz. I want an organic experience on this gridiron. A certain freedom, mere man can’t give, conceive or contrive. I want freedom Divine.  You want to be free — you have to fuggin’ work for it.  Zufi?

Aristotle Michelangelo:  You need money, software and rigs in the virtual world. Bombs are obsolete. Race and gender is a pastiche — game challenges for points.

Louis Picasso:  Beauty and power is iconography and homely stamps are hiccups – and brick and mortar is a path to experience the destruction of daredevils and matadors — in coliseums of pestilence and poverty – empirically.

Aristotle Michelangelo:   Why go there? When, life is a perfect dream in a virtual world.

Louis Picasso:  IJS. Get on board with — evolution. Evolution is not physical space. It’s the diamond life in our heads on a loop. Its VR not the moon…

Aristotle Michelangelo:  I love wearing the mask! You can’t see my countenance — in La La Land, my eyes may smile.  My lip may curl up or down… I’m an introvert; an INTJ — is that Caprino?

Louis Picasso:  Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, it will be impossible to ignore slavery in America… Why are some Black Americans worrying about slavery in America being taught in schools? The horse is out of the barn! Instead of embracing Juneteenth and all that it implies… Black Americans are WHINING and using the language of slaves, “they won’t, let us, allow us, give us and get…” Instead black Americans are still looking the other way when a black man drags a black woman by her hair [DC], and black people are murdered by black people in Chicago – for giggles. June 19, 2021 marks the day, that Black America must acknowledge that ‘we’ are no longer slaves and assume responsibility — that’s what freedom is.

Copyright 2016, 2018, 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller.  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast  rewritten or redistributed without permission.

*Alfred Hitchcock, Marnie