Category Archives: Video

Pivoting (Back) to Video

Okay, so the last of the big winter freezes has (probably) passed by Dallas, and the Sarracenia and temperate sundews are starting to wake up from winter dormancy. The move to the new house is complete (the workroom may look as if Hunter S. Thompson camped there for a month, but this is an example of “no battle-ready unit ever passed inspection”), the gallery renovation ramps up this week, and show season starts next weekend. So what’s next? Video!

After a hiatus set off by Day Job schedule conflicts and a vastly increased show and open house schedule in 2021, it’s time to start giving interested passersby better views of the gallery and what to expect. That includes biting the bullet, swallowing my general loathing of the platform, taking advice from the Dallas Observer, and starting a TikTok account. Go give TexasTriffidRanch a view: it’ll mostly be views of new enclosures, ongoing shows, and ongoing projects, all with a minimum of mugging, synthesized voices, and filters.

(I WILL give TikTok high credit for one thing. When setting up a business account, the huge library of royalty-free music available to those accounts is exceptional. Without fail, finishing an enclosure video, entering a soundtrack reference that seems particularly appropriate, and scrolling through the options finds something even better. I’m willing to stick with TikTok just for the music library.)

This is, of course, a sideproject: the real plan is to start up new Twitch streams and YouTube videos by the end of April. Barring something critical, and 2022 has already filled itself with critical issues, this is now a viable plan. Now it’s up to the plants.

“For Your Consideration”

Coming from many different directions, a short film (from Canada, of course) about carnivorous plants that’s campaigning for the Best Short Animated Film Oscar…

“YES, WE’VE GOT A TWITCH CHANNEL!”

Welp, with help from Loyd Cryer of Texas Frightmare Weekend and his video assistants, we’re going to try again with the Thursday night videos on Twitch, tonight focusing on Sarracenia flava pitchers and flowers. (Just be glad that Smell-o-Vision isn’t practical for video feeds, because much like how wintergreen and birch bark smell the same, so do flava blooms and the long-defunct Dallas Fantasy Fairs. It ain’t pretty.) Video starts at 8:00 pm Central Time, and smartaleck comments are encouraged. And so it goes.

Time for Video Nasties

Slight interlude: as promised, the YouTube channel has been updated with work that really needed to be posted a while back. In the interim, I hope you enjoy Pitcher Plants In Moonlight and Texas Triffid Ranch at NARBC Arlington. With a bit of practice, I might actually get good at this.

Video Hyped the Carnivorous Plant Gallery

In the middle of a pandemic, and right in the middle of a much-needed gallery renovation, there’s still more than enough time to hang out with Loyd and Charles of Texas Frightmare Weekend and talk up carnivorous plants. Sadly, the planned Twitch Prime showing of Annihilation didn’t happen because Amazon removed it from Prime streaming just that day, but we still had a lot of fun with Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. (Right now, we’re talking about doing this again in the future, and I’m going to recommend the best documentary on maintaining and cultivating heirloom roses ever made.)

Video Augmented the Blogging Star

The crew at Texas Frightmare Weekend created a monster. The move to Twitch for live video didn’t work out quite as expected (on phone and tablet, the app has a propensity to seize up either when ending a video feed or when other apps intrude), but it’s time to get back into the swing of things. In the meantime, we’re only about five years late, but the Triffid Ranch now has its own YouTube channel, so expect a lot of videos on plant care, odd species, and virtual events. It’s all very primitive and stop-and-go, but in lieu of live events for the foreseeable future, it has to improve. And so it goes.