DISPATCH | The Riot Act!

Nan’s online privacy lecture
but in song & dance

Click here to get my FREE 2-page PDF "Online Privacy Worksheet" download. Includes 1 blank online privacy worksheet with me cheering you on and 1 sample filled it out by me. 

NOTE: I’m not a privacy expert or a lawyer or anything like that. Only a seasoned, extremely online Gen-X creature of the world wide web and yes—a Mom!

ALSO: Take a minute to create your own online boundaries! Download the 2-page Online Privacy PDF here.

This Project Changed Me

To start, my Dispatch about online privacy was as pure as the driven snow. Many of us wonder at times what to share and what not to share online. It’s a worthy question, I think.

I’ll bet you haven’t taken a hot minute to jot down your own 16-box online privacy grid with YES on the left and NO on the right. Nobody does that.

I did.

(I typed it up for you, see above.)

Holding the paper, I said to myself, why not do a whole big Dispatch* based on this to share online? And that’s when I ran into trouble.

*A “Dispatch” is to YOU from me, Nan in the Outer Lands Archipelago.

This communique is part of a multi-media message across 4seasonshelf channels worldwide about random topics of interest.

It was the video piece of the package that almost killed me.

Such a proper little online privacy video I made! So many points to make. A lot of talking, but at least I put on a blue sequin top and some dangly earrings.

Talking to a video camera about online privacy—ugh! God! Someone else might have stopped right there.

The video suuuucked

Idling at my desk, thinking my sparkly privacy video lecture was just about done, a trusted advisor popped by my desk. I had the good sense to make them watch the video and tell me what they thought.

About 20 seconds into the full ten+ minutes, my trusted advisor made a face and said something like:

“How long is this?… So you’re gonna, like, lecture people on what to post?…”

I’m paraphrasing. No that may be verbatim. In their defense, they were quite ill. Well they popped by my desk.

Mind you, this video already took a lot outta me. But I knew that my perfectly honest pal was right. I knew it.

I’ll post it anyway, I thought while fetching the poor dear some aspirins. In the name of consistency and cringe first try videos, I’ll just post it anyway and be done with it.

Nope. Back to the drawing board.

Keep going

Do better, blah blah blah.

I went for a ride, took a hike, and jumped off a short pier. A day or two of peak summer R&R turned into most of August.

Oh yes. The algorithm—the machine—took its pound of flesh. It needs to be fed fresh content on a regular schedule. The beast always knows what time it is. My 4seasonshelf channels dried up around the globe.

The longer I held off on posting new stuff, the quieter things got.

The quieter things got, the less pressure I felt. I understood in a new way how cults keep lies going through constant contact.

Tough, but I’m tougher.

I kept at the assignment: the best Dispatch I can about online privacy in my own timeframe to release when ready.

Online privacy. Best quality. Own time. Ready.

But Why Though?

Would you believe a sense of civic duty?

Writing down my personal privacy rules on paper helped me, so maybe it would help you?

And… I needed to burn some fresh rubber on the digital superhighways. This is the subject at hand. Shake and bake, baby!

And I was desperate. Like everyone else in these streets. I mean, look at us! Shakin what our mamas gave us, running the publishing Olympics, believing the dream… so bold, so vulnerable, so visible.

Heck, to get a little attention, how many of us aren’t ready to run down the street naked, hollering our lungs out, waving down traffic?

Summer rebellion

Madness!

Friends, let us resist the algorithm, which is here to serve us. Let it do our dishes so we can amuse ourselves as film directors, poets and dancers.

To get those creative juices flowing, we need some air, am I right? Put the top down, baby. Be freeeeee. Crank those gears, turn the pistons!

That’s how I got an idea for how to make my online privacy video better:

> Read ‘em the RIOT ACT—in song and dance!

> Online Privacy: The Musical!

Dance! Dance is joy! Dance is rebellion. I wanted to share online privacy tips, yes, but I wanted to dance. In sequins. Like Taylor Swift. With music, lights and full copyrights! Where is my costume and set designer?

Brat

But until there’s a proper budget for that, there’s video editing tools, my smartphone and a tripod.

Luckily no one walked into the studio (living room) while I was taping dance moves in a tutu in front of the floor-to-ceiling curtains (drapes).

Kick-turn, spin, stomp, pirouette.

Was the skirt too short?

Actually shake my a**?

Where did I put that sequin top?

Red ankle boots?

Where’d I put that paper with the privacy rules?

Do you talk to yourself, too?

In what reality is this ok?

Could I ever hope to land a corporate job again?

That’s a wrap!

Our destination is just ahead.

After many, many, many hours of video editing, adding in dance moves, theater seats, old movie clips, game show elements, popcorn and the United States Marine Band—it’s a wrap!

Even if my musical sucks, it’s done. It may not “pop off.” Yet there it is, my summer rebellion in the flesh.

Old gals like me may have some miles, but I still run.

Onto the next thing, right? Wrong!

First, there needed to be some more major bumps, surprising and unexpected bumps, on the road. I can’t tell you about them here in the open due to online privacy rules I haven’t broken yet, but I may find a way to share a bit more with my email SHORTLIST subscribers.

Without further ado, here is my privacy lecture in song and dance. Please enjoy!

~ Nan

P.S. Download my free 2-page full color privacy grid pdf here. One page is a blank worksheet for you to fill out your own personal privacy grid. The other page I filled out mine FYI.

P.S.S. Never miss my dispatches by subscribing to my FREE email shortlist below the video.

Online Privacy: The Musical

Download my free 2-page full color privacy grid pdf here. One page is a blank worksheet for you to fill out your own personal privacy grid. The other page I filled out mine.

Exile: its meaning, purpose & tips

I know, it’s an odd topic but hear me out…

Why though?

It’s so simple.

I went to the beach, I found a nice spot to set down camp, and once I had a swim and settled in, I got a feeling of being alone and far, far away.

To capture the feeling and to practice taking wide video and being “on camera” I recorded the scene on my phone. I thought, maybe I could even use the video clips at one point.

With the beach footage in mind, and the feeling it gave, I researched the idea of exile. It’s a subject that’s come up in my own fiction and poetry writing. It’s an interesting subject. The more I found out, the more a video came together.

So this is how I used the beach footage:

Notes on the video

I used:

• smartphone for beach footage, no tripod or mic

• my “Blue Wave” 10x10” mini acrylic painting in lieu of the beach’s water view

• ChatGPT, Answer the Public, YouTube and Google search to shape and research the ideas of the video

• Canva to make the longer, wide version of the video itself as well as shorter vertical versions for social media, the thumbnail, and graphics

• Audio from YouTube’s free audio library, including surf sounds and thought-provoking background music

What I like and what I don’t like

I like that the video felt fresh to me in the sense of experiencing something and within a week putting it into a video and dispatching it out to the world. If people knew more about exile, maybe it would be easier to survive and thrive through it.

I don’t like that the video reveals the kind of subjects that I’m liable to go off on a riff about. I mean, who thinks about exile??

~ Your pal, Nan.

Color “Muted Woman” modern abstract coloring page with Nan

Let’s color the “Muted Woman” coloring page from Nan’s Random Modern & Abstract Art Adult Coloring Book: 50 fun & challenging pages inspired by current events, modern times & famous works

Download pdf for free by clicking here.

Then print, get out your crayons or coloring pencils, and let’s color together.

To buy the complete paperback coloring book with all 50 modern designs, check Nan’s 4seasonshelf Shop for availability.

Color with Nan

Watch Nan color this coloring page with crayons in a short 12-minute video. Get yourself a snack and enjoy the video’s relaxing and cinematic YouTube audio library soundtracks.

Note on the video’s creation: video created in Canva; background instrumental songs downloaded from YouTube’s free audio library with no attribution required for videos posted on YouTube; photos and videos recorded on Nan’s smartphone near a window using a tripod. There’s some shadow on the page unfortunately, but hopefully you can still see well enough how Nan’s coloring the page.

More Coloring Tips

For more coloring tips from Nan, along with another short coloring video, see this blog post.

“Muted Woman”?

Yes, that’s what I decided to call this coloring page. When I made this coloring page, I was calling forth a version of that woman from the big pop art painters. Let’s face it, she seemed sort of desperate in a graphic, almost cartoonish way. “Muted Woman” is a simple coloring page that anyone could play around with.

We just came off the pandemic with its isolating and crazy-making alternative realities, women’s rights are being trounced upon by a Conservative Supreme Court that Democrats have not truly acted upon with enough scale and urgency, and too many women’s voices are being muted and divided for a variety of reasons.

Recently I joined the Women’s Strike on the 2nd anniversary of the Dobbs decision, a 50-year right that women had to determine their own destinies and not have it decided for them by a network of violent perverts — until that right was lost on that infamous date, June 24. Which someone should declare Women’s Day forever more to be celebrated with nudity, loud music, effigies, pinatas and parades in the street.

My version of “Muted Woman”

The way that I colored in my version for the video came out differently than I thought it would. I mean, I guess I was having a bad day!

My “muted woman” looks like she has a lot to say under that gag there, and her eyes are quite desperate, don’t you think? Not brimming with tears so much as shades of anger and anguish. She’s a blue- and red-head, so there’s that. And she’s got a blue polka dotted face. Surrounded in gray.

If you download and color in the page, your own Muted Woman may appear…

Note for the men

Let me say again, as I always do, that I’m fortunate that the men in my life are awesome, and I love them. I think men can be terrific and incredible. I love my husband so much still after all these years that my first real book I published under a 4seasonshelf ISBN # was a book of love poems — to him! Plus it includes some feminist poems and mom poems and wife poems, and he knows that’s just me trying to inspire and defend womankind.

Why and how to write “radio poems”

• Quick, fun batches of poetry

• Creativity boosting writing exercise

• Spontaneous writing fun

Nan Patience with work in progress. Video made in YouTube shorts (link here: https://youtube.com/shorts/eD1QVLfLoQI)

Following my bliss one day, I sat down to write poems while listening to a favorite radio station. I low-key challenged myself to enjoy the writing, sit and do a solid session, and see what came out on the page.

It was a fun exercise, and I got a whole batch of short poems out of it, too.

Here’s how you can write a “radio poem” to have fun, boost creativity and churn out some work in a fun way.

Step 1: Turn on your favorite music or talk radio station.

Step 2: Get ready to write in the moment, without knowing what’s coming over the airwaves.

Step 3: Start! Listen and jot down random words, maybe not just from the radio, but other words that come to mind, your own feelings, experiences, people, sensory notes, instrumental notes, etc. Anything. Avoid unique turns of phrase of particular artists, original ideas and anything trademarked or copyrighted.

Step 4: Do a whole session, aiming for a batch of (short) poems. Smash out several pages of words and raw poetic notes.

Step 5: Turn off the music and edit, edit, edit. Group words and ideas, try different arrangements, draft titles, rephrase, add context, reword, omit words, add other words, try some rhymes if you want, etc. You have complete freedom.

You can do it anywhere. Here are two radio poems I wrote the other day on the fly when out and about…

Trouble Tonight

by NG Swett

if looks could kill
I’d be in trouble
so out of touch
in my own bubble

the dangerous type
what are you all about
shock me baby
let’s scream and shout

you’re all I desire
don’t play dead
light my fire
you god among men

And another (below). I will say the two poems are nice and short and have an edge of passion that is wonderful for poetry.

Poem At Open Window

by NG Swett

I long to know you’re real

something I can feel

like an old typewriter key

clacking away here

words on a rag breeze

you breathe in and sneeze

“Oh bless you, Darling’!”

Once edited, my radio poems aren’t too far outside of the kinds of poems I’ve written before. One is on the racier side, one on the charming side. Both a little desperate haha!

They would fit into, for example, my first book of poems, HOLD ME TIGHT, a collection of 36 love poems about love and loss in modern times.

I’m working on a new collection of poems to be published by Labor Day, which will be a mix of poems with black and white photo collage illustrations (I think).

Give my radio poetry exercise method a try and see if YOU like it!

“The Best Season?” a small talkin’ one-minute love poem

Three slides of a short 1-minute mobile video for the poem “The Best Season?” by NG Swett, Outer Lands Archipelago / NY poet

This is the 1:09sec video for posting “The Best Season?” love poem from HOLD ME TIGHT poetry book.
The video and the individual slides (pngs) are for posting on social media platforms with links back here to this website at 4seasonshelf.com.
Audio is added on each platform to avoid copyright issues.

What is YOUR favorite season
-- winter, spring, summer or fall?

Here's a nice and easy one-minute short poem about a great small talk topic. Everyone cares about the seasons and the weather!

Small talk is a lost art, isn’t it? People are so shy and wary of talking to strangers. When you’re at the front desk, as I’ve been from time to time over the years, small talk is perfect for engaging with people. It’s friendly but not nosy.

People feel nostalgic for the seasons and what special things each season brings to life. Changes, cycles and transitions are in our human nature.

About this poem

The short rhyming poem, "The Best Season?", is one from my new collection of 36 poems, HOLD ME TIGHT (link to buy internationally). The book is available in hard cover and ebook formats. It’s gorgeous if I do say so myself. I love it!

Have you ever made a book? Or would you like to? It’s quite a journey, and I share it on this blog and in my enewsletter.

Minimalist aesthetic photo illustration

The poem is Illustrated here and in the book with a black and white photo of a flowering spring daffodil for a contemporary minimalist aesthetic.

In the book, each of the 36 poems shares a two-page spread with its own minimalist black and white photo collage illustration.

How did I make the book? People have been asking me, and I share all the details here in a blog post all about making and publishing the love poetry book. Here is the cover:

I’m experimenting with short mobile videos like the one above for sharing poems, blog posts and new paintings online.

Thanks for checking out my blog!

~ Nan

P.S. I invite you to keep in touch by subscribing to my email list.

~ Headquarters of 4seasonshelf and home to the New York poet NG Swett ~

The Outer Lands Archipelago is made up of all of the ancient islands along the East Coast created 30,000 years ago during the last Ice Age when the Labrador Glacier was halted by the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

The islands of the archipelago include New York’s Long Island, Block Island, Nantucket, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and many other stunning islands.