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.

Escape artist | “Summer Waltz” by NG Swett | acrylic painting (& video)

“Summer Waltz” by NG Swett 2024 | 14x11” acrylic on canvas board

I herein reveal…

• what made me want to paint this scene

• what I was trying to express

• how I think it came out

• how I made the video (below)

• and more

Heat wave! It’s been so hot.

As much as one wants to go outside and enjoy the summer, IF it’s cooler inside, then one would like to stay inside.

By looking out the window at the beautiful summer day, one can feel FOMO — the fear of missing out. Summer is here, but it won’t be forever. Summer is the season to recreate, enjoy life, and take it easy. If not now, when??

What made me want to paint this scene

I spotted this lovely scene out the window and I thought I would set up my paints as if I were outside painting, only I would do it inside where it was cooler.

I saw a chance to play around with the indoor and outdoor scenes and have some fun with paints — and my smartphone!

The scene outside the window was so summery, breezy and lovely.

And the scene inside the window was also lovely. A bouquet of flowers that our daughter brought sat on the dining room table near the window. The striped curtains fall around the scene like theater curtains.

But there was also something not so lovely: the feeling of not really wanting to go out into the extreme summer heat, feeling a captive inside the house because of that. Of separation from nature. Of watching and waiting. The emptiness of the lounge chairs on the lawn and the chair at the table…

What I was trying to express

The process of painting the two scenes together in one painting — one a kind of outdoor plein air scene and another as a kind of indoor still life — showed me a few things:

• initially I felt fear and trepidation, which is visible in the video — doubt that I could make a good painting or a good video

• the sense of aliveness in the natural world I try to capture using a dabbed impressionist treatment

• gratitude and appreciation for a longtime home, a place near and dear to my heart and where my family lives, albeit a more staged and less changing indoor setting

• longing, yearning and meaning of empty chairs but also of possibilities

• challenged — demarking the window screen as the focal point, the exact place where indoor and outdoor meet; it picks up sunshine along its thin silvery grid lines

• defiance! The curtains lent themselves to a modernist, expressionist treatment — very satisfying! Like, I could make these curtains more exact or prettier, but I just did ‘em how I felt like doing them

• the lovely flowers, though challenging in their detail, came through best for me using some abstraction

How I think it came out

I mean, I like how the painting and the video came out. Works for me! I always think it’s a miracle when my painting ends up looking like anything at all, let alone forming a complete picture.

I really had fun with the digital and video tools, too.

Here is the video:

How I made the video

Here are some notes about how I made the video:

• I videotaped with my smartphone and a tripod

• I edited the video in Canva

• the waltz soundtracks are all from YouTube’s free audio library (for YouTube use only)

• the scenes of me inside the painting are done with the image of the painting overlaid with a video of me with the background removed

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 do we have to be SO consistent? (I asked ChatGPT)

by Nan Patience

Plus tips for improving consistency.

The number one thing you hear around the creative economy, ecommerce, and social media platforms when you ask how to please the algorithms is this idea of consistency.

Consistency is key. It’s basic. It’s foundational.

We might ask why. Given how hard most people find consistency to be, we should probably ask why it’s so darn important for humans to be consistent.

Why is consistency in humans so important? I asked ChatGPT directly

Yes, I went straight to the source and asked ChatGPT (OpenAI).

We talked, we laughed, we lost five pounds!

You can read the short interaction between me and ChatGPT on this question at this link but you don’t have to because I’ll include key ideas below.

How consistent are YOU?

Are you consistent with everything in your life?

Consistency comes up a lot in parenting. I’ve had a quarter century of experience right there. Consistency is grounding; chaos is hard. There are times when dang-nabbit, we may not feel like doing something, but we just have to, and so we do.

When it comes to creative projects like writing and making art, sometimes I am consistent, and sometimes I’m not, which I suppose is the very definition of inconsistent haha!

Showing up to work regularly, even if we’re students or we work from home or work a remote job, is vital to keeping projects alive and building them.

If you don’t believe it’s important, try staying on task and being consistent for a while and see what happens. Over time, your efforts will show positive trends, at least in the area you’re being consistent about. Once you see that, you want more. You may try even harder.

Consistency helps us know what to expect over time and makes the world a more predictable place (per ChatGPT).

There’s just one small thing: we’re human. Humans are wild. We’re supposed to be wandering the hillsides hunting and gathering. We’re a life form, connected to the Earth’s biosystems to survive. Many, many things go into how we feel from day to day and from hour to hour about things that we’re doing all at the same time.

It’s easy for machines to be consistent. They only need energy and data. A mere spark can set off a long chain of events.

For A.I., seeking to understand the world that it’s being born into, inconsistency is hard. As artificial intelligence gets stronger, it will be able to handle a wider range of inconsistency. But for right now, it needs a home with structure in order to function.

Consistency for humans

Humans are not as consistent as machines. Stuff happens. Maybe we’re busy being consistent with one thing and something else falls behind. Some of us are running a three-ring circus on the daily.

Sometimes we get distracted, or the sun comes out, or we have to run an errand. Don’t beat yourself up too much.

Consistency is something we can work on. It’s about building small habits, making decisions, and taking action.

Superhuman consistency is what we’re up against in virtual reality. To get in the game and stay in it, don’t imagine it’s easy! The good news is, people are doing it.

Get better at being consistent through consistency challenges and routines

Consistency can be a real challenge!

Have you ever tried doing a consistency challenge, like a 100-day challenge? I have! The first day of a challenge is fun. The second day is a little less fun, and by the end of the first week, if you’re still doing it at all, it will feel heavy.

I recommend challenges. You end up getting something done and pushing yourself out of the comfort zone a little. For example, last summer I challenged myself to write a poem a day.

OK, maybe I didn’t write a poem every single day last summer, but I wrote enough for a book of 36 love poems, and with black and white photo collage illustrations to boot (blog post: Love is in the air).

Benefits of a consistency challenge

• Challenges help stop perfectionism. Because at one point, it is pencils down, ship it, send it.

• It forces us through a process until the ideas, habits and tasks are (sort of) mastered.

• With consistency, the world can be more predictable and stable.

• Opportunities to learn lessons! For example, now I know that to last all the way to the end of a 100-day challenge, I’d better keep the task fun and small.

  Never, ever underestimate the challenges of consistency!

Good routines

Routines can help eliminate a lot of chaos and paralysis that get in the way of consistency, I find. If it weren’t for my morning routine, for example, there would have been many more days of getting nothing done.

So there’s my take on consistency and a couple of tools to get better at it. I hope that helps, and now I’ve gotta go work on my consistency.

~ Nan

P.S. Consistency is only one metric in life. Life has so many more metrics to think about. Check out my related blog post about how to check our online metrics dashboards without falling to pieces.

P.S.S. Keep scrolling down to browse other recent posts, like “Love is in the air…”