Pride and other holidays

Yesterday was swamped!
Final performance of the season with Trans Voices Chorus, followed by a nice brunch with that great bunch of folks, a delightful afternoon at Pride with my ex, Jennifer (who came in from Eau Claire with a bus load of folks. Finally, the wrap party for the video shot during the first session of SES.
More on SES later.
I'd like to offer an insight on Pride.
I didn't come up with this, one of the other members of the Choir did.
But I think it's perfect.
Pride is over commercialized, full of bright colors and joy, has become ritualized, and is full of people in your life that you only see once a year.
Just like Christmas.
That said, I was struck by the changes over the years. The addition of B and T to G and L (strangely absent from the actual content of the History Center exhibit!), the incredible freedom of the new generation, and a singing at a church service that preached tolerance, almost a Bizarro version of the world I grew up in, in a very good way!
The above photo is a quiet Pride moment at the Loring Park dandelion fountain, waiting for jenny and just hanging with a few folks.

Stitching up for San Diego!

As I begin to prepare myself for my San Diego presentation, I'm reminded of the highlights of last year:
Meeting Lynda Barry
Chatting with Eddie Campbell, not realizing it was him!
And talking Max Fleischer cartoons with Jim Woodring! Possibly the highlight of the weekend, aside from chatting about Bode' with Bernie Wrightson!
Oh, you namedropper, you...
In a fit of surrealist whimsy worthy of both Fleischer and Woodring, a small company has released a series of embroidery patterns of Jim's wonderful work.

On Giants and the French

There's a French marionette group named Royale de Lux. They've done some amazing work with giant puppets in public settings in the last few years.
Here's their latest.

Freelance HELL!

Thanks to Colleen Doran for turning me on to this through her blog, tagged elsewhere on this page. It deserves cross-posting.
I don't do much freelance these days, and this is one of the reasons.

Original sounds, tracks...

It's tough to like soundtrack music/scores.
You have to be able to look past mediocre movies to hear the wonderful music accompanying them.
The music is seldom appreciated in its own right, and is often only thought of in relation to the film in question.
Asked to name a film composer, most people might think of John Williams or Danny Elfman, possibly a few associated with the immortal Bernard Herrmann. This music was not used in the released version of the film.



But how many think of Alan Silvestri?
Just for the sake of contrast, here's a clip of the Back to the Future theme played on acoustic guitar, by one Adrian Holovati!

Bring on Da Funk!

Amendment to my own myopia: I just noticed that the dude reading Wonder Woman (previous entry) is also the dude reminiscing abut Copernicus and Galileo books. Therefore, the strip should be read as a testament to the versatility of comic readers, not as a slam on their tastes.
The more I read about this strip, the more I realize that something wonderful has been going on while I wasn't looking.
Also, doing a little digging, while I wasn't looking,I discovered that Funky Winkerbean took a page out of the Gasoline Alley book and aged its characters real-time.
And the comic book store they're chatting in in the Wonder Woman strip was later charged with dealing in obscene manga, resulting in part in the above exchange in court.
Sadly, this is a reflection of real life for some creators, dealers and collectors.
Which is why I've been a member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for the last 8 years.

Wonder Woman vs. The Catholic Church!

Seeing this strip on The Comics Curmudgeon bought a few things to mind.
First, Tom Batuik used a cover from the recent Gail Simone run, rather than digging into the hoary 50s and 60s covers.
Second, the strip makes a profound point about the social significance of comics, then turns around and (at least partially) undermines it with the old saw that there are more useful ways to spend one's time (books on Galileo and Copernicus referenced).
Mind, I've no truck with Galileo and Copernicus. One of my favorite It's A Beautiful Day songs is based on Galileo, and I share a birthday with Copernicus. Their ideas and lives are kinda cool too, apart from the pop culture references.
But I don't think that raising the significance of Wonder Woman to the level of these two diminishes any of them.