In Celebration of Everyone's Dream

You'd never know it if this blog is all you know of me, but I was quite the rocker in my day (she wheezed). The first real rock concert I ever went to was a 1969 Steppenwolf show, followed some months later by Hendrix.
Of course, a few months prior thereto, I attended a performance at Carleton College in Waukesha, WI, by the Dave Brubeck Trio (at the tender age of 15!), establishing a lifelong pattern of musical iconoclasm and inconsistency.
While my politics have tempered a bit since my days of protesting the Vietnam War, I still believe in fundamentally the same things: life, liberty, happiness, basic freedoms- you know, that leftist nonsense about all people being equal.
In that spirit and in the spirit of the day, I offer this Steppenwolf number, one I've always enjoyed and one whose effect on me remains undiminished.
Happy Fourth of July, Americans!

More on SES

I promised more on SES, and here it is.
SES stands for Summer Expressions Seminar. It's Art School Camp for College credit. Takes place at Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Two sessions, two weeks each, one week in between. I've been teaching it for ten years now. The upcoming SES II, which starts this coming Sunday, will be my 16th session.
In session one, we teach graphic design, web, rock video, documentary, photo and sound.
In session two, we teach painting, animation, comics and game design.
I have pretty much free rein when teaching in this program. When the strictures are removed, the focus quickly shifts from "how do I satisfy my employer?" to "what are the needs of the students?"
It's a humbling experience to be in service to something bigger than yourself.
We only have them for two weeks, but during that time, they get a taste of art school- the real thing, not the romanticized version put forth by people who aren't artists. It's a baptism of fire, and I'm honored to be part of it.
My courses are more concerned with the how than the why. I teach courses in the nature of performance and in constructing and deconstructing text and image.
The above sketch was done by an SES II student last year while I was lecturing. I was so taken with it, I asked if I could keep it.
More than anything, those surprises are what make it worthwhile.

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.

What the hey?

I always feel like I should have something wonderfully clever or profound to say, but this is just too much fun!

FAO Schwartz big Piano
by INFOCOM-Net

The Terror of The Magnum Opus!

As I break from working on my book/grant proposal, my thoughts turn to creators who have inspired me in different ways.
Today's venture takes two turns, beyond the already posted notes on the human tornado called Ellison.
Next up is Jeff Smith, creator of Bone, the much neglected Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil, and the sporadic but worthwhile RASL. All Jeff's work deals in themes of common beings surviving their roles in large, mythic battles a la Tolkien or Eddison.
Well, turns out there's a documentary on Jeff.


Then there's Terry Moore.
His Strangers in Paradise is now collected in an Omnibus edition. How he managed to do this and keep on schedule with his new book, ECHO, is beyond me, but he did it.
This invites the next issue.
A Magnum Opus can kill you if you let it.
The idea of creating a single work of such weight and import can be such a heavy burden that it renders the work insurmountable. If you let it be that.
I suspect the way through this is twofold.
First, don't try to create something big. Create pieces of the big thing. Just say what you have to say, using the time you have to say it as well as you can. The 2200 pages of Strangers and the 1400 pages of Bone were all done page by page, the only way it can be done.
It took me 6 months to do a page once, and I did 12 pages in 14 hours another time. It takes the time it takes.
Second, while you must keep at it (or in my case, all the various "it"s), you can't punish yourself if you lose pace. Self-recrimination takes time too, and burns up, wastes, energy that could go into the work.

How sharp can you get?

You know how it can go- life takes a downturn, you begin to doubt this and that. Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing, why is everything going South, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Like Ray Manzarek said on his first solo album (lyrics inspired by Beckett's Waiting for Godot):
Why ain't I pretty?
How come I'm stupid?
Why do I have this here fear?
Pretty maudlin, huh? Well, you can get over it if you try. With help.
So a couple things come into the melee to help me get over myself. First, a great conversation with someone I trust. Then a forwarded link to this New York Times piece on the very topic. Eminently useful, and I suspect I'll be revisiting it often in days to come.
Finally, the impending screening of the Harlan Ellison documentary, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, on Sundance this coming Monday eve, and the DVD on sale the same day. My buying is way down these days, but hey, it's Harlan. Here's a look, and it's on point with the idea that an artist can determine his/her worth by refusing to agree that the work, and by extension the artist, are worth less, or even worthless.
Time to get a little fire back in your belly!

On a more positive note!

After a couple days of recouping from the calamity that was Monday, I got around to a film I've been meaning to view: The Last Mimzy.
Please note that, while it's intelligent and articulate, I disagree with almost everything in the linked review. This film was nominated for several Saturn Awards. The issue, as I see it, is that it's damn hard to make a smart SF film for and about children. This is not perfect, but it comes close.


The Last Mimzy is not what I expected. It's a bit syrupy, but well worth the time, as it touches on ideas of the interconnections of science and faith as the sole hope for humanity embracing its own potential. It manages to do so without coming across like an E.T. clone. As the numerous harsh reviews I discovered online indicate, opinions vary. But I found it eminently worthwhile.
Besides, I'm a sucker for cute stuffed critters- genuinely cute, not creepy cute.
It's also refreshing to see Hollywood reach into the realm of vintage science fiction stories, rather than simply rehashing its own tired past successes. This step away from creative inbreeding, filming a great story by SF master Henry Kuttner, is more than welcome.
Regrettably, The Last Mimzy was not a commercial success, though I suspect it will build a following.
Maybe the world is finally ready to see a good film of the best SF novel of all time!