THE SLIDE SHOW

Uploaded photos to the ning #artwalk community; slideshow pretty cool, shows great details.

ART EXCITEMENT

Well, I’m glad my art has lingered at The Arthouse Lounge in Harrisburg for a couple weeks more than expected. So YOU can still visit it this Friday, December 5 during the Harrisburg First Friday event. According to this past weekend’s FT Weekend fashion commentary, metallic is in and these acrylics were ahead of the trend. We’re hoping Pongo will be home recuperating so I won’t be able to get there myself, but if you can make it, say hi to the art, take something home(it’s the holidays, buy a present for someone) and have a blast. Curator Jason Piper has a very nice and diverse array of artists and I was especially drawn to the swirl of colors glass artist Michael Peluso manages to get in his work — his bud vases very affordable; I might get a yellow one for Gayle. We really enjoyed the opening we attended and are looking forward to getting up there again for a didgeroo night or party.

Here are the pieces I have in the gallery. To see my recent pastels, check out my artcentric blog. Search for Pele, Phoenix and Black Dress — or pastels. Yes, the non moving, non FlipBoom stuff. Next project, hand made Christmas cards. Let me know if you want one.

HAIKU II

First snow + haiku mood =

Snow burns my lips with
a kiss promising blankets
on cold nights to come

WHAT I DO WHEN I’M NOT SLEEPING

A new web movie series about a band in too much love — I’ve had the title in my head for awhile and finally just decided to give it some characters and conflict. I’m a natural percussionist and learning so enjoy; as it says; “someday you’ll laugh.” Welcome to Blink Kitty Love, where fun happens after midnights and crushes go round and round.

BOOKS, READ AND HALF WRITTEN

Actually curled up with a book last night instead of hunching over the half light of my computer screen — actually, it’s 20 inches of incandescent shiny iMac glow, but half light sounds better, or at least gives a better visual. Decided to really try the Peter Drucker book, Adventures of a Bystander. It’s a collection of essays — episodes really, full of people he knew, ranging from his elementary school teachers to Freud and the upper management at GM in the 40’s. Drucker thinks and analyzes and remembers and parses life lessons with both astringency and warmth. It’s a good combination for me — bracing analysis plus a genuine enjoyment of the people Drucker has met and the situations he has experienced. His chapter on teaching and two of the women who inspired him to be curious and passionate about even dull subjects — although they never managed to improve his handwriting — reminded me how much I love reading Montaigne. The best essayists have a gift for mixing the personal with their philosophies. I’m looking forward to finishing the Drucker book; one of my favorite things about essays is you can read them in any order and even if you only have time for a few. And I’m going to see if I can find my Montaigne — I have one edition with illustrations by Salvador Dali – that’s a little mind blowing — and another with the translation that Shakespeare would have read. Bookman’s Alley in Evanston was the perfect environment for serendipity back when I rambled through it regularly.

Thanks to Sally of McGraw-Hill UK, I am working my way through “A Sense of Urgency” by John Kotter(and yes, I am susceptible to being cheered by getting a gift book in the mail), which impressed me in its FT review by Stefan Stern. The review is posted on my Opportunity Door, along with some ideas for next year’s Animation Magazine pitch party.

I am hoping the book would help with the focusing problem I seem to have about PROJECT PYE, which according to my blog on the subject, I’ve been wrestling with since August 18, 2006. It’s a great story — much of the trouble is all the other things I do, the other stories I want to tell, a lack of help, and an abundance of visuals. And I just really want to sit down and get the darn thing done. I think Calvin (one of the Lonely Ponders and my cohort in all things Gullible and Twitchy) doesn’t ever believe it will get done. I kept throwing so many possibilites at him that he just started to duck, I think.

While the Kotter book has a GREAT idea — be urgent, not hasty and avoid complacency at all costs, the style of the book doesn’t suit me; it’s very academic, I think, and I spent most of my college years in Northwestern’s gloriously tri towered library, wandering the Lakefill and writing poetry or in the few classes with professors I respected. My reading choices were Dante and Spencer and Shakespeare and Machiavelli and Lao Tsu and Hobbes and DeQuincey and Donne and Horace so modern business writing seems to stutter along without much style. I am finding “Urgency” goes a little better as I continue along but Drucker suits me so much better. People have names and problems are real and one or two words aren’t hammered at you as if there will be a quiz. And you are left to your own devices, conclusions and whatever list of bullet points or size of brain map you care to draw on your own.

Well, I guess we’ll leave the writing I found this morning while looking for a new notebook for reporting for another day…there are so many half started stories that get tangled up in other stories or left for other projects or just get lost. Even if “A Sense of Urgency” proves useful, I fear that I have already heard the only piece of advice that works and it comes from a character a person of sense might hesitate to take advice from, Lady MacBeth:

“Screw your courage to the sticking place.”

That’s what it’s really about. That’s the only thing equired: COURAGE. Nike’s “Just Do it” may be simplistic, but it is priceless advice. “Coraggio, bully monster, coraggio!” as Stephano says in the Tempest.

*Open free directing sample: The full Lady MacBeth phrase is this: We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.’ Which makes me think is that the but is not the usual conjunctive but (there’s a phrase that sounds like a disease), but the adverb which acc. to wikipedia and Merriam means merely or only. And this fascination with the right phrase/meaning/inflection is why I spend many of my summers directing Shakespeare. Close free directing sample*

One of the best things about Drucker’s book for me is that he didn’t make the obvious choices or walk where expected. He followed the things that interested him and here I am, looking at his name on the cover of a book and learning from his successes. That encourages me. And as I reread this last sentence, I’m saying hmmm, look encourage — I recognize part of that, I bet it shares the same root: (and answers.com agrees: “[Middle English corage, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *corāticum, from Latin cor, heart.]” Close word lover sample*

*open directing and word lover postscript — as I think over this, it comes to me that while courage is the essential quality required, the verb and the action — screw, do, dare –are what turns intent and whatever qualities you bring to it into success. Close directing and word lover postscript*

PERFECT PUMPKIN

A Halloween gift for you: the perfect pumpkin, painted by me:

LATE NIGHT DOODLE

Good night but there’s one new, one revised FlipBoom insomnia doodle; here’s the hurricane mood: http://ping.fm/sPISr

IN THE BLEAK DECEMBER

Yes,I am an egomaniac and yes, I am an isomniac and yes, I am in that mood. So here’s my mystery novel, enjoy: http://ping.fm/6CP8v

REPORTING

It’s a different kind of writing and I’ve been grumpy about it all week, so grumpy I’m even tired of hearing myself.  It’s not that it takes away from other projects — I spend too much here in my office on the computer tracking how many people have looked at my animations as it is.  I just hate phone tag, waiting to get hold of someone, trying to schedule getting hold of someone and then waiting for the call back.  And I’m not that fond of the phone.  But interviewing Tamora Pierce reminded me of why I thought it might be fun to do a little freelance reporting.  I had fun — it’s nice to talk to people about the things they are enthusiastic about and successful at, the activities and ideas that move them.  It’s invigorating and yes, I will say it, darn it, even inspiring.

 

Usually, you have to get me on Shakespeare to hear a topic that I care so much about I’ll drag people along by magnetic enthusiasm, although I can do a good job on why “In the Bleak December” should be read by more people– Jane, Sally, Mary and John are great characters, there aren’t enough gay characters in straight books or straight characters in gay books and I always enjoy rereading it (yes, yes,  I should post it online somewhere but it’s caught between computers and word processing programs and I have to add the new opening chapter– The DaVinci Code taught me cliffhangers really work for readers) and why working with orange cat puppets(aka Gullible and Twitchy) is a very satisfying thing to do — I have discovered I love problem solving and how to get them cling to things without losing major clumps of their fur is a problem. I also get that good solid charge when I’ve finished an episode.  

 

Now, where was I…oh, reporting, Tamora Pierce…the only bad thing is that after talking to someone for thirty minutes, you are left with quotes you can’t use.  This allows you to distill the interview, use the best responses and write a better more focused article as a result, but I still look a little sadly at the conversations left in my notebook sometimes.  I’m glad to have had them, but writing well means choosing well so people only get a glimpse.  The Tamora Pierce glimpse seems to be “go with your gut” and you can achieve what you want if you are willing to work very hard at it.  Not a bad message.

 

Oh and I can recommend “Defender of the Small:  The First Test.”  Got it out of the library, read it this morning before the interview, enjoyed it and will look up the next book in the series.  It’s hard to find new fantasy authors.

INSOMNIA

URG…sounds like a caveman name or a Tim Taylor micro mini grunt — up too late.  Have been Twittering like a fiend — fun, fun — 140 characters or less is an interesting challenge.  Have not been sleeping; Pongo had to go to the vet and stay so bit stressful.  Is it mid- July already?  I miss Shakespeare a little, but not rehearsals.  Not sure what to do this weekend, but I’m behind on summer movies — Dark Knight, Mamma Mia or Kung Fu Panda at the $2 theatre…also should see Music Man — seems loud right now; the 76 trombones just went off in my ear.  Since WP does pictures, I’ll load one from this afternoon’s Gullible and Twitchy potential Tropfest sunflower animation session.  Cheers.