Driving with Boys

Trying to get back into the regular blogging habit. So lets start with some recently seen movies:

Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino serves up a tasty dish of Uma Thurman and lots of blood.

Before Sunrise One of my favorite films. It had been a while since I had seen it. The perfect post-modern romance. I think that the couple in the film discuss more topics in depth in thier one evening together, than many people do in a lifetime.

Riding in Cars with Boys Drew Barrymore does an impressive job of portaying a woman who gets pregnant at 15 up to some time in her late 30's.

Fortinbras

The event of my weekend was to see the play "Fortinbras" preformed at Mesa State. Fortinbras is the name of the Norwegian prince who arrives at the end of Hamlet to find everyone dead. This play starts with that scene. However, while Hamlet is a dark drama about a man who is all thought and no action, this play is a comedy about Fotinbras a man of action and little thought. Where Hamlet frets about the ghost of his father, Fortinbras has an affair with the ghost of Ophelia. Where Hamlet spends the whole play trying to decided wether to take action to avenge his father, Fortinbras sends his army out to rattle their sabers at the Poles in a move to distract public attention, only to have his army conquer most of the world without a fight.

The story arch of Fortinbras mirrors that of Hamlet. So you know that everyone ends up dead, but for the opposite reasons.

Very Funny. My favorite bit is the way Hamlet's ghost shows up on a TV screen that is carted around the stage.

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Petrichor

Petrichor

(PET-ri-kuhr) noun. The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

[From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.

"Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and released into the air after a first rain."

Matthew Bettelheim; Nature's Laboratory (Mt Shasta,Ê California) Jan 2002.

Moving Dirt

I started working on my garden. It is exciting yet difficult to start creating a new garden after the last seven years of hard work. Hard work that resulting in a wonderful garden that is open of my proudest accomplisments.

Now is time to begin again.

Fog of War

Plenty of work at the Nickel this Saturday. Setup and configure those G5's.

Helped out at the Soup Kitchen briefly.

Had Jana and Eric and Kyra, David Miller, Toby Farley over for dinner.

Went to see the movie Fog of War. It is a documentary that is made up of one interview with Robert MacNamara about his life up to his leaving the Johnson administration.

The movie transported me back to 1992, and my decision not to work in Washington, D.C. because I did not want to become a MacNamara.

Smart people, behaving in rational ways, who think deeply about matters from every angle, who struggle to come up with the best solution, using the best data they have, and who constantly reevaluate their options, will still make massive mistakes. And when smart people make mistakes, they make BIG mistakes.

A link

I was exploring this cool web site for independent music called CD Baby, when I found this.

Playmates through the Decades

Being the 50th Anniversary of Playboy, an interesting rendering of the Playmates by decade. Yes, this is safe to view. The artist Jason Salavon created the images by averaging every Playmate photo of the decade together. The resulting images are blurred to the point of being almost beyond recognition as human form. However, you can still learn some interesting trends from the images.

Be sure to check out other work by the artist. I particularly like The Top Grossing Film of All Time, 1 x 1

Grand Junction Symphony's Grand Start

Last night I attended the Grand Junction Symphony's season opening performance with Martha House. The program was entitled The Three B's, but its not the three B's that you are probably thinking about. The B's were Hector Berlioz (roman Carnival Oveture), BŽla Bart—k (An Evening in the Village) and Johannes Brahms (Concerto No. 1 in D minor for Piano and Orchestra). The big event of the evening was the introduction of the Yamaha concert grand piano which was brought to life by the guest artist pianist Jon Klibonoff.

Nowhere in Africa

This month's Cinema at the Avalon film was the German movie Nowhere in Africa. This story of a families relationships set on the back drop of German Jews escaping to British colonial Africa to avoid the Holocaust and the friendships they build with the Africans.

Her Own Show

My good friend Shari Daly-Miller's art show formally opened at Planet Earth. A large number of people turned out.

The Man In Black

Just heard on NPR. Johnny Cash has died.

So sad. Sixty years as a top performer. From Sun Records with Elvis, to successfully covering Nine Inch Nails. Always gritty and dark. A man without a genre, but influenced countless who flowed.

Björk at 10

Salon has a great article on Björk. Note: in order to read the whole article you have to click through some advertisements.

It is mystifying that Björk has had such success with such unconventional songwriting. She has produced her share of catchy choruses, to be sure ("Hyperballad," "Venus as a Boy"), but even hardcore Björk fans would be hard-pressed to hum most of her songs. Even in some of her more accessible material, there are surprises in store: The melody to "Human Behavior," her first single, is in an entirely different key from the bass line.

I started to listen to Björk in about 1994 when I tuned into the evening programming on the cutting edge music station of L.A. KCRW. One of the programs always started with Björk sing It's oh so quite, and it hooked me. I am slightly surpized that people find Björk difficult to listen too or understand. I feel very at home in her soundscapes and disjointed mythical lyrics.

Charles Hardy / Joseph Gonzales

The Charles Hardy and Joseph Gonzales show was amazing. Hardy is an amazing artist whose prints, etchings and drawings I had already seen in a variety of settings. It was truly amazing to see a large number of his works collected together into two gallery halls. There really was too much on display to properly appreciate, especially in the context of an opening. I will be heading back to the Art Center for another look.

Hardy is known as a great teacher, and this could be most clearly seen in the works of his student Joseph Gonzales with whom he shared the show. They held a brief talk prior to the show, to describe their art. I really enjoy hearing professional craftsmen openly discuss their work. Often artists put up lame excuses by saying that their art stands on its own merits without comment. I think this is pretty bogus. An understanding of the technique used, emotional and spiritual passion expressed and evolution of an artists body of work is critical to have an appreciation of the artist and the ideas they are expressing. A specific work of art may not have a clearly defined message, but it does have meaning beyond its raw physical components.

Much of Joseph Gonzales' work uses a technique called encaustic of which I had not been aware. Encaustic is the layering of colored resin beeswax in a painting. The translucent layers can be applied like paint, reworked, carved and impregnated with foils, paper, glitter, etc to amazing effect. Jospeh combines these encaustic elements with his beautiful drawing skills to create images with a abstract mystical depth.

Before the show, my friend Christella Lans told me that the large abstract painting in her living room was done by Joseph. At the show, Christella introduced me to Joseph. Without prompting, Joseph profusely thanked her for the purchase of the painting. He said that the creation of that work and Christella's purchase of it was a major turning point in his art. Prior to that work, he had been an first rate drawer of the human form. With that painting he found a connection to abstract expression that submerged the human form. Now his work leverages both concrete drawings and abstraction.

Grand Junction's Art Center

The Art Center is the mainline art orgainization in Grand Junction. It may not be the gritiest or edgiest, but it is the back bone of the visual arts in our community. And for every mundane pastel show, there is a show that does push the limits. Friday night's opening Charles Hardy: A Retrospective, 1966-2003 should be very interesting show. Charles is a Art Professor at Mesa State College.

Grand Junction Arts

The Grand Junction Commission on Arts and Culture has an excellent online resource: gjArts.org. The site features lists of local artists, art orgainzations and businesses. The calendar of events is one of the most complete cultural calendars I have found. A photo gallery shows some of Grand Junction's public art. but this page should be expanded as it only shows a small fraction of the art on our streets and public spaces. Finally, the web site has information on how to apply for a grants that support the Art Commission's Mission Statement:

The mission of the Grand Junction Commission on Arts and Culture shall be to help create and nurture a climate and conditions in Grand Junction in which the arts and culture can thrive and grow. The Commission is dedicated to developing and improving the quality, quantity, accessibility, and affordability of arts and culture to the citizens of the Grand Junction area.

Kiss Me Kate

I took my parents (Floyd and Tamara Joramo) and Rachael to see the The Cabaret Dinner Theater's production of Kiss Me Kate. It was an excellent production. The inclussion of headliner actors from Broadway as really improved the quality of all of the actors.

The Theater scene in Grand Junction has really improved since I moved here in 1995 when the only theater was produced by Mesa State College or the Art Center. Those two programs are still going, but now with The Cabaret Dinner Theater, The Green Shoe Theater, and the Empire Theater there are often three stage productions going on at the same time. Then there are several spin off groups that provide actors a chance to work on material that is not as commercial such as the Atomic Theater.

Toby's Music Night

I am attended another Music Night at Toby Farley's home. Toby has quite the computer music setup. We have been working on a project that we call our Band. Of course, it is mostly just a small collection of friends messing around making noise on computers. (Which at one time described the Beatles too.) Toby is rather passionate about getting his friends into making computer music so he has been buying everyone music software for their computers.

Of course, Toby is on Windows and I am on Mac OS X so we have not had a musical common ground. Until, Toby got into Reason which is a cross platform sythetic computer based music studio. And Toby gave me a copy! Thanks Toby.

Now to learn this software. I have learned that music software is very complex.

First a solid back ground in music theory is helpful, which I don't have. Then a knowledge of traditional studio setups is useful, again I don't know anything about this. And finally, the GUI of music software is fairly different and specialized from other GUI's that I have used. (This is similar to how the GUI of PhotoShop is so complex because it is designed for the professional graphics artist.)

Bob Hope

I have read that President Bush has order that

flags be flow at half staff in honor of Bob Hope. I have searched the internet for information about the etiquette

half staff displays to see if it is appropriate for the a private citizen to recieve this honor.

While I like Bob Hope quite a bit, I am a little skeptical that he deserves this honor. Or if he does, maybe the flag should be flown at half staff for a wider range of times of mourning. Do you recall other people similar to Bob Hope who were given this honor?