Happy Late Night, my Darling,
"Wow" once again, for Iceland and Norway. I saw a post yesterday, for one of your friend's bands, and it said "Europe here we come", and I thought something might be in the works, just because of the specific message. So that will be awesome, and also an incredible adventure! Are you going alone, or with a friend or perhaps with Mom & bro? If alone, just be sure to be careful in all the ways that carefulness is needed. That's my Fuddyduddy Precautionary note for the trip, and of course you already know it, but as your friend mentioned, take care when driving on certain roads.
I know we've got mountain roads right here in SoCal that I would never drive, like Decker Canyon. And, there is one wilderness area that I went to in 2014, Sage Ranch Park, which is in Chatsworth at the top of a mountain in Woolsey Canyon. It is situated directly across from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory where all the rocketry was done, but anyway, I have never gone back because the road was on a cliffside with about a 200 foot drop, and the pavement was literally crumbling away. 'Twas a very scary drive that, once I started into it, I couldn't back out. I had to continue the rest of the way to Sage Ranch, which I did, at about 10 miles per hour, lol. I've never gone back, which is a shame because the park is incredible. But after the recent rains, I wouldn't be surprised if the road washed out completely.
You will have an amazing trip, however! Shoot a ton of video as well as stills (as if you needed me to tell you that, haha)......
Tonight's movie at CSUN was "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), the famous Satanic horror film that preceded "The Exorcist" and more importantly, films like "The Omen", which share it's theme of a Demon Child, produced by and for The Devil. I had never seen this film on the big screen, and now that I have, I will call it truly great. It was shot at the Dakota Apartments in New York, where John Lennon was murdered in 1980, and the vibe of the building is spooky enough. Add to that the invasive and subversive influence of the tenants, and poor Mia Farrow, who is so great in the lead role, hasn't a chance to get through her pregnancy unscathed. John Cassavetes plays her husband, who literally sells her out to the witches' coven operating in the building. Directed by Roman Polanski, with all kinds of paranoid POV camerawork, "Rosemary's Baby" is a supremely creepy movie, and now I would put it among my top horror films.
Last night I finished Part Two of Pasolini's "The Gospel According To St. Matthew", and all I can say is that it is a masterpiece. The greatest film about the life of Christ ever made, due in large part to the 19 year old Spanish college student, a non-actor, who Pasolini chose to play Jesus. He is incredible, and as mentioned before, the choice of using weathered-looking locals for other parts, and the location shooting in southern Italy in what looks like ancient hillside villages, just adds to the authentic look of the film. It looks and feels as if you are right back there, in that time, living the story as it plays out. And, it is shot in black and white, to create the "pure image" reality I so often talk (or tirade, haha) about. A Masterpiece upon Masterpiece, and I hope Criterion will get the rights to it and restore it fully........
Well, that's all for tonight. You got a lot of great pix at the High Noon Saloon show, too. :)
Glad to know all is going well!
See you in the morning. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, March 10, 2017
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Just Saying Hi Again + Pasolini
Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,
Just to say hi once again. A basic day for me, though I watched the first half of a tremendous film : "The Gospel According To St. Matthew" by director Pier Paolo Pasolini. The actual title is in Italian, so you would know it better than I, and I made it a point to watch the original Italian version, which is much longer and shot in b&w. The dvd (from the Libe) features a colorised, 90 minute version, which is dubbed in English (and thus horrible, if you've ever seen a foreign film dubbed), and this was the popular version in America, for those who know Pasolini. I had heard of him, from a long time ago, but this was my first time seeing one of his films, so I wanted The Real Deal. The black & white original is 2 hours 17 minutes. It is set in two parts, and so I just watched Part One tonight because of my work schedule, but man oh man what a movie.
Pasolini used non-professional actors, the guy playing Jesus was a college student, and yet he is very powerful in the role, probably due to being pushed by the director. The rest of the actors simply look like weathered and impoverished local citizens, but this has the effect of making it all look like real life instead of mythologising it. The outdoor location shooting is incredible (I hope Criterion will one day restore it), and it looks like they shot in an area with ancient caves and hillside dwellings that really look like they are two thousand years old.
A friend at the CSUN Cinematheque mentioned Pasolini a few weeks ago, and so - having heard of him but never having seen any of his movies - I ordered this one from the Libe because I thought it was perfect for Easter time. Pasolini's other movies, which were notorious in the 1970s, are quite a bit more decadent, and perhaps not as much my style, though I may give 'em a try now that I see how great this film is.
I saw a couple posts, one regarding drivers in Florida lol. I had always heard that the driving situation down there was an Old People Thing, with seniors plugging along at 25mph. Your post says the exact opposite, but it makes sense in that South Florida is the entry point for most of the coke that comes into the USA, as we talked about last week when I mentioned the Bryan Cranston movie.
I don't know what the drivers are on here in L.A. (probably just coffee, sugar, alcohol, sugar, and more sugar, and what are known as "excitotoxins" - meaning poisonous food additives that produce aggressive behavior), but driving here is like being in the Indy 500. Not all the time, but you've gotta be on top of it. For locals like me, it's second nature, but I can imagine what a visitor would think.
Well anyhow, that's all for tonight. Hope all is well. Post if you can.
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Just to say hi once again. A basic day for me, though I watched the first half of a tremendous film : "The Gospel According To St. Matthew" by director Pier Paolo Pasolini. The actual title is in Italian, so you would know it better than I, and I made it a point to watch the original Italian version, which is much longer and shot in b&w. The dvd (from the Libe) features a colorised, 90 minute version, which is dubbed in English (and thus horrible, if you've ever seen a foreign film dubbed), and this was the popular version in America, for those who know Pasolini. I had heard of him, from a long time ago, but this was my first time seeing one of his films, so I wanted The Real Deal. The black & white original is 2 hours 17 minutes. It is set in two parts, and so I just watched Part One tonight because of my work schedule, but man oh man what a movie.
Pasolini used non-professional actors, the guy playing Jesus was a college student, and yet he is very powerful in the role, probably due to being pushed by the director. The rest of the actors simply look like weathered and impoverished local citizens, but this has the effect of making it all look like real life instead of mythologising it. The outdoor location shooting is incredible (I hope Criterion will one day restore it), and it looks like they shot in an area with ancient caves and hillside dwellings that really look like they are two thousand years old.
A friend at the CSUN Cinematheque mentioned Pasolini a few weeks ago, and so - having heard of him but never having seen any of his movies - I ordered this one from the Libe because I thought it was perfect for Easter time. Pasolini's other movies, which were notorious in the 1970s, are quite a bit more decadent, and perhaps not as much my style, though I may give 'em a try now that I see how great this film is.
I saw a couple posts, one regarding drivers in Florida lol. I had always heard that the driving situation down there was an Old People Thing, with seniors plugging along at 25mph. Your post says the exact opposite, but it makes sense in that South Florida is the entry point for most of the coke that comes into the USA, as we talked about last week when I mentioned the Bryan Cranston movie.
I don't know what the drivers are on here in L.A. (probably just coffee, sugar, alcohol, sugar, and more sugar, and what are known as "excitotoxins" - meaning poisonous food additives that produce aggressive behavior), but driving here is like being in the Indy 500. Not all the time, but you've gotta be on top of it. For locals like me, it's second nature, but I can imagine what a visitor would think.
Well anyhow, that's all for tonight. Hope all is well. Post if you can.
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Just Saying Hi
Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,
Just checking in to say hi. I hope all is well with you; you're no doubt working on various projects and getting your album ready to release. I didn't see any posts over the weekend, but today I saw a Taya Iv post and photo, and one from an awards show, for WJJO I think, so perhaps you went to that.
I'm just workin' as always. Hikes at Santa Susana (Saturday) and Aliso (today). Tonight I started a movie : "Bloody Mama" (1970) from director Roger Corman the legendary B (or C,D or F) movie director. :) "Bloody Mama" was the story of real life gangstress Ma Barker, who operated in the 1930s during the era of John Dillinger and Al Capone. Barker robbed banks with her sons, a regular Family Gang haha.
In the movie she is played by Shelly Winters, who was a very good actress when paired with a good director. Roger Corman was neither a good nor bad director. What he was, was a cheap director, a "factory director" who just cranked out low-budget movie after low-budget movie, and the results show it. I'd read some promising reviews of "Bloody Mama", which I discovered on Google after watching part of "Bonnie and Clyde" on TCM a few weeks ago, and so I ordered it from the Libe. It does have some good actors, most notably Robert DeNiro in a very early role, playing one of Ma's sons. The locations are good, too. It was shot in the Ozark mountains from whence the gang originated. This seemed to be a more upscale Corman production in that respect.
But all in all, despite the excitement generated by the gang's exploits, the movie just didn't have enough story to hold my interest. Good cast, fair acting, but still...........Roger Corman. I know he is heralded as a "legend" by many film fanatics, but I have never seen a truly good picture from him, and I gave up on "Bloody Mama" at the 45 minute mark.
Oh well, more time to read about Egyptian mathematics and the insane LBJ while listening to Bill Nelson. :)
That's all for tonight. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Just checking in to say hi. I hope all is well with you; you're no doubt working on various projects and getting your album ready to release. I didn't see any posts over the weekend, but today I saw a Taya Iv post and photo, and one from an awards show, for WJJO I think, so perhaps you went to that.
I'm just workin' as always. Hikes at Santa Susana (Saturday) and Aliso (today). Tonight I started a movie : "Bloody Mama" (1970) from director Roger Corman the legendary B (or C,D or F) movie director. :) "Bloody Mama" was the story of real life gangstress Ma Barker, who operated in the 1930s during the era of John Dillinger and Al Capone. Barker robbed banks with her sons, a regular Family Gang haha.
In the movie she is played by Shelly Winters, who was a very good actress when paired with a good director. Roger Corman was neither a good nor bad director. What he was, was a cheap director, a "factory director" who just cranked out low-budget movie after low-budget movie, and the results show it. I'd read some promising reviews of "Bloody Mama", which I discovered on Google after watching part of "Bonnie and Clyde" on TCM a few weeks ago, and so I ordered it from the Libe. It does have some good actors, most notably Robert DeNiro in a very early role, playing one of Ma's sons. The locations are good, too. It was shot in the Ozark mountains from whence the gang originated. This seemed to be a more upscale Corman production in that respect.
But all in all, despite the excitement generated by the gang's exploits, the movie just didn't have enough story to hold my interest. Good cast, fair acting, but still...........Roger Corman. I know he is heralded as a "legend" by many film fanatics, but I have never seen a truly good picture from him, and I gave up on "Bloody Mama" at the 45 minute mark.
Oh well, more time to read about Egyptian mathematics and the insane LBJ while listening to Bill Nelson. :)
That's all for tonight. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Your Office + Northridge Park w/The Koberdober
Happy Late Night, my Darling,
I hope you had a nice day. I saw a couple of posts via your local friends that had to do with concerts, so maybe you went to a show tonight. I see on your professional FB page that you have been going and shooting recently too, so that is great. The clubs and concert halls are one of your "offices". Another is of course your music room. :)
And you are in "the office" a lot of the time. :)
You are "livin' it", SB, and I think that is awesome.
Today we had another pre-Summer warm sunny day - 82 degrees. When the weather warms up, it always comes out of nowhere, never by degrees. It's just "one day it's 52 and the next it's 80". So, I took the Kobedog up to Northridge Park. I've been meaning to do that for a while now, as soon as the weather was nice. Northridge Park has always been a special place for me and The Pinsch, it's always very quiet there, and there is an enormous green lawn the size of a couple city blocks, so Kobi can walk and sniff to his heart's content. It's extra special there, because Northridge Park is the place I took him after he had his seizure a year ago. Once it looked like he was gonna be okay, I took him up there because of the Good Vibe of the place, so he could walk and get his strength back, and when he did get it back - at age 16 (now 17!) - I was both amazed and grateful. And the park became a very special place for him and me. We hadn't been there in a while, but today, we walked all the way down to the baseball field and back, over a quarter mile total, and to see his tail wag as he walked along just made my day. :)
I am pretty crazy about the guy, in case you haven't noticed. :)
Right now, both he and The Black Kitty are asleep in Pearl's room. She sometimes comes in the house now, and she likes The Kobester too.
I also went to Aliso for a 45 minute hike. No pics, but the water is still running, two weeks after the rain stopped.
My allergy also stopped, for which I am also grateful. Those things are as bad as getting a cold. It was a little unnerving to get one after twenty years of not getting them, but maybe I won't get one for another twenty.
Well, that was all the news for today. Reading my books in the spare moments - the insane LBJ and the obtuse but fascinating Schwaller deLubicz - and also watching an episode of "Fear The Walking Dead".
See you in the morning. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I hope you had a nice day. I saw a couple of posts via your local friends that had to do with concerts, so maybe you went to a show tonight. I see on your professional FB page that you have been going and shooting recently too, so that is great. The clubs and concert halls are one of your "offices". Another is of course your music room. :)
And you are in "the office" a lot of the time. :)
You are "livin' it", SB, and I think that is awesome.
Today we had another pre-Summer warm sunny day - 82 degrees. When the weather warms up, it always comes out of nowhere, never by degrees. It's just "one day it's 52 and the next it's 80". So, I took the Kobedog up to Northridge Park. I've been meaning to do that for a while now, as soon as the weather was nice. Northridge Park has always been a special place for me and The Pinsch, it's always very quiet there, and there is an enormous green lawn the size of a couple city blocks, so Kobi can walk and sniff to his heart's content. It's extra special there, because Northridge Park is the place I took him after he had his seizure a year ago. Once it looked like he was gonna be okay, I took him up there because of the Good Vibe of the place, so he could walk and get his strength back, and when he did get it back - at age 16 (now 17!) - I was both amazed and grateful. And the park became a very special place for him and me. We hadn't been there in a while, but today, we walked all the way down to the baseball field and back, over a quarter mile total, and to see his tail wag as he walked along just made my day. :)
I am pretty crazy about the guy, in case you haven't noticed. :)
Right now, both he and The Black Kitty are asleep in Pearl's room. She sometimes comes in the house now, and she likes The Kobester too.
I also went to Aliso for a 45 minute hike. No pics, but the water is still running, two weeks after the rain stopped.
My allergy also stopped, for which I am also grateful. Those things are as bad as getting a cold. It was a little unnerving to get one after twenty years of not getting them, but maybe I won't get one for another twenty.
Well, that was all the news for today. Reading my books in the spare moments - the insane LBJ and the obtuse but fascinating Schwaller deLubicz - and also watching an episode of "Fear The Walking Dead".
See you in the morning. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, March 3, 2017
"Wow" (but also speechless) + "Faces" by Cassavetes + Allergies Again
Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,
Well.........you probably know what I'm gonna say. "Wow"! And you also know that that's sometimes all you can say, but actually, this time I was just gonna be speechless until I thought that I'd better say something. So "Wow"! it is. :)
Seriously Elizabeth, that is quite a stunning picture of you, and not only that but it's also stylish and elegant as well. Everything works in that portrait : your hair and makeup, the patterns on your dress, the tilt of your head and placement of your hand, and the framing by the piano lid support bar on the side, and the section of keys at the bottom. Perfect! We've been talking about Oscars, and you look like a Movie Star. That is One Great Photo, and I am assuming it is a Self Portrait.....
I love the title for your album as well. "Notepainting" infers the color in the music, and to me the piano is the most colorful of instruments. I believe it has something to do with the notes being all in a row, and also in the way they are hammered and muted at the same time by the mechanisms of the instrument. I have always thought of it as a "river of tones" (because it runs "in a row"), and it could also be thought of as a palette in the same way. :)
Judging from the FB response, you will have a lot of customers, and of course I will be one too, and I will even call myself the Honorary First Customer (not counting your Mom and family of course), but I am assuming you will have physical CDs, and if you do then I can listen at home on my new Sony mini-stereo. :)
Looking forward to it, and I know you are too, and you've been planning this and working hard on it for a long time, so huge congratulations! :)
Tonight's movie at CSUN was John Cassavetes' "Faces". It could be called "In Your Face", lol, because it is a deliberately abrasive film, shot often in close up, of people grinning, laughing, yukking it up, and just generally rambling on and on. The story, such as it is, is about the breakup of a marriage of a rich businessman and his wife. He takes up with a prostitute and she has a fling with a young man she meets at the Whiskey A Go-Go of all places (actually filmed there).
Grimsley left me a voicemail that I got when I left the theater. He had walked out, 45 minutes into the film. I understand his reaction, because I saw "Faces" on dvd about 7 or 8 years ago, and while I didn't "walk out" (i.e. turn it off), I did stop paying attention after about a half hour or so, because of the non-stop talking and laughing in close up. Seeing it tonight on the big screen, however, left me with a different impression : I thought it was a pretty tremendous film, when it hit me how coherent it actually is, if you have the patience to sit and watch it for what it is. If you do that, and if you do not allow the purposely confrontational style to disorient you and therefore to disillusion you, you will get quite a payoff and you will see that Cassavetes was not quite as goofy as you thought he was. Taken as a Whole, if sat through with patience, the movie is a minor masterpiece. But if you watch, as I did the first time, and go - after 20 minutes - "what the hell is this", then you will think it is terrible.
I am glad I saw it on a movie screen, and saw it all the way through. There is no movie like it.
On a final note, I have something unusual happen to me today, unusual in the literal sense. This afternoon, I took Pearl and The Koberman Pinscher to Lake Balboa. 'Twas a beautiful day, all of a sudden 80 degrees. But when I got home at 2:30 pm, I began to develop a sinus allergy that got worse over the course of the evening, and is only just tapering off now as I write.
It was weird because of my history with sinus allergies. I have probably mentioned this before, but from the time I was in grade school until I was 35, allergies were the bane of my existence. I would get them on a regular basis, two to three times a month, and they were awful. And the medicine you had to take made you feel groggy and wiped-out (until Sudafed came along)....
But then about 1995, I just stopped getting my allergies. They just plain stopped, and it took me a year or two to notice. "Hey, I haven't had an allergy in a while now".
My body had defeated them.
Until now. I think I've had one or two other serious allergic reactions to pollen in the past 22 years, and today would be the third. I figure the rains caused a lot of growth and blooming, and today being warm, perhaps a lot of pollen was released, at Lake Balboa and also the orange blossoms at CSUN. Anyhow, it sent me back to The Years Of Allergies, and how "no fun" they are. They really suck, haha.
Today's allergy is receding, and I will chalk it up to excess pollen in the air, and I will hope that my body's resistance is still in place.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning!
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Well.........you probably know what I'm gonna say. "Wow"! And you also know that that's sometimes all you can say, but actually, this time I was just gonna be speechless until I thought that I'd better say something. So "Wow"! it is. :)
Seriously Elizabeth, that is quite a stunning picture of you, and not only that but it's also stylish and elegant as well. Everything works in that portrait : your hair and makeup, the patterns on your dress, the tilt of your head and placement of your hand, and the framing by the piano lid support bar on the side, and the section of keys at the bottom. Perfect! We've been talking about Oscars, and you look like a Movie Star. That is One Great Photo, and I am assuming it is a Self Portrait.....
I love the title for your album as well. "Notepainting" infers the color in the music, and to me the piano is the most colorful of instruments. I believe it has something to do with the notes being all in a row, and also in the way they are hammered and muted at the same time by the mechanisms of the instrument. I have always thought of it as a "river of tones" (because it runs "in a row"), and it could also be thought of as a palette in the same way. :)
Judging from the FB response, you will have a lot of customers, and of course I will be one too, and I will even call myself the Honorary First Customer (not counting your Mom and family of course), but I am assuming you will have physical CDs, and if you do then I can listen at home on my new Sony mini-stereo. :)
Looking forward to it, and I know you are too, and you've been planning this and working hard on it for a long time, so huge congratulations! :)
Tonight's movie at CSUN was John Cassavetes' "Faces". It could be called "In Your Face", lol, because it is a deliberately abrasive film, shot often in close up, of people grinning, laughing, yukking it up, and just generally rambling on and on. The story, such as it is, is about the breakup of a marriage of a rich businessman and his wife. He takes up with a prostitute and she has a fling with a young man she meets at the Whiskey A Go-Go of all places (actually filmed there).
Grimsley left me a voicemail that I got when I left the theater. He had walked out, 45 minutes into the film. I understand his reaction, because I saw "Faces" on dvd about 7 or 8 years ago, and while I didn't "walk out" (i.e. turn it off), I did stop paying attention after about a half hour or so, because of the non-stop talking and laughing in close up. Seeing it tonight on the big screen, however, left me with a different impression : I thought it was a pretty tremendous film, when it hit me how coherent it actually is, if you have the patience to sit and watch it for what it is. If you do that, and if you do not allow the purposely confrontational style to disorient you and therefore to disillusion you, you will get quite a payoff and you will see that Cassavetes was not quite as goofy as you thought he was. Taken as a Whole, if sat through with patience, the movie is a minor masterpiece. But if you watch, as I did the first time, and go - after 20 minutes - "what the hell is this", then you will think it is terrible.
I am glad I saw it on a movie screen, and saw it all the way through. There is no movie like it.
On a final note, I have something unusual happen to me today, unusual in the literal sense. This afternoon, I took Pearl and The Koberman Pinscher to Lake Balboa. 'Twas a beautiful day, all of a sudden 80 degrees. But when I got home at 2:30 pm, I began to develop a sinus allergy that got worse over the course of the evening, and is only just tapering off now as I write.
It was weird because of my history with sinus allergies. I have probably mentioned this before, but from the time I was in grade school until I was 35, allergies were the bane of my existence. I would get them on a regular basis, two to three times a month, and they were awful. And the medicine you had to take made you feel groggy and wiped-out (until Sudafed came along)....
But then about 1995, I just stopped getting my allergies. They just plain stopped, and it took me a year or two to notice. "Hey, I haven't had an allergy in a while now".
My body had defeated them.
Until now. I think I've had one or two other serious allergic reactions to pollen in the past 22 years, and today would be the third. I figure the rains caused a lot of growth and blooming, and today being warm, perhaps a lot of pollen was released, at Lake Balboa and also the orange blossoms at CSUN. Anyhow, it sent me back to The Years Of Allergies, and how "no fun" they are. They really suck, haha.
Today's allergy is receding, and I will chalk it up to excess pollen in the air, and I will hope that my body's resistance is still in place.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning!
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Rice Canyon + Water + Oscars
Happy Late Night, my Darling,
I hope your day was good and all projects coming along well. We had our second sunny day in a row (temp about 65), so I headed out to Rice Canyon at 3pm for an hour's hike. I hadn't been to Rice for quite a while, probably last September, and it looked quite a bit different. The trail itself was a bit beat up from the rains, which cut channels in it and left debris, rocks and sticks, strewn about. The trail itself must have become a stream bed during the big storm two weeks ago. But the main difference was in all the growth. The whole place looks "filled in" with shrubs and underbrush, and the trees are full of leaves for the first time since I've been hiking there. Also, the creek is running, and in this place the water is moving a bit faster than at Aliso Canyon and the other revitalised Valley creeks I've mentioned since the rains began. Maybe because Rice Canyon is on the side of a mountain, and all that water is coming down. And it's interesting, too, because the last big rain was two weeks ago - and it was one of our biggest storms ever - but the water is still coming down the hillsides and causing the creeks to run, and at Rice Canyon at a fair degree of force.
So as I was hiking, and watching the water, I wondered : where is it all coming from? The rain ended two weeks ago. Did it soak into the mountain? Well, obviously. But you would think it would just keep going down until it turned into groundwater. But maybe because the ground was so saturated, runoff was created. And it's still running off, two weeks later. So the mountain is like a gigantic sponge that soaked up literally tons of water, and it's been running downhill 24/7 ever since.
A geologist would say "elementary my dear Watson", but to me it's really fascinating to see it happen, just because we rarely get to see it! And it kinda blows your mind just how much water comes down in a rainstorm.
I took some pix at Rice, but alas, the light wasn't that great, so no postable ones. I'll keep shooting, however, and thereby taking my own advice which I am always passing on to you, lol. "Keep Shooting" is my photographic motto.
The rest of the day was Usual Stuff. This evening I watched an episode of "Fear The Walking Dead" on dvd, from the Libe. It's a pretty good show, not great, but better than the original nowdays.
I saw a couple of posts today, one was a pic of your friend at the Oscars. That's pretty cool, and it would be a blast to go. My parents got to go a couple times, back in about 1965, 66, when my Dad had some Hollywood clout, and one time my sister Vickie got to go. But the coolest thing of all is that, when you get there, you discover that all the Hollywood Movie Stars are Just Like You. They are people too, and most of 'em are pretty cool, because they started out as artists with a dream, just like we all have done.
Hollywood is great because it is all about building people up to Dream Status, making them bigger than life. That can be looked at from a cynical point of view, but I've always seen it as magic, just like I see Disneyland as pure magic, a place of dreams.
I also saw a post via your friend and client Betty, from Fall II Rise. That was a heartfelt post, and if in any way directed at me, then thanks. It means a lot. :):)
Well anyhow, that's all I know for tonight. Tomorrow should be sunny again.
See you in the morn. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I hope your day was good and all projects coming along well. We had our second sunny day in a row (temp about 65), so I headed out to Rice Canyon at 3pm for an hour's hike. I hadn't been to Rice for quite a while, probably last September, and it looked quite a bit different. The trail itself was a bit beat up from the rains, which cut channels in it and left debris, rocks and sticks, strewn about. The trail itself must have become a stream bed during the big storm two weeks ago. But the main difference was in all the growth. The whole place looks "filled in" with shrubs and underbrush, and the trees are full of leaves for the first time since I've been hiking there. Also, the creek is running, and in this place the water is moving a bit faster than at Aliso Canyon and the other revitalised Valley creeks I've mentioned since the rains began. Maybe because Rice Canyon is on the side of a mountain, and all that water is coming down. And it's interesting, too, because the last big rain was two weeks ago - and it was one of our biggest storms ever - but the water is still coming down the hillsides and causing the creeks to run, and at Rice Canyon at a fair degree of force.
So as I was hiking, and watching the water, I wondered : where is it all coming from? The rain ended two weeks ago. Did it soak into the mountain? Well, obviously. But you would think it would just keep going down until it turned into groundwater. But maybe because the ground was so saturated, runoff was created. And it's still running off, two weeks later. So the mountain is like a gigantic sponge that soaked up literally tons of water, and it's been running downhill 24/7 ever since.
A geologist would say "elementary my dear Watson", but to me it's really fascinating to see it happen, just because we rarely get to see it! And it kinda blows your mind just how much water comes down in a rainstorm.
I took some pix at Rice, but alas, the light wasn't that great, so no postable ones. I'll keep shooting, however, and thereby taking my own advice which I am always passing on to you, lol. "Keep Shooting" is my photographic motto.
The rest of the day was Usual Stuff. This evening I watched an episode of "Fear The Walking Dead" on dvd, from the Libe. It's a pretty good show, not great, but better than the original nowdays.
I saw a couple of posts today, one was a pic of your friend at the Oscars. That's pretty cool, and it would be a blast to go. My parents got to go a couple times, back in about 1965, 66, when my Dad had some Hollywood clout, and one time my sister Vickie got to go. But the coolest thing of all is that, when you get there, you discover that all the Hollywood Movie Stars are Just Like You. They are people too, and most of 'em are pretty cool, because they started out as artists with a dream, just like we all have done.
Hollywood is great because it is all about building people up to Dream Status, making them bigger than life. That can be looked at from a cynical point of view, but I've always seen it as magic, just like I see Disneyland as pure magic, a place of dreams.
I also saw a post via your friend and client Betty, from Fall II Rise. That was a heartfelt post, and if in any way directed at me, then thanks. It means a lot. :):)
Well anyhow, that's all I know for tonight. Tomorrow should be sunny again.
See you in the morn. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Great Photo + Balloons, Toys & Kids
Happy Late Tuesday Night, Sweet Baby,
That was a fantastic photo this morning. The colors are amazing, and also the proportions of space, with the large red background and the placement of the subject and the balloons - it just looks great, like it could be a billboard or something. I am glad that you have another new client, and that you guys had fun making the video. You mentioned the joy you experienced in giving the balloons away to the kids - I know that one of my favorite things as a very small child was to have a balloon. For one thing, there were several different sensations involved. You could bat them around (fun!), or sometimes they popped (startling!), or you could blow them up from scratch and then tie them off (creating), and maybe for me, the most fun of all was to make water balloons and throw them at my siblings........during Summer of course. We had many a water balloon war in those days, and such was the versatility of balloons.
Helium balloons were a whole different thing altogether. They were exotic, they floated upward. They wanted to escape and so had to be tethered to keep them from doing so. To get a helium balloon was extra special, and every kid, young or older, knows the sensation of wrapping the string (usually similar to Christmas ribbon) around your finger so as to get a good hold on the gravity defying balloon. Then you've got it under control. These are all little details that kids notice! Which is why getting a helium balloon is a big deal for them. :) So it made your day, and the kids' day too.
One last use for helium balloons........you know what it is. :)
It's usually reserved for adolescents or teenagers.
Untying the balloon, inhaling the helium, and talking like Alvin and The Chipmunks. Big fun!
But yeah, when you said that giving the balloons to the kids made your and Anna's day, it reminded me of all the sensations associated with balloons, and how kids notice them.......
And I just thought of one last one : it's more obscure, but still many kids would know it. It's when you rub a balloon on your shirt to make static electricity, and then it will "stick" to the wall for a little while. Pretty cool!
So there you have it : fun with balloons from an overgrown kid who remembers.
I saw several other music oriented posts, including the new single from Versus Me. They got a real high tech production on that one, seems like they've got some "push" behind them, which is good for you too.
Today the Sun finally came out, a clear sky, no clouds. Still pretty chilly, but I'll take what I can get. :)
No hike because of Tuesday Golden Agers, but maybe tomorrow. Tonight's movie was another in the Charlie Chan series, "The Chinese Cat". These films stick to a formula, but it works, and I've seen four of 'em so far. They are a blast, pure escapist fun from the mid-40s.
I will look forward to seeing your video, it's gonna have a great look, very creative.
And since you have me thinking about childhood toys, it reminds me that - for a couple years now - I've been meaning to buy a gyroscope. Yep, that was another favorite of mine as a five year old. And a prism. Definitely need to get another prism.
And a Spirograph. Do they still make those? Spirograph was one of the great Art Toys of the 1960s, and I made a lot of Spirograph drawings back then.....
But most of all, I think I need a Superball. I don't know if generations since are aware of Superballs, or even if they make them anymore, but a Superball was a billiard ball sized ball of hyperresponsive black rubber. It was the kind of toy they came up with for kids back when all these new synthetic formulations were coming into the consumer realm. Superballs were downright crazy - you could bounce one off the sidewalk and over the top of a twenty foot tree with no trouble at all. Bigger kids could bounce them higher. My own favorite trick was to take a Superball into the hallway of our house, and wind up and throw it as hard as I could against one side.....
You could turn out the lights for Extra Effect : Pitch Darkness in the hallway. And then you would throw the Superball as hard as you could against one side of the hallway.......and it would go wham-wham-wham-wham-wham back and forth between the walls, horizontally, at about waist level, and defying gravity for several seconds.
You just had to be careful you didn't bean yourself. /////
But there you have it - toys and kids, from an expert who just so happens to still be a kid! :)
And that's all I know for tonight, SB. I will see you in the morn. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
That was a fantastic photo this morning. The colors are amazing, and also the proportions of space, with the large red background and the placement of the subject and the balloons - it just looks great, like it could be a billboard or something. I am glad that you have another new client, and that you guys had fun making the video. You mentioned the joy you experienced in giving the balloons away to the kids - I know that one of my favorite things as a very small child was to have a balloon. For one thing, there were several different sensations involved. You could bat them around (fun!), or sometimes they popped (startling!), or you could blow them up from scratch and then tie them off (creating), and maybe for me, the most fun of all was to make water balloons and throw them at my siblings........during Summer of course. We had many a water balloon war in those days, and such was the versatility of balloons.
Helium balloons were a whole different thing altogether. They were exotic, they floated upward. They wanted to escape and so had to be tethered to keep them from doing so. To get a helium balloon was extra special, and every kid, young or older, knows the sensation of wrapping the string (usually similar to Christmas ribbon) around your finger so as to get a good hold on the gravity defying balloon. Then you've got it under control. These are all little details that kids notice! Which is why getting a helium balloon is a big deal for them. :) So it made your day, and the kids' day too.
One last use for helium balloons........you know what it is. :)
It's usually reserved for adolescents or teenagers.
Untying the balloon, inhaling the helium, and talking like Alvin and The Chipmunks. Big fun!
But yeah, when you said that giving the balloons to the kids made your and Anna's day, it reminded me of all the sensations associated with balloons, and how kids notice them.......
And I just thought of one last one : it's more obscure, but still many kids would know it. It's when you rub a balloon on your shirt to make static electricity, and then it will "stick" to the wall for a little while. Pretty cool!
So there you have it : fun with balloons from an overgrown kid who remembers.
I saw several other music oriented posts, including the new single from Versus Me. They got a real high tech production on that one, seems like they've got some "push" behind them, which is good for you too.
Today the Sun finally came out, a clear sky, no clouds. Still pretty chilly, but I'll take what I can get. :)
No hike because of Tuesday Golden Agers, but maybe tomorrow. Tonight's movie was another in the Charlie Chan series, "The Chinese Cat". These films stick to a formula, but it works, and I've seen four of 'em so far. They are a blast, pure escapist fun from the mid-40s.
I will look forward to seeing your video, it's gonna have a great look, very creative.
And since you have me thinking about childhood toys, it reminds me that - for a couple years now - I've been meaning to buy a gyroscope. Yep, that was another favorite of mine as a five year old. And a prism. Definitely need to get another prism.
And a Spirograph. Do they still make those? Spirograph was one of the great Art Toys of the 1960s, and I made a lot of Spirograph drawings back then.....
But most of all, I think I need a Superball. I don't know if generations since are aware of Superballs, or even if they make them anymore, but a Superball was a billiard ball sized ball of hyperresponsive black rubber. It was the kind of toy they came up with for kids back when all these new synthetic formulations were coming into the consumer realm. Superballs were downright crazy - you could bounce one off the sidewalk and over the top of a twenty foot tree with no trouble at all. Bigger kids could bounce them higher. My own favorite trick was to take a Superball into the hallway of our house, and wind up and throw it as hard as I could against one side.....
You could turn out the lights for Extra Effect : Pitch Darkness in the hallway. And then you would throw the Superball as hard as you could against one side of the hallway.......and it would go wham-wham-wham-wham-wham back and forth between the walls, horizontally, at about waist level, and defying gravity for several seconds.
You just had to be careful you didn't bean yourself. /////
But there you have it - toys and kids, from an expert who just so happens to still be a kid! :)
And that's all I know for tonight, SB. I will see you in the morn. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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