Retirement: Online Art Workshops

Two "background" pages that I started on the plane a week and a half ago:
Rip, tear, paste, smear, smile:


OK so yesterday wasn't spent in my "ideal" way of parking my arse on the floor and cutting and pasteing happily away. Nope. I did luck out with the grocery store and not too many people there (whew). I did pack up and get together all of the "stuff" (samples and such) that I need to send out via the Post Office tomorrow (and what is up with their website? It looks like the home page for Star Wars and NOT the Post Office...Is George Lucas broke these days?). I did spend several (triple ugh ugh ugh) hours sorting through my receipts, adding them and up and getting my tax stuff ready for my tax preparer "aka the husband". UGH. I hate this time of year.

I calmed my nerves while doing my taxes listening to a cd I found at Amoeba records for $5 the other day, Christy Moore's Ride On. I love that album. Half way through sorting the (damn) receipts, I decided I needed to laugh or else I'd have a nervous breakdown so we put on Something's Happening and Don't Touch That Dial which we always tape the first Monday night of the month on KPFK. The show featured shows either relating to Easter or April 15th. I was rolling on the floor when the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show came on. I love Harris. He's one of my favorite all time performers. All he has to do is open his mouth and I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.

David and I ended our night (after helping the bunny with the hiding of the eggs and all that) with watching a documentary of the film, THe Battle of Algiers. We'd bought the DVD when it came out in 2005 and it is one that has been sitting on our shelf for some time now. David suggested that we watch it before I went to Boston. Wow. It's probably one of the most perfect films I've ever seen-everything fits (storyline, mood, music, portrayal, feeling, etc...) Then to watch the 'extras' on the DVD and to find out that the director, Pontecorvo insisted on casting by "face" rather then if someone was an actual actor or not is amazing. The faces fit the character that they are playing. The faces, the people become the characters-they become real...then to watch the documentary and to find out that Saadi Yacef was real and was a member of the FLN. That the scene with the man who is condemned to death (and is marching to the gallows) was a man who was really sentenced to death. That the man in the opening scene who rats out where Ali La Pointe is was a petty thief who Pontecorvo had "borrowed" from prison for the filming to play that character...all of those things put the movie in a different perspective. It's brilliant. It's real. I can still see certain shots in my head... I still can't get the score out of my head.

*****

Happy Easter, folks. Here are some of my visual presents for all of you...think of them as Easter Eggs:

Steve McPherson here and here

ZyArts Books in the U.K.

I love this magazine and am eagerly awaiting a new issue