What’s on my mind right now?
Workshops in Salt Lake City and San Diego, starting Friday!
All readers of this blog are encouraged to attend!
Once the hammer comes down and I’m busy making the work, it’s unlikely I’ll post on this blog again until after my return from the Best Coast, so this one’s going to be fairly long.
Well, what about Easter Weekend !?!?
(L) MiNX at Comicon 2014 by M.E. — (R) MiNX by One World Media Productions.
I had a fabulous time seeing my friends Ischa Bee and Raffi Shahinian during a beautiful Spring weekend, before the predictable rains and even snows of late April fell. This is the time of year for those life-giving events in the high desert, though!
Before the bunnies besieged us …
Best Dance Concert of the year by RDT!
(R) Aaron Wood and Sarah Donahue (not pictured) seemed to lead this amazing young ensemble through a delightfully full evening.
Of course, it was also the first “formal” concert of the calendar year that I’ve seen — they’re doing other performances here, there, and everywhere. I wish there was time for a reasonably-long review, but there isn’t. It had everything I love about RDT though — all delivered in four large ensemble pieces. I’ve never had a nicer Easter Basket.
There was some fascinating artwork on the walls of the upper lobby.
RDT has extended the LAND-2-LAND Art Sale to continue through the end of May!
This fund-raising exhibit has some interesting and beautiful items for silent auction — Speaking of which, I donated some of my own digital watercolors to a similar event going on at the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell, Montana.
Model: Dancer Lou Sturm, from photos taken at Porridge For Goldilocks at the Urban Arts Gallery. Postcard-sized image by M.E.
Besides paying for Live Music and Theatre, I actually buy artwork made by others as well:
Assemblage by the amazing Marcee Blackerby.
Thanks to Willie Littig and other friends for running a sale of this wonderful artist’s work!
Art can express and portray the darkness of our souls, and also the resilience within:
Program cover for Breaking the Silence, presented at the Ogden Buddhist Temple.
My readers are encouraged to research the dreadful history of our government’s cruel and unnecessary internment of US citizens of Japanese descent in lousy camps during WWII. The author of this reader’s theater play spent her share of meager (and late) compensation money to develop this testament. She was there, as well as a US veteran, survivors from camps in Utah and Wyoming, plus my family’s friend Judge Ray Uno.
(L to R) Cherry blossoms in the garden of Salt Lake’s Buddhist Temple; David Sharp on stage at Nihon Matsuri — this block of 100 South is renamed Japan Town in honor of the old neighborhood, mostly destroyed to make way for the Salt Palace in 1969.
One of my fellow-inmates from the Art Department at the University of Utah made music for Breaking the Silence, and I saw him play again at the Nihon Matsuri festival. David and I had the great good fortune to study Japanese Art with Monuments Man Lennox Tierney at the U of U. Everyone looked pretty Japanese at the festival under much-needed umbrellas — very practical folks! The weather felt like a vertical flood, but the food and company couldn’t be better!
From the lands that gave us Easter and Passover:
Images from my personal copy of the program and promotional material.
I have rarely had the opportunity to be in the same space with objects over 3000 years old, like pottery and chunks of ancient architecture, but the basic humanity of this exhibit moved me deeply. That big round thing holds fragments of the much younger Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from only about 2000 years back, and they themselves are miracles of preservation by neglect and low humidity. They were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
During Pax Romana (the so-called Roman Peace), Palestine was ravaged and extensively depopulated by Vespatian and his son Titus in response to what we now call the Jewish Revolt. These two generals both became Emperors, as did Vespatian’s son Domitian, who was the first Imperator to preside over those infamous mass public murders in the newly-built Colosseum. The last named was clinically insane as well as cruel, and actually participated in the bloodshed, clad as Hercules, until he was assassinated just before the reigns of the Five Good Emperors. You might just guess what I think of all of them, but I’ll agree that all but a very few of those who followed those five were WORSE.
It’s time for some actual FUN!
Record Store Day was more than just shopping. First I started the day RIGHT:
Metro Music Club performing at the finish line of the Salt Lake Marathon.
Good singing, good playing, and seeing my friend Chris Snarr on the throne (after working at The Bayou until late.) It was wonderful seeing Amber again and meeting their kids Jaron and Amy. This first-rate band plays popular Funk, but MMC’s leader Josslyn writes her own songs, recording under her own name. Metro Music Club is a true gift to our town.
After that, it was off to celebrate some record stores:
James Brown’s first recordings with Bootsy and Catfish Collins — I bought the original double album on vinyl at the long-gone Cosmic Aeroplane, and am happy to have a drive copy on CD now.
WOW — Vinyl record and turntables were for sale everywhere, at least at Raunch Records and Graywhale! It was nice to talk with some folks from SLUG Magazine and KRCL too. Speaking of Cosmic Aeroplane, follow the link and check out my website about that great store.
The BIG Con:
Do you know how much this wrist band cost? No — it didn’t come with a butt-band-aid to heal-over the place where your wallet used to be, either.
Actually, nobody is forced to go to these things, and I had a blast!
The Salt Palace featured a row of actors, models, and popular celebrities signing autographs that stretched almost a fifth of a mile. The Star Trek posse attracted the longest lines. At the moment, these fan-driven events are scheduled every six months.
All I’ll say is that Enterprise captains William Shatner (not pictured) and Patrick Stewart commanded the biggest fees for autographs and photo-ops.
I asked around for my friends (Cosmic) Christian Coleman and Chris Bodily, but had no luck until one of the publishing crew for local Comic Book Hellskate steered me in the correct direction:
(L to R) Cover of Hellskate by Chris Bodily; Flyer for a local Roller Derby event.
I was happy to meet Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and she in turn was delighted to know that I’d been a member of her official Fan Club in the 1980’s.
(L to R) Elvira in costume, what there is of it; Cassandra Peterson as she appeared at Comicon. Yeah, I bought these pictures, and we made each other laugh!
An important figure in American Art was running a table on the main floor, and you didn’t need to pay anything to talk with him, however I purchased some items, including a new graphic novel featuring Batman:
(L to R) Signed print by Neal Adams on my own wall; Program notes about this friendly man, who helped raise the quality of the entire Comic Book Genre in the 1960’s.
Among many subjects, we discussed my early daze at the University of Utah, and how his contemporary work literally “shut up” would-be critics of Comic Books among the academicians around me and my peers. Pictured above are his characterizations of some DC characters that caught my attention on the racks of drug stores at the time — the ultra-dark Spectre and Deadman, plus his elegant version of Batman, who got darker and darker over the years until Frank Miller further revolutionized him in the Dark Knight series.
Adams remembered drawing my friend Tom Fagan, who led an annual Halloween parade in Rutland, Vermont dressed as the Caped Crusader, in one of DC’s comic books. Tom used to visit the very same Salt Palace as a sales representative for Tuttle Books during book fairs, and highly approved of Adams’ work on Fagan’s favorite character!
Mr. Adams was constantly drawing, as he’s been doing since his teenage years. I brought my own materials for resurrected Sketch Cabaret in another part of the building, but didn’t really need them, since they generously supplied a great range of materials for one and all, and some of the finest-looking models on the Wasatch Front. No, I didn’t show anything to Adams, but a few things turned out alright.
(L to R) An un-named Sketch Cabaret model, drawn by M.E. as she in turn was drawing a Cosplay lady wielding her frying pan.
The deciding thing that brought me to Comicon was the return of MiNX as musical stars of Sketch Cabaret, and they made my whole day with their talent and energy. At first they used the red outfits I’d only seen in publicity shots (top of this post), but Ischa changed over to her sculpted costume from the Utah Arts Festival last year.
MiNX inspired the Sketch Cabaret models to MOVE!
The venue made them turn the volume down for a nearby panel discussion, but the good fun continued anyway! I noticed other ladies around the convention in long red evening dresses, much like Ischa’s first gown, but it seemed to be a coincidence. Neither she nor I knew what character they portrayed. Raffi frankly reminded me of the Easter Bunny with those ears, but I suspect yet another coincidence. That Steampunk image with the duo under a crane atop the steel barrel is more than a few months old.
I’m “Over the Moon” about Katie’s workshop:
Lunar Eclipse of April 14, 2014 as seen from Centerville, Utah just after totality. That star is named Spica, but Mars was also shining brightly a bit higher — Photo by M.E.
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Online Versions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom Novels:
REMINDER: Research this prolific author on ERBzine.
A Princess of Mars ; The Gods of Mars ; Warlord of Mars ;
( 1911 to 1913 — The heart of the Pulp-Classic world of Mars/Barsoom.)
And thereby hangs a tale As good luck would have it As merry as the day is long At one fell swoop … (We’re stealing from Elizabethan/Jacobean Theatre, like Shakespeare did.)
Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
Buy one through RAUNCH Records’ Facebook page!
Michael's Blog: Beat The Devil 
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