recent news...

SUNDAY 06.11 .2000:

Riverbend has begun. I'm looking forward to seeing Susan Werner perform on Wednesday (and perhaps get an interview with her for my ever-continuing music documentary). Here I am with Susan back in 1995.

I've started working again on my Community Communication Project. Perhaps I can go ahead and change human society in my free time.

And here is the link to the Carmina Buran pictures that Emily Sweezey took, featuring my friend Trish Ferrell singing solo.

MONDAY 06.12 .2000:

Sure, music's a lot of fun. And the convergence of computers with music has certainly been interesting so far. Take MP3s, for example. I thought the connection with Suzanne Vega was fascinating (thanks to King for the forward). Ok, ok, so I thought all along that the song was "Tom Steiner." (The first time I heard it was when my friend puppetmaster Dianne was singing it for me and -- no surprise -- I misunderstood.) Kinda like how "I Lost You To Monty" turned out to be "I Want You To Want Me." And "I Loved You In Evita" is actually "Love In An Elevator." Oh well.

Speaking of music, the Susan Werner interview is set for Wednesday after her sound check at Riverbend. This is part of the material I plan to use for a documentary I'm putting together concerning -- surprise -- music. I intend to use a similar narrative style to the Noteworthy mini-series I produced back in 1991 (eschewing a script or even a straight-line narrative, it resembles a spiral staircase in how it circles around the subject until you either get dizzily nauseous or you get to where you were going.) I thought about using the name "Noteworthy," but perhaps that's tied to the earlier series too much. Today I'm considering the title "From Within" (domains already taken, though) or, just maybe, "Spiral Stair." The footage I already have in the can includes hammer dulcimer performances (Dan Landrum), singer-songwriter acoustic set (Mark Hall), interesting band (substructure with David Bird), rehearsals from the opera Madame Butterfly, and various interviews. It occurred to me last week to include Susan (seemed like a natural idea). I'd like to hit percussion (hee hee), perhaps a drum circle or some similar event. And a dancer or dancers, interpreting music. Maybe the local group Flannery. Might grab some stuff from the Mountain Opry. (Wonder if Kevn is hanging around Atlanta?) Once I reach some critical mass of footage, I'll edit it all together into a tidy hour-long documentary for distribution to all the public television stations in the country. Three a.m. Nebraska, here I come.

Btw, I love the Onion. And Trailervision is entertaining, too.

SUNDAY 06.18.2000:

To catch y'all up on some artistic backlog... I worked on some sculptures in clay back in the fall (1999) and spring (2000).

The big bone-looking thing is supposed to be, well, a big bone. (Our model was from a cow, probably a leg or jaw or something.)

My main project this spring was making something similar to a human head. In the background you can see the live model, and yes, she did survive. The clay is still in the process of drying out on this 70-pound clump of dirt; hopefully by August or September it will be fired in a kiln, ready for display in my gallery.

Special thanks go to my teacher, the talented artist Lee Deigaard, who made tracks to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor a couple weeks ago to teach art.

In other news, I learned about several community ventures at the Virtual Organization of Chattanooga meeting on Friday (more on the CCP page). And my interview with Susan Werner was great (more on the documentary page).