REALLY QUICK REVIEWS
Posted May 7th, 2013 in Comics, Comedy, sports, art, TV, Culture, entertainment, writing, movie, poetry, insomnia, theatre, Shakespeare, Current Events, Warehouse 13, #teamtempest
Have been busy but here’s some quick updates.
Enjoying Boston Breakers soccer; congrats to Sydney Leroux on the NWSL’s first hat trick. I’ve been fooling around with alternate logos for the NWSL teams. It’s fun.
 |
| Thorns-1 |
 |
| Thorns-2 |
Iron Man 3 not as enjoyable as the two previous. No snappy patter, paced on the wrong side of ponderous. And why, oh why, did they decide to make it the feel good Christmas movie of the year?
Bomb Girls did not get picked up for a third season but it is still one of the best shows on TV. So watch it. And be vocal about its excellence. Clamor for more.
Elementary continues to do wonderful things with the basics of Sherlock and a great cast.
Warehouse 13 is back. Yeah!
Prepping for Tempest auditions. Have been writing press releases and trying not to worry too much about casting Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, etc.
And back to Haiku-ing, which is very exciting. Thinking about weaving art and poetry together more.
 |
| SpringWalkHaiku |
How are you?
Comments Off —
WRITER’S WALL
Posted April 25th, 2013 in Uncategorized, art, poetry
Had a haiku break through the slump.
 |
| 3AmWallHaiku |
Comments Off —
SPRING FLOWERS
Posted April 11th, 2013 in Uncategorized, art, photos, Current Events
 |
| AprilFlower14 |
 |
| AprilFlower15 |
 |
| AprilFlower16 |
 |
| AprilFlower11 |
 |
| AprilFlower8 |
Comments Off —
SHERLOCK
Posted April 1st, 2013 in Comics, sports, art, TV, rant, music, Culture, entertainment, Adventure, insomnia, mulling, theatre, Shakespeare, Current Events, #teamtempest
Comcast had a #watchathon week so we decided to officially try out Elementary. And we kept watching. I’ve always been a Sherlock Holmes fan and I’ve always liked Lucy Liu, and this is an interesting mix of the two. Watson as a woman works, Aidan Quinn adds gravity as Gregson and the writing has a good amount of snap. I don’t understand why they landed Sherlock with an absentee dad when he had a perfectly good absentee brother to start with. Making me want to do something with The Hound of The Baskervilles.
In a thinking mood. Miss doing art twice a week. So sharpened some new pencils last night and sketched a robot in flowers. And woke up this morning with the phrase “Atomic SpaceBiscuit Soup” in my head, which could sound like a band. Cue doodle*. And now I’m feeling more like myself.
Tempest Storm Workshop coming up this week. Following through on a more team approach to The Tempest means I feel like I’ve been thinking about The Tempest for a year already but I’m excited to actually be at the point where we are going to put music and dancers and fabric and props and words together to see what happens.
Still listening to Halestorm. Hoping to see them in concert. Want to see The Sapphires but it’s only in limited release. Looks like great fun though. Bomb Girls is back with must watch storylines, Bitchin Kitchen is back to new episodes so that makes for fun Wednesdays.
Marvel is winning the who gets my comic dollars contest. Last visit to the comic shop: 6 Marvel, 2 DC, 1 Archie. New comic crush:
| Fearless Defenders. Captain Marvel continues ace and I will pick up other comic books where Captain Marvel makes appearances doing things like playing poker because the banter is just that witty. The FF is just wacky enough to keep me reading. Young Avengers has the peerless combo of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie knocking issues out of the park. Keith Giffen’s back on The Legion Of Superheroes, but it’s a kill zone and I fear the Legion team has forgotten how to tell a great, moving team story.
The Seattle Reign did well in Japan, the Boston Breakers will be live streaming games for $5 a pop, FIFA and Canada are planning the Women’s World Cup on artificial turf and there’s a bit of a kerfuffle about that. I think they should err on the side of safety and use grass. I need a new hat. Snapbacks can go away and let something stylish in on their way out. There’s probably more to rant about but this is a fairly good summary and I do need to try sleep. Enjoy Spring, Go Mets and remember to eat your Atomic SpaceBiscuit Soup: It’s out THERE somewhere ; ). * |
| AtomicSpaceBiscuitSoup |
Comments Off —
MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Posted March 26th, 2013 in family, art, Culture, gay, Current Events
 |
| MarraigeEquality |
Comments Off —
ANIMATION
Posted March 17th, 2013 in Comics, Animation, Comedy, books, art, design, how-to, robots, Culture, entertainment, Adventure, mulling, Blink Kitty Love, meandering, Current Events, web
I’ve been working animation and posting what I’m doing and what I’m thinking here at the
| Lonely Pond Tumblr. But the latest post might interest you so I’m crossposting:
Name your Battle Robot! It’s more difficult than you think. SyFy has a new show, Robot Combat League, which was actually more fascinating than I expected. Which got me to thinking, I should do a comic where each member of the band aka Blink Kitty Love has a robot, as if they were competing. So I thought of names: Steel Swan, because of the Bunheads ballerina influence and I thought a high kick pirouette would be a killer finishing move. DragonShred or DragonPunk or ShredPunk, because shred is a good verb for skater Tinker and I like dragons. StormSurge, because when I drew the first one that’s sort of what it looked like because of the blue. And I think there was another, which has crept away. So then I skipped an animation practice week, having wandered into a funk but forced myself back by trying to design a robot (see Storm Surge above) in ToonBoom’s Studio to see if I could manage to work its peg system to move an arm. Nope. And so I considered if a program that’s complicated is something I want to spend time on. I really liked stop motion, I’d like to get back to it. And I really like FlipBoom, I’d like to get back to it. But will that turn out an animation of the caliber the more ambitious parts of my personality want? And should I care? See funk, mentioned at beginning of paragraph ; ) So I had taken the idea from “do a comic” to “animate some robot battles, it’ll be fun”. And that helped kick the k out of funk, as did recommitting to part of my long term plan. But now there reared up more robot design questions. Storm Surge didn’t make me happy as it reminded me of Hurricane Sandy. So I thought, hmmm RipTide, let’s try that. Wait, wouldn’t it be cool if the robot ripped its competition apart by reaching inside and applying force outward, how do I do that in a design? Which led to design changes. DragonShred is hard to say, I wanted to keep the Shred and maybe attach the Dragon to Punk. So Tinker’s robot became ShredStar and star shaped weapons entered the design. I’m keeping Steel Swan, Tammy likes it, although I haven’t designed it yet. And for the fourth, you’ll have to wait and for a hint it’s inspired by the band responsible for my new favorite album. So that’s what I’ve been up to. I also sat at Barnes and Noble last Friday, looking through the art book for Rise of The Guardians — beautiful stuff — and thought about how often I rush things. And how once upon a time I didn’t. I remember writing a fantasy story in my early teens and making a family tree for all of the characters and their horses. But then I think I got frustrated by the times I put in prep time and never completed the project. So with Blink Kitty Love, I got into the habit of do it quick and get it done. They have a raw charm and energy that I like and is appropriate for these characters. There’s never really an ongoing story, the band is my way to comment on what’s attracting my attention RIGHT now — robot combat, if you missed it up there ; ) But I think now I need to give myself time and see what happens. Stay tuned.
|
| StormSurge |
 |
| RipTideRough |
 |
| RipTide |
 |
| TinkerRobotMonster |
 |
| DragonShred |
Comments Off —
1:45 AM
Posted March 11th, 2013 in Comedy, sports, books, TV, music, Culture, entertainment, movie, theatre, #teamtempest
Halestorm — their The Strange Case Of… album is on constant play in my car and computer now.
New Joan Jett album upcoming — yeah!
Algarve Cup, US vs. Germany in the final — and Comcast refuses to cooperate with my attempts to watch how they got there by letting me add Fox Soccer. Comcast has serious customer service issues.
Bomb Girls Second Season due end of March.
Enjoyed Jack The Giant Slayer. Makes the good date movie list. Excellent beanstalks. Solid cast, straightforward story and fun.
NWSL: Seattle Reign and Boston Breakers for me. Must figure out when they travel to this part of the universe.
#teamtempest: storm music recorded, Storm Movement workshop upcoming. Exciting and a little scary.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Body Against Body: AMAZING. Need a blog post just about that night. Very impressed with the venue as well (Painted Bride). Need to spend more time in Philly.
Also need to blog more. Apologies for absence. Have been doing mulling, planning, and reading some Shakespeare (Love’s Labours Lost, next up, Winter’s Tale). How about you?
Comments Off —
QUICK TV
Posted February 26th, 2013 in Comedy, sports, TV, robots, Culture, entertainment, Twitter, science, Current Events
Television:
| Bunheads delivered Episode 18 Monday. It was surprising, fun, funny, sharp, excellent and moving. Twitter also went a little crazy the Monday before when ABC Family had a #bunheadsmarathon. I sent out a Carl and Boo are darn cute (they are) tweet that got retweeted and/or favorited by five strangers. So announce Season 2 anytime, ABC Family. Like now. Don’t pull a Middleman.
SyFy’s Robot Combat League started tonight. Didn’t catch it on tv so watching first episode online. Now. It’s a new media universe. Ok, I have watched the first episode. And cool. Although I have a low tolerance for the talky whiny staged stuff, which is why I watch no reality tv shows. But robots. Next week, I’m bringing popcorn. But don’t know how long my how much of this is staged tolerance will last. I was checking out the Robot Combat Twitter account, saw this photo and wondered how they randomly got a first fight with two robots so reminiscent of the Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robots game.
|
| RCL Rigging |
Comments Off —
WE WISH YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR
Posted February 14th, 2013 in Animation, Comedy, family, sports, Culture, entertainment, movie, Blink Kitty Love, Chinese New Year, holiday, theatre, Twitter, Shakespeare, meandering, Current Events, web, #teamtempest
Planning to get back into a blogging zone soon. It’s next on my to do list, which I’ve written one item at a time on Post It Notes so that once I’m done, I can dramatically tear, shred and move on. But finishing a new Blink Kitty Love was above ‘Write Blog Posts’ on the list. You can see the animation below. I really like Tammy’s new look and doing the lions for the Lion Dance segment was fun.
Quick notes: Wreck It Ralph was a dud and I think Pixar (CORRECTION: as the well informed on nearly all things Oscar and entertainment related Kristyn Burtt pointed out in the comments below, the blame for Wreck It Ralph’s lack of charm should rest with Disney) Too many animated movies/shows need to admit that children are not their target audience, which I may rant about at a later date at longer length. Paperman was awesome and inspiring, went to see Warm Bodies a second time and it continues funny smart and charming. Bunheads is back in the zone and I’m rooting for a Cozette-Mel Frankie-Ginny double date from heck. I think some groundwork is being laid: actresses’s body language, Benjamin Britten music choice, Annie Leibovitz name dropping…whatever happens, Bunheads can often be great fun. Only two more episodes though so announce a next season soon, please.
I think House of Anubis is benefitting from the cast shake up, although I was sorry to see the character of Amber being sent off to NY. But this way the bad guys might have a fighting chance.
Bomb Girls is coming back March 27th. Yes!!! Great cast, great storytelling, looking forward to a second season.
Have been following soccer news (and a few games on Twitter). The Seattle Reign preseason jaunt to Japan sounds like an excellent chance to see what the level of play is going to be like. I have to go over the schedules to see when the Reign and Boston Breakers will be playing in D.C. or N.J. that isn’t during The Tempest.
Speaking of The Tempest, we have a Tempest Storm Workshop set up for the end of March. This is the first time we’ve done anything like this and I’m curious about what interest it will attract and what’ll it turn out to be like.
Ok, oh, I’m in a Twitter webcomic gang (Buns and Weiners) and we just finished a jam comic. Check it out here.
And the new Blink Kitty Love. Enjoy! Happy Year of The Snake.