Category Archives: Bit of the ordinary

Something from everyday goings on.

Bit of the ordinary

Soundtrack Challenge 2

For my second sound track Challenge list, I want to share another soundtrack I bought when I was young. The cassette tape for Stand By Me

This was a movie I really liked, but I also really loved the Oldies of the time period. One of the constant things in my memories of growing up was the clock radio in my room. It could play cassettes as well as radio stations and had some rad G.I. Joe stickers on it. It could also record off the radio! Sometimes I listened to B93 that, at the time, played current pop songs. But it was almost always tuned to 104.3 the Oldies station. It had a great mix of early Rock and Roll, Motown and 60’s classic rock. One of the disc jockeys was Dick Biondi. I had no idea how old he was growing up. But then again, did you really have a good radar for age when you are 10? Pretty much everyone after a certain point of being adult just seem the same. Also I never know what he looked like, so I didn’t have a reference to judge his age.

But one of the rhythms of the childhood weekday was listening to Good Night Sweetheart(lyrics). Sometimes called Goodnight Sweetheart, It’s to Go(youtube). It was always the last song he played in his set, and it was the sign for me to get ready for bed.

I need to share this movie with the kids. I bet you it still holds up.

Bit of the ordinary

Soundtrack Challenge 1

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My Brother Jon tagged me in a Movie SoundTrack Challenge. Basically to list 7 movie soundtracks that I love.

The first one I will list is the Soundtrack to the Muppet Movie. I loved the Muppet Show, and still do to this day. Also this was the first music I ever purchased, I even still have the vinyl record. It has some classic songs and I will always go see a movie with Muppets in it. It comes from a time of practical effects and live puppetry. And that is always magical in my book. Perhaps this is the beginning of my love of puppets in theater shows…

Bit of the ordinary, thoughts-Art-Life

Leaping

I saw this tweet from Austin Kleon:

“Take the Leap”

I immediately thought that I had written that down as well. It turns out that I had. In 2014 after reading Steal Like an Artist, I was inspired to jot down thoughts relating to my own artistic mindset. While I was keeping theater in mind, it they do seem somewhat general:

I have been thinking it is time to dust off this back burner project and flesh out some of these thoughts. Maybe it is time for me to take the leap.

Bit of the ordinary

What do you know? Not much.

I am reading books written by former apprentices of Frank Lloyd Wright while researching for a future article. It is interesting to begin hitting the point where you read about the two different sides of the same events. It makes me wonder how accurate each side is. In most conversations, people tend to remember the gist of what was said, but rarely the exact words. And the gist of what they remember is influenced by the tone and inflection used. You remember what you think they meant, rancher than the exact words. That is what brains do to process information so quickly, recontextualize (is that a word?) it to store it. And that recontextualization (new word?) is informed based on your opinion of the person and thoughts about the various attributes of that person (thoughts on race, class LGBT status etc). So reading the two different sides fo the story, I am making judgements on where the truth lies in between the stories. Which is invariably based on my opinions of the writers and their backgrounds.

So how do we know where things land really?

Bit of the ordinary

Curiosity isn’t a four letter word

Recently I have been thinking about curiosity. This past month was busy for a variety of reasons, but one of them was helping my daughter on her set design for the middle school play, Pandora’s Fire. A re-telling of the Pandora myth. One thing I like about the script is that it doesn’t make the curiosity of Pandoras completely negative. In fact her curiosity helps her to save the day at the end. the play links it to imagination. I was reminded of this today when I read this:

The lives of great thinkers teach us that learning is the verb of life. The trick to lifelong learning is to exercise your curiosity as much as you can and to let it guide you where it wants to go

It was on a blog post from Austin Kleon. Sometimes I worry that my interest in so many topics dilutes my ability to finish or achieve things. I have come to the realization that my curiosity is a driving force for me. But that force needs to be harnessed with some discipline in order to finish things. Otherwise I will just keep a never-ending breadcrumb trail of incomplete projects in my wake.

That should be my balance, getting work done (discipline) finding new things to keep my excited (imagination/curiosity). Every day is a struggle.

Bit of the ordinary, Design Stuff

Artistic Accounting Weeks 13-16

I have gotten some stuff done over the intervening weeks. Built the 1st round of Tetri boxes. And the Stackable Storage that goes inside. the stackable are working perfectly. there is some tweaking that needs to happen on the Tetri. Some of the Finger joints don’t align perfectly. And on one box, I have them incorrectly placed. I also have to tweak the clearance on the doors.

I was able to finish a 2nd chair and more importantly my new desk. A couple of coats of Spar Urethane later and it was good to go. It has a nice look to it. Yesterday was able to start placing the cables, printer and Drobo.

The office will be a lot better once I get more Stackables made and can put away more stuff forte other horizontal surfaces.

Bit of the ordinary

Artistic Accounting, weeks 11 & 12

It looks like two weeks have passed by since my last post listing what I have actually produced. I have gotten two of my boxes built for the office. I think I am going to paint them, so maybe I can use cheaper plywood and stretch my money a little farther for future ones. I have my office table assembled, except for the adding the top. there is some differences between the actual plywood thickness and the assumed plywood thickness at OpenDesk. So some tweaking is necessary, that is a lesson to learn for the future. Next level designing is having things parametrically linked to the thickness of the plywood in the design. Made a poster for the March for Our Lives that we went to yesterday. that was fun to do. there was a bunch of redrafting that happened to get the office desk ready and to do the stacking boxes for inside my larger boxes. It is a little frustrating to not have more to post about at these increments of time. I must admit I am jealous of some of these other people like poets and visual artists that can have smaller chunks of time to produce work. Seeing a poet have a poem published, while I wait to have a show open is frustrating. I have to look for those other ways that I can produce work. Maybe byproducts of larger pieces, or just pure side work to keep the juice flowing. I have ideas for things. the main sticking point is finding the time to devote to them.

Bit of the ordinary

Artistic Accounting Week 9

It has been yet another busy week. But not too bad. Got some more done of the Tetris inspired boxes. Now ready to make the V-Carve files and buy some wood. Got a FLW book thru interlibrary loan, Taschen’s Volume 3 of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Complete Works. Has a lot of great images in there on the works towards the end of his life. Didn’t have anything about the Music Pavilion at Taliesin West though. But it will be great to compare the various designs of theaters throughout the years. Some good closeups of Furniture draftings. Including the Origami Chair. Even made a scale paper model of it. I think I can adapt it for CNC manufacturing. I wonder how much FLW would have agreed with digital fabrication. He was focused on bespoke, custom work most of the time. Which was equated with hand crafting in his lifetime. But at the same time the onset of power tools made things a lot easier. In fact the Shops at Taliesin West were some of the first things finished.

Another bit of work done this week was combing thru the Taliesin West Preservation Master Plan. Which has a great detailed history of the different buildings and their various iterations. There are also some great appendices at the end with images. Draftings of the various stages of the major buildings, which includes the Music Pavilion. Interesting to see.

Bit of the ordinary, Daily Practice

Artistic Accounting Week 6

Well, James & the Giant Peach opened, that was the big thing I created this week. It was a bit of a rush this past weekend, which delayed the posting of this. But the Shows were very well received. It is interesting how the different parts got laughs from various members of the audiences. there is a definite sense of humor for kids and adults. And older adults versus younger ones. That was to be expected, but this brought it back to the forefront of my brain. I did some last minute sound cues this past week and some Qlab work. But it was very gratifying to see everything come together. And without too much stress. the shorter show was totally part of that. We were able to do runs of the show and works some parts each rehearsal, and still not need the entire time. And the extra time was really needed by Shawn Paul to do lights and projections. And I wasn’t worried that it wasn’t going to get done. I knew SPE would take care of the show. And he did a great job. After opening he mentioned that he wanted to do more and felt bad that he didn’t. That is of course the life of the artist right there. Never satisfied with your own work. But the product on stage was great. it looked really good and complete. I wonder if other directors have the same faith in their designers? Some do I am sure. But I really understand the limitations of time and resources. You just have to make choices and decision based on what you have in front of you, never might the restrictions and complications and ‘could be’s. I think I did a good job with that.