Culture Plundering - musings on acquisition and enhancement, not appropriation

My Cultural Wrap Up of 2017, looking ahead to my cultural forays in 2018...

Books I plan to read in 2018

The Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad - I am finally ready for this one, trying not to project to much. Don’t have a specific month, but I feel an urgency for some reason

A Lesson Before Dying- by Ernest Gaines , part of the Book Talk event at Bismarck State College, glad they are back to fiction. Nothing against non fiction but always looking for avenues of fiction that I don’t stroll.

(I am a member of a monthly book club and our theme for 2018 is Rocks: has to have a name of a rock in the title. So far, my choices are but the rest are not set - 10 more to be  assigned.)

Malachite Lion, A travel Adventure in Kenya by Richard Modlin

These Granite Islands by Sara Stonrich

There are at least 6 books I would like to finish, I gave up most because they are 2nd or 3rd books in a series and continuous time in the series world wore me out.


 I read 17 books in 2017 (18 if I can finish The Perez Family by Christine Bell tonight). I had a goal of 15 and read less than usual due to 2 separate family trips, and well, other things that used my time. I've set a goal of 18 for 2018.

I am working my way through a list of movies from the 1970’s that I missed in their entirety,  probably because I was a child through most of the seventies and most if not all movies on the list would not have interested me when they came out. I watched Serpico, and the original Rocky very recently and was able to mark them off my list.

I’ve found a number of podcasts this year that I’ve really enjoyed and plan to return to: Welcome to Night Vale, The Memory Palace, and You Must Remember This (the series on Charles Manson Hollywood is astounding).

My favorite YouTube channel surfing has been Leeman Kessler (Lovecraft), Jody’s Corner, Wisecrack Channel, Shawn Amos Sunday Mornings’ uploads and Todd in the Shadows

I went to 4 movies in 2017 (movie going budget was depleted by above mentioned family trips).  The movies I saw were: Tulip Fever (better than I expected),  The Founder,  Murder on the Orient Express, and...Wonder Woman.

Looking forward to seeing Batman Samurai in 2018, I would travel to Minneapolis to see that one.

Peace to all in 2018, and a Happy New Year of culture plundering!

I've recently spent an evening watching a movie about Tulip hybridization,  and love and the speculation involved with both activities. 


Below is a link to the recent movie, Tulip Fever (2017). 

Tulip Fever Movie review at Drunk Monkeys

A pleasant evening in the company of Wonder Woman.

hAs a young person I happened on  a  DC reissue of the origin story of Wonder Woman and watched the 1975–1979  Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter, oh how I loved to practice that twirl change from ordinary person to WW!

On June 1st, I attended the late night, first showing of Wonder Woman in Bismarck North Dakota. My original thought that since this was a Thursday night at 9:30pm it would be lightly attended. Well, I was wrong.  The line was so large that the line snaked around the back of the ticket booth, and it had the feel of a concert opening.

Below is my review of the movie posted by Drunk Monkeys.  I so highly recommend it.

 ttps://www.facebook.com/DrunkMonkeysWeb/photos/a.447709248585423.97931.284638221559194/1462738233749181/?type=3&theater


Happy wandering through a universe that includes Wonder Woman!

In early January 2017, I watched The Man Who Fell to Earth again, the first time in over 20 years. In 1989 or so, I stumbled across this strange gem of a movie, directed by Nicholas Roeg, and starring David Bowie in his first film role.

The first time I watched it, I just wasn't prepared. This was during a year or so after my father's death, but the film seemed to express the intense distance I then felt from the people around, when I just wanted to scream, don't you know who died?
 And, despite being an Alien, Bowie was so effing cool. 

After watching the film  a couple of weeks ago, I  had the unusual urge to listen to The Doors song, People Are Strange

Below, a link to my 100 word review for the site Drunk Monkeys.



https://www.facebook.com/DrunkMonkeysWeb/photos/a.447709248585423.97931.284638221559194/1316406485049024/?type=3&theater

The making of a Thunder Song

   My husband and I spent a year living in Deming, New Mexico. It was a
strange new land for us. We had both spent our formative years in
Indiana. yet we yearned for a new place,  and for me, I was searching for a
new landscape, both internal and external.

       I am a writer of  many things. While in New Mexico I published my first poem, "Las
Mariposas" by the regional magazine Shadowlands.

      Early on into our year and a half stay, I wrote a lyrical poem - Thunder Song, 
Writing the poem flowed in a very natural way,  recognized it had a
lyrical rhythm. Not typical of my previous poetry, which was way more on
the universal abstract side of writing.

     I joined the local writer's group, made some literary friends - oh so many wonderful
stories meeting these people, people who had retired to the area and had
a lifetime of living a life of writing to share.

I inquired locally about finding  a collaborator to set the poem to music, but was
basically told to bring my guitar (I had none) and show up at the local
open mic in a small town many miles away.  That option was not available
since I didn't play a musical instrument and we were on a really tight
budget the whole time we lived in New Mexico.

     I wrote and lived and took pictures and did what I could to feed my artistic needs. I
had many wonderful and also stressful experiences while living there.  I
still trudged along with the hope that the poem would somehow end up a
song.

       Toward the end of the first year of living there we still didn't feel things
were coalescing, things were not easing the way they should
if you are meant to live in a different place, and my husband was feeling
the pull of the change of seasons  in Indiana. We started to talk of returning, of going back.

    I had made a friend of a writer, Dallas Lemon and his wife, Barbara Johnson (both
wonderful writers with a world of experience), and I had discussed this
particular poem with Dallas and given him a copy. I knew it was good,
but had no venue, nor idea where to go next.

Dallas liked the poem and gave it to a local contact, a long-time singer-songwriter (of the
Southwestern music flare), "Sundown Pete" Kobal.

     Peter liked the poem, saw potential as a song, and offered very few revisions.
I met him, and his wife Margie at a local food court. He was
enthusiastic  but direct and told me he would compose music. I would
register it with the copyright office (which I did) and BMI (which I
did).

He eventually recorded the song, sent me the lyric sheets
(which a wonderful person whose name I now have forgotten from the
Lafayette, Indiana folk group, transcribed), finally registering the
music & lyrics, obtaining copyright & BMI coverage.  Peter
recorded the song on his CD "The Only Star, produced  and issued by
Driftwood Records.

       Since I have always had the necessity of a full time job, my journey marketing the song
has been limited.  A few years before country singer Johnny Cash died I
did send a demo to his office (the contact address had been provided by
Peter Kobal, who knew of such things), but when I called as a follow up, the receptionist who answered and stated, in a wonderfully sweet southern voice, that Mister Cash no
longer accepts unsolicited songs.



       It has had some radio play, and shortly before Peter Kobal's  passing this spring,
I posted this YouTube Video of it, along with pictures, some of New Mexico, as a
thanks. Peter Kobal (as well as Dallas Lemon) liked my poem, saw the
lyrical merit of it and made it his own.

What more could a writer ask.

Celebrating passing the 100

A recording of my reading at the launch of my chapbook, The Clever Level published 2012 by Celestial Panther Publishing.


Celebrating passing the 100 views.  a glimpse of my poetry, a snatch of performance. And more, soon.

Thank you all for listening.


 http://youtu.be/Pd2GFMwC3OU

oh, the nameless, shapeless, formless horror of it all...

I had the recent pleasure of watching the DVD of the 2005 film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of the Ctthulhu, and oh what a treat!  Using a combination of both modern and vintage film techniques - meaning it was produced as a silent-era film but the production crew used some blue screen and computer montage to great effect.  It was produced by H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, (no idea such a thing exists).
   
      For those of you who have never read the horror writing of H.P. Lovecraft ( early 20th century writer - think approximately a hundred years ago), his stories evoke the kind of dread you feel when you are home alone in the bath and you hear some sort of noise in the other room and you really, really hope it is just the dog rummaging for a lost potato chip. Since Lovecraft is famous for evoking that kind of dread without actually describing in detail the actual evil that lurks out there, just beyond the horizon , I really give it up for this crew for trying to give rendering to “the nameless, shapeless, formless horror of it all. “

(Wouldn’t that look great on a t-shirt?)

    I ran across the dvd during a sweep at the Indianapolis Marion-Couonty Public Library video rack recently, I just had to watch it,  Where else could I have  been seen it?  I  would love to see this dvd on the big screen. Since it was developed and produced as a silent-era movie, it had its own original musical score which worked beautifully. 
   
    There is a group formed to renovate The Rivoli. The theater would be perfect, at least part of the week , to show specialty films like this. Maybe have a Q & A session with some writers, producers, directors and film buffs....Oh, I am beside myself with the possibility.

 For now, let’s just get the Rivoli renovated and the rest will follow.

    Maybe downtown Indy can have its own chapter of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, we can call ourselves...

“The nameless, shapeless, formless horror of it all...”

FADE OUT