supporting the work of Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn on Jazz Tuesdays

Anat Cohen playing with the boys

Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn has a dream to make a movie about women who play jazz. To celebrate them.

I support this. You can too, at Kickstarter.

Another Earth

Sometimes when you sit down with no idea, all you can do is stumble.

There is a movie out there called Another Earth, I can't tell you how good it is, but it is about how a moment changes your life. In this case a tragic moment.

This year in my science classes we have explored turning points in the lives of some scientists.

Something catches their soul and it resonates so loudly it becomes their life. I want my students to be aware that life can be such an adventure.

If there was another Earth, with another you, could that you have stumbled upon the same thing that has created your passion? Could it not have?

U is for Utterly Unexpected Utterance

And though some may feel I am going to talk about my late night rambles, which I think make me adoring; or my left turns into nonsense inside my classroom, which clearly make me entertaining ... I am not going there.

A few days ago we were checking the Google Analytic stats to see what keywords have brought those who search the internet, to our Etsy Shop.

"How to mosaic like Margaret Almon" Is someone out there copying Mosaic Woman's style? Now we find that kind of flattering. Maybe they were just wondering what substrates, glue, and glass she uses. We will most likely never know.

But this came to mind: Being John Malkovich.

So for my Utterly Unexpected Utterance: I have been searching for a portal that will allow people to enter into Mosaic Woman's mind so they can obtain her mosaic secrets. There will be a hefty fee and it will likely drop you out in a SEPTA Regional Rail maintenance area.

But instead, I encourage folk to be inspired by the art you love but to play with your art. Enjoy being yourself and have a good day of it.

peace and hope and also the joy of playing with colors

Fridays in PA--- Ambler Theater

Mosaic Woman and I love movies, but our enthusiasm for going to them seems to ebb and flow. Right now we just aren't flowing to many, however, when we do there is a good chance we will make the short drive over to the Ambler Theater.

Word on the historical streets says that back in the day, Lansdale had an amazing one that seated 900 people but it was torn down back in the 70's. So we were excited when some folk restored the theater in Ambler, PA and started showing movies which typically fail to make it into larger multiplexes.

They also show classic movies and an event on Tuesday will be featuring Sunset Boulevard and Mosaic Woman has been inspired by this night of film and poetry to develop her Film Noir mosaics and she will be in the lobby before and after the movie selling her new collection.

I will likely be there enjoying a night of culture myself.

What's your favorite theater?

Crafting on Thursdays- On night at the movies, film noir inspired mosaics

The Ambler Theater will be providing the movie.
Joanne Leva is behind the poetry.
And Margaret Almon (Mosaic Woman) has been inspired to explore black and white and silver and gray glass.

Tuesday night October 12th at 7:00 pm what a night! Details here.

Four not so feel good movies and why I am glad I saw them.

I have friends who say that if a movie gets good reviews, they won't go to see it. I have a friend who hates movies with happy endings. (all the links will take you to trailers of said movies). I know many people who will avoid a movie if it involves an issue. There are things I try to avoid.

Fifteen years ago I was in Scranton, PA sitting alone in a movie theater. I noticed I was crying. Dead Man Walking was on the screen. About that time a test told me I lacked compassion.

I came home to an empty house. I needed to let out what I had just seen. Crash had been on the screen.

I am in the restroom after a movie and all the men are somber. Are we thinking about ourselves, our parents, or both? The Savages had just been on the screen.

Up In The Air can be added to the list. I sat hoping Hollywood would not force a happy ending, not because I hate movies with happy endings, but because this movie was not about happy endings. It was about a man's life being turned upside down. I sat watching the final scene thinking it was where this movie had to end. Did I have hope for this character? Yes. But I had no idea if what he had lived through would lead to good or bad. However, his life was unfolding.

There are reasons to not see these movies. But sometimes I need to crash into sadness by way of the movies. As one character says in Crash... "Sometimes we crash into people just so that we can feel something."

Sometimes I need a movie to stick a wedge into and try to open this stoic heart of mine, so that when real life hits me hard, I can feel something. A few years ago I stumbled upon a radio station that was having a benefit for CHOP. After each song they would tell a story of a child facing intensive medical treatments. It may have been wise to turn stations, but I kept listening with my heart aching.

just plain baffled...

now I am baffled, because... Last Sunday I sang a hymn.

Well, I have a memory of singing a hymn, so I took Red's advice and went to the band and asked them what the closing hymn was the previous week. They showed me. I said, "That's not it. It started with a line about falling to one's knees and at the bottom of the music it said it was based on the third chapter of Ephesians." They pulled out their play list and we went through the whole service. Nothing.

was I dreaming? mystical experience? elaborate conspiracy to drive me loopy. I came home and talked to Mosaic Woman about the experience, and did one more quick google search for the hymn. I walked up stairs to my studio, pulled out a cassette from my past and this was the first song. and yes, this did happen and yes, I will let the mystery be. Mosaic Woman asked if I had chosen this song to play because of my experience at church. I hadn't.

Maybe an answer will arrive to explain what happened last Sunday. maybe it was a way to walk up the stairs at church and have someone in the band ask, "What instrument do you play?" Twelve hours earlier I had been talking to Mosaic Woman about how listening to an old guy play piano had yet again rekindled my desire to create music.

The song also took me back to a movie. A movie in which the song was used much to my delight. The beginning of Little Buddha...

no longer...

Mosaic Woman and I just watched a music video from the 1980's. We laughed. We remembered. We were scared.

I play lots of jazz in my classroom, you know anything to rile up the masses.

One angry young man used to say..."Why don't you play rock music?"

My answer.... "I am no longer an angry young man."

So what took us to a place of wanting to watch a video by the Cure. It was a rather cool movie called Starter for Ten, which was set in 1986 and the lead was a freshman at university. The soundtrack was a flashback. I graduated from college, toured the Catskills on my bike and ended the year cutting my hair to teach at a military academy. I owned jeans with many holes. Mosaic Woman was beginning her college days in her purple high tops and a pin of a snake with a nuclear missile in its mouth. I think you could say we were angry about a few things and we listened to rock music.

so here is the video: The Cure: A NIGHT LIKE THIS .... not one of the several The Cure songs featured in the movie, but was on an album I owned/own.

where were you in 1986?


By the way... I am still angry at times, I just like jazz these days. However, I see myself digging into my musical past as I spend time in my studio this weekend...

The shower curtain mandala was soldered last night, now I just need some sunlight and my camera.

movies

I have written nearly 100 posts and there has been little or no talk about movies, my passion of which waxes and wanes... but I have seen many since August.

Most of the movies I see outside of my house are seen in the Ambler Theater, I went there by myself on Wednesday, then read about the good thief that night. Thursday morning I tried to tie it all together with my spiritual director.

Now I will try again.

In Bruges ended and I was an emotional wreck, movies can do that to me. If I want to be numb, I should avoid them. I wanted to scream out, "This is not the way movies are supposed to happen." And there I was at the foot of the cross understanding those who had believed but were seeing the wrong ending. No movie has gotten to me like this in a long time. Maybe back to when I saw Crash and came home and watched Johnny Cash making a nine inch nails song his own .... to truly let out the emotions.

How did I grow to care so much for a violent character, who would take money to take a life? Maybe it was the emotional pain he was going through while stuck in a town he hated. He is on one cross. By the end of the movie he knows he is supposed to be there, but has hope. Next to him playing the role of Jesus (only in my take of this film) is a friend who would likely give his life so that this man can repent and be saved. Maybe that was it. The Good Thief knows he is guilty, but wants a new life with Christ. There is nothing I see better in a human than a desire to turn away from what is preventing us from living a full life.

That is why I left the theater into a steady rain shocked by the violence I had encountered and like those who were shocked at the cross... trying to have some hope, in this case for the future life of a character written into a movie. Placed into my life.