yello/blu VI

my name is travis fletcher epes. above is a tea flea, playing a broken piano.

t f epes doesn’t have quite the same ring as t s eliot. so, i tried a more experimental approach to signature with this abbreviation.

yello/blu tend to hibernate frequently, but they’ll be making regular appearances online and in our glorious paper

yello/blu V

this week’s comic originally appeared in The Fine Print’s Fall 2011 issue. 

yello/blu tend to hibernate frequently, but they’ll be making regular appearances online and in our glorious paper

yello/blu IV

ever wonder if you could get in trouble for something you did in another person’s dream? like, imagine (in your dream) that your significant other starts spouting anti-semetic slurs while you stroll down a rainbow shore, or say your genuinely kind employer suddenly approaches you (in your dream) with unwelcome advances. would, or could you look at that person the same way as you did the day before?  to what extent does our unconscious reveal, in dreams, information or observations that would otherwise go unnoticed?

ANSWER: i should sleep more…

yello/blu tend to hibernate frequently, but they’ll be making regular appearances online and in our glorious paper

If you’re looking for unique holiday gifts, the GLAM Indie Craft Show may be just the place to start. This Sunday, the third annual craft show will feature a collection of 50 local crafters selling items, such as knitted coozies, hula hoops, handmade jewelry, bags, T-shirts, quilts, hand-spun yarns, home decorations — I could go on, or you could just check out the vendors’ page. And hey, if you buy from the craft show, remember your money will stay right here in our very own community, benefiting those who craft because they love it.

Kim Kruse is the one “behind the curtain,” as she put it. As the Sassy Crafter columnist for the former Gainesville magazine, Satellite, and owner of Sew Make Do, a new crafting and sewing studio in town, she thought Gainesville needed a show for people with “slightly eclectic tastes.”

And turns out, she was right. The past two years have seen as many as 500 people at the craft show, and Kruse expects a similar turn out this year.

Whether you’re looking for a gift for someone else or a unique addition to your own home, head down to Villa East (301 N. Main St.) this Sunday from noon to 5. Admission is $3 for adults and free for children 10 and younger.

For more crafty holiday gift ideas, check out the upcoming Winter issue of The Fine Print around town on Dec. 14.

yello/blue III

ever dream that you’re dreaming? yello seemed caught in that loop over the last few weeks, what with those weird Rollin’ dreams. now it looks like blu’s turn for some nocturnal turbulence, and something tells me these Dream Police might give him the worse of it…

yello/blu tend to hibernate frequently, but they’ll be making regular appearances online and in our glorious paper

“A healthy performing arts community is music to our ears,” the advertisement said, and in the lower right-hand corner was a picture of the old philanthropist.  Surely in her seventies in this one, I thought; the woman had gone vaguely Asian in appearance with the eye-narrowing effects of old age, lips mauved and stretched in a hidden-tooth smile that showed nothing but tooth-colored gums.  Her hair—blatantly red now—was fixed in a long bob that drew its corners in around her ears.  It made me sad to think that this was the image she would present to the world from now on, ten years past her death, and even twenty years later the philharmonic’s programs would show the same face.

It had been so long since I returned to the cramped concert hall, with its lovingly uncomfortable red cushions, dark as her lipstick.  It had been even longer since I returned to this small Southern town, where the air always smelled powerfully of new-cut grass and thick ripened palm-berries, where nothing comes quickly except hardship and gossip.  Certainly we gossiped enough about the old philanthropist.  Like Proust’s madeleine, the strong magazine smell of the program, the incandescent globes dimming on her dated photograph, the Sibelius quickening like a pulse in the first movement—all of these things together and even their separate pieces were enough to make me reflect on the old woman: her life and circumstances and what we made of them, we young and foolish and old and clever Southerners, we with too much time on our hands, the Sibelius settling now like a large cool hand over my forehead and the meter jarring me, like the stroke of a canoe’s paddle, down memory.

Mrs. Eders and the Old Philanthropist

Our first encounter was unconsummated.  Like the other girls at the strings camp, I had learned “Happy Birthday” in about ten minutes without sheet music; then Mrs. Eders had led the four of us from the camp’s performing space and up to the old philanthropist’s birthday function.

Was it nearly twenty years ago since that August?  She must have been turning fifty. We waited outside the ballroom for an hour as waiters passed with unnameable hors d’oeuvres on plates thin and silverly as compact discs.  Four middle-schoolers in uncomfortable dresses and suits, the bass player supporting her instrument a little helplessly before giving up and laying it along the tile.  We had nothing to say to each other; we barely knew each other at all, though the cellist would stalk me later.  I studied the lovely wayward patterns of a red glass vase, like a flower collapsing in the middle from its own sensuality.

The philanthropist knew, I think, the artist.  When I paid attention to the world again, my pinky was cramping from dangling the rental bow and the strings of the viola pressed under my armpit had left grillmarks all along my forearm.  The philanthropist never came.

“Well, that’s how it happens, guys,” Mrs. Eders said to us with her good-natured smile and customary shrug.

She was as trustable and fatalistic as a rabbi.  Mrs. Eders was in those days infallible, grandmotherly with her grainy pale hair and golden spectacles, her stomach sagging through her black cocktail dress like a heap of slag drifting down a quieted volcano.  With a smile she could make anything right.  I was surprised later to learn that many of my classmates had found the woman intolerable.

“You don’t remember how she was always telling stories?” Jordan asked me in high school.  She was a pretty girl with a snub nose, an ovaline Mediterranean face, and a curtain of barretted brown hair.  “We never got to play!”

“They were good stories,” I said.  I couldn’t remember any noticeable swathes of time being stolen and I often, in fact, doubted that Jordan genuinely liked anyone.  They were all true stories, too.

Mrs. Eders once pretended to vomit into a white paper bag after one class’s lackadaisical practice; Mrs. Eders and her cohorts once found a poorly-made Chinese violin in the music room’s closet and the four women took turns stomping on it, right in front of their students’ eyes; Mrs. Eders didn’t speak a word until she was four years old, in the family sedan on the way to church.

“When’s lunch?” Mrs. Eders asked.  Her father nearly drove the car into a ditch. The woman was, simply, mythology.

She patted us on the backs as we headed back down into the practice room, giving an especially hearty pat to the cellist and long-suffering bass.  It was just as well.  I had already forgotten how to play “Happy Birthday.”

“Come on, folks,” Mrs. Eders said as we retreated down the stairs, her voice shouting off the sides of the stairwell.  “There’s always next year, and you can play for your parents on their birthdays too.”

We had the impression that Mrs. Eders and the old philanthropist did not get along well.  Mrs. Eders had been one of the original quartet of musicians who founded what became our philharmonic; it was the old philanthropist who came late to the venture.  She swept into town with her husband and injected it with capital in a single vicious thrust, like a mother stabbing her child’s thigh with an EpiPen.  The quickness of it all made both sides uneasy.

There were rumors when Mrs. Eders announced her retirement that the old philanthropist had done it, rumors which our teacher cheerfully rejected without addressing directly, flapping her veiny hand at the class.

“Oh, no,” she said with a grin.  “I’m tired of all this.  My husband and I, we’re just going to head into the Canadian wilderness, hitch us to a few backpacks, and get our provisions helicoptered in once a week.  That’s the last you’ll hear of us, folks.” “You won’t even bring your violin?” a student asked. “You know,” she said, stroking her chin.  “I just might.”

We had no doubt that she would do it, too, except that another orchestra teacher died suddenly of cancer—sudden to us, probably less sudden to that shrewd and resourceful woman—and Mrs. Eders agreed to take her place for a year.  After that, true to her word, we didn’t hear from her for years.

The Voice of the Old Philanthropist

The first time I heard the voice of the old philanthropist was at the philharmonic’s twenty-fifth anniversary.  Famous aging personae were shipped in; one woman with blond Louis XIV tresses sang her an operatic “Happy Birthday,” comically running out of breath on her long and illustrious name.  The music students and our families, free admission tickets crumpled in our fists, crowded the back seats and squinted at the stage, squinted at the squinting wealthy elderly in the balconies and front row.  I was there with my mother. A long white screen crinkled down over the stage, the projector droning to life, and there in faint blue was the squat face of the old philanthropist, blinking with froggy disorientation at us all.

“I just want to say what a pleasure this is,” she told us.

She was presumably up in the balconies somewhere, beaming down at us in her severe red dress, her pink forearms sagging out of short sleeves and her neck bulging harmlessly out of the high Chinese collar.  One of her eyes was higher than the other; the Hershey’s Kiss-colored eyebrows were penciled in.

She talked for a rambling while on important things.  (“Art is a business,” for example.  And, “A business both requires and deserves a great deal of money.”)  Her voice was unexpectedly light, childlike, quick.  We could barely hear her at all. “How ironic,” my mother whispered into my ear. “What?” I asked her. Her reply was lost in the sudden din of applause.  Although, knowing my mother, it was possibly she never answered me at all, just moving her lips maddeningly to make me think she had spoken.

The old philanthropist was retreating into the ceiling in a narrow blue slice, smiling with nervous benevolence as her forehead and nose and lips were eaten away.  My mother was in those days a pretty woman.  Never beautiful, it must be admitted, but pretty, and degenerating into tolerable in her later years.  I have always, always been honest.  She had my sunny cheeks and similar hair: curly, but easily persuaded otherwise.  It was ginger-colored and lay limp across her face in those hot summer months, heat like a neighborhood in which we lived, always.  Her eyes the size of thumbprints from small fingers, her raspy trustable voice.  Though of course we couldn’t trust a word she said, my father and I, she being a housewife and unsuccessful poet, inclined to scare us with the words she chose.

“The moon was howling green tonight,” she would say, clipping the screen door shut. “At the office today”—that was what she called it, at first drolly and then without interest, the separate bedroom where she slept and worked, with its robin’s egg walls and untouched white linens—“at the office today we had a pair of starlings wander in, like they’d lost the trick of flying.  Just pecking at the window like the wind was weighing heavy on them.  So I’ve let them in.” She would come in from the porch at ten o’clock or later with her flashlight and her notebook, the infinite circle of her cigarette, a long papery dimension, rolled up into her hand.  I pitied my mother with the endless pity of the young.  I assumed in those days that she was always lonely, always writing, always waiting for someone to answer in her own language. “Oh darling,” she said flatly.  “You’re home.  Did you find the Italian in the fridge?”

The Memoirs of the Old Philanthropist

I mention all this because of the memoirs and my mother’s response to them, which I think were particularly telling.  The old philanthropist released her memoirs when was just past sixty.  Almost all the old rumors were proven true and expanded upon.

Her husband had inspired “Mad Men,” she said; she had grown up the poor child of a ceiling-fan mogul, put out of work with the invention of air-conditioning and yet, she wrote movingly, “unwilling to acknowledge the persistent push of changing times”; she built the manatee preserve in her backyard after the terribly photogenic slaughter of eighty-three, when a hurricane came thrashing through and lifted several dozen sea-cows out of the water, their muzzles leering and dripping as they spun silver-whiskered through the air and broke every watching heart.  The author’s photo showed her in the preserve with goggles and wet slices of red hair plastered to her forehead, smiling with her white teeth, her left arm circumnavigating the obese scarred side of Charlie, who looked at the camera with mournful eyes the size of scallops.

Melanoma was the old philanthropist’s explanation; we had our own theories about her husband’s death.  Some said uncharitably that she had personally bent down each night, uncapped her veneers, and sucked his neck bloodless as he slept.  He died so young, the old people said, just in his forties.  And look how vigorous and hale his widow was!

In the middle section of the book were pictures of her with various retired presidents and South African leaders and manatees, but also a photograph of the old philanthropist, then quite young, with her husband on the beach.  She was still short, if not shorter, but without vaguely Asiatic features; her face looked small, sweet and pale, her hair dark curls lively.  He was a tall man with a forehead like the prow of a cruise ship, a knob of skull protruding whitely forward from under the tanned skin, the skin beaten with enough gold and red to make melanoma believable.  He wore a red-and-white striped polo and khaki pants belted nearly to the armpits.  He had a trusting nineteen-fifties smile. How could you kill a man like that? I asked my mother.  I was home from college then, no longer a viola player but still a violist, still so certain that I had the right to judge the old philanthropist and everyone else.  I showed her the picture.  She traced the long strong line where their hands drew their arms close.  Then she touched the cord of tendon jarring from his brown neck.

“Oh, I have no doubt she killed him,” my mother said.  “Look at his eyes.  Look at the neck.  He was dead from the moment he married her.”

The Newspaper and the Old Philanthropist

The day she retired the local newspaper ran three articles alongside her announcement: an announcement of the elementary school’s fundraiser; a warning of whales beaching themselves violently along the north coast; and a columnist asking plaintively, “Should Stupid Be a Crime?” But the paper wasn’t done with her yet.  Several months later, Mrs. Eders began to send letters to the editor.  They were quite possibly not by Mrs. Eders; we strongly suspected that she was long dead.  The letters came in and in, my mother mailing them to me—the last two pages of the newspaper, neatly folded into thirds, and bound with a rubber band no bigger than the mouth of a beer bottle—and circling in blue pen Mrs. Eders’s reputed contributions. “I continue to question X’s commitment to the arts,” she wrote. “Can the community at this time afford to invest in diamond-encrusted bluebirds for the museum’s spring opening?” she wrote.  “Why not spend the money on something long-lasting, something not intended merely to awe snowbirds?” “Why not invest in music?” she wrote.

The sentiments were hers, but the vocabulary was not—the delicacy that didn’t seem anything like her plainspoken way—and I soon threw the newspapers out.  Within a week, my mother was sending me the old philanthropist’s rebuttals.  These were circled in cherry red.

“No one has supported the arts more fervently than I,” she wrote. “Art is a business,” she wrote.  “Businesses need money.  Money comes from donors, and it shouldn’t matter where these donors come from.  I pity Eders’s petty regionalism.” “I do invest in music,” she wrote.  “I invest more than any retired music teacher could possibly understand, or be capable of providing.” These I could not throw away.  I pored over them, page-long diatribes, as if they were trashy novels.

This was authentically her, that woman, these words peeling her open and showing her unflattering innards.  I imagined the old philanthropist bent over her desk, writing angrily, impeccably dressed, the head of her desk lamp tilted close to her red hair.

“A handsome woman,” my father once called her. So worked up over old rivalries!  Over false fire, too: what she must clearly have recognized as false fire and pursued anyway.  Someone had known her well enough to know that Mrs. Eders would be enough to make her respond, even knowing that she knew it could not be a real Mrs. Eders at all.  Here was the proof that, as we said, the old philanthropist was jealous of those who made things.

Now I could see it all clearly.  She sponsored them; she loved them; she hated them.  She had attended a small nondescript college in the Deep South or perhaps some wayward school in the misbegotten dairy lands; she had never gotten any closer to the metropolis from the day she was born, nor did culture want anything to do with her except in the form of her supremely cultured husband.  It was her pleasure and her burden to finance talent and never, by buying, get any closer to possessing it.  Because the alternative, of course, was to find that the arts didn’t need people like her at all.

“I do invest in music,” she wrote.  “The arts, like young infants, must be encouraged.  They need food, water, shelter. They would flounder on their own.”

Death and the Old Philanthropist

When she died at last of a long unexpected illness in a wet summer, the manatees came to bear her away.  Dark bulbous blots in a shrouded sky, drifting heavily as crippled balloons, their bodies curled and coy as shrimps, their paddled feet wide as ladies’ fans.  They came from nowhere at all, people said—clearly untrue, because the water level sank ten inches in the bay, despite the rain, between that morning and the settling of night.  If the trees had risen up we would have seen the dank holes in our lawns.

The manatees were plucked out of the water, the self-healing river of grass which leaves no holes behind and seals its own wet wounds. Through the air, one by one like the beads of a rosary.  A nurse opened the hospital windows and three of the smaller manatees floated through.  One snuffled lightly at her dead face.  Another lowered itself to the level of the starched white hospital bed; the third hustled her gently onto this manatee’s round patient back with its petal-like hands.  The old philanthropist’s legs sprawled indecently.  You could see the yellow stains along her fleshy inner thighs where she had wet herself, the nurse later told me. Out the window and into the curdled sky, flying in a gray tilting flock with the old philanthropist at the head of the V.  Over the windless streets with their humidity clutched tight by the asphalt; over the cabbage palms and sagging park benches; over the tourists’ green-and-brown trolleys and the cars simmering in their own exhaust, shining red as lobsters in their clean boil; over the worst parts of town, where the model homes collapsed half-naked into the sea-oats; over all of this and out into a flat pane of sea, her paper hospital gown slinking down to set on the surface of the ocean, the dense salty window where we never really saw anything anyway, and who are we to know?

(above) Photo taken Oct. 22 by Amanda Cohen at the Doris’ grand opening.

Eric Lewis scooped up a handful of grey clay, slapped it onto his potter’s wheel, and guided the amorphous lump into a defined vase.

Lewis, 25, is one of six artists in residence at the Doris Bardon Community Cultural Center.

“Tonight, we’re all just really happy,” Lewis, who mostly works in ceramics, said. “Everything is better than we could have expected.”

The hundreds of people who packed The Doris at 716 N. Main St. for its grand opening party Oct. 22 were as varied as the artwork on display. In this kaleidoscope of Gainesville society, surgeons and artists, politicians and models, parents and children created a diverse cross-section of the city. On the walls, a painting of sliced avocados was mounted across from a square of woven yarn in autumnal shades of green and brown.

The artwork in the front gallery was a part of the Six by Six: Getting it Squared Away fundraiser. Over 150 community members, from elementary school students to professional artists, donated over 300 pieces of art for the exhibition. The individual artist was not identified until the piece was bought for a minimum donation of $25.

As the night progressed, the wire racks grew increasingly naked. By the end of the event, over half of the artwork had sold. Other people made donations or became members of the center. All of the money raised will go to support The Doris.

The evening was exactly what the building’s namesake, Doris Bardon, would have wanted, said Norma Homan, treasurer of both The Doris and the Arts Association of Alachua County and one of Bardon’s longtime friends.

“So many people devoted their time and their talent to this event,” Homan said. “It was a real community coming together to create something new. I think that’s always noteworthy.”

Doris Bardon, who passed away in 2006, was an advocate for culture, civic activism and the environment. When she first arrived in Gainesville over 30 years ago, she couldn’t believe there wasn’t even a public radio station, said Homan.

Bardon, a lover of classical music, brought public radio to the city. She was also instrumental in the formation of the Gainesville Symphony Orchestra, served on arts association and theater boards and conceptualized the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Writers Workshop.

She also wrote three books and held piano concerts in her home.

“She had hundred of friends all in different areas,” Homan said. “She just inspired people. She was a brilliant, brilliant woman.”

Bardon left her estate to the Arts Association of Alachua County.

“What Doris wanted was a community cultural center,” Homan said. “It’s a place where the community members can interact with the artists.”

People toured the studios and classrooms behind the front gallery, where the artists in residence demonstrated their craft.

In addition to producing their personal artwork, the artists teach classes in their area of expertise.

“Our mission is to make the arts accessible to everyone,” Sue Johnson, a board member at The Doris, said. “Within everyone is an artist.”

A few paces away from Lewis’ wheel, Cori O’Connor pinched and smoothed one of the brown clay ovals mounted on wires. Eventually, the spherical clay will match her sketch of a quasi-human figure with a man’s body and a raven’s wings and head. She is excited to be one of the members who will mold The Doris from the ground up.

“We’re building a future for other artists who will come after us,” she said.

There are two large studio rooms, which are each divvied into three workstations. The communal space creates an atmosphere of open communication. Three of artists in residence work in three-dimensional mediums ; the other three create two-dimensional pieces.

In the near future, the Doris will expand beyond visual arts. According to Homan, Doris’ Steinway piano will soon be moved to the front gallery. The center is also working with local music groups to hold events there.

“The arts are alive in Gainesville,” Johnson said, “and in this place.”

(above) Art courtesy of Karl Boardman. See more at hellsgnaw.tumblr.com.

At the end of 2010, Matt Town released the first issue of Speedball, a local zine with raw and edgy aesthetics, influenced by graffiti, tattoo design and skateboarding.  Town describes the zine as a visual stimulant and a literary depressant.

Now, three issues later, the zine can be found in places like Anthem Tattoo Parlor and the Civic Media Center. Town serves as the publisher and editorial director of the zine, and with the help and support of his friends Nicholas Luvaul, Jason Henry, Karl Boardman, Carlos Jaramillo, Tyler DuMais and Margaret Dodds, the magazine enjoys a local reputation for its creative release parties and unique content.

While skateboarding serves as the backbone of Speedball, Town also aims to showcase local art and to highlight topics that might otherwise go uncovered by the mainstream media.

“It’s a cool way to express ourselves without censorship,” he said.

Although he gets inspiration from printed magazines like Lowcard, Thrasher, and Vice, Town said Speedball is a project unlike any other.

“We focus on visual aids rather than literary. Sure, there are going to be awesome interviews and articles to read, but I want to keep the idea that a picture says a thousand words.”

As for the future of Speedball, Town and his friends agree they want to reach a greater audience and expand their content geographically. Town’s goal is to create a tight-knit community of friends, artists and musicians but always tie the zine back to Gainesville.

“He’s not trying to show off,” Carlos Jaramillo, a photo contributor, said in reference to Town. “He’s not trying to become famous. He’s doing it because he loves it.”

The zine is released quarterly, and you can view past issues, videos and photos that didn’t make it to print at http://speedballmagazine.tumblr.com/.

yello/blu I

i did not draw the comic you see above.

those are not my characters, and none of my own artistic effort was exerted in the making of this strip. in all honesty, it’s a photo copy of some doodle i found inside a backpack i lifted off this kid leaving the playground.

i’m sure you could guess all that though. you’re probably curious as to why such a cheery ghost would want to befriend a strange, sentient lightbulb. perhaps young blu is afraid of the dark…while ole yello’s an asshole…or maybe they’re just cartoons…

i don’t know. hopefully, someone’ll figure it out.

yello/blu tend to hibernate frequently, but they’ll be making regular appearances online and in our glorious paper

Around this time last year, every time Trish Riley heard someone say “GEFAF” to refer to Gainesville’s Environmental Film and Arts Festival, she cringed.

“The acronym just didn’t sound good,” Riley, festival director, said.

A new name was the first of many changes Cinema Verde underwent in the 10 months of production leading up to its sophomore presentation.

Riley founded the 10-day environmental film and arts festival in early 2010 with the help of the Hippodrome State Theatre’s cinema director. Later that year, Eco-fair Coordinator Jackie Cassarly and Arts Director Ken McMurry stepped aboard.

“I saw it as a personal challenge to work with developing the arts component of the festival. The creative possibilities are practically endless,” McMurry said.

Perhaps “film festival” is a misnomer.

Though Cinema Verde will be screening 25 films, that’s hardly all it has to offer. Spanning from March 18 to 27, the festival also includes a community eco-art walk, an eco-fair, eco-tours, and a night dedicated to Bike Florida’s 2011 Tour.

The eco-art walk will take place downtown on the evening of Friday, March 25. Most of the art exhibited will focus on nature or environmental issues.

“Environmental art could include anything from traditional representations of nature or landscapes to art created in natural settings, manipulation of the landscape itself, explorations of environmental or ecological themes, environmentally-themed performance art, or the use of natural or recycled materials,” McMurry said.

Cinema Verde features both local and nationally acclaimed artists, including Seattle’s “poet of motion” Thomas Arthur.

Arthur’s Earthanima project is a multimedia experience that uses poetry, shorts films, meditation, conversation, and images to portray Earth’s energy and its inhabitants’ well-being. Arthur has toured the world with Earthanima and has been featured as an opening act to Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Arlo Guthrie, among others.

Local artists’ exhibits span from Kathleen McKee’s shadow puppet theater to Raymond Rawls’ recycled furniture pieces.

“I enjoy making furniture and have only recently used recycled objects. I have been using old bicycles, unrideable ones, to create seats and stools,” Rawls said.

Rawls’ favorite piece is a chair made from a vintage Schwinn Varsity Bike found in a river.

Lesser-known local artists will also have a chance to showcase their work.

Alachua County K-12 students were invited to submit a conservation project proposal, artwork, or literary work for Cinema Verde’s exhibition. Participants will have their art displayed in the Harn Museum of Art and around town and receive free admission to a matinee Cinema Verde film screening for their family.

The eco-fair will span throughout the day of Saturday, March 19, kicking off at noon and venturing into the evening. The fair will feature local and national exhibitors with product demos and health foods, local musicians and a (free) family-friendly film to conclude the day.

Lanny Smith, better known as Earthman, will be making an appearance as he returns to his own college town. Smith is a 1975 UF School of Journalism graduate turned reggae artist who teaches kids, and everybody else, to express their creative efforts as they are a powerful force.

Folk musician Magda Hiller from Deland, Florida will also be playing at the fair. From strumming her guitar in the streets of South Beach to opening for Bob Dylan, Hiller’s career has taken her many places. Hiller also picked up jewelry making, recycling bottle caps into necklace pendants and earrings, and will bring her creations to the fair.

There will also be several eco-tours throughout the week. Built environment tours, such as the historic Duckpond area tour and the Sun Harvest Eco-village tour, will pay special attention to green buildings.

“The greenest building is one that is already built,” said Melanie Barr, who will be leading the historic district tours.

Lars Andersen of Adventure Outpost will be leading some of the more adventurous tours, including kayaking or canoeing the Withlacoochee, Ichetucknee, and Silver Rivers.

Though only in its second year, Cinema Verde has made significant strides in attracting attention locally as well as internationally.

Among the 25 films that will be showcased at this year’s festival, the film Underkastelsen (German for Submission) strikes special interest. Swedish director Stefan Jarl’s film has been globetrotting under the wing of the United Nations Environment Program’s Safe Planet initiative. From its hometown in Switzerland, it has made appearances in the Maldives, India, Hawaii, and Houston and will soon make landfall in Gainesville. Submission exposes the stealthy, yet paradoxically blatant, invasion of chemicals into the human body.

Michael Stanley-Jones, United Nations Environmental Affairs Officer, calls Submission “a more inconvenient truth.” Stanley-Jones plans to attend the screening and lead a discussion following the film.

“We don’t want to devastate the audience. We want to raise awareness of issues; if people don’t understand what the problems are then how can they fix them?” Riley said.

Featured documentaries investigating a wide range of environmental affairs include Tar Creek, about the local community’s struggle with a major Superfund site in Cardin, Oklahoma, Bananas, exposing farmers’ health plight with banana crop pesticides, and Earthlings, a film narrated by Joaquin Phoenix criticizing society’s maltreatment of animals. Heart Phoenix and Jeffrey Weisberg, parents of Joaquin, will lead the discussion following Earthlings.

To offset carbon emissions from hosting the festival, Cinema Verde and Neutral Gainesville rounded up a sturdy group of volunteers to plant long leaf pine seedlings at Prairie Creek Ranch on February 19.

Volunteers needed to plant at least 200 trees to offset carbon emissions attributable to Cinema Verde, but went beyond the call of duty and planted about 1,200 seedlings in under two hours. Single Vision, Inc., an endangered species sanctuary, also brought a lemur, Florida panther cub, and alligator to the planting party.

Riley sees the film festival as a great chance to charge Gainesville up with inspiration and alert everyone to the environmental issues surrounding humanity. Once people are exposed to and realize the gravity of these issues, they can begin to modify their lifestyles and influence others by acting locally to address global matters.

For a more detailed schedule and updated information on the festival, visit Cinema Verde’s website.

In 2010, UF Professor Anthony Castronovo taught an interdisciplinary class called Art and Ecology. When his class discussed local issues, someone inevitably brought up the Superfund site, which began to dominate the conversation.

To make a long story short, Koppers, Inc. operated a wood treatment facility from 1916 to 2009, releasing a wide range of industrial toxins into Gainesville’s air, water and soil. The area was granted Superfund status 28 years ago. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a Record of Decision, which details their plans to clean the site, on Feb. 2. At the time, various activists, public officials, and local experts were skeptical about the plan, and many thought it was inadequate to address the situation after decades of toxic pollution.

Protect Gainesville’s Citizens, an organization that aims to spread awareness, contends that the Superfund process requires relentless grassroots involvement. Otherwise, communities living in the shadow of Superfund sites are likely to be overlooked by corporations and public officials.

Castronovo’s class collaborated and eventually organized a Koppers-themed art show last Spring, hosted by Wild Iris Books, where Protect Gainesville’s Citizens held bi-monthly meetings. Kim Popejoy, one of the organization’s founding members, noticed a lot more people were coming to their meetings after the show.

Protect Gainesville’s Citizens decided to create a task force to engage artists around town. They called it the Superfund Art Project, headed by Popejoy.

“When I went to Wild Iris and saw the first Koppers art show, I felt we were finally getting somewhere,” said Tia Ma, one of the project’s directors. “There are artists everywhere and Superfund sites everywhere. If we can connect the two, there will be more money, media and inspiration. We want to document everything we’re doing so it could be used as a template in other areas.”

Ma said the project’s mission is to use all forms of art – including video, photography, poetry, music, public speaking and theater – to express the science and emotions associated with a toxic Superfund site.

More specifically, the project aims to create and distribute educational materials, document the history and personal stories associated with the site and collaborate with other communities that struggle with similar situations.

Ma, a local massage therapist and street artist, knows what it’s like to live in the shadow of a Superfund site. She lived in the Stephen Foster neighborhood for two years. The more she learned about Koppers, the less comfortable she felt treating clients at her house, eating vegetables from her garden and letting her cat roll around in the soil.

Ma moved away in July when the lease on her house expired. Before leaving, she filled her yard with ferns and sunflowers, known for their ability to cleanse the earth by absorbing industrial toxins. Her struggle with Koppers is far from over.

She knows most people can’t just move away. Many of the residents living near Koppers, including low-income families, bought their houses without any warning of the implications. Their properties are worthless now.

“I went around with a video camera and found that not many people were willing to be interviewed about the subject,” Ma said. “That’s why we want to mobilize actors, comedians and storytellers so there can be more open talk about this.”

Recently, the Superfund Art Project has teamed up with Go Green Nation and Cinema Verde, Gainesville’s environmental film and arts festival, to spread awareness and organize creative projects, including a Hazmat fashion show at the festival in March.

In collaboration with the Thomas Center, the Superfund Art Project plans to mobilize artists for an exhibition in 2012, which will hopefully travel across the country.

“At the Downtown Arts Festival, we talked to artists about the Koppers situation,” Ma said. “A handful lived here for a long time but knew nothing about it. Others fought for thirty years but couldn’t keep it up. When we mentioned we had puppeteers, photographers and musicians that wanted to address this, they lit up.”

To learn more, check out:
A Haunting Past, Pt. 1: How Gainesville faces decades of toxic pollution
A Haunting Past, Pt. 2
A Haunting Past, Pt. 3: The Record of Decision
Fenced In: Superfund Refugees

Hi guys, and welcome to Drawing of the Moment – a blog that will soon feature work from all of your favorite Fine Print illustrators. To kick this off, I’ll be holding a contest. Remember that typewriter on the second to last page of the November issue, just waiting to be colored, cut out and folded? Well, if you have the manual dexterity to do that, and to take fun photos, send your wittiest photos of your tiny typewriter to leah.beth.herman@gmail.com. The finalists will have their photos posted on the blog. The winner will receive a handmade bookmark by me (if you don’t know what my work looks like, check out the cover this month), or, if you hate my artwork, then I guess I could make you cookies.

Photos must be submitted in a JPEG format, along with your name and a caption. The caption can be serious or stupid. Title your email “DOTM Contest.” Submissions are due by 5PM November 23rd.

Also, here are some revised directions to put your typewriter together:

1.) Color your typewriter.
2.) Cut out typewriter along the outside edge.
3.) From now on, the front of the paper will be referred to as Side A. The back will be Side B. Cut along the dashed line and fold the flap towards Side A. This forms the paper sticking out of your typewriter.
4.) Fold the L-shaped side flaps of the typewriter towards Side B. Fold each of the 4 tabs on the side flaps towards Side B. Put glue on Side A of the tabs.
5.) The plain rectangle in the center is the back of the typewriter. Fold the bottom of the rectangle towards Side B. Fold the top of the rectangle towards Side B. Then fold the final dotted line above that towards Side B to create a tab on the top. Now, put glue on Side A of that tab.
6.) Fold the dotted line above the words “The Fine Print” towards Side B.
7.) There is a tiny dotted line that begins at the keyboard. Fold the top part of the keyboard towards Side A.
8.) There is also a tiny dotted line at the bottom of the keyboard. Fold the bottom part of the keyboard towards Side B.
9.) Make sure the 4 tabs with glue are on the inside of the typewriter, then press them against the top and bottom. Now make sure the other tab is also on the inside and gently press the front of the typewriter against it. Voila!

There is a new art space hidden behind the traffic cones and construction signs on North Main and University Avenue. Located two storefronts beyond The Atlantic, The Gifthorse has much to offer visitors willing to walk past the dust and debris of Downtown’s redevelopment.

On the ground floor, visitors will find a variety of sweatshop free apparel. Roberto Evans, the store owner, doesn’t support the larger department stores and supermarkets because they sell clothing that was made under exploitative labor practices.

“I have nothing against the employees or the owners of stores like Wal-mart,” says Evans. “I just want people to buy apparel that looks good, that was made well and made honestly.”

Under the orange overhang upstairs, visitors will find The Gifthorse Gallery. The gallery will feature a new artist every month, with an opening celebration occurring the first Saturday of the month.

Patrons of Downtown’s Art Walk will recognize the new gallery as the evolution of Evans’ other entrepreneurial enterprise, The Exchange. Evans opened The Exchange (on University Avenue and 8th St) as a space for local artists and musicians to share ideas, play music and showcase art.

In addition to being a venue and gallery, The Exchange also sold sweat-shop-free apparel designed by Evans and companies like Threadless and TOMS. As both sides of The Exchange grew in popularity, Evans worried one might overshadow the other.

To prevent this, he decided to create The Gifthorse. With the extra space, The Exchange was able to expand and now offers yoga and dance classes. Moving the clothing to The Gifthorse also allowed Evans to stock more brands specializing in sweatshop free apparel, as well as open the new art gallery on the second floor.

As of now, The Gifthorse Gallery showcases artists by invitation only. This is a different model than The Exchange, which focuses on providing all local artists and musicians exposure to the community.

“The Exchange stirs Gainesville’s art pot continually,” explains Evans, “while The Gifthorse shows artists who have already proven themselves.”

With this model, Evans envisions that The Gifthorse will lift the aspirations of Gainesville’s local artists. He hopes that with a few years of community support, he can begin to bring in more widely renowned artists.

“Gainesville is an educated, conscious and compassionate town,” says Evans. “It has the type of people who encourage ideas like mine to work.”

There will be a grand opening celebration for The Gifthorse Gallery on Oct. 6, from 7pm -10pm. It will feature the art of Sebastain Castro. The first floor apparel store is currently open, and you can stop by from 2pm -7pm, Tuesday through Thursday, and 2pm -8pm, Friday and Saturday.

For the Civic Media Center, Gainesville’s alternative library and reading room, the uncertainty has meant planning ahead. Enter the SpringBoard fundraiser.

Started in 1999, five years after the CMC was founded, it started the SpringBoard fundraiser as a dinner event. Guests pay between $10 and $20 on a sliding scale and are treated to fare catered by local restaurants and cooked by volunteers.

“It’s got a ‘punny’ name in that it’s our board fundraiser organized in the spring, but it’s also a financial springboard for us to survive the summer,” said Jimmy Schmidt, coordinator at the CMC.
In addition to food, there are raffles, silent auctions of art by local artists and a guest speaker.
Previous years’ guest speakers have included National Public Radio commentator Diane Roberts and the founder of Equality Florida, Nadine Smith.

This year, the CMC welcomes retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright as the event’s guest speaker. She is best known for having resigned in opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and her involvement in antiwar activism, including acts of civil disobedience.

“She is someone who was very much on the inside of things. She brings to the table a tremendous military background and a real window into the workings of the system,” said Joe Courter, board member with the CMC and head of planning for the SpringBoard fundraiser.

The CMC requires about $1,000 a week to cover operating costs and keep its doors open. A substantial portion the center’s budget is covered by $10 annual memberships, but fundraising events such as the SpringBoard are essential in ensuring the CMC’s continued existence.

“We can raise that money in the spring and fall, as well as throughout most of the winter, but in the summer it’s hit or miss,” Schmidt said. “Especially in tough times like the past few summers.”
The currently unfavorable economic climate presents nonprofit organizations like the CMC with a challenge, as donations to charities and nonprofits are among the first places many people cut back spending, Schmidt said.

“The CMC is a totally independent community sponsored organization,” he said. “Even though we’re a tiny fish in the nonprofit world, it’s a tremendous feat of grassroots organizing to keep this place sustained.”

Duncan Wambugu directs the Africa Choir. Photo by Matt Walsh.

“I found you could raise your voice and talk out loud in the world.”
– John J. McCloy

Wambugu, the former director of the Kenyatta University Choir, is the first recipient of a collaborative program between the music departments at Kenyatta University and UF. Upon traveling to UF as a graduate student, Wambugu spoke with Robinson and thought that it would be a wonderful idea to organize a choir at the university that could sing and perform songs originating from Africa.

“I wanted to perform songs as authentically as possible,” Wambugu said. “Instead of singing Swahili songs to a rock beat, I wanted to have something more from the horse’s mouth, from the streets
and the people.”

The purpose of creating the choir, Wambugu said, was to showcase what choral music in Africa is all about, to share the inherent sense of multiculturalism that only the direct experience of music performance can deliver. The choir also provides Wambugu the opportunity to share what little he can about his background with students who have a passion to learn.

So last September, the first ever Africa Choir began at UF. Wambugu admitted that he wasn’t sure how it would be received, and with about 30 members at the onset, it seemed the choir would need a lot of time to get off the ground.

“It was a standing joke between myself and Dr. Robinson,” Wambugu said. “He wanted the first meeting to have 150 people in the choir, but I believed that we should start with something small and let it grow, let it blossom. In that way. the choir would have a firmer foundation and be more stable.”

Lauren Pollock, a senior anthropology student and music minor, recalls her excitement at seeing posters in the music building at the start of last semester.
“I had always wanted to get involved in a non-audition singing group, and the uniqueness of the African aspect caught my eye.”

That specific “uniqueness,” the enthusiasm and the comfortable atmosphere of the relaxed practices held once a week would propel the choir, still a fledgling organization on campus, to the prestige it now has in its second semester.

The name of the choir is the Pazeni Sauti Africa Choir, “Pazeni Sauti” being a Kenyan phrase in Swahili meaning “raise your voice.”

During practices, Wambugu teaches music from the African continent by rote, without written music. The music is memorized and, in turn, Wambugu feels, internalized.
“They know the song and what it means, so when they sing, the meaning just comes out,” he said.
Pollock feels it too.

“Singing my heart out even though I have no experience at all, learning beautiful languages from all over the continent, dancing and not caring how crazy I might look, and just letting go, not stressing, and just being content with the state of things for one hour out of my week — it’s really quite a priceless experience,” she said.

Learning the songs allows the members of the choir to experience different languages spanning the African continent.

“So far, we have sung in about nine or 10 languages, from countries including Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Botswana,” Wambugu said.

In its performance, the choir has spread its wings and enthusiasm. The first performance of the choir, for the Center of African Studies, stands out for Wambugu.

“It was different because the choir members were interspersed within the audience,” he said. “I would sing a cue, and members would start singing from various points in the room. The audience response was immediate and very positive.”

The Africa Choir. Photo by Matt Walsh.

The performances of the choir reflect the ideology of African culture.

“The whole aspect of performance and audience is a Western concept,” Wambugu said. “In traditional

African music, you just sing, and everyone joins in. It’s an everyone affair. We try to reduce the gap
as much as possible and try to get the audience to participate, to sing along and dance, to be part of the show by singing and experiencing it for themselves.”

In two semesters, Pazeni Sauti has become something greater than a collection of diverse members.

One of the things Africans are known for is a sense of community, Wambugu said.
“The family is part of a broader community; the community is a huge part of everyone’s life, be it a tribe or a location where you live. Everyone around you becomes your family. I’ve seen that now in the choir, where at the beginning everyone dispersed but now after rehearsals, people just hang out and linger. Now people have been getting together, which has created a community of its own. This bond is physically visible to audiences and people not in the choir and has been experienced through their energy.”

Pollock feels like the more the choir gets out and performs, the more members of the university and community come out of the woodwork to join.

“I can’t tell you how many of our new members this semester have told me, ‘I saw the Africa Choir perform at the Jazz Band concert last semester, and I thought they were awesome,’ or ‘I heard you at an African Studies event and had to check it out for myself; it looked like so much fun,’” Pollock said.

“Because of the spirit we spread when we perform, I feel that our choir has grown a lot, and we are reaching people every time we sing.”

The choir has had been performing increasingly more often. The Harn Museum’s “Journey Through Africa” Museum Night in February showcased the Choir, singing three sets in different galleries, the people flocking towards the progression of music. Pazeni Sauti also performed recently at Sigma
Alpha Iota’s Haiti Benefit Concert. The choir further received Internet recognition as a live performance aired on Live Vibe TV, a program merging the School of Music and the digital world.

With the growth of the choir into a powerful and audible community, various events have stemmed from the choir members themselves. The choir is currently working toward its first stand-alone concert debut on April 18 at the University Auditorium at 7:30 pm. The audience will see the choir in their traditional garb, performing and showcasing a diverse repertoire of traditional African music.

A prospective goal that the choir hopes can be realized is performing at the American Choral Directors Association National Convention next year. If selected to perform at the convention, Pazeni Sauti will be able to bring its music to a national level, which could, in turn, provide a platform for their most treasured goal — of going to Africa to perform, conveying their love and commitment for the choir back to its point of origin. Pollock wants to journey “to the place where all of our beautiful music comes from. It has inspired me and going there could only bring me more fulfillment.”

Wambugu also hopes to spread the songs of the choir beyond the university and into Gainesville and elsewhere. After performing at a Choral Invitational that hosted 12 high schools from across the state at UF and receiving

Duncan Wambugu. Photo by Matt Walsh.

invitations from several of those schools to perform, Wambugu aspires to take the choir to visit some high schools across Florida in the next academic year.

Wambugu believes, like many who have experienced the power of the lifted voices of the Pazeni Sauti, that the performances and the members have been incredible, and have shaped the maturation of the Choir into what it’s become today.

“The choir members are outstanding, and the love they share for the choir is truly humbling for me,” he said.

In two semesters, the choir has truly raised its voice and been heard, receiving many responses from its initial call. Wambugu hopes to one day see the choir stand on its own.

“I am a student here. If I can leave UF and hear about the choir still standing firm and strong 10 years down the road, that would be my pride and joy. Having the knowledge that people who are part of Pazeni Sauti are teaching others songs that they learned here and spreading information about their culture and experience, wherever the world leads them, would mean so much to me.”

The notorious UF budget cuts have brought opportunity to another institution.
While the cuts have affected every college in the university in some way – some more than others – they’ve had a particularly interesting effect on UF’s award-winning Documentary Institute, which will permanently close its doors at the end of the spring semester and move to Wake Forest University.
Among the long list of accolades for the Institute are five documentaries aired nationally by PBS, as well as multiple Student Emmy and Student Academy Award nominations and wins.
“They were an excellent program,” said John W. Wright, dean of the College of Journalism and Communications at UF. “[But] we had to make a choice.”

The $250,000 a year that was allocated to the Institute accounted for 48 percent of the total available “expense” (or non-salary) budget for the entire college, Wright said, which was distributed by the state in the amount of approximately $525,000 before the budget cuts in public education. When the college lost this money as a result of statewide cuts, according to information received in an e-mail from Wright, it included the $250,000 allocated to the documentary program.
The department had several meetings with the program representatives to make a decision that was best for the college, he said. Every possible solution was considered, but in the end, everyone agreed that the decision to cut the Institute was the best one.

“Documentary programs are wonderful. They are essential, but they are expensive,” Wright said. “If the college still had funds, it would still have the Documentary Institute.”
But many of the Institute’s 20 students weren’t very supportive of the decision.
“The kind of administration we have doesn’t put much emphasis on the arts, and for me, that’s unfortunate,” said Jon Bougher, a graduate student in the Institute. “Obviously there was a recession countrywide, but people were looking at the recession as a cover to make cuts they wanted to make for a while.”

Bougher said that the documentary is crucial in the world of media, and by losing the program, the college will be losing something essential.
“How much do people really get from interviews?” he said. “Documentaries cover all different shades of gray that journalism doesn’t cover.”
But it is not only students who have protested against the closure of the Institute. Professors agree with the students that this was a bad choice for the college to make.
“I think it was not a good decision; this was a nationally ranked program,” said Sandra Dickson, co-director of the Institute who has joined the Wake Forest documentary program. “Anytime you eliminate a nationally ranked program, I think you lose something. It was not a popular decision, and I think people around the country were shocked.”

Dickson is not alone in her opinion. Churchill Roberts, a UF professor and co-director of the Institute, expressed similar thoughts.
“Another person once told me that really good universities protect their best programs,” Roberts said. “They would never get rid of them.”
While UF Institute students and professors seem upset, the professors at Wake Forest are thrilled to have the UF documentary program join their team. Professor Mary Dalton explained how grateful she is for having “the opportunity to take one of the top 10 programs.”
The UF program had a tremendous track record, Dalton said. She said the opportunity to bring a program of that caliber to Wake Forest was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I’m happy that the program has found a new home and will continue to produce important work,” she said.

The documentary program at UF was a nationally known program, and any college that is looking to expand its reputation might be interested in it, Bougher said.
“Wake Forest was interested in making a mark for themselves, and they made a great choice,” he said.

When asked how Wake Forest acquired the documentary program, Wright responded by e-mail: “There was no auction or anything of the sort. The truth is that I don’t know any of the details of how the program landed at Wake Forest. I’m just delighted that they found a new home!”
Wake Forest is offering UF students a tuition deal that is hard to beat, Roberts said. They will only have to pay about $5,000 for tuition, rather than the $30,000 regular students have to pay.
“Looking back, it would have been better if the documentary program had been in a different college,” Roberts said. “I don’t think the new dean really understood documentary, and that’s unfortunate.”

Geneva Jarvis makes a living selling junk. She and her husband, Randy, run the Orange Lake Antique Village and Trading Post, where nothing has a price tag but everything is for sale. Geneva knows what it’s all worth. Sofas are $20. DVD players are $5 to $10. Plates, cups, bowls and saucers are all 50 cents. Her prices never change. She says people are used to them, and she would rather get rid of something than try to get rich off it.

“I don’t care if I make a quarter,” she says. “It’s gone.”

Geneva is 66 years old, with bright, grey-blue eyes and a firm handshake. The lines in her face deepen when she smiles. She’ll admit to smoking two packs a day, unless her doctor asks. She sits low in her seat but stands up straight and walks with purpose. She has raised five sons, and still tells them to watch their language.

Originally from Taylor, Mich., Geneva moved to Miami in 1969 and then to Orlando two years later. She started working as a picker for an antiques dealer and eventually went into business for herself, hiring a young man from Putnam, Conn., who would soon become her second husband.

“We worked together for a year,” Randy says. ”Got married, and here we are 25 years later, eating three squares a day.”

The Trading Post sits off Highway 441, south of Gainesville, just past McIntosh. Geneva says she and Randy finally moved into the little log cabin on the property about seven years ago but have been running their business there for about 25 years. They are zoned and licensed and rarely hear complaints. Geneva’s middle son, Huber Fraunfelter, lives next door with his two dogs, Bear and Blue.

“He’s on watch when we close,” she says.

All told, The Trading Post covers nearly two acres. Most of the inventory comes from estate sales, Geneva says. People leave a lot behind when they die. She takes it all: TVs and car tires, hot tubs, telephones, antique picture frames, fishing poles, poker chips, pots and pans, boxes of marbles, mason jars, gas cans, paint cans, ice trays, Barbie dolls, Christmas lights, porcelain toilet bowls and half-used bottles of glue. The ever-changing assortment of slightly- to-well-worn objects has made The Trading Post a favorite spot for deal seekers and artists alike.

Behind the house Geneva keeps her birds — 36 chatty macaws and Amazon parrots — and a well-mannered llama named Zazoo, who never seems to spit. Birds are the one thing she collects, she says, but she doesn’t bother naming most of them.

“I’m better off not getting really attached to them,” she says.

Geneva enjoys her work — enjoys being outside, finding stuff and meeting people. She knows many of her customers by name and many more by what they buy. She talks about the three ladies who always put on gloves to sort through her stacks of dishes or the gentleman with the moustache who has to argue over every price. She laughs but rarely compromises.

“Business is business,” she says. “And friendship is friendship.”

The Trading Post is open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or somewhere thereabouts. Geneva says she’s a little slower getting up when it’s cold out, but if she doesn’t get moving, someone usually comes knocking. She’ll rouse herself, go outside and stoke the rusty pipe stove, and get to work. On an average day, she sees 30 or 35 customers, sometimes more. Gator games usually bring a lot of business, she says, as do the busloads of art students from Santa Fe and UF. Customers pull up in the dirt lot and wander around the tables, taking their time. Geneva waves and chats and haggles until the sun gets low; then she and Randy close up the gate, eat a good meal, and rest up for tomorrow.

“You have your good days; you have your bad days,” she says. “And some days I’m glad it’s raining.”

Hello Breckenridge, Colorado!

He was a good businessman and even better at catching mice.

Last of the men in hats hops off the coil
And a final scene unfolds inside
Deep in the rain of sparks behind his brow
Is a part replayed from a perfect day
Teaching her how to whistle like a boy
Love’s first blush

Is this making sense,
What I’m trying to say?
Early evening June
This room and a radio play
This I need to save
I choose my final thoughts today
Switching off with you

All the clocks give in
And the traffic fades
And the insects like a neon choir
The instant fizz
Connection made
And the curtains sigh
In time
With you

You, the only sense the world has ever made
Early evening June
This room and radio play
This I need to save
I choose my final scene today
Switching off

Ran to ground for a while there
But I came off pretty well

You, the only sense the world has ever made
This I need to save
A simple trinket locked away
I choose my final scene today
Switching off with you

-Elbow, “Switching Off”

Just finished watching Seven Samurai for Japanese Cinema class.

Rachel is your drawing for today. She didn’t notice until it was already too late.

To make slides:

• Buy an ISO 200 slide film if making film slides. If making digital ones, simply change the digital ISO to 200.
• Never hang your work when taking slides. Make sure you have a plain black or white surface to lay your art on. The only exception to this is  when the work exceeds a size that you can photograph from above.
• Make sure you take slides on a sunny day. Take photos of black -and-white work in the sun; take photos of color work in the shade. Try to photograph an equal amount of black or white border around the work, unless the work’s size is roughly equivalent to the camera’s field. Then there should be no need for a border.
• Arrange the slides with some of your best work in front and at the end. Place a good piece in the middle as well. Be conscious of how the school you’re applying to will view them, whether on a computer or in a slide sheet, one at a time or all at once.