Thursday, April 30, 2015

Timeraiser

We went along with Margaret to the fourth annual Timeraiser, held at the sound stage. Basically it is a way to get people to bid on art with hours of service as volenteers. So if someone had skills in something that one of these organizations needs such as labour or IT or accounting, you might bid 10 hours of your time (to be given over a certain period of time) in exchange for a painting on display. Whoever bids the most hours, wins. It's a win/win/win sort of thing as you would get new art, meet new people, and contribute to society.
William and I went for a long walk around the sound stage (the outside) then ended up at the hardware store where he was transformed into a conehead. 

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Berny Hi in the Vault studio

I visited Berny Hi in his "Vault" studio (inside CBC) today to shoot some photos for Splice Magazine. Also sat down and brainstormed by script for his project together (it is 10 words long). Ran into Joanne in CBC lobby and had a chat over a smoke while waiting.
Afterwards had lunch with Chrystene to talk about Caligari project. Ate lots of chocolate covered coffee beans and I revealed one of my secret panorama ideas to her and she was interested in helping. Quick chat with Gavin at 13th Ave Coffee House where he reminded me about comic day coming.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Superman 4, a quest for peace at the Talkies

This evening we attended the Talkies at the RPL where a couple of comedy improvers talk through a movie they've not seen before. This is always an amusing evening. It seems that they draw their crowd through their choices of films, picking them for their camp or general bad reputation. Tonight was the terrible last Christopher Reeves' "Superman 4, the quest for peace". I'd had the common sense to have avoided it in the past so it was fun to see it in this context now. However, I continue to contend that these events would be overall funnier if they picked films which were not such easy targets such as serious melodramas or earnest documentaries. However, I doubt that they would make this shift since the audience is primarily drawn by the (bad) reputation of the film as being something funny. If you want to be amused, you don't go to a serious film. Perhaps if/when their reputations grow, they will take on some more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, subjects.  

Monday, April 27, 2015

Dessart Sweets new peanut butter cup parfait

Run! Don't Walk! to Dessart Sweets for their ice cream treats.
William and I worked up an apatite running most of the way to Dessart's. He had the new peanut butter cup parfait while I had the also new peanut buster parfait. Margaret joined us by car and drove us home (which was probably a bad idea as I'm sure we'd need to go back and forth three or four times to work off these calories).

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Bill Sienkiewicz at Fan Expo

Margaret worked at the Fan Expo today at a table with comic art legend Bill Sienkiewicz. Says he is a really nice guy. I found an Epic Illustrated with cover art by him from back in 84. I probably have other things but it would have taken ages to find them. Besides, getting one thing signed is cool, having a stack to things signed is obsessive at best (stalky at worst). This photo of it is angled to catch the light on the signature but results in glare on the actual artwork. William and I didn't go; walking around in crowds is not really our thing.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Artist Trading Cards and Propoganda

 William and I took the day off. It's Saturday and I promised him a day of TV. We began with some Godard but quickly went on to "Danger 5", our new favorite show (just finished season one). Our only venture out was to the 12th anniversary of the Regina Artist Trading Card collective where I experimented with graphite transfer while William read about propaganda in the Noam Chomsky book.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Fourth Year Film screening a huge success

event mcs Emily Wright and Spensor Reid
Billy Hamilton and Christina Stojanova

Congratulations to all of the fourth year film students on the extremely successful screening of their final projects tonight.  The projects had a variety of theme and tone to keep the audience engaged. We ran the whole event as one evening rather than two since the total running time was just over two hours. There were about 120 people in the audience, which is about 90% full for the Artesian. Before the films rolled, Billy Hamilton (who I just discovered is the son of Howard) was awarded the Oser Prize for film studies for a piece he did on propaganda. In the intermission, I brought in Italian Star sandwiches, which were a big hit. No big disasters. I can almost start thinking about summer.


Fourth Year Film Screening tonight

Waiting for the audience to arrive. Doors open at 7:00, screening at 7:30. Funny stuff.
Fourth Year film students from UofR screening at the Artesian, 2627 - 13th Avenue. Friday Night only. 

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Regina too small for Meatloaf

For some reason, I've never owned a copy of the Meatloaf album "Bat Out of Hell" which contains epicly long anthem after anthem from the 70s. I was in London Drugs and they had the cd for $5 so I got it for the car. Unfortunately, Regina is too small so you have arrived before you can finish a song. 

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

3rd Year Film Student screening

William and I attended the third year screening of film student films at the Artful Dodger tonight. The films were pretty good, and generally funny. There were quite a few about sex and suicide (although I don't think anyone actually commits suicide in any of them) but they were short and tight with their storytelling. With each student showing two shorts each and most of them acting in each others films, I did start feeling the audience was becoming overly familiar with them. It would have been funny if someone had considered an overall story arc for the whole random set. I was thinking about a suicide bomb that a guy built in one of the early films that was never set off. It would have been great if someone accidently set it off in the last film.
They got a big crowd which meant that the space warmed up quickly. We had to flee into the cool air as soon as it was over. 

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

UPA finally on DVD


My first Amazon package since Christmas arrived today. I think this is the longest I've gone without an order in three years. It contained some kids books Margaret wanted as gifts as well as some much desired dvds I've wanted including the UPA animation which is an important addition to my collection. As well, the Betty Boop films are restored and out on four discs. William and I watched three UPAs including an early Mr. Magoo (who we described to him recently but he's never seen before). 

Monday, April 20, 2015

taxes done

I submitted my taxes today. Got the program myself and did them at home without consultation. I didn't have grants this year and it all seemed pretty straight forward. Probably didn't make any big mistakes. 

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Maureen and Nicole visit

Nicole at Atlantis
My sister and niece came to visit for a few days. It seems that "going for coffee" is basically what we do, so that's what we did. A central topic of conversation seemed to be to dream up a new job for my sister now that she's retired. There is no Walmart where she is living so "greeter" is not on the table. 

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Glow in the dark shirt

William made me a late birthday present, a hand painted t shirt with monsters, robots, aliens, and tanks fighting. To make it even better, it is outlined in glow in the dark paint! I wasn't sure if it would work after it was washed, but after two runs in the machine (the paint is rather thick and it needed some softening), the glowing still works perfectly. 

Friday, April 17, 2015

Seth in Regina


Renowned comic artist Seth was in Regina to open a very cool exhibition at the Dunlop. He has been building cardboard replicas of his nostalgic city of the 50s and these are now all here in one place. He did a very good talk where he discussed his parents, his feeling of being isolated and disconnected from other kids his age, and how all of this led to his obsessive drawing and the telling of stories with ever decreasing conflict. William asked him about his clothes and he seemed pleased to talk about searching thrift stores and the great aspect of current society where people can wear whatever they want (and he thinks we don't go extreme enough, considering how much freedom we have).

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Hungry Cat

Margaret cannot sit at the table for more than a minute without Nick wanting to be on her lap. It isn't that he needs to be on her lap, just when she is at the table. He is really interested in people food, even when he's not hungry. 

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Dirty Cat


Our cat Sylvie has become obsessed with rolling in the dirt this week. If we let her out for three minutes, she re-enters the house just covered with dirt and leaves. Margaret has been trying to clean her and help her shed her winter coat, the the obsession continues. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

roast me a marshmallow

We've begun enjoying the weather instead of dreading it. Marshmallow roasting has become a reality again. The back yard is mostly dry with only two days of pumping a couple of weeks ago. 

Monday, April 13, 2015

Lunch with grad students

While not quite finished all of their term projects, I heartily enjoyed and appreciated the insightful artist talks each of my grad students did in our extended, beyond-the-end-of-the-term class. I presented a model of what I wanted to hear last week and this week they each told me about themselves, about their work, about their problems, and about their solutions and futures. Afterwards we went to the club for lunch. Disappointed that there was no buffet (I was very hungry), but the food is always good. Around the table is An An, Xin Shen, Zaheer Shahid, and Rania Al Harthi. 

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Supper at Gertrud's church

We went to a church supper at Gertrud's church last night. I think it was just a fundraiser rather than being associated with a specific event. Anyways, there was some really great music afterwards from a trombone player from the symphony, accompanied by the piano. Margaret bought some raffle tickets but gave two of them away to friends at the table including a woman who was celebrating her 85th birthday. The old gal won some small plaster angels. 

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Crocus and Tanya in the Valley



 We headed out into the QuAppelle Valley to take pictures at our annual place near Craven. While snapping away, a car pulled up and to our surprise, it was Tanya Dahms. A few years back she bought some land in that area and she was on her way to do some hiking when she saw us. We followed her and got a nice tour. I also shot a bunch of stereoscopic photos.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Philippe Mather talk on Orientalism

I brought William to a talk by my friend and colleague Philippe Mather at Campion collage. He was speaking about his current (new) research in the field of "Orientalism", which is the depictions by westerners of Asia. In particular, he is concentrating on Singapore and has about 100 films which are set, or supposedly set, there. Popcorn was a nice touch for a Friday afternoon. William asked a question about Chinese art, old and new, which at first Philippe couldn't answer but then entered into an interesting discussion about the use of generic representations which are used instead of seeking real content; that one piece of art would represent all art of the nation and the idea of what is real is never addressed.

Email on talk read:
"Shanghaied In Singapore: Orientalist Representations of a Southeast-Asian City-State."
        Abstract:  The goal of this talk is to assess the heuristic value of Edward Saïd's four dogmas of orientalism for the analysis of film. Are the dogmas helpful in identifying patterns within filmic representations of the East, and also to gauge the extent to which films conform to or depart from the dogmas for specific reasons?

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Seeding time already?

William planted his pumpkins today in hopes that a head start may result in finally getting some big pumpkins this  year.
Last day of undergrad classes. Fourth year assignments not due for a couple of weeks though. 

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Roger Beebe Film Performance

From the first moment the projectors started, I was mesmerized. Roger Beebe's multi-projector performance hosted by the Film Department/Filmpool/Dunlop last night took film to many limits simultaniously. It was technically amazing with up to eight film projectors running at once, creating blurred edges of both the image and sound. It was also engaging and funny, building a panorama of images on themes of "the cosmos", "the alphabet", and "sound/movies/noise". I was glued to my seat. I am even more pumped that before about the pure analog film course I'm doing with grad students in a few weeks.This should have been required viewing before we began. 

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Snowy birthday

Woke up to snow this morning. I would like to take my birthday off but I have a class and a really exciting film event to attend afterwards. Margaret agreed to an extra shift. William has the week off but I'm not sure if he'll see Griffin today or not (they got together yesterday for the late afternoon and evening but Griffin has more family arriving today). My cold might be getting better. Doctor's offices don't return calls. Margaret tried a clinic yesterday but the wait time was huge. I guess we'll weather the storm.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Rabbit pie

To tell the truth, I had fully committed to staying home yesterday. However, after going to work of my own volition to see how Risa's large photo printer worked, I had no excuse left. We only stayed an hour to have a bit of goose and an apple pie that Margaret disguised as a rabbit pie. 

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Lori's sink

We were supposed to have a big (early) Easter supper at my sister's house last night. To me, it was going to be more of a celebration of her kitchen renovation being (nearly) complete. However, we got word in the morning of a sink disaster. Her under-counter sink, filled half way with water, failed to hold to the counter with the epoxy that was supposed to hold it there. It creaked and broke apart. We will have a supper there in a couple of weeks when Maureen arrives instead. We stopped in with pie and paper plates to visit and inspect the state of things. I've always wondered what held these sinks in place and figured it was some sort of clever plan. Apparently not. 

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Griffin's grandmother's 100th birthday party

I opted out of the party today, which from all accounts was a wonderful event a the Hotel Sask. Margaret and William went (by special invitation) to join the Clarke family to celebrate the grandmother's 100th birthday (which was three days ago). Griffin read a poem. I felt it was better for me to rest at home (caught up on some tv). 

Friday, April 3, 2015

Egg colouring in Rouleau

I was feeling even sicker than yesterday but still drove out to Rouleau to colour eggs with Marla. Actually, I didn't do any eggs. I contributed driving and I relaxed in the living room with my notes and planned a faux artist talk I need to use as an example next week. 

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Pizza day

 I survived class today but am starting to be sick (the cough Margaret and William have is finally catching me) so neither of us felt like cooking when we got home. William went to Moose Jaw with Griffin and his family today.and I figured they would be eating while they were there, so when Paul arrived, we just decided to pick up a pizza. It's been at least a couple of years since my last Western Pizza and the wait was worth it. Pepperoni and extra sauce was fantastic. Only problem; when William got back at 8, they dropped him on the way into town because he didn't want to go for supper with them because they were going to pizza. I ended up cooking anyways. 

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Flux expansion or April fools?

I was in a meeting with Charity Marsh today and at the end she shared her great news about her gym, Flux, which is just a couple of blocks from my house would be expanding to take over the gross little dusty confectionery that I've only gone into three times in nearly two decades of living here. I was very happy for her. When I shared the news with Margaret, she'd heard about it on Facebook but also pointed out that the announcement came on April 1. Hmmm?