days of greatness

Days of greatness is an expression my friend Dyna taught me.  The idea is like a birthday party extension. You get as many days of greatness as the years of your age.  Your days of greatness happen in the time around your birthday.  And you can even start them before the actual birthday if you like, but you only get that many days.  During that time, your friends and family are supposed to treat you with extra special kindness, affection and generosity.  Like a queen.

My 'days of greatness' have been especially rich and full this year. I'm just mentioning a few highlights here.

Emily took a picture of me wearing my new bike helmut hat.  B had to order it from England cause there isn't a retailer in the U.S. yet.  I can order more hat covers to change out for different fashion choices. It's absolutely great.

And then he made Hand Pies.

Just like it sounds, these are little pies that you can hold in your hand.  

It started with a recipe that I saw for Pie Lollipops.  He went for a larger size than the lollipops for a better pastry crust-to-filling ratio and abandoned the stick. An excellent decision. 

He made several kinds of filling: fruit compote, Nutella, apple, strawberry and combinations.

They were fun to make.

I helped with the details.

And they were so ridiculously cute as objects.

He was right-on with the proportions so every bite was a sweet and flakey balance.  They were a big hit at the party, of course, and saved us the stack of plates and forks to clean.  Plus, the informality encouraged everyone to help themselves. Because of the modest size you needn't feel guilty to go back for seconds or thirds, either. 

Since he made plenty, I enjoyed them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert for a few days.  That is definitely my idea of living like a queen.

The days of greatness are over now but I'm still feeling pretty damn lucky.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, 2006, directed by Dito Montiel based on his book of the same title published by De Capo Press is a really good movie.

Seriously, one of the best movies I have seen in a long long time. An intense autobiographical story that delivers adolescent fear, hope and recklessness.  Well written and well done.  Fresh performances from a solid cast: Chazz Palminteri, Robert Downey Jr., Dianne Wiest, Shia LaBeouf, Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Eric Roberts, many young actors I plan to keep an eye on, and one actor, Scott Michael Campbell that I just discovered on IMDB was born in Missoula, Montana.

p.s. Not for light-weights.

fashion's dirty little revolutionary secret

Copyright and Trademark come up constantly in the arts. In our studio, we debate over rights when considering using found video and film footage, music, imagery and content for making movies, iPhone apps or a tee shirt design. Often clients don't know any different so it is our responsibility to do the right thing legally but also morally by other artists.

On a personal level, artists are all over the board in their feelings of ownership of an idea. When teaching Contemporary Criticism, I brought up the Sheppard Fairey debate and students brought more research and energy to this discussion than almost any other. The subject struck a fundamental nerve for almost all of them. 

In my own personal experience I eventually come to the final question, "did the person who took the idea do it better?" Of course, that triggers more debate for many but the final execution of an idea often brings clarity for me. And then there is that very common feeling of ownership of an idea but never actually making it or doing anything about it. Ideas are pretty cheap in the end it seems. At least ideas all on their own. (Read: Go make something!)

Lately the rights (or lack there of) fashionistas and designers hold has been leading the discussion at our table. This TED video, "Lessons from fashion's free culture" by Johanna Blakely has been a great contribution to the debate and in certain ways very liberating for me. I want everyone to see it.

P.S. Going beyond the idea stage and getting into what has been published or produced, I have been directed to two places to start if you seek rights to use someone else's intellectual property: The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) or Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI). Good luck with that.

Enjoy the video!