Archive for February 2013
The medium is the massage
After viewing several of Marshall McLuhan's works we were encouraged to make our own media message in his style. I picked something that struck close to home which was entering into an over saturated job market. With several companies going bankrupt and turning out people many junior visual artists are now competing with senior level artists for the same job.
Howl
After listening to and reading the famous poem Howl I found the listening very invigorating. Powerful and twisting words that lead you nowhere but at the same time. Words that strike meaning into feelings felt personal.
I employ you to listen or read and be inspired the same!
I employ you to listen or read and be inspired the same!
1930's Evening Shows
This weeks edition we got the opportunity to listen to several "pulp fiction" novels or radio shows. I choose the radio shows and was glad I did.
I started off listening to;
"Mercury Theater "The Man Who Was Thursday" Sept. 5, 1938
I Love a Mystery "The Roxy Mob" Jan. 18, 1939
Bob Hope Show March 7, 1939 w/Judy Garland"
I quickly discovered that each evening show began and ended in commercials typically describing the wonders of Cambell soup or the perfect gas. These commericals within themselves were small gems as the announcer assured me that if I had never tried mushrooms before that if I tried cambell's mushroom soup, I would never go back. No questions.
The gas commercial in front of "Calling All Cars "The Moving Picture Murder" April 3, 1934"
Was equally amusing as you hear two people driving in a car when suddenly a woman screams and a loud crash is heard. A man apologizes to his wife and swiftly leads into a conversation with a cop who, not so subtly, suggests using "what I thought everyone knew" as the special brand of gas that cops buy.
Between the Campbell soup commercials and the radio stories themselves I can't quite decide which I liked more.
In these stories were highly dramatized situations of theft and murder. Rather easy to tell where the first soap show came from.
I recommend putting on a couple of these episodes while your working or casually cooking. The stories are pretty fun while hearing the rather up front and frank way of talking back then is a treat.
I started off listening to;
"Mercury Theater "The Man Who Was Thursday" Sept. 5, 1938
I Love a Mystery "The Roxy Mob" Jan. 18, 1939
Bob Hope Show March 7, 1939 w/Judy Garland"
I quickly discovered that each evening show began and ended in commercials typically describing the wonders of Cambell soup or the perfect gas. These commericals within themselves were small gems as the announcer assured me that if I had never tried mushrooms before that if I tried cambell's mushroom soup, I would never go back. No questions.
The gas commercial in front of "Calling All Cars "The Moving Picture Murder" April 3, 1934"
Was equally amusing as you hear two people driving in a car when suddenly a woman screams and a loud crash is heard. A man apologizes to his wife and swiftly leads into a conversation with a cop who, not so subtly, suggests using "what I thought everyone knew" as the special brand of gas that cops buy.
Between the Campbell soup commercials and the radio stories themselves I can't quite decide which I liked more.
In these stories were highly dramatized situations of theft and murder. Rather easy to tell where the first soap show came from.
I recommend putting on a couple of these episodes while your working or casually cooking. The stories are pretty fun while hearing the rather up front and frank way of talking back then is a treat.
Gatsby Screen Write
Page 84 on If anyone is curious....
Fade in:
Int. Light Jungle with small
mountain in background on a clear day – Mourning
Dissolve
to:
Ship wrecked; Daisy, Jordan, Tom,
Nick and Gatsby are strewn across the ground trying to cool off as 50 days
stranded has begun to get to a few members.
DAISY
(In
exasperation as flopping over on her side to face the others)
What’ll we do with ourselves
this afternoon?... and the day after that, and the next thirty years?
JORDAN
(sitting up against
the base of a palm)
Don’t be morbid, Life
starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.
DAISY
But it’s so hot and
everything’s so confused…. Let’s all go to the beach!
TOM
(witling a twig into
a fine staff)
I’ve heard of making
a garage out of a table but I’m the first man who ever made a stable out of a
garage.
Everyone pauses and looks at Tom as if acknowledging the
heats powers on the mind.
DAISY
(still looking
suspiciously at Tom)
Who wants to go to the
beach?
(turn towards Gatsby)
Ah… you look so cool
(more dreamily)
You always look so
cool
Gatsby and Daisy stare at each other as the heat of the sun
beats down. Tom stops scupting and glances back and forth between the two and
instantly take the situation as treachery.
DAISY
You resemble the
advertisement of the man. You know the advertisement of the man –
TOM
(Frantically annoyed)
All right, I’m
perfectly willing to go to the beach. Come on – we’re all going to the beach.
Tom gets up quickly while still darting his eyes between
Gatsby and Daisy and moves to the center of the group.
TOM
(Brimming with
madness)
Come on! Whats the matter,
anyhow? If we’re going to the beach, let’s start.
DAISY
(snapping out of her
daydream gaze)
Are we just going to
go? Like this? Aren’t we going to let anyone smoke a cigarette first?
Tom briefly met eyes with Daisy and she caught a glimpse of
the madness fueled by the illusion of heat.
(Trying to cheer him
out of his delusion)
Oh… let’s have fun,
It’s too hot to fuss.
Long pause
DAISY
(hesitantly)
Have it your own way.
Come on Jordan.
Jordan and Daisy quickly EXT Stage left as Tom focuses his
glare on Gatsby now breathing heavily as a tension fills the room.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Response
This is a short story based off of the style of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
I’ll warn you now this is not
terribly good in the slightest but was more of an experiment in story telling.
“I couldn’t have been born into a
more beautifully horrible family. Between living in Bumdrum nowhere Ohio and my
parents I can’t arguably decide which I would rather jump out in front of a
milk wagon to be away from.”
 |
| My two brothers on either side of my dad |
A young yet scrawny girl angrily
wrote in the spaces of a freshly acquired dairy. I was about 16 and just shy of
niave with statements like these only having some vague true meaning shrouded
in a fog of teenage angst. As I had mentioned briefly I lived in Bumdrum
Nowhere, OH where the closest landmarks people use to give directions would be
“the large rock up by the hill” and “that there amish house.” Bumdrum small
dirt roads often had a fine sprinkling of the annual grasshopper hunt. Not a
terribly populated place with only about 147 real inhabitants which was last
checked about a century ago. It was in this tiny place grew an extraordinary
family. Mine in fact at the time.
 |
| The common locator rock |
 |
| Uncle ben and his proud shot |
“I hate them I hate them I hate
them. They make the first one wheel car and hypno cabob hats with their own
personalization yet they can’t fix me! Why can’t dad move faster or henry work
quicker. They say they want to help me
but here I am, nothing changed. What kind of engineers are they if they can’t
even help me from withering away.”
At that time I had started
christening the dairy with my sorrow as tears crept off of my face and onto the
page blurring the lines a bit. My father, Kaine Klause, was a brilliant man who
was credited with being the fastest worker alive. Photographers came by when I
was younger and followed his paths as he worked so amazingly fast.
 |
| His prized first one wheeled car |
The rest of my family consisted of
two older brothers my deceased mother and me.
All three brothers were just like
my dad and all had tremendous talent. Then there was me. Decrepitly skinny,
pointy nose, no talent, and in general, opposite of what a person should look
like or what any of my brothers turned out to be. Why was I such a sad person
on this day of reckoning? Well after seeing a doctor earlier in the afternoon
the gravity of my situation was shown true and packaged with a ‘use by date’
attached. You see I had a rare autoimmune
disorder that was causing my bones to shrink into nothing.
“There are no other towns in this
state that are going to help you” exclaimed the doctor who was pretty sure
medicine hadn’t caught up to my bazar body in the 1920’s. I immediately turned
to my family for help. With such great minds you would expect one of them to
have some idea. But in my ignorance I assumed the creators of mechanical
whimsies and electrical marvels would be able to treat my illness.
I fell into a great depression and
was made to do different activities such as riflery and soccer to try and get
my mind off of things. Every time I stuck out like a soar thumb and twisted
further to the back of my mind.
 |
| Me on the top right |
My father soon fell pray to what I assumed was
an illness. He would stay in his room or lab and wouldn’t let anyone in. Quiet
mutterings and light clangs of teacups could be heard but I had not seen my
father for nearly a year and a half. It
wasn’t until early spring did he emerge from his den.
Deep circles rimmed his eyes, pale
as a calf’s milk and muscles withered down to his bones. He walked simply into
my room as I had been writing in my dairy and kissed me on the head. “Come on
Dahlia. I’ve done it… I’ve found the solution.”
We both silently walked into his
study where it was littered with old food trays, teacups and piles upon piles
of papers that were half hazardly tossed aside. He lead me deeper into his den
as we finally came upon his study which had three large drawing boards in front
of the tower of library cases. All had crazed writings and numbers that filled
the boards to the brim and even went off onto his collection of classical books
in places. The most prominent of all the white chalk markings were in the very
center of these boards and simply read ‘Time machine.’
I looked confusedly up at him and
he turned to me with a full expression of a proud parent while wrapping his arm
around my shoulder.
