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Sharkbait

September 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Last Sunday I was sitting in Astoria’s Steve & Andrew cafe, having breakfast down on the waterfront. It was a gorgeous day, the pancakes were more like breadcakes but extremely tasty, and all was right with the world.

“You should go surfing in India,” proclaims the surferdude at the next table. He’s an older guy, maybe 35, bald, well-muscled and proselytizing to an eager wave of young acolytes.

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-Latest glass-

Sisyphussy

August 12, 2010 · 8 Comments 

I’m beginning to suspect that, to a glassist, only one sound is more terrifying than the -ting-ting-ting- of thermal shock: The rumble of an approaching moving van.

I’m seriously contemplating a move, either of my studio or my whole house (yeah, I know, I’ve been going on about this for at least a year). And so today I grabbed a shovel, headed down to the studio and took a real inventory. For the first time, the implications of moving a casting studio whacked me upside the head.

I’m still in shock.

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-TechBiz-

Virtual librarians

August 22, 2010 · 4 Comments 

Ever wonder what’s going on behind the eyes of your local librarian? Possibly more than you think.

I’ve always wondered what makes librarians tick. Certainly they must have a love of books, but I’ve always figured you had to be a frustrated writer to hang out in the stacks. Some of them are; Marian the Librarian-blogger frequently has a keen eye for the ironic and, occasionally, a wonderful writing style.

If I were to sum up many of the more prominent librarian blogs, though, I’d have to say that the sour, forbidding librarian of the movies isn’t that far off. These bloggers appear furious about being librarians, or at least about being librarians in a library that actually admits the public.

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-PDX stuff-

Boundless

August 30, 2010 · 2 Comments 

“Only four, no three and a half more hours, and we’ll have been awake a whole two days! 48 hours!” says Seth excitedly.

I peer at him through exhaustion-bleared eyes. “48 hours?” I manage. “What the heck have you been doing for the last 48 hours?” I’ve only been up maybe 16 hours, and I’m ready to drop.

Seth and Eric and I are the “banner team” at the Hood-to-Coast Relays, in charge of receiving hundreds of sponsor banners as they are taken down. We clean them thoroughly, roll them up and tie them, then sort them into bags for storage. They like this job because it’s close to the rock concert and they can dance while they work.

I like it because I get to sit down.

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-On art-

Contextually yours

July 6, 2010 · 3 Comments 

So I get that modern art is often mostly context. I understood that years ago, when I visited my first modern art museum to find viewers oohing and ahhing over a big plexiglass cube with a man’s shirt inside.

The shirt was a nerd-typical white, pressed and folded with a small, round inkstain on the pocket. Next to it was a placard entitled “TGIF,” or some such.

In a drawer, this was a shirt going back to the laundry. In a museum case with a title, it was art.

OK. I get that. But sometimes I wonder if artists, gallery owners and curators aren’t hiding behind a curtain somewhere, totally plowed on peppermint schnapps and howling, “Can you believe they fell for THAT one?”

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-Photography-

Putting the art in photography

August 5, 2010 · 4 Comments 

Housepainter Rick Norsigian found 64 old glass negatives at a yard sale, paid $45 for them–so the story goes–and they now turn out to be early images taken by photography icon Ansel Adams. Estimates put them at something like $200 million (or more).

Naturally, all hell broke loose.

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