Mash-up

I've been busy preparing for a couple of classes that I am teaching - one has already started and one starts tonight. Of course with the beauty of the internet, and having profs that blog, one does wonder which students will be checking him out - either for nuggets of wisdom (!) or to find out who this guy thinks he is (!!!).

Being a fiction writer, amongst other things, I like the opportunity of crossing the boundaries, or maybe a better word is mash-up: the visual arts with the written arts. I was thinking about this while listening to yet another radio interview with the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I was telling my wife about this publishing phenom (best-seller, translated into 17 languages etc.) and told her that the material was copyright free. Well, it went something like this:

Wife - Why didn't you think of something like that?

Me - D'oh!

Wife - I mean you're a writer. You could have done that.

Me - D'oh!!!

And the rest was pretty much the same.

But before I digress into my ideas for Robinson Crusoe in District 9, I'll talk about my mash-up. The graphic designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd turns out to also be a fabulous writer. Okay, maybe fabulous is a bit much, but pretty damn good. His novel The Cheese Monkeys is one of the best art school novels I have ever come across. What, you haven't heard of that genre? Okay, it's small. But Kidd's book is smart and very funny. I like reading it to my graphic design students, though to be honest, I am not sure if they get what the book is talking about. An arrogant and self-obsessed prof, Winter Sorbeck, puts a class of design students through a mental hell. Boot camp for designers. I see you readers rolling your eyes. Hey, wait. Art School was hell, life in the trenches, deadlines, exacto knife cuts, late night slurpie runs and buckets of coffee that no longer has any effect.

If you don't get any of this. Read Cheese Monkeys. Then come take my class. I am no Winter Sorbeck - but I do get passionate. And there are no zombies in my class (usually).

Better get working on that Crusoe story.

Fight the Future

Okay, I have waited long enough before tooting my fatherly horn (what would that sound like anyway? I am guessing some sort of swiss alps crossed with Boromir from Lord of the Rings device.)

My son recently finished a short film called Fight the Future. And it's funny, damn funny - and quite well written, shot and acted (who knows where he gets his talent from). But as he reads this blog from time to time, to check up on the old man, I better not say much more. Just watch the movie, trust me, you'll be glad you did.

The Palpatines Fight the Future from Techknowlogick on Vimeo.

Sniff

Trying my best to keep the multitude of balls in the air these days. I probably should resort to my plate spinning metaphor of past - at any rate, the music is getting faster and I am trying to keep up.

Correction Line, redux, my much expanded novel will soon be ready for querying. As well, I am knee deep in preparations for upcoming classes that I will be teaching. Oh, and several illustration jobs, oh and some website redesign, and, oh did that music tempo just crank up again. Ed... could I get a drumroll.

If that were not enough challenge, I am performing all of this with one of my famous head colds.

Sniff. Spin. Crash.

retreat

Everyone needs to go somewhere to get away. Last year we bought a place in the country, simple, quiet and very beautiful.

I have been writing there lately. Not sure if that is truly getting away, as writing can be damn hard work. But just to have a place to be, to listen to the cows down the road, to watch the sun go down, or to watch my dog, Zodar, play with his favorite blue ball... well, it's pretty sweet.

Heading out there tomorrow. As is Zodar and his ball.

Don't listen to this

I am officially worried. If you know this blog, if you know me, you know Wilco. The band, the Tweedmeister himself, the most inspirational artist for me in the last decade, and an ongoing obsession, Wilco just is. And more people than ever are finding that out.

This Sunday CBS morning ran a bio on this somewhat known, but not really known band. They threatened that soon this band would get the kind of exposure it deserves. I saw it as a threat anyway. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Jeff is suddenly going to start pumping out top 40 hits. The doc mentions how they have been able to sell several million copies of their records without ever having a hit on the radio - or really much airplay at all. But when most things (bands) get consumed by mass quanties of people something kind of weird happens. Over exposure, a watering down, some jack off talking about their latest single (spoken like a true music snob.) I remember this happening to me with Dire Straits - money for nothing, anybody?

So I am hear to say. Watch the youtube bio of them on CBS (below). And then never think of them again. Go listen to some Coldplay or something. Just stop listening to my band. I mean it.