October 2009

Rustling leaves, trees silhouetted in the moonlight, candles flickering . . . home sweet home for Halloween. Favorite film? How about a ballet?! Perfect choice if it’s Guy Maddin’s Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002). Adapting the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s stage performance into a silent film, Maddin has created a lusciously atmospheric version of the famous vampire tale. Zhang Wei-Qiang, as Dracula, is as compelling on the small screen as he was on the stage. The music? Mahler, Symphonies 1 and 2. . . wonder what Gustav’s ghost thinks of that.

Not creepy enough? Consider another Maddin film, Brand upon the Brain. Isabella Rosellini narrates the DVD version of this 2006 silent movie, a surreal tale of some nightmarishly strange family values.

Still not scared? Turn on the lights and read Margaret Atwood’s latest, The Year of the Flood. Futuristic and fated, this tale of society in the coming years is fiction. Keep telling yourself it’s fiction. It is fiction, isn’t it?

Happy Halloween!

“Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.”
Twyla Tharp

“Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a. . . boxer?”
Ronnie D.

box.book.box boxers

box.book.box is part of Out of the Box
at Summit Artspace through November 7

In the box. . .

and out of the box. . .

box.book.box
mixed media
2009

. . . but still in the studio . . .

The Out of the Box Exhibit opens with a reception from 5 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28, at Summit Artspace.

Should have gone for that flu shot a week earlier? As it turned out it was too little, too late. Or maybe it’s a conspiracy: the rare H1K9 strain, carried by hounds who are looking to spend a few days lounging in the (usually off-limits) bed. So, break out the blankets and hope they leave some room.

Feeling better already!

Happy Birthday, Wallace Stevens!

 IV
Hang up brave tapestries:
Huntsman and warrior there-
Shut out these mad, white walls.
I hate a room so bare.And all these neighbor roofs
With chimney and chimney above-
Oh! Let me hear the sound
Of soft feet that I love.Then fetch me candles tall,
Stand them in bright array,
And go- I need such lights
And shadows when I pray.
from
A Book of Verses
From W.S. to E.V.M. June, 1908
by Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)