Category Photo Journal

Entries 204 Total Description

See: blog, weblog, astroblastro.

Some Good Pictures From Forever Ago

Aug 19, ’16 9:34 PM

I’m getting ready to say goodbye to Ilgaz for the next few months. She’s heading back to Turkey for a few months, and I’m going home too. We’re getting starting packing which means I’m procrastinating.

Procrastination Plan:

  1. Clean my laptop
  2. Drink some OJ
  3. Anxiety
  4. Brush my teeth

Right now I’m on step one. That means throwing all the movies and audiobooks in my download folder away or into other folders to watch and listen to later. I’m also throwing all the photos from their various folders into some dated folders in a Photos folder.

This is awesome though because I get to see all the great photos I’ve taken over the past year. There are so many! And they’re all over my hard drive. Here are some from the Prince’s Islands in the last weeks I spent in Istanbul before we moved to Slovenia.

DSC00367DSC00375

Looking good! It’ll be hard to be apart for so long but we’ll make it.

DSC00359

Comments (2)

A Short Visit With Matteo

Aug 9, ’16 1:13 AM

Matteo Destro is a mask maker, theater director and teacher. He was my mentor during the years I spent in Italy studying movement theater at Helikos and it’s his voice I hear in my mind whenever I’m making masks or puppets.

He was passing through Ljubljana so we threw him a little party.

In just a few hours, three years worth of work and lessons came back in a flood. Sensitivity, silence, and observation all contributing to the poetry that can be achieved through theater. Not to mention I got to see some of the new masks he’s been working on. They are beautiful full face leather masks that are so simple and strong.

We even had time to make some goofy pictures thanks to Justin and Ilgaz.

Good to see you again Matteo!

IMG_0552 IMG_0562

Comments Off on A Short Visit With Matteo

How to Be Polite

Jul 7, ’16 10:57 PM

It may be a surprise for some, but I’ve gotten in trouble for being polite before. So when I read this article on politeness I thought there might be a cautionary tale in there somewhere. But, nope. Just a nice article on the benefits of social kindness. Polite

Comments Off on How to Be Polite

American Wizard Schools

Jul 7, ’16 10:23 AM

This morning I’m reading a new short story by JK Rowling about the American wizarding school: Ilvermorny! It’s pretty fun as far as it goes. Did you know the American school was founded by the Irish? But there are some problems.

wizard

Native American wizards didn’t have wands before the school started?

Two more magical boys from the Wampanoag tribe had been joined by a mother and two daughters from the Narragansett, all interested in learning the techniques of wandwork in exchange for sharing their own magical learning.

Phooey.

Also the school is in Massachusetts which I suppose is OK, but come on, a wild west wizard school would be better.

Think about it:

  • Santa Fe
  • Pueblo wizards build a school into a cliff face
  • Wands are bird wings, turtle rattles
  • Spanish wizards are beautiful but gold hungry
  • Cowboy wizards want to leave it all behind, sing beautiful songs and move cows
  • Rattlesnake Parseltongue
  • Ghost Riders in the Sky

Maybe I should get into writing fan fiction. I think I’m on to something here.

 

Comments (2)

The Lost Wheels of Time

Jul 3, ’16 1:06 PM

Funny isn’t it how things work out?

Just a few days ago I was in a kind of panic that strikes the artistically self-employed. Nothing is coming, I’m broke, there’s no way forward. But within hours of voicing these sensible thoughts I got a call.

The background

My friend Justin was filling in for a street show in the Ljubljana street theater festival. They had lost an actor and were panicked looking for an emergency replacement for five shows. They got his number through the grapevine, he rehearsed for a few days, and boom! he was in the show. Unfortunately during the first performance he cracked his toe mighty hard on a set piece and after he got home he noticed it was swollen and purple.

27411643044_cf1894c395_o

I took him to the hospital. (That’s where I found out about the animation Pat & Mat.) And we waited for hours for him to be seen, x-rayed and reported back to. It wasn’t broken, that was the good news. But the nurse told him to stay off it. The show he was hired for is violently active so he was faced with a problem, limp through and risk worse injury or take a pass on the rest of the performances.

The next morning I got a phone call from the street show saying they were an actor down and would I possibly have the time to learn the show and perform. Justin was out and he gave them my number.

I showed up Thursday at noon and paced through the show as best I could. Piece by piece under the summer sun it started to come together. By 9:30 there were about 200 people waiting, the music came on and I jumped out on stage.

So, how was it?

You know in some movies how people are in a boxcar racing down the tracks, they throw their bag and then leap from the moving car, pumping their legs as fast as possible in the air then they hit the ground and try to keep enough speed to avoid falling flat on their face? It went a little like that.

During the show I had a few moments of fear that I was about to fall headlong into a clock, and I did kick over the wind machine. But I survived, and I tell ya, my weekend is a lot more exciting than I had planned for.

Rabit_Bojan Okorn

We’ll play it once more, today at 7.30 in Nova Gorica, Slovenia. Then Adam and Spiros will pack their van and travel to Poland where I suppose they will be on the look-out for another rabbit. Another energetic and game actor to don the latex rabbit mask and leap from the train.

These photos were taken by Bojan Okorn and were published on the Ana Desetnica Flickr account.

Comments (1)