So on Sunday, I was out and about walking and I met up with Alice, who proceeded to laugh at me for carrying around a giant notepad in my back pocket (which I do regularly but I couldnt find my usual small size pads so had to purchase a big shorthand pad which barely fit in my pocket), so we joked for a while about what I was doing with this pad........during the humour I joked about leaving break up letters on the bus for others to read.
It was a funny enough concept..........until I got obsessed with the idea......I once read about 'found books' where people left books in public places for others to find and read and continue the cycle of leaving the book somewhere for another to read.......I thought the concept was great. I'm also sure I'm most likely not the first person to leave notes and letters around in odd places for strangers to read, but it still had me going.
So that Sunday evening I left a break up letter on the bus, hoping that some one would pick up the folded letter and read it. I made it look like it dropped out of someones pocket onto the seat.........I was going on the assumption that hopefully even the bus driver would see the letter and read this story I had written within it. Not only was I trying to provoke some thought out of the reader with the story I had created but I felt that reading someone else's letter would be quite voyeuristic and stimulating to the senses.
I went home buzzing at the thoughts and text Alice to inform her of my actions, to which she thought I was a nut bar, whilst egging me on............so sitting in bed.........I pulled out my notepad again, and wrote 14 love letters, all with different, and difficult scenarios, but with positive hopes and thoughts within them. So after work in DCU today, I headed into town and I attached these letters to various popular public sit down places. The letters are far from Shakespeare but I recon a good read from a voyeuristic point of view and the excitement of finding something that doesn't belong to you but could be a treasure to someone else. Hopefully will spark some positive reaction if they ever get read or make someone vomit with the pathetic soppy writing......... one or the other!
I also added 3 silly cartoons to the mix, which I drew on the dart on Friday and they where just sitting in my notepad.
So after my letter escapade, and with thanks to Damien Farrell for inviting me, I headed down to the Lighthouse Cinema for an evening with John Canemaker talking about 'the art and flair of Mary Blair'. This was an exciting history lesson about one of Disney's top designers Mary Blair and her art work through out her life. It was an amazing talk with some amazing delivery from John Canemaker.
The talk was followed by a Q&A session with John Canemaker, in summary, the man is a legned and an inspiration. He talked vigorously about the preparation for performance that an animator should go through, the importance of animation's history to date and the relentlessness within storytellers to write stories no matter what their situation is, as long as it makes them happy. My brain went into over drive with excitement and love for animation/storytelling. It also reminded me of a similar conversation that Steve Woods and myself had in the I.F.I last summer. Our conversation went pretty much along the same lines of what extremes people will go to just to tell a story. Back to John though, he has a new book I will be eagerly awaiting called 'Two Guys Named Joe: Master Animation Storytellers Joe Grant and Joe Ranft'. More info can be found here
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~jc7/So, on my inspirational buzz I jotted a tonne of notes down and went on my merry way, I continued to a previous arrangement, made last week, to meet Grainne for an old pint and a chin wag......she also slagged my notepad.........calling me OCD.....obsessive compulsive disorder......but I'll forgive her because she brought me down to 'the International bar' to see 'the glor sessions', a poetry and event run downstairs by a guy called Stephen James Smith.
http://twitter.com/StephenJSPoet
We entered the bar and took a seat. Aaron Shanley (
www.myspace.com/aaronshanley) began his last song of the set, it was a beautiful song, with a lot of emotion, so much so, it provoked the organiser to take stage himself and recite a poem. Sitting up front, Stephen was in the crowds face, talking about losing a loved one to a maligant tumor. He was rhythmic in speech, philosophical in lyric and was explosive in performance telling his story. And this is where I thought.......I am in for some night!
The next big performance that really me hanging off my seat was from Dylan McDonough (
http://www.centerstageagency.com/client/dylanmcdonough.htm) He solo'd an excerpt from his latest play, his acting was powerful, and at critical moments, his timing and presence would make your hair stand on edge. In this pub, he had no more than 2 squared feet to act within, and yet the contrast of his playful innocence and sheer ferocity shook people throughout the pub . The rest of the night was played out by some really fine artists, I only chose Aaron, Dylan and Stephen as they communicated powerfully about a subject I could relate to the most with the recent death in the family.
The Glor Sessions are on every Monday night, downstairs in 'the International Bar', I suppose following Stephen's Twitter (link above) would be the best way to get more info. I recommend it as a seriously entertaining and interesting night.
So all in all a pretty inspirational evening.........and as I finish this entry......Stephen Silver is going to do one of his streams so I'll watch that before hitting 'Beddy Boys'.........
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/artcast-by-silver#utm_campaign=twitter.com&utm_source=1359606&utm_medium=socialAlso check out Animation Mentor, Eric Goldberg is doing a webinar today.........like Tuesday is today......
