Winding Down & Gearing Up

JULY
* Wrote 8 Wheels of Death script (actually around the end of June, I think)
* Called a couple of derby bouts, home and away
* MC'd a roller derby fashion show
* Trip to Holiday World

AUGUST
* Canoe trip
* Performed live sound effects at the International Mystery Writers' Festival in Owensboro, KY
* Called an away derby bout
* Assisted shooting 8WoD in earnest
* Confirmed that my chapbook Little Glove in a Big Hand will be published in 2010 (possibly January) by Plan B Press

SEPTEMBER
* Preformed SFX, read poetry, and did some voice work (whew!) for a live variety show broadcast on WFHB
* Called another bout
* Lotus Festival (saw Väsen, among other great world music acts, for the first time and they were so very good)
* Heavy shooting schedule for 8WoD

OCTOBER
* Called last home bout of the season
* Visited friends and hiked and climbed a li'l mountain in Maine
* Mom & Dad celebrated their 50th anniversary, and I got them a trip to Ruby Falls, TN, where they spent their honeymoon in 1959
* Taught my graphic design class
* Skipped the zombie march due to rain/police action but had a great Halloween at Kel's

NOVEMBER
* Called the first Naptown vs. BHRG bout, last of our season
* Gave a reading at the Writers' Center of Indiana in Indy, debuting some poems from the new chap
* Will perform SFX for another WFHB live variety show
* Learned that Joe also has a chapbook coming out in 2010 ... also from Plan B Press ... so joint spring tour now in the works ...

DECEMBER
* Will record poems for Jenny Kander's last show on WFIU
* Hope to talk to financial adviser about ... my finances. I'll be 99% debt free (other than a couple of post-divorce entanglements) by December. What then? House? Hardcore retirement savings? Investments? All of the above?
* SLEEP and/or DO AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE!! (I think I am chronically under-rested)

2010: IN THE WORKS
* Reading at a benefit for a domestic violence shelter, in Indy, day after my 39th b-day
* Do another collaborative art/poetry project with Lucia, for a Kinsey contest
* Chapbook tour with Joe out to Vienna, Virginia, where our publisher is located
* Perform SFX for the Agatha Christie plays from IMWF, in April/May ... in Tacoma, WA! (I've been invited out by he producer; it's not 100% confirmed but should be before T-giving)
* Creating my own webpage and likely abandoning this blog (or incorporating it into something a bit more all-encompassing as far as work and personal stuff)

When Worlds Collide

So along with live color commentary for the past 3 seasons, I also have done a fair amount of writing, editing, and proofreading for the local roller derby league (like I do). Mostly meeting minutes, lists of sponsors, program text, tag lines, press releases and bout recaps, etc. No heavy lifting here but usually snappy and time-sensitive material.

Then Truly F Obvious and Roxy Shox asked me to help write and edit a series of articles for USA Roller Sports Magazine on how to start a derby league. The first two installments came out last winter and spring. The latest issue, containing the final installment of the series, just came out ... and they put us on the cover.

I haven't done a lot of publishing done these days, so this both is kind of cool and it cracks me up. This will likely garner the widest readership I've ever experienced ... yet there I am on the COVER of a skating magazine ... and I don't even skate.

Really, this is quite awesome.

EDIT: I also happened to pick up the most recent issue of INto ART, a local arts magazine out of Brown County, and was surprised to find a nice mention of me in an article about my fellow Dogwood Matthew Jackson. There is even a pic from the reading the 4 of us did in Columbus in Sept. Also cool!

International Mystery Writers Festival 2009

Words fail me.

The festival this year -- which almost didn't happen -- exceeded my expectations in terms of fun, performance, professionalism ... and prospects for future projects with this company of actors, producers, and directors. I don't want to say much more than that; I don't want to jinx the possibilities, because they are SO GOOD and everyone is so positive and optimistic about taking the show "on the road," as it were.

Besides, all that Big Time talk aside, I continue to have some of the best performance experiences of my life working this festival. If all that comes of the talk is an opportunity to do it again next year, in Owensboro, I would still be thrilled to pieces.

So I'm just going to post some links about the show this year.
Thanks to David Ossman and Judith Walcutt for taking a chance on me last year. LOVE you guys, and love the challenge of making these shows excellent!

Here is one review by Fred Greenhalgh over at Radio Drama Revival.

Here is another from the Evansville Courier & Press.

Some images by Bryan Leazenby of 2 dress rehearsals and the awards dinner.

WNIN 83.3 Evansville aired the Sat night (8/15) performance and streamed it online. They are now offering audio some of last year's shows.

Collaboration finally comes to fruition.

A collaborative project of mine will be featured at an online gallery in September.

The piece is an accordion-fold art book called last speakers of a dead language shut up, words: Tony Brewer, images: Lucia Bennett for S T U D I O 724.

It is a single poem, and each stanza has its own panel, cut from high-grade airplane aluminum by Lucia at Titan Waterjet. She then ... worked her magic. I love her layered approach to adding depth. It's a dark, somewhat violent poem (kind of out of character for me), and Lucia really did it justice. The lettering on the aluminum shines through the murk. I think it's beautiful and haunting.

It's taken about a year from our first meeting to seeing the final piece set up in her studio. It has been so worth it.

Coming to you LIVE from Owensboro, KY!

I am here in Kentucky, working on live radio theatre for the International Mystery Writers' Festival. We are doing all four of Agatha Christie's radio plays, originally written for the BBC (“the BEEB”) between about 1937 and 1953. I am the house sound effects artist for all the plays. We're staging them as if we, the company, are a troupe of BBC radio actors working in London.

If there's any chance you -- or someone you know -- could come down and see us in person, PLEASE COME. This is really a hybrid performance: equal parts murder mystery theatre, radio theatre, and audio art. (The auditorium sound is very well-tuned this year, by Steve Wiese.) The audience is real close to the BIG stage, so it will be a very "live" room.

If you can't come, you can still hear us LIVE on the Web on the final night of the run, Saturday, August 15.

NOTE: If you're coming in person, check into getting tickets soon. The Jody Berry Cabaret Theatre holds about 200.

August 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 are the dates -- that's this coming Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The place is:

www.riverparkcenter.org

More info about the Mystery Festival is at:

www.newmysteries.org

The four half-hour radio plays are introduced by Agatha Christie herself (as played by Melinda Peterson) and grouped into two one-hour Acts.

Act One:
Butter In a Lordly Dish
Three Blind Mice

Act Two:
Personal Call
The Yellow Iris (a Hercule Poirot mystery)

Here's the schedule:

Wednesday August 12 - Act One opens, 7 p.m. CDT

Thursday August 13 - Act Two opens, 7 p.m. CDT

Friday August 14 - Act Two -- 2 p.m. CDT, and Act One -- 5 p.m. CDT

Saturday August 15 - Act One -- 11 a.m. CDT, Act Two -- 2 p.m. CDT --

....and then, Saturday Evening, at 7 p.m. CDT both acts will be played and broadcast live over WNIN, the Public Radio Station in Evansville, Indiana. You can stream the program at:

www.wnin.org

I worked the Mystery Festival last year as well, and you can hear some of those shows at:

www.wnin.org/radio/summer-

mystery-series.html

(I know a lot of you derby people will be otherwise occupied on 8/15, so if you are interested in hearing what this stuff is all about, check the link.)

Zev Buffman and Judith Walcutt are producing the show,and David Ossman of Firesign Theatre fame (www.firesigntheatre.com) is directing. The cast includes Firesign's Phil Proctor (www.planetproctor.com ), TV's Gary Sandy (www.garysandy.com), Melinda Peterson (www.imdb.com/name/nm0677311), Amy Walker (web.mac.com/amiablewalker/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html), and Orson Ossman, along with a great group of performers from around the country. Again, I am performing live sound effects, assisted by Preston Ossman.

Today, we are finishing up Day 3 on site. All the elements are finally in place: My toys are out and on stage, the pre-recorded FX are being fine-tuned, and the actors are working out blocking and timing. Tonight I think is going to be our first “at speed” run-through of Act One. It’s all going well. Quite, quite!

Hope some of you can make it for the show (or tune in)!

---T

(x-posted to Facebook)

Well fudge.

The Tom Lopp project did not get funded.

The exact phrasing goes: "Unfortunately, your application final score was not high enough to receive a grant based upon the amount of available funds."

I don't feel too bad about this. I am overwhelmed by projects right now, and making forays into romance, and while I feel like I'm ready for the "next step" on the road to making this book a reality, I would honestly feel rushed, trying to "fit it in" right now among other commitments.

Or maybe that's just me rationalizing this rejection.

Also, as I posted earlier, state arts funding was cut (by 25%). The IAC received 209 applications and could only fund 33 of those (whoa). So I'm not too surprised that I did not get a slice of the pie.

As far as the project goes, I'm still reading and researching and fact-finding and waiting and thinking and eventually, writing. I also reconnected with an Inupiat/Eskimo I have worked with in audio theatre, and he pointed me toward some resources and websites I had not discovered. So I'm not done yet, not by a damn sight. I'm continuing, unfunded, like before.

I also had been reconsidering the travel destination for which I originally requested funding: University of Oregon, where Tom Lopp's papers and journals are collected. It made (and makes) sense to want to go there and hold his writings in my own hands. But several people have suggested (and before I discovered the Lopp Collection, I originally had planned) that I actually go to Point Barrow, maybe even retrace some of the route of the Overland Expedition of 1897. When I reapply for next year (hell yeah I am), I might write that in instead. I think by then I'll probably have a much better idea of the "on paper" Tom, the white man's perspective of the journey. Maybe what I need to fund is an exploration of the Inupiat/Eskimo perspective, which is what I am most in need of researching anyway.

And maybe in the grand scheme of things (I'm such a grand-schemer), this is the universe's way of redirecting me, away from libraries and "serious research" and whatnot, and toward the stark environment where the story I hope to inhabit actually played out.

And let's face it: I work too much. No thaving to deal with this project too does give the rest of my 2009 some breathing room. Room I surely shall fill up, right quick, with something else, no doubt. But rather than another project, I think now I can refocus a little:

* Actually make a move and talk to some financial people about buying a house in my 'hood.
* A couple of dear friends in Maine have invited me to come visit this year. I had been figuring on postponing -- just not enough hours in a day (or vacation time in my bank). But now it seems quite doable. In October. This would include a visit to mountains, I'm pretty sure, which is also on my Big Ol' To-Do List for aught-nine.
* Ease up a touch on the research and work on new material for the fall Dogwoods tour.

So yeah, no funding. No joy there. But it's just funding, not the project itself, that took a hit here. At least that;s how I see it. Everyone I have talked to, including my Inupiat/Eskimo colleague, has reacted favorably to my description of it, as hair-brained as it seems (to me, sometimes). So on I go.

Funding Woes

"Dear Grant Applicant,

Due to the recently announced Indiana Arts Commission state appropriation, which is 25% less than last year, the Commission must convene to ratify a new budget for FY2010. We are trying to schedule an emergency Commission meeting for the week of July 20, 2009. Once the new budget is established, we will proceed with FY2010 grant announcements.

You will receive an email regarding grant decisions as soon as more information is available. We appreciate your patience until this time.

Best,

**********
****************
Indiana Arts Commission"

"Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is."

(Margaret Mitchell ... the Gone with the Wind lady)