CLEVELAND (February 23, 2010) Walt Campbell, CEO of Campbell Artist Management (representing Susan Weber), attended the 22nd International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN in February. The conference affords performers and music business professionals an opportunity to network, update their knowledge of technical and economic changes in the industry, and showcase new and established talent.
 

Elsewhere I’ve tracked the rational act of making this video.  Here you’ll find the visceral exposé. 

I’ve been Paul Fresty’s friend since our paths crossed in a songwriter circle many moons back.  Suddenly last summer, my imperious muse bade me go see Paul’s Beatles cover band (Revolution Pie) perform for a crowd of groovers and shakers.  Beatlemania was palpable as the stars, settling over the lovers of magic like a sweet dream.  My hand knew not whither to aim the lens in the midst of this wide angle lovefest.

What you see here, to the sound of one fine band and its devotees, is how one of those Beatles tunes moved me.  To film it.  To seek out images worthy of its joy.  To combine, revise, revisit, refine - and finally send it all up to the webiverse for you and your fond friends. 

Anyone who’s edited video knows you floss your ears many times with the audio tracks in play.  Thanks to Revolution Pie, mine was a happy duty.  As for the visuals, well, what better excuse than classic McCartney-Lennon to delve for the best in humanity?

A Laker’s fan to a radio man on how he feels about his team:

“I get so excited, I got butterflies down my neck!”

Poetry in picturesque places gives me a longing for life, well within and far beyond reach.

Mary, a mother, wife, friend to all, passed away this week.  She was to me a distant acquaintance whose life, I thought, would purr along into peaceful old age.  She was a true mensch.

We know there are all kinds of people, right?  On the one extreme you have the teams-of-one variety, who suck the living daylight out of you to focus it on them.  Longevity teaches you to move to warmer climes.  Which doesn’t take too long if you’ve met a class act, like Mary.  Such a person lays out a blanket big enough for you and all your weary bones; you stand there dripping on her generosity; she beams at you from someplace peaceful, ego free.  And the light she brings is everywhere.

You carry this to the next place, and the next, and in the course of time, you learn how to be a more hospitable soul.

In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a lovely film in many ways, the old-young boy asks why people have to die.  “So we know how much they mean to us,” the answer comes.  This is cold comfort.  Given a choice, I’d rather bumble along with my loved ones, imprecisely prescient of their preciousness than, suddenly enlightened, find them gone.

So much for Hollywood treacle.  I don’t want death, or Hallmark, to line my cloud with silver.  But death is, I think, in some careful ways, a gift.

A chic couple promenades Shaker Square, dressed for a night on the town. 

She's obviously taken pains with her look.  Crisp blouse, low slung capris with a wide belt, shiny black stilettos.  He has too.  Loose shirt.  Faded jeans.  Flip flops. 

He looks rather relaxed.  She looks, well, unrelaxed.  Hers is the obligatory smile of the beauty contestant - confident (I look great) and exhausted (I can't wait to get out of these heels).

It baffles me to see the stilted woman ratcheting down streets and hallways alongside the loping male.  The typical explanation for my heel-height-hectoring - that I'm a feminazi who can't let people have a little fun with their finery - ignores my experience coming up.  Dues paid to the female fashion establishment was not only a given, it was a distraction from much better use of my time.  I'm told this hasn't changed much.

What do you call a thing that excites you, intrigues you, enriches and enthralls you?  Love.  Right.

Kiran Desai conjures young love in her novel, The Inheritance of Loss, with words like these:

When they would finally attempt to rise from those indolent afternoons they spent together, Gyan and Sai would have melted into each other like pats of butter - how difficult it was to cool and compose themselves back into their individual beings.

And old love with these:

Father Booty looked about at his craggy bit of mountainside - violet bamboo orchids and pale ginger lilies spicing the air; a glimpse of the Teesta far below that was no color at all right now, just a dark light shining on its way to join the Brahmaputra.  Such wilderness could not incite a gentle love - he loved it fiercely, intensely.

And here we have a modern myth shattered by a few exquisite phrases.  The myth that tells us fiery love is for the young, with a bland assortment of affection left over for the elderly.

But of course, all that warrant-less ageism serves no one, for all of us do age.  Why not face the truth of inexhaustible ardor?

Is piracy a lost art, recently revived by industrious Somalis and Wall-Streeteers?

Pirates are bold, adventurous, swash buckling advocates of social change.  So far, so good.  Except for the nature of change they seek, amounting to millions in cash delivered to their treasure vaults.  They're in it for the booty (not the beauty).

I complimented a swimmer on his elegant stroke yesterday, to which he replied, 'Elegance doesn't win races.'  

'Why do swimmers compete with speed instead of style?' I asked him.

'You can't measure style,' he said.

Lately I've been out on the deep blue sea of Drupal, the content management software that makes a site like this possible.  Setting up a podcast within the site is not a streamlined process, but the elegance of having it here keeps me going.  When I get this entrenched in something I have no business learning (I studied theology and nursing, not computer science) I have to ask, 'what's the payoff?' Clearly, it's not about dollars, euros or Somali shillings.

Then, of course, I need look no further than the latest inspiring bit of art to remember this:  technical skill is the life blood of any artist.  Without it, the necessary work of art dangles in thin air, without a clue.

OK.  So I'm excited.  Podcasts will soon be found on this site and you may be my next featured guest.  Its name is a secret (unless you click on the player at the top of this post). Through podcasting, I'd like to explore creative process in conventional and not so expected art forms.  To get to the nub of artistic productivity. 

There must be compelling reasons so many people do art.

'Soon' is a relative term, of course.  Right now I'm learning with Podcasting for Dummies, GarageBand tutorials, Drupal screencasts and manuals.  The peach is ripe. Things like 'Wow!' 'Cool!' 'Huh?... oh!' spurt out of me at regular intervals.  And we have yet to record the theme song -- yes!

In a certain episode of the popular Battlestar Galactica TV series, Laura Roslin, president of the colonies, receives a cancer-curing blood transfusion from a human-cylon baby. 

Cylons, for the uninitiated, are robot slaves originally created by humans.  The Cylons not only rebelled and escaped from the colonies, they retooled themselves as human look alikes and have now, 40 years later, returned to avenge their grievances.  They nuke the humans.  Some 50,000 colonists escape into space, with Laura Roslin more or less in charge.

The expansive story arc, digital effects and social commentary of BSG's universe give the willing imagination enormous sci fi pleasure.  In a recent podcast, BSG writers discuss one possible future for the Laura Roslin character post cylo-human blood transfusion:  Let's say the cylon blood type, besides curing cancer, begins to change Laura into a (much hated, especially by L.R.) Cylon.  Cell by cell, she morphs into her worst enemy.

I've been spending a lot of time with trainers and tech forum members on the web lately, because they have a lot to teach about the tools for making the movies and podcasts I'm aching to dig into.  Except for just a few ornery souls, the computer savvy form an exceedingly helpful community, often giving away valuable expertise for free.

This approach defies the supply & demand model of Capitalism, where a product in limited supply, desired by many, can and often does command a hefty price.  Here's a little insight from a self proclaimed nerd, Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist.  He talks about nerd values in a 2008 Think interview:

Q: You’ve said you’ve built a business based on “nerd values.” What are nerd values? And what would our country be like right now if we had leaders who embraced them?