This article ran in the Bold Italic this week.. I am mentioned in here and it was certainly nice to have my creative thinking mentioned…
Market Forces – The Bold Italic – San Francisco.
The idea of reclaiming public space is a hot topic right now.. and certainly relevant to the work I do.
Here is a another article from one of my favorite sites on the power of Public Space.
http://www.magicalurbanism.com/archives/5335
Filed under art, coolness, creativity, san francisco
So 17 years ago there was no Facebook or Twitter to promote events. The Lower Haight was still a little edgy and somewhat an unknown territory. Flyers were made by hand.. cut and paste meant scissors and glue and getting the word out about music and where bands were playing was word of mouth…. which meant walking around and actually talking to people face to face.
So tomorrow, Sunday Jan 29, 2012… please stop by Cafe International and celebrate one of the longest running FREE gigs that I can think of in San Francisco. This Sunday come down to celebrate the 17 year mark for these jazz maestros.
Top Cat and his rotating cast of characters have been holding down Sunday afternoons in the Lower Haight for a long time. Not only do they play a smoking jazz set, they have also been a platform for up and coming musicians to hone their chops as they encourage newbies to jump in for a song.
I have been fortunate enough to get to sit in sets as a drummer and a singer over the years…..and I am super proud to not only call Top Cat one of my closest friends and personal musical cheerleader and mentor and occasional therapist.
It takes a lot of dedication to show up for a gig every week. This Sunday afternoon tradition is one of the best spots in the city to listen to music for free, enjoy a turkish coffee on the patio and connect with the great community that has been built here around the love of good music.
Please come by and say hi.
Top Cat and Miles Ahead play EVERY Sunday 4-9 pm.
Cafe International
508 Haight Street at Fillmore
San Francisco, CA 94117
Follow Top Cat
on Twitter @TopCatJazz
Facebook
Filed under art, coolness, creativity, music, san francisco
Why are your favorite sites down? TO SEND A MESSAGE THAT THE SOPA AND PIPA legislation is unacceptable.
Imagine a world with no internet.
Now make your voice know.
@FightForTheFTR
http://sopastrike.com/
Filed under Uncategorized
I have been involved in the arts in some way or the other my whole life. Both my parents are musical. My dad still gigs regularly and cranks out songs. My mom is an accomplished pianist and organist but let her creative outlets fall by the wayside to raise a family. Most of my friends are involved in the arts somehow. My daughter has found her outlets in theater and her love of music… And for me creativity has been something that I have dabbled in almost every form of… writing, dance, visual arts and music. And I have been an avid consumer of music as a source of inspiration and therapy since my first purchase of a cassette tape a few decades back. I have never had the aspirations to do it as a career…. as for me it has always been about the process.. not the product. But more and more lately I find myself not wanting but NEEDING to be creative. As I have had more health issues in the past year than I care to come to terms with, the process of simply singing, or painting or writing is a vital part of healing. I have also spent a good deal of my professional career working to promote the creativity of others… which is awesome. I enjoy it. I feel a sense of accomplishment from helping others feed their dreams. But this year, 2012, is the year that I start to reclaim a little of the energy that I have spent of helping everyone else on myself.
I watched this the other day and it got to the root of why art and creativity matter …
Here are a couple of other cool articles on the power of Art that I have come across too.. Good stuff.
From the Huffington Post.. on 2012 as the year Art and Technology
From Psychology Today…on Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking | Psychology Today.
So go do something creative. It’s good for you.
Filed under art, creativity, music, randomness, the brain
Sometimes I find stuff like this in my internet meanderings and I am just gonna repost it. Here is one of those things…
Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking | Psychology Today.
Filed under art, creativity, the brain, Uncategorized
We all do it. We all know it. And yet, there is that ingrained mentality as a woman that we cannot, do not or should not. So here’s a secret. We do. Please watch this important public service announcement from the folks at AWF. My lovely mate Melinda Deschene is the hottie blond in red. She is working hard on her acting career in LA. Props to her stellar performance here.
Filed under randomness
I hate you. You ruined my life.
We will all hear these words as a parent. We will all cringe and remember our teen years.
We will apologize to our parents. So sorry Mom for the late 80′s…..
But parents love their children and hopefully we all remember to recognize that they are just these wildly hormonal beings who have no control over their emotions. Repeat this to yourself daily as a mantra if you have a teen..
I looked at my big girl a few days ago though, with her face green with the stomach flu and her eyes still my tiny little baby that I love with all my heart. No matter how much she sometimes hates me for her hair being curly or her lack of what she thinks she needs.. she is still my little girl. Even though she is taller than me… She will always be my baby. For all her awful moments of teen angst that she bombards me with, when our kids are sick, we forget all the snark and pompous-stance and just see our babies.
And today my baby auditioned for a spot at School of the Arts HIGH SCHOOL… HIGH SCHOOL…
What? When? How?
They grow up so fast.. and become their own people. It is really the most amazing thing ever to witness.
I was likely more nervous than she was today as she ran her monologues. But her words as she scooted off to do her thang… ” Mom, I am gonna OWN this”…
and I was so very very proud of my baby, who is not a baby anymore at all…
So the next time she yells at me for some unnamed offense…..I will try to remember this, and take a deep breath.. and remember how fast it has gone, and how proud I am of her as a person.
This is from an article that I stumbled….. It is good to look at our children and other adults even… from this perspective.
from a wise Ronit Baras
Expressions that set you off
Become familiar with these expressions and before you lose it, focus on the real interpretation of what you hear. You will be surprised when you do so that instead of feeling angry and frustrated, you will feel understanding and supportive and you will smile with love. Remember, when your child is upset and says something, he or she really means to say something else.
“I am bored” is really “I need your help. I do not know what to do with myself”
“I hate you” really means “I need you to tell me you love me”
“I hate school” means “School was hard for me today” or ”Something happened at school. Ask me what happened”
“I can do whatever I want” means “I feel helpless and out of control”
“You never give me what I want” means “I need something from you and it is hard for me to convince you”
“No one loves me in this family” means “I am looking for some attention”
“I am going to run away” means “I am afraid of running away”
“You don’t care about me” means “I need you to tell me you care about me”
“All the other kids get to go and I don’t” means “It is hard to be different”
“I don’t have to listen to you” means “I am upset that I need to listen to you”
“You are cruel” means “Tell me you love me”
“You never let me do anything I want” means “I am frustrated”
Words of gold to heed, oh fellow parents…. cause kid say the darndest things.. and man, does time fly by.
I love that part in the Wizard of Oz when the trees are talking. Also one of my favorite parts of the LOTR. Trees have souls too…. I think. More poignant this time of year perhaps as you see all the sad tree carcasses discarded on the street. Pisses me off, our blatant consumption of not only trees.. but just stuff in general….Tis one of the things I will tend to rant about. And one of the lessons I am trying so hard to impart to my teen, who is a member of generation entitlement,they think they deserve everything and everything right now. It is a rather annoying trait that I am trying to break her of. Right now, post holiday, the only thing broken is my wallet. These kids today have no respect for nature, or anything bigger than us. It is all about the gizmos and the gadgets. I just said these kids today. Eeep.
But the trees one day might win. Over our silly concrete world that we have built up that really is a big sandcastle waiting for a wave.
These kinds of pictures send shudders of joy down my spine. Lovely. Delicious. I am rooting for the trees.
There is a whole gallery of these sorts of pictures on Flickr that I found. It’s here
Filed under randomness
2012. Here it is. We been waiting….. Could it be the end of the world this year…… hmm.. I think not. Such as the hype of good old Y2K, when I stood out in a field on New Year’s Eve in the lovely sereneness of Sebastopol, waiting in some hope for the lights to flicker off across the valley in front of me like a tumbling set of dominoes….. Instead, a sputter of some fireworks and that was that. Woohoo. I played the Prince song on repeat a couple of times and that was the new century. Somewhat deflating. I had kinda hoped for some good chaos. But alas, Y2K was a bust. Seems so long ago, only 10 short years, but a lifetime for me. So, for my new proclamation of creativity this year…. I shall blather here, spew the thoughts and randomness that permeates my cluttered brain sometimes. The joyous clutter that is the eclectic nature of my thoughts and brain’s own meanderings. 2011 was an interesting year for me. One of a lot of change, and self reflection and growth. I am quite happy to leave it behind. Ahoy, onward into the year of 2012. Bring the noise. I am ready for it. This is the year I leave behind being afraid to just be me. Who cares if I mortify my teenager in the process and piss off my friends, neighbors and family. I am ready. To just be fearless and awesome and fall down sometimes in that awesomeness. Yeah. Huzzah. Happy New Year.
Filed under randomness, Uncategorized
