On Being

gregboyleonbeingdriving home from nebraska we caught the last part of an interview with greg boyle on the radio. it was amazing. i’m downloading it now so i can listen to the rest of it. boyle is a jesuit priest doing gang intervention in los angeles. krista tippett had him on her show, onbeing.org, a program that i first heard when she talked to glenn beck. that interview was an eye/ear opener also.

Georgia Geronimo

She-and-Him-640x423this thanksgiving weekend i recorded a song in western nebraska with my niece georgia. she normally plays guitar and sings, but when we were concocting this number i was singing & playing my guitar, and she was playing the theremin. she did sing with me at the end though.

Capturing The Moment

grammaok, well the thanksgiving moment has passed, but we’re still lounging in the afterglow. hope everyone had a good time with family and friends.

Drawing Without Ink

Elii showed eli and his cousin joseph how to draw on the makerspace tablet this afternoon. this is how i made those cartoon heads that were laser cut on wood and chipboard. i just drew them directly onto the computer screen with a special stylus. the boys were trying to be patient, as they waited for the 3D printer that was making a fox. they kept asking me “how much longer is it gonna be?” i was already drawing cartoons next to their 3D printer. when they said something about my cartoons, i showed them how to use the tablet.

The Kids At The Makerspace

little_rascalsit’s always cool when a kid asks me what i’m doing at the makerspace. yesterday i met draven, emory, eden, zion, and asher. they were 3D printing a half lego man, half skeleton & i had just finished drawing, formatting, and laser cutting a cartoon girl on chipboard:01chipboardgirlit was their first time there & they looked at everything with wide eyed wonder. i’m sure they will create something amazing.

Change In Plans

2016-07-21-stranger-things01a few days ago i wrote about a game of “telephone” for my first workshop at the library. now it’s scheduled to be the last workshop, and we’re gonna use walkie talkies. we’ll also have a few fake phone booths for players in random locations, but hopefully no one will change clothes in them… however if a superhero does come out faster than a locomotive and leaps tall buildings in a single bound, i won’t stop him… or her.

The Telephone Game

manyphoneboothsi’m in the middle of my 4 month residency at the central resource library’s makerspace. during this time i have laser cut my own cartoons on plywood, wired up flashing lights, and made a 3-D teeter totter. i have also met a lot of cool people who have shown me their projects. the next thing coming soon is a series of workshops. in the first one we’ll stress the importance of expression and how well we listen to each other, and play the telephone game. that’s the one where somebody tells someone next to him/her something that gets repeated to the next person until the last person hears something COMPLETELY different. oh, and for more details on those things mentioned above (plywood cartoons, flashing lights, etc.) check out my journal on days at the makerspace.

Gutsy And Mortified

womensrightsas i got ready to teach a CPR class today, i came across something honest and amazing. it’s from the most recent mortified show about kids who teach. in the late 1980′s rachel leah cohen was supposed to write a report for a history class– she made this video instead.

No Static At All

amfm_dialwhen walter becker of steely dan died two months ago, ron “boogiemonster” gerber played a musical tribute to him on his show, crap from the past. it’s been almost a year since i posted anything about ron’s show which airs out of minneapolis, but when i heard this little gem from the late 1970′s, i couldn’t keep it to myself. you’re welcome.

Rawr! It’s Dinovember Again!

dinovember2017the creators of dinovember posted this image on facebook recently with the caption: “Rhino was eager to reach the toy at the bottom of the cereal box—until he realized he WAS the toy at the bottom of the cereal box.” refe and susan tuma started dinovember 5 years ago to inspire their kids’ imaginations. i found out about their project in 2014.