A Life of Quiet Study

Yes, this—with all my heart —THIS—is what I yearn for . . .

© 1989 Robert Crumb

Humble Play: New Play Festival of Appalachian Ohio

Returning for its seventh year, the Humble Play promotes the art of playwriting and new play development. The Humble Play invites playwrights to submit their work. All the plays are reviewed and then three are selected for staged readings. Directors and actors assemble to present the words of each script, as much for the playwright as for the audience, and afterwards all participate in discussing the play.


Meet the playwrights

MENTOR PLAYWRIGHT Y.YORK from Cincinnati, Ohio will be giving a lecture on new play development !

October 4, 2012
Woof premiered last fall in Houston and won Houston’s “Buzzy” award for best new play. Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Fly premiered in Milwaukee in October and will be reprised in Nashville this winter. Late in the Game was workshopped at the 2012 New Harmony Project, and two other new plays premiere in Seattle and Philadelphia in April. Y is the author of many produced and published plays and the recipient of a lot of awards, grants, and prizes, and is always grateful and a little surprised when success comes calling. A member of the Dramatists’ Guild and alumna of New Dramatists, Y still lives with Mark Lutwak to whom most things are still dedicated. For current news and all the rest: www.yyork.com

Donna Hoke from East Amherst,New York

Flowers in the Desert

October 4, 2012 at 7PM
Writer, editor, crossword puzzle constructor and playwright, Donna Hokes work has been produced in cities from New York to Los Angeles. She also has work produced in Manchester, England, Seoul and Korea. Donna Hoke is a member at Road Less Traveled Productions, Chicago Dramatists and International Centre for Woman Playwrights and the Western New York representative for the Dramatists Guild.
Check her out at Donnahoke.com

Kevin Kautzman Austin, Texas

Dream of Perfect Sleep

October 5, 2012 at 7PM
Originally from North Dakota, Kevin Kautzman is a playwright pursuing his MFA at the University of Texas at Austin focusing on playwriting and screen writing.
Audiences in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Texas have all seen his work. Kevin was honored with awards from the International Student Playscript Competition and Repertory Theatre of Iowa's Alpha Project for his play Coyote.
See more of his work at www.kevinkautzman.com !

Kenley Smith from Bent Mountain, Virginia

Empires of Eternal Void

October 6, 2012 at 7PM
New to Nashville, TN, Kenley Smith began working on his play Empires of Eternal Void at Tennessee Repertory Theatre. He also was artistic director for Studio Roanoke, Virgina's not-for-profit theatre. Kenley earned an M.F.A. in Playwriting and an M.A. in English and Creative Writing, from Hollins University. Kenley directed two full-length plays at Studio Roanoke: His very own The New Testament and Ben R. Williams’ Man With Wings. He has also won awards from Mountain State Press and the Abingdon (VA) Highlands Festival.

You don't want to miss this weekend full of talent!

Dark Winds

Dark winds are beginning to blow.

© 1973 Jeffrey Jones 

Darkly Delicious

Lawrence Stevens is much appreciated for his pulp illustrations of the '40s, his style a bit more refined than his compatriot Virgil Finlay. At times his rendering and layout style could stray well into the realm of fantasy, as this image gracefully demonstrates. 

The bottom frieze panel is darkly delicious.

Lawrence Sterne Stevens — The Devil's Spoon _ 1948

from Famous Fantastic Mysteries

Snow Bunnies

It's that time of year to start planning your ski trip, so it's a good time to post this sweet poster of Hannes Schneider, pioneer and father of modern skiing technique. Considering the importance of his influence in the development of skiing, it's fun to see him teach a school of beginner snow bunnies.

Berta Czegka — Arlberg Ski School — circa 1930

Schneider's history is interesting, as having intersected with the histories of both world wars, having been arrested and jailed during the rise of Hitler. Through the intervention of individuals in the U.S.,
he was freed and was able to emigrate to the states.

Quoting from an article about him:

Legend, at least, holds that he wasn't yet finished with Hitler. Schneider would not only become the father of modern day skiing in America, but he may also have acted as an advisor to those training the legendary 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army in which his son Herbert served. Though the details are sketchy, there is evidence of several Washington trips and meetings that give some credibility to this legend, though it is unlikely that we will ever know for certain.

I'm Trying

I'm trying my best to adapt to this new format that Blogger has so generously bestowed upon us Blogger users. Anyone that doesn't use Blogger won't see anything different from your POV (except the color of the text— I can't figure out how to get a color I like), but on this side the dashboard has been 'stream-lined' and I have to think twice as hard before posting (yeah, yeah, I know— 2 times 0 is still 0).

Okay, but I'm trying. As my wife sez: yes, VERY trying.

Completely off the subject, but relevant to the last post, this image is a cover that Robert Crumb created using the little lightbulb-headed character that is/was Gyro Gearloose's helper. That little guy stole the show in so many Carl Barks' Gearloose stories, living his own little adventurous inventive life. Crumb gave him a heart and put him on guard. As to the rest of the cover, Crumb wouldn't be Crumb if he wasn't offending SOMEbody, huh?

Robert Crumb — The Last Supplement — 1971

Zoom to School Over the Cloudlets

When I was a kid, inventors were all the rage. That's probably the case for all kids in all generations, but really, the 'space age' was the age of the future. Things had to be invented for the future to unfold the way it was being predicted. I would sit in church and daydream all the inventions that would make life more interesting.

One of the inspirations for wild daydreams was an inventor by the name of Gyro Gearloose, who usually invented just what was needed to solve a problem for his clientele. Sometimes he had to whack himself in the head and see stars and then invent something while in a delirium. I think that probably kicked his right brain into gear, while his left brain worked on automatic pilot.

Carl Barks — Gyro Gearloose — 1960

There are inventors and there are tweakers. The tweakers are forever noodling with a great invention, to try to improve it and change it gradually into something else. Sometimes it's changed into a complicated  gadget that basically does what the original invention did, but takes the fun out of the early concept. 

Airplanes have gone from barn-storming jennies that any adventurous soul could master to ultra-complex ultra-sonic jet fuel guzzling monster birds that can only be piloted by specialists with years of dedicated training.

Cars used to be sweet little contraptions with great diverse looks, that the owner could tinker with and fix problems and even replace a carburetor if needed. Now cars all look like one another and need specialized mechanics to hook the car's computer up to a diagnostic computer and then adjust components to just the right micro-tolerence.

Computers and the internet were once the domain of geeks bearing slide-rules (remember those?) and then finally reached a level where ol' grandma and you and I could figure out how to operate them and accomplish things with 'em. But there's always a new software, a new OS, a new plug-in gadget, all of them needing learning curves, special chargers, special training. Platforms that won't talk to each other without buying a special translator program, or things that you'd like to program or download, but nope, it's only for Microsoft, or nope, only for Mac. Oh, that great cutting edge computer that you bought last year? It's phased out, nearly obsolete, time to buy a new one, oh a new and improved one that does all the things the other one did, but it's been tweaked so that you have to learn new protocols and procedures.

Blogging was a great invention, a way for every person to communicate and publish, but now there's all kinds of options and decisions, hidden costs (ah, yes, extra storage), and just when you're comfortable with the program you're using, they imPROVE it, so that it does the same basic thing as always, but give you new learning curves, changing the look just for the sake of change.

It used to be that I could just whack myself in the head and see stars and kick my right brain into gear while my left brain worked on automatic pilot and blog, blog, blog for the fun of it for you and I. Now my left brain is in charge, trying to figure out which icon to click, which size to make each image, what unfamiliar color will work for the text, yada yada.

Change for change's sake, that's what inventing is about anymore.