AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

This is a short blog simply to express my stress. Being a 'gun for hire', my silver ink sometimes has to write about things that I'm less than passionate about – and I'm stuck in that particular corral today. Its the perrenial complaint, I want to write – but I want to write want I want to write...and that's not always what pays the bills.
So pen in hand, you try and find some magical, mysterious melody of words to put together into something that, if not inspiring, is at least vaguely interesting... and if all else fails, blog!

I'm curious, what do you do when you're doing something you don't particularly want to do?

So my poison is Shakespeare ... can't get enough!

In high school (in South Africa), Shakespeare was pounded into us with numbing repetition. Mostly it was the sonnets, shredded apart by the teacher with the expectation that we were all on the same page.

I catagorically was not!

I hated those classes and the disiplined structure of the work, nothing but a monkey on my back. I rebelled by writing nasty sonnets and friends joined me in writing limericks about our teachers. Once, I turned in one of these sonnets and was summarily whipped, or "caned" to be more precise.

REPORT 1

Hello from Lanna, the North of Thailand, the city Chiang Mai.

Hi everybody. I'm Jim Messenger from Canada. I live in Thailand's Northern city, Chiang Mai. I'v lived here 15 yrs.

After years of teaching English I've returned to my first love: the Arts.

THAI ARTISTS SHOW ABROAD
Now I'm putting together artists from here, Burma and Laos I want to show abroad.

THAI TOURS THE WEST
I'm working with a theatre group to toru schools and bring a Thai/Western Theatre productin to the West.

TOUR/SHOW IN ASIA
Likewise I invite any performers and artist who want to show in The East, to contact me. Perhaps I can help you fulfill your dream

FESTIVAL

Every month or two I have to write an overview of great restaurants, hotels and bars in Amsterdam. It's not a difficult job, it must be said; in fact, the writing of the piece takes the least time of all ...

Collecting the information is all about consuming - I have to eat, drink and sleep through some of the nicest venues in town (oh no!) - but it does consume time. Time and energy.

**Warning: The following is littered with spoilers. It is recommended that you do not read unless you have seen the film**

I would first like to mention that I have not read, nor do not intend on reading the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan My notes here are specific to the film directed by Joe Wright with screenplay written by Christopher Hampton.

That said. I would like to congratulate Messers Wright and Hampton on a wonderful first act, or first 70 minutes or so. All scenes that take place in 1935 are beautiful and the story and is well crafted with excellent time jumps and withholding of information until just the right moment. It was excellent filmmaking.

Listen: www.nedpr.org

Subscribe through Itunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=135156356

This very special episode of NedPR Ned out of commission for reasons that are too gruesome to name here (he's fine, really). Shell-shocked, his little buddy, Nick, has taken over and offers his deranged view of what entertainment radio should be. Features included in this episode:

Scary audio collage by Nick Carpenter

Meg Glassen reads “A Requiem for Barry,” an essay about pain, baseball, and the mystery of fandom.

Musical offerings from Cambridge, MA band Drug Rug (”Day I Die”) and Albany, NY band Gun Christmas (”Crybaby”). Check out more of the bands at www.myspace.com/drugrug and www.myspace.com/gunchristmas.

There is a world of the spirit we can feel beyond this material world.

Bringing the sun back. That's what we were doing after a week of bright sunlight in Amsterdam was replaced by mist. Almost 3,000 flowers came to Amsterdam for The Valentine Peace Project.

Volunteers came, the Dutch Flower Council sent a photographer, - lots and lots of kids and members of the Pijp community center gasped and awed at the bunches and bundles of carnations, tulips and irises shuffling from room to room as poems were wrapped, tied or taped around them.

I knew similar parties putting this all together would soon be happening in a few hours in the US. I was pleased that enough people had come to participate in my project for its first incarnation in the Netherlands!

The writer’s strike is over. The picket lines are gone. People are getting back to work I think now is a good time now to examine what’s happened here in Hollywood over the past three months or so and see if we can piece together some of the more interesting facts to get to the bottom of all this, for as it is with many disasters, the true meaning and intention can often be seen clearly with the benefit of hindsight.

JOIN US this Sunday for
Mr.Mrs.
A weekly salon featuring art and fashion.
Noon to 5pm, 4634 Hollywood Boulevard

s.o.s. $50
CINDY DESANTIS fire sale

One of our featured artists,
Cindy Pop, a/k/a
Aida Cynthia De Santis,
fell ill in January 2007 due to complications from a surgery 10 years ago.
The illness led to a three-month hospital stay ending in June.
She has been recuperating since then.

Her insurance paid for most of everything, however, she has approximately $8,000 in bills for her hospitalization and medicines that are now in collection. And she still needs another surgery.

We are forgoing our mark up on all of Cindy's art. All purchases
can be totally tax deductible, with 100% going to Cindy's Medical Fund.
View more of Cindy's art: