It might be hurricane season for those poor saps living in the gulf coastal regions, but in my neighborhood it’s clearly sap season according to the pecan tree arching over my driveway. My truck is currently encased in a mottled veneer of syrup. Tonight I got out of my truck and leaned over the side rails to fish the grocery bags from the bed. A gibbous moon, set in a mackerel sky, played behind the clotted clouds drifting aglow and to the west. I had to peel myself off the side of my truck. It took me back to boozy midnight breakfasts in Fort Worth at the Old South Pancake House where your forearms would adhere to the tabletop if you got too comfortable.
The trees know the seasons are changing. And I too can sense it. It’s been cooler in the mornings. The summer is wrapping up. I really need to put an end to these film events I’ve been coordinating. They’re killing my summers. Dammit, I want stress-free time to enjoy the endless sunny days and languid heat.
The Josiah fest is over, as is the 48 Hour Film Project. In fact tonight was the final 48HFP conference call (though I still need to turn in my paperwork for my 2008 obligations to officially sunset). But it all keeps chugging along. I’m helping to get the word out for URBAN-15 for the Manhattan Short Film Festival which they are, again, hosting. And then there’s the up-coming Adelante Film Forum, hosted by SA-NALIP. As a member of the executive committee of the San Antonio chapter, I will be involved in some of the organizing. Then there is Luminaria Arts Night. I’m co-chair of the film committee. It’s turning into a fairly serious commitment … and things are just going to get more hectic as the event itself approaches six months from now.
Did I mention that none of this pays? It seems that all I ever do is attend meetings.
It helps that my sister wrangled me a temp gig as a “guest cataloger” for the Dallas auction house where she works. Ten days of low-impact research & data-entry in the rare book department paid me as much money as two stressful months pimping the 48HFP. I hope I can keep making periodic visits to the auction trough.
Monday night I headed up to the opening reception for the European Film Festival. I’d planned to skip the EFF again this year because, two years running, it’s up on the far northside. Call it the Boerne Film Festival and be done with it. But for some reason I decided to make an RSVP phone call Monday morning and go see who might be attending the gala opening. The upstairs bar was packed. Of the 160 people mingling, I recognized seven people from the San Antonio film community. Everyone else seemed to be poised (and posed) for the paparazzi (conspicuous by their absence). The chocolate fountain chugged away on an adjacent table and waiters moved about dispensing free wine and mini quiches, but it took no great amount of time for me to feel topped-off by the desperate ambiance of abundant wealth. Not even the delightfully hennaed toupee perched atop a very familiar elderly man could hold my interest for more than half an hour. I enjoyed an excellent wedge of baklava and washed it down with one of the most appalling glasses of iced tea it has been my misfortune to sample, and then I headed back to the southside, where a chocolate fountain is a scatological euphemism and Chardonnay ain’t nothing but your co-worker’s baby’s mama.
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My friend Venus allowed me to share some wall space in her studio for last week’s First Friday. She’s up on the second floor above the Jump Start Theatre in the Blue Star Arts Complex. September in the San Antonio arts world is more properly FotoSeptiembre(tm), a chance to focus (so it were) on photography. And therefore I printed up eight photos and framed them. (Well, Deborah printed them up for me, and I owe her big time.) The pieces were priced to move. Yet they didn’t. But Venus sold two of her postcard-sized prints for five bucks. Perhaps that was the magic price point.
I could have expected a few of “my people” to have popped by, but they were busy on the other side of town with brisket and beer and wishing Andy Miller a happy birthday. I can’t blame them. Andy and Dar do parties right.
But not to panic, people. My photo-dabbling continues into September. I will be showing a photo in a group show at Centro Cultural Aztlan. “¡Presente! Photography of the Present Moment.” There will be work by dozens of photographers. Many of the local luminaries, such as Arturo Almeida, Mimi Duvall, Ned Meneses, Kathy Armstrong, Ramin Samandari, Justin Parr, Sabra Booth, etc. Come out to the opening reception. Friday, September 19th, 6-8 pm. Eats, drinks, and music by Mombasa Code.
See you then.