Category Archives: Uncategorized

My Days Seem More Stagnant Than a Vinegaroon’s

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I'd been clicking over to my online library account refreshing the status of a short stack of Edwardian novels (mostly because I was too lazy and feckless to head out to the library) — but it seems that there are only a limited number of times one can extend time on borrowed items. My plan Friday was to swing by the downtown branch whilst running a block of other errands. I'd just whip through the little semi-circular drive off Soledad and pop them into the box. The problem is, there's no box. I guess the driveway is just for the VIA buses. So, I circled around to the parking garage and walked inside. As long as I was there, I made a quick run through the fiction stacks for three by George Saunders and one by Dave Eggers.

I have fallen woefully behind the current crop of lit folks. And, to be honest, Eggers wasn't on the forefront of my mind until recently when I saw a video on the TED website where he's talking up his after-school tutoring program, 826 Valencia. Eggers came off as such a genuine person and just a wonderful human being, that it mitigated all the gassy platitudes the critics and generic bloggerati have been laying on him, that I thought it high time for me to jump on that particular bandwagon.

As for George Saunders, I can't recall where I encountered him name. I suspect it was on some website where a blogger I respect was praising him. I tracked down a couple of video interviews, read two stories of his on-line, and maybe an essay or two. He's wrangled a McArthur. And even though I've found the smattering of work I've so far read entertaining enough, my current thoughts are that the McArthur board have fallen a bit in their bestowing of the coveted “genius” award — Sandra Cisneros and Cormac McCarthy, I'll gladly allow, but unless these three books change my thoughts (concerning Saunders) I will have to concede that geniuses aren't what they once where. But, of course, I'll reserve judgment.

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Sometime next week I'm going to have to contact the San Antonio Museum of Art. The old and stale honorarium check I discover on my desk earlier in the month, was returned by my bank. Admittedly, it was eleven months old, but I'd like to think they'd be glad to get that standing item on their books resolved. Needless to say, this threw my meager accounts into turmoil — the domino effect for those of us who live hand-to-mouth on the self-employment treadmill.

I'm about to just give up. The rats are picking away at me. Yeah, I know, it's my own damn fault, but, dammit, I'd pack it up except I've no plan “B.” Just lay low and keep away from the people I care about because I have just a few ounces left of my sense of humor … and my smile is getting pretty brittle. Hunker down and wait for things to get a bit better.

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The “for lease” sign has mysteriously reappeared in front of my house. I'm not sure which of the other two apartments in this triplex is going to be opening up soon. I don't really care. This is a crop of dull and joyless tenants. I've only spoken (once) to the guy on the south side. The woman on the north, well, I only know her name because her mail found it's way into my box. Actually, I'd rather her leave. Then I could go back to hogging the driveway. And I could return to lounging out in the side yard sweeping the heavens with my astronomy binoculars. The best scenario, of course, would be for the both of them to exit. Oh, what am I saying — I might get psychos again.

Of maybe, the best scenario would be for me to be heading out.

There are times (like right now) when I feel I've had my fill of San Antonio. I remember when my friend Rose (she's currently with the Peace Corps in Morocco) cringed when I decided to switch my cell phone over from a Fort Worth area code to one here in San Antonio. “Don't get trapped here,” was her clear message.

Don't get me wrong, of all the places to find oneself trapped, San Antonio's actually quite awesome. The people are the main thing. I have managed to gather a tight circle of maybe 12 friends and a huge assortment of associates — and this is quite an accomplishment for a recovering social phobic. This city seems to bring out the best in people. And there's also culture, history, art, and some sweet and funky neighborhoods which are inviting and accessible.

But I'm just beat down. I need to get back to the desert of southern Presidio Country, where time moves at the sensible speed of a vulture gliding untroubled beneath a cloudless sky. A place where the only reason people come by to visit is to commune, human to human, as the planet languidly rolls around the sun and the wind sweeps in from Sierra Rica and a little vinegaroon scuttles slowly across the dust of the garden towards the shade afforded by of a little knot of stinging nettles — those with the yellow flowers which the locals call mal mujer.

Maybe that's not what I need, by that's what I'm missing.

As it is, 2008 isn't impressing me.

I'm locked into half a dozen projects that are, for the most part, indistinguishable from those of 2007.

There's some quote from William Burroughs (and no doubt he lifted it from another source), and my best paraphrase from memory would be: “We do not have to live, but we have to travel.”

I've never been certain what this means, but it has always struck me as profoundly true.

I think the central conceit at work here is that life, in all it's ubiquity (at least on this planet), expands into every corner and every niche no matter how untenable — in short, we will always travel and move no matter how dangerous or detrimental to our best interests.

The highlight of my 2007 was the short production gig down to the far side of the Falcon Reservoir. And 2006, San Miguel. These were wonderful alien (well, to me) worlds. And dammit I'd better find the equivalent in 2008.

The Third Trimester of Prosthetic Padding

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Today we wrapped on part one of the SAL Film Festival promo. But, wait, there will be four interconnected pieces in all. And so after three days of shooting, it's now up to the Sams (Lerma & Bayless) to edit all this rich goodness down to a taut 90 seconds.

We met down on Camden St., not far from the San Antonio Museum of Art. Sam wanted a highway overpass in the shot, and we had a perfect view of I-35 passing above.

One shot called for the camera to be mounted on JJ's hood, pointed at him while he's driving. Andy loaned us his car camera mount. This is a recent purchase he has yet to use himself. It looks pretty sketchy, and I knew Russ was dubious trusting his baby to the device; however, once he slapped the contraption onto JJ's car, he was impressed on the no-nonsense of those suction-cups. We strapped it on and hoped for the best.

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Before we got our first shot off, Araceli Lopez showed up. She wouldn't be needed until the next location, but she came to keep us company. She'd driven up the previous day from San Benito, way down in the lower Rio Grande Valley. The script called for a pregnant woman, so she arrived with some prosthetic padding putting her not just camera ready but apparently ready to drop a young'un then and there.

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We also received a visit from JJ's parents. The whole family had been downtown earlier that morning for the Komen Race for the Cure. I tried to take a photo of JJ's mom taking a picture of him but she's kind of lost in the distance.

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Here we have actor John Mayoral chatting with Dar before we called him over for his bit.

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The craft service buffet might look a bit suspect — you know, with those three or four healthy grapes thrown in as an afterthought — but, trust me, there was a whole pile of grapes earlier that morning.

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The next location was the unemployment office. We did a quick run and gun at a mall over on Austin Highway. We considered roping some of the locals citizens wandering about in as extras, but after a lanky intoxicated man in flip-flops with his, how shall I say, “orientation” meter, set to Glamourous Miss Nelly, walked past us with a saucy quip directed to Araceli's belly –“Goodness, girl, you're about to pop! It's going to be a boy, 'cause you know I'm gifted in these matters” — well, after that we realized that although the neighborhood was ripe with just the sorts of characters one would likely encounter in line at the unemployment office, it also became clear that these sorts of people might not be depended upon not to just wander off whenever, playing havoc with continuity. This is one of the reasons that the line at the unemployment office was so short — Dar, JJ, Araceli.

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We burned through the scene. Sam had to get to work by one. I'm afraid he might have had to call in and make sure that the news production truck didn't roll out into the naked city without its shooter.

This little piece, as short and ultimately as ephemeral as it is, has some very gifted actors throughout. I was very impressed with Araceli. I'm always a bit disinclined to work with actors who have so far to travel. I can't afford to pay them. And it can seem a little exploitative. But I'll certainly keep Araceli in mind for future projects. She's beautiful, talented, smart, resourceful, and had no trouble keeping up with JJ's brilliant rapid-fire ad-libbing.

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There were a couple of films I wanted to see at Cine Mujer, but unfortunately I didn't make it out to the Esperanza Center until after eight. I watched a sweet little narrative feature from Brazil called Antonio. It's about four young women in the slums of Sao Paulo trying to make it as a hip-hop group. It came out in 2006. Directed by Tata Amaral. It's a beautiful piece. Sao Paulo, even in it's impoverished sectors up on the hills, is just stunning. What a backdrop!

I do believe I saw Janet Vasquez of the San Antonio Film Commission in the audience, but before I could go up and talk to her, I lost her in the crowd.

I'll definitely be there tomorrow for some more films. It begins at 3 in the afternoon. There is a documentary at 4:30 I'm looking forward to — Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad. It covers some of the action that happened in the big teachers' strike in Oaxaca.

See you there.

Paying the Price of a Free Coffee Mug

Now I remember one of the downsides of working for the Company. As a temp worker, I'm affected by the vagaries of other divisions — divisions, I might point out, staffed by full-time employees. Anyway, I discovered that my services weren't needed this evening … but everything should be up and running full speed by Monday. Time to hit the ol' plasma bank.

On the upside, I was able to head over to the Esperanza Center for a screening of Lost in Beijing (2007), directed by Li Yu. It's one of the reasons to attend film festivals like this. I most likely never would have put this in my NetFlix queue or picked it off the shelf at the library. But it's a great film with a tight, always unfolding story-line. It's heavy with handheld camera work and jump cuts that are woven together organically and never got on my nerves.

The annual Cine Mujer at the Esperanza pulls a decent crowd — well, for this sort of thing in San Antonio. There were maybe 50 people tonight. But it occurred to me that I rarely see familiar faces from the film community at these events. Sure, if people I know have a film screening. But not so for these curated shows of international works like Cine Mujer, the Jewish Film Festival, the European Film Festival, the Canary Island Film Festival, Manhattan Shorts, and so on. Many of these screenings are free or damn cheap. I'm tempted to decant a tall serving of bile for my fellow filmmakers, but maybe with the convenience of Blockbusters and Netflix (not to mention a public library system with a decent and growing film collection), the trend is to learn from films one watches at home.

I've had this on-going conversation with George Cisneros at Urban-15. He wants to know how to plug into the San Antonio film-going community so as to fill more seats at the occasional film events they have at Urban-15. The problem is that in San Antonio there isn't a deep love for cinema. The people who attend film festivals in this town (who aren't there to see a film they themselves worked on, or, perhaps, in hopes of catching sight of a famous so-and-so) are generic lovers of the arts. These are the people who attend the theater, art openings, dance performances, poetry readings, and so forth. They are curious and often have a deep liberal arts background.

People in this city who I see in attendance at these film events are less likely to be card-carrying members of, say, the Pier Paolo Pasolini Appreciation Society, than just generally open-minded creative human beings hungry for new ideas and experiences. Perhaps there are still cities in this country where you can turn to a stranger in the row behind you before a film begins and find yourself in a deep conversation about the early work of Fassbinder. Don't expect to find it here in San Antonio. Art always takes a back seat — hell, it's usually asked to trot along behind the vehicle.

This brings me to my afternoon. I was invited along with about 20 other local film people (chiefly educators) to give input to the proposed expansion of the a media / cinema program at Northwest Vista, one of the more promising campuses in our Alamo Community College District.

The invite came from Manny Navarro Jr., Coordinator of Occupational Programs. It seems that they will be expanding their video and multimedia programs into a very ambitious and streamlined curriculum.

The program seemed to be weighed heavily toward technology, with a very slight acknowledgment of the arts.

This sort of wrong-headed thinking is rife throughout the film and video programs for kids in this town. And the results are, for the most part, shockingly bereft of aesthetics.

Ultimately it comes down to the instructors. I hope that when this program gets up and running, they will have teachers on staff who introduce the students to composition, lighting, and how to, for fuck's sake already, gather and edit audio.

I cadged a ride with Russ. And when we showed up, there were his colleagues from Harlandale High School, George and Dago. What? This was pretty much the entire teaching staff of the Film School of San Antonio (AKA, the cinema department at Harlandale). I had images in my head of emo introverts sitting at editing stations in a darkened classrooms looking around and calling out in a fearful croak: “Sir?”

Konise was also there, as well as a guy from Edgewood Academy. Drew and Pete made it. Kevin Williams and Roger Castillo. Ned from Say Si. And a bunch of people I should have known (I guess) but didn't.

We were provided a very nice taco buffet bar. And each of us was given a Northwest Vista coffee mug. As I had run out of coffee at the house I was looking around for the big kettle of coffee to fill up my new mug. No coffee. Just sweetened tea. Sweetened? This ain't Alabama.

As I carried my plate of food to a seat, grumbling about no fucking coffee, I noticed Russ sauntering in from the hallway blowing across the surface of his coffee mug.

“You went to the staff kitchen, didn't you?” I asked.

“Still another cup or two in the pot,” he said with a smug grin.

And he was right. Just enough for a full cup.

There was enough hot air generated to lift the Goodyear fleet to the to Troposphere. But I believe we were all lassoed under the umbrella (and who said I couldn't mix a metaphor?) of the Northwest Vista Video & Cinematography Advisory Committee. And don't think I not gonna stick it on my resume.

Here are a couple of snaps. I wanted to stick my new Northwest Vista mug in the foreground to make the images look cool. This course I now know to be ill-advised, as the photos look pretty awful.

Here we have Drew, Brandon, and Pete. Hm. Looks like they're there for their parole hearings.

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And this is a man who's name I didn't get. He had some very good things to say. He represents an important production company in town I had not heard of before with the unfortunate name of Apple Productions (which inexplicably hasn't been litigated into oblivion by Steve Jobs). He's refusing to allow me my candid photo op and is apparently watching me photograph him. But his loss — my camera decided to focus on the plastic cup in front of him.

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Now I have really got to hit the sheets. I have an early shoot in the morning with Sam, somewhere downtown. I just have to figure out how to snake around the streets they will be closing for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure (to help fund research for breast cancer).

Actually, I believe our main actor, JJ Phillips, will be arriving on set after running the Komen. Usually this would be a red flag. No one wants an actor showing up after running a marathon. But I watched JJ inhale over ten slices of pizza and still maintain his high energy state. Ah, youthful metabolism.

Peering at the Clutter of April

I'm temporarily back at the Company where I'm scoring standardized tests. In keeping with this country's love of corporate consolidation, the business has been swallowed up by a bigger business. In fact, the place has a new name. I, however, will continue to use the unoriginal denominator of the “Company,” protecting myself from breaching the massive and obdurate nondisclosure form I undoubtedly was made to sign a few years back which one must assume had a “no blogging clause” lost in the bowels of sententious footnotes.

This current gig is weekday nights. Three or four weeks. The bitch is that, as I recall, there is a lag of a couple of weeks before the first check arrives. Oh well, at least I have some pending income to supplement my current contract work with Urban-15 — for, you see, we're already gearing up for the 2008 Josiah Media Festival. Mid July. Start making room on your calendars.

Speaking of filling up the old social calendar, April promises to be a monster for folks in San Antonio. First off, we have The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center's annual Cine Mujer. Actually, it kicks off tomorrow (Friday) night. It runs March 28 – 30, and then April 3 – 5. It's free. But please try and drop a stray bill or more into the donation jar at the entrance. This is one of the best film festivals in town. Graciela and the crew over at Esperanza bring in some great work from all over the world. I plan to make as many of the screenings as possible.

Also, the 30th annual CineFestival will run April 10 – 13 at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. This is going to be a blast. Head over to the website to see what's planned for this nationally renowned Chicano film fest. And drop Payan and Pocha an email if you want to volunteer — it'll probably net you some free admittance privileges. I've seen one of the promo posters for the festival which was handmade — silk screen, I presume — and that's just fucking cool. I'll be camping out at the Guadalupe for that weekend. Hope to see your there!

However, that Sunday — April 13th — (late afternoon / early evening) I'll be over at the grand opening of Main Plaza, the area they've been renovating in front of the downtown courthouse. If you're kicking yourself for missing Luminaria, this promises to be more of the same, but in a smaller geography. There will be all sorts of performances from 5pm until about 10pm. That night, and, well, for months to come, performances and events in Main Plaza will be over-seen by Main Plaza Conservancy, a non-profit organization. Marisela Barrera (of La Colectiva fame) is the programming coordinator for the conservancy. Expect big things to come.

And then April 18 – 27 Fiesta will descend upon San Antonio. Tens days high-octane drinking and partying that, for those of us who live in the downtown region, resembles the biblical descriptions of the ten plagues of Egypt (quite apt, now that I think about it — Fiesta is usually around the time of Passover). There is some question as to whether or not the King William Parade will go by my house this year. The assholes who run the event are feuding with some of the folks who live on my block, and last I heard they were trying to pass through punitive measures. We'll see how that goes — E. Guenther Street has some feisty citizens.

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This morning I was at the parking-lot of the San Antonio Zoo. 7:45 call time. The zoo officially opens at 9, and we were there to shoot a quick scene for the SAL (San Antonio Local Film Festival) promotional teaser written and directed by Sam Lerma.

The folks who operate the little kid's train were kind enough to allow us to shoot on the train. We loaded crew, equipment, and actors onto the train, and the engineer (Don, I believe, was his name) put it into gear and we were off.

Here we have the train engineer sitting next to JJ Phillips. While we were still adjusting camera and audio settings, I heard Don tell JJ how proud he was to be working at his job. “I might be old, but I'm out here every day. I don't need a walker, and I can climb up onto this engine … well, better than you. Now I'm not bragging to make you feel inadequate, young feller, it's just the way it is.”

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Sam, Russ, and myself, the three crew people, were crammed into the handicapped car directly behind the engine. And there was a moment between takes when I realized that all three of us were snapping photos with our little point-and-shoot digital cameras. This is the future of on-set production stills. They will be listed in the credits as “shot by everyone.”

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We returned to the train depot with five minutes to spare. As we were breaking down equipment, the engineer motioned to Sam. Sam had his baby daughter on set as an extra. The engineer let Sam's little girl pull the cord for the train whistle.

Earlier while we were chugging along on the train, Russ has said something about how this was the fun kind of filmmaking. I think we were all on the same page with that.

Next, we headed to the park's train yard. It was a great location. We were in a little warehouse where two small gage tracks entered so that the trains can be maintenanced. We had two trains as set dressing in the background. And for this scene one of our actors was Andy Miller — filmmaker and SAL board member. He filled in for an absent actor, and he did a great job. I don't know how much of his lines will make it to the final edit, but he was doing some great ad-libs — and, as I was holding the boom pole, I was trying not to laugh.

The third and final location of the day was the Grayson Street Garage (strangely, not on Grayson Street, but N. Alamo). Sam wrangled it because the local TV station he shoots for uses it to service their production trucks. A very quick and smooth shoot.

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Here we have JJ Phillips on the right. The handsome grimy young man beside him is Cosme Espinoza, who only has one line, but he delivered it perfect. He will also be appearing in rest of the companion SAL promos.

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By 11:30 we cleared out of the Grayson Street Garage (where we were treated wonderfully). Andy had headed back to work, and Russ had to make a doctor's appointment (or so he said). The rest of us headed off to the Pig Stand on Broadway for lunch. Me, Sam, Dar, JJ, Sam, and the little Samlette.

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I then headed off to put some hours at Urban-15, and then off to the Company. A full day.

Thanks for Lunch, SAL!

Erik Bosse, Boy Reporter

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Whilst working my way through my second cup of coffee this morning, and having succeeded in catching up on my RSS subscriptions (well, the interesting ones), I began idly checking my name on Google to catch a look-see of who might be trash-talking my good name. I guess it'd been a while since I'd googled myself, because, like a mountain man checking his traps after an extended trip to the fleshpots of Big Sycamore Junction, only to discover useless remains, I, too, found a stale piece of information.

I found this gem on the Current's on-line blog — CurBlog — dated Feb. 21. It was by Ashley Lindstrom, associate editor and media writer.

“Oh, Erik Bosse. You and I have pretty much been communicating via vanity googling for the past, I don’t know, nine months? (Then there were a few bland electronic exchanges about photos for the 48-hour Film Fest. Talk about an elephant in the room, er, email.) I figure you’ll find this post by vanity googling, too. Anyway, at the risk of sounding too You’ve Got Mail, I think we should meet. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on our coverage; I’m sure I’ve got loads to learn from you. So I’ll be at Ruta Maya on Saturday, March 1, at noon. Drop by if you can. Just promise you won’t say 'girl reporter,' OK?”

Ah, man. Twenty-one days too late! I guess I'll have to arrange a rain-check. And, Ashley, once you get around to reading this, I never referred to you as a “girl reporter.” For the record, there are two blog entries that might have verged into the snarky waters (well, where you are concerned). In one I alluded to an abstract and unnamed journalist as “our intrepid reporter.” And then there was a later blog entry where I bemoaned the general state of journalism — without mentioning any specific names — with this gassy pronouncement: “Sally Baxter, Girl Reporter, is spinning in her grave clutching her little stubby pencil and fliptop steno pad.”

I should point out that never did I write “Ashley Lindstrom, Girl Reporter.” But you have to admit, it sounds loads better than Sally Baxter.

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I'll try and arrange a meeting, Ashley. For you see I, too, have a little stubby pencil and fliptop steno pad.

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And, dammit, I'm sorry I missed your performance at the beginning of the month where you took to the stage and played against gender in a play written by your colleague, Willy Razavi. I'm sure everyone had a great time.

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I don't know if one needs a special permit to camp at Espada Park and Acequia Park. Perhaps the regulations against overnight stays are waved on Easter weekend. For the last few years I've noticed this tradition of families setting up tents on both sides of the river near Espada Dam. It's a very laid-back festive vibe with people fishing, flying kites, and lounging in camp chairs. I assume this all goes back many generations.

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This is the sort of stuff that should never be regulated by park departments. People should be able to do this sort of thing all the time. I mean, it's our land. Besides, this is the sort of stuff that kids will carry with them all their lives. True, this is half-assed camping in a city, but as we find ourselves in this country drifting more and more from any discernible contact with nature, camping along the San Antonio River can only be a good thing.

Actually, as it's a full moon tonight, I envy those folks their tents, charcoal grills, music pumping from SUVs with the doors opens, and folding canvas chairs slung low to give them a perfect view of the bloated moon, as silver as the underside of a mackerel, rising above the tree line.

What I get, from the sidewalk in front of my house, is much less bucolic.

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Speaking of heavenly objects, there is a great astronomy item in the news these last few days. Wednesday morning NASA’s Swift satellite caught an intense gamma ray burst with it's x-ray telescope. It came from the direction of the constellation Boötes. What makes this event interesting is the fact that all the objects in Boötes (with the exception of a globular cluster or two) are nearby stars which share this neighborhood of our galaxy with our sun. But this gamma ray burst — visible (just barely) to the naked eye — came from an incredibly distant galaxy billions of light years away. Current measurements indicate that this light took 7.5 billion years to reach us … but because of the expansion of the universe, it would be inaccurate to say that this explosion was 7.5 billion light years away. It would, however, be accurate to say that in the direct line of sight between us and this distant and ancient explosion there are thousands of galaxies. This is what happens when a super massive unstable young sun collapses into a black hole. Also, this can happen when two neutron stars collide.

The gamma ray burst emits from the poles of the dying star, and as such, the energy is concentrated into very coherent beams. The reason that we could see this event so unfathomably distant is that the star's north or south pole happened to be pointed in our direction.

This vague flash that could just barely be seen — and only for seconds — came from a point half way to the edge of the visible universe. We have a good notion of the time it took the light to get to us by the red shift values. To give this some sort of perspective, we have photographed and identified tens of thousands of galaxies. This explosion most likely came from a galaxy we have not yet named; and, possibly, a galaxy so far distant that our telescopes lack the resolution to discern.

This is why we need science literacy in this country. This is an incredible and breathtakingly beautiful story. If you don't see how wonderful this event is, head over to Astronomy Cast. Work your way through every podcast. Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay will patiently and playfully bring you up to speed on the universe. Yep, the entire universe. If all you got in school and college was dense and dull and obdurate crap when the concept of astronomy or cosmology came up, well, I'm sorry — get over it. Click over to Astronomy Cast. Fraser and Pamela will open up for you an extraordinary world. Every Monday I'm clicking over to listen to the new episode. It's addictive. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Hundreds of Superballs on the Dance Floor

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Good Friday, they call it. I'd think Bad Friday would be more apt. But I've never gotten a grasp on these dreadful Abrahamic religions and their unsavory passion for misery, suffering, and death.

It might well have been a holiday here in San Antonio. Early Friday afternoon I cycled by half a dozen families firing up the barbecue pits in the parks along the Mission trail. There were people biking, walking, jogging, and one breathtakingly fit middle-aged woman in impossibly tight jeans zooming along on in-line skates — almost left me in the dust, but I overtook her on an incline.

There's a section along the left bank of the San Antonio River at Mission San Juan where I want to set some action for a film project I'm developing. Eventually I'm going to have to track down the owners of the three properties I'd like to shoot on. This is an area where I usually hop the fence and walk along the levy top. I'd loaded my iPod up with some fresh cycling choices, and James McMurtry's Choctaw Bingo as well as The Strapping Fieldhands' In the Pineys set the tone as I made my way along a barbed wire fence line and a row of old battered pecan trees too cynical to yet send forth their tender leaflets of springtime.

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Thursday me, Russ, and Deborah made our second attempt to see the dance performance we missed earlier in the week. There was a second performance in the Main Gallery of the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center.

We all met up just before the show. There were some new sculptures scattered around the parking-lot. I should have posed a person next to this huge baby pram. It's about seven feet tall. Hey, I think it needed a giant baby … or maybe a doll (sorry, that's an inside joke for Alston).

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I like the pram. However, a bit further down there was a sad, woeful assemblage of flotsam which some naif expected the Blue Star punters to embrace as art. I wanted to photograph it — you know, as a cautionary example that art and Thorazine make for poor bedfellows — but it was just too pathetic for me to find a suitable aesthetic composition. I should admit that it did give me a greater appreciation of the assertive and muscular form of the forest green dispenser of doggy poop bags standing nearby.

Speaking of doggies, Betty Ward was in attendance at the performance, inexplicably accompanied by her giant white poodle. Perhaps it was dog night at Blue Star. Though I can't say I saw anyone else with a canine companion.

What had brought me in to see this performance was that it featured dancer Amber Ortega-Perez. One of the groups that she's affiliated with wanted to show for Luminaria the rough edit of Melancholy, the dance film that me and Russ did with Christy Walsh. This placed Amber back on my radar. And when I saw a MySpace “evite” from her, I decided that me and Russ and Deborah should attend. We all know Amber. And we are all thinking of collaborating on a work with a dance component.

The evening was more than just a dance piece. This was the SOLI Chamber Ensemble's second of their 2008 concert series. “Synergy: Collaborative Encounters.” The SOLI is a four piece ensemble somewhat along the lines of the Kronos Quartet where they commission works by modern composers. Thursday night they had a scaled down version of the ensemble. Just Stephanie Key on clarinet and Carolyn True on piano. They performed pieces by Yahudi Wyner, Elliott Carter, Libby Larsen, and Steve Reich (the Reich piece was for “clarinet and tape”).

And, proceeding the intermission, was the dance piece, in three movements. (RE)ACTION is the title. It was one of the works funded by the Artist Foundation of San Antonio. Amber Ortega-Perez collaborated with clarinetist Stephanie Key and guitarist Joe Reyes (who is, of course, better known as a member of the preeminent San Antonio post punk art band, Buttercup). The work was a sort of controlled improvisational exploration of sound, rhythm, and space. I loved how the two musicians were moving around while playing their instruments, involved with Amber's dance. By the third movement, Joe was in a gas mask, Stephanie in diving goggles, and Amber wore a bicycle light headband — there were hundreds of green superballs rolling around on the floor, and performers and audience members were tossing and kicking around a huge blue balloon decorated as Earth with all the continents. And here I really wanted Betty Ward's giant poodle to come unglued and pounce on that balloon … or maybe begin howling. Hell, at least gracelessly take a monstrous dump on the floor. Nope. That dog's one cool customer.

I loved the piece! Congrats to Betty Ward and the Artist Foundation of San Antonio for funding this excellent collaborative work where three brilliant artists with diverse backgrounds and sensibilities came together to make something so extraordinary.

Here are the three giving the audience a Q & A opportunity. Left to right: Stephanie Key, Amber Ortega-Perez, and Joe Reyes.

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And beyond Deborah you can see Russ talking to Stephanie.

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In his photo we have a nice shot of Amber Ortega-Perez and Deborah Keller-Rihn.

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Outside we thought maybe we'd continue the night. Russ wanted a drink. Deborah wanted something to eat. I could have gone either way. They both looked across the parking lot to the Blue Star Brewery. It was just coming up on eleven. I explained that the kitchen would have been long closed. Russ didn't believe me and was willing to go there and ask. But before we could head over there, artist Luis Valderas called down from his perch on the patio of that pretentious cocktail bar in the hideous highrise condo building recently added to Blue Star. Anyway, Deborah was beguiled by Luis' cigarette. She's claimed to have quit weeks ago, but clearly her resolve was weakening.

The next thing I knew, we were crowded around Luis' table on the upper patio of the bar. Russ was gushing over their killer dirty martinis, I was sipping a beer, and Deborah had some sort of Baileys Irish Cream drink … and, of course, one of Luis' smokes.

Around midnight we were talking about food. There used to be several 24 hour eateries here in my neighborhood when I moved here. But they seemed to have all closed over the years. Deborah was talking about pancake chains and Russ mentioned some pl
aces down on upper Broadway closer to where he lives. I didn't want to go so far afield just to get something to eat.

“There's this mildly seedy 24 hour taco place down Roosevelt at Mitchell,” I said. “The Ric Ron Taco House.”

They were game. And as I knew the both of them were intrepid enough not to be turned off by a restaurant which fed off the clientele of a little rough and tumble southside dance club. I thought it would turn out to be a good fit. And it was.

If you find yourself on the near southside around midnight or later and are feeling a bit peckish, head straight to Ric Ron's. The food might not be stellar, but it's tasty enough. Hand-made tortillas. Cheap and pleasant.

Kindergarten Vampire

Tuesday a big wind blew in weird weather. Dust, kicked up from distant environs, was brought down by rain. Late in the afternoon I saw a sprinkling of drizzle leave small splashes of dust once the rain droplets evaporated. This was in the parking-lot of a restaurant up on the northside near the medical district. I was meeting with some film people who have an idea for a feature narrative. It was a fun time, tossing around ideas (the project is still very much in the development stage) — I'm not sure if there is a place for me on this project, but all the people there are very nice and enthusiastic. While we ate and drank and brainstormed, a good dousing of rain fell. It had all dried by the time we walked outside to the parking-lot. All the cars were coated on a thick skin of brown dirt — it was as though we had all been out 4-wheeling in a dusty arroyo. It rained mud, thick mud, and it had dried into this layer of filth.

Hardly as apocalyptic as a rain of frogs, but it still generated an unsettling impact.

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Wednesday I got up before dawn. It was day one of Sam Lerma's SAL Film Festival promo shoot. I made it to Russ' place by 7am. We packed up a shitload of video and audio equipment into his truck and headed to the set, a townhouse over near the interchange of I-35 and loop 410 — over in the Windcrest neighborhood. This can be a bit confusing, as half a dozen major roads, highways, and frontage roads snarl together in a maddening knot. But Russ had his new birthday gift, a Tom Tom. This is a GPS system, and I can attest to its unerring accuracy. It apparently has several personalities preprogramed. Russ had settle upon Kelly, a beguiling siren who, with her dulcet Irish accent, coaxes the driver through the most improbable twists and turns and hairpin maneuvers to the very place you need to go.

We arrived exactly on time.

Dar and Sam were there already, and we loaded in the equipment, as well as the snacks that Dar had brought.

We had three scenes to shoot at this location. Two interiors; one exterior.

Here we have the elusive Sam Bayless (in the headphones).

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We lost an extra we need for the outside scene. And when it hits the fan, who are you gonna call? Why PrimaDonna, of course. Nikki Young made a few calls, and in no time she had locked the fabulous Jade Esteban Estrada into the tiny role.

After tinkering with the lighting (a bit of an ordeal, because the sun kept creeping up and into a window where we actually wanted fake sunlight provided by Andy Miller's HMI light kit). The HMIs had to serve to augment the sunlight. But we got the bedroom scene out of the way, and we set up for the kitchen scene. Jade showed up, camera ready, in the jogging suit the scene called for.

JJ Phillips and Rainya Mosher moved to their second scene, in the kitchen. They play a couple. And for the kitchen scene, Rainya's little girl, Maeryn, worked her way through a few run thoughs, as Sam tried to get his perfect single take — this scene called for a single camera set-up. Maeryn (who I believe is three yours old) might be cute as a bug — and she is — but she had a habit of looking up at the camera. But JJ and Rainya managed to convince the child that we, the crew members, were really of little interest.

Finally we moved outside and had JJ and Jade jogging down the middle of the street and delivering their lines. They trotted by the camera a few times. And finally we crammed Sam Bayless and his audio equipment, Russ and his camera equipment, and Sam Lerma into the back of Lerma's SUV. The hatchback and tailgate was open. I got into the drivers seat. And we moved slowly along the street as JJ and Jade gave us take after take. Soon they were panting like racing hounds.

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We got some great stuff.

Soon, we wrapped that location, saying good bye to Jade, Rainya, and Maeryn. Here we have a snap of JJ Phillips, Rainya Mosher, Maeryn Mosher (AKA, Super Baby), and Jade Esteban Estrada.

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Every film project should be lucky enough to include actors such as these.

We broke down the equipment and headed out to lunch.

As we were eating, I looked at my phone (it had been on silent since we began shooting). I noticed Carlos Pina had called. And as I knew we'd be wanting extras for the last shoot of the day — the convenience store — I gave Carlos a call. He told me that he was already in town and would be more than happy to drop by the set.

Our convience store was the Korner Store on Austin Highway and Rittiman. Pete Barnstrom had shot there for his short film “Lucky Numbers.” Fred, the owner, seemed a bit taken aback by the size of our cast and crew (6), and he told Lerma that he had once been visited by a film crew who weren't so respectful. He actually had to ask them to leave. I tried to find out who they were (so I could castigate them publicly), but he couldn't recall a name. We did our best to be charming and respectful. I think we pulled it off.

Carlos showed up. As did Pete, who brought along Cooper. I wish my camera hadn't run out of batteries, because Cooper had recently lost his two front baby teeth (a playground mishap, he explained to me), and, damn, but if he doesn't look like a Kindergarten Vampire (and, really, with a title like that, do you really need to waste you time writing the treatment for the film?).

Alicia Shaddeau showed up. She was our convience store cashier. Back when we worked together on the “Prometheus Thesis,” she had removed her rings for the final scene where she was supposed to portray a primitive cavewoman. And, as I forgot to return them to her, I'd been carrying around her jewelry for a couple of weeks. They are now returned.

Everyone did great. We got Fred (our host), as well as one of his regular customers, to serve as extras.

We moved fast and got out earlier than we had told Fred. I'm hoping we helped to redeem the San Antonio film making community. It didn't hurt that Pete showed up to help vet us.

As we were leaving, I looked up to see Fred standing outside of his store throwing out bird seed for the neighborhood pigeons. I have this wonderful image in my head of him holding out a hand of seed with a bird perched there, placidly pecking away. I really wonder what in the world this as yet unknown film crew could have done for this genial soul to demand that they leave his premises?

We headed over to Russ' place — seeing as he lives in that neighborhood — so we could watch the footage.

It all looked great.

And then me and Russ headed off to meet up with Deborah. We were all planning to take in a dance piece over at Trinity University. I had received an invitation from a dancer we all knew. The three of us had a quick dinner at Titos and then sped to Trinity. But there was nothing going on. The doors to the building were locked. Deborah called up the dancer in question. And it seems the performance had been the previous night. I had brought the email invitation along with me — I guess it was just a typo.

We headed over to La Tuna and sat out in the beer garden and listened to Deborah pitch an art project we were all thinking of collaborating on. At the moment, the emerging project involves a large mandala on the ground, a dancer (maybe two), and video with digital effects.

After a couple of drinks, we all realized it had been a long day. We dropped Deborah off at her studio. And when I got home, I discovered the Luminaria honorarium check in my mailbox. Thanks! Now I can get my car insurance company off my back.

A Night of Light and Color

Well, the Luminaria Arts Night in San Antonio (if I can use the full title on the promo material) has finally come and gone. There were a few snags during the evening that I noticed, but mostly it seemed an outrageous success.

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Mayor Hardberger, who won't let us forget that he brought this event to San Antonio, almost deflated the nascent energy of the day with his droning opening remarks. I can only assume Phil Hardberger learned to be a politician from watching way too many Frank Capra movies — and the high nasal twang of his voice mixed with his Mr. Smith Goes to City Hall aw shucks naive demeanor is about as easy to swallow as a mess of turnip greens washed down with corn squeezings. I don't doubt his heart is in the right place in his desire to bring the arts to a greater level of recognition, but, damn, boy, don't get up there and start gushing about how you never knew there was so much art going on in this city … 'cause, hey, I thought you claimed to have such a deep abiding love of the arts.

Well, um, whatever. What so many feared (or secretly hoped) would turn into an enormous train-wreck, turned out better than anyone's highest expectations. So, well done Mayor Hardberger and the CE Group. Not to mention whatever gods of random climatic fluctuations led to the almost perfect weather.

Actually, I really wasn't paying too much attention to the Mayor's speech. The stage from where he was addressing the crowd was across Alamo Street. I was stationed with Deborah and Ramon. The mandala Deborah had created, with the help of some kids, turned out vibrant and colorful. Ramon had some of the canvases from his Alamo show of the other week out on easels. But it suddenly turned windy, and he had to take them down.

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We were waiting on Deborah's friend, Saul. He kindly donated use of his PA system, but he was caught in the ugly traffic that surrounded downtown. Finally he showed up. Liza Ybarra was also there. As Saul returned to his car for more equipment, Liza set up the sound system and microphone. Dr. Sreedhara stood back, waiting. He wore traditional Indian garb. The crowd milled about, curious and patient. Soon all the tech elements had been worked out.

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Ramon stepped up to the microphone to give the blessing. He addressed the crowd as a leader in the local Native American community. He held a seashell with smoldering sage. What I like about the way that Ramon gives blessings to these sorts of arts events is that he takes a very intuitive off-the-cuff approach. There was a moment when he nodded over acknowledging Dr. Sreedhara, and he made some comment about how an “Italian sailor had mislabeled the inhabitants of the entire western hemisphere, and my people and those of this scholar from India are related in words if not in blood.”

Dr. Sreedhara dancing entranced the crowd. I saw no one walk away. The children came in close to the edges of the mandala, and sat and watched. I tried my best to photograph Dr, Sreedhara's feet destroying the mandala.

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When he began dancing for a second time, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Alston. We drifted off into the crowd and wandered around Alamo and Houston Streets. She suggested I see an installation in a building on Houston. It was group showing of students from the UTSA New Media Program. The large space was divided into sections with works displayed on front and rear video projection, TV monitors, small flat screen monitors on the walls, and even a couple of video iPods playing two different pieces nestled in the scattered trash of an installation in a corner to which I heard a man mutter, “Looks like my kid's room.” Maybe one of the best group shows I saw Saturday night.

We hit the Kress Building a few minutes before my film would screen. As we entered, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Anna Gangai with her daughter and husband. I guided them all into the back screening room. And back there I saw Alicia Shaddeau in the audience. Also, Bryan Ortiz, Lee Hurtado, and Michael Druck. There was maybe ten more minutes of another film. But when it ended, Manuel Pena, who was over-seeing the tech of the film section, couldn't get my DVD to play. He put on Pete's piece (which was scheduled to follow mine) and brought in another DVD player — one he swore my DVD played on before. Pete's short piece was well received. Twice. It was set to loop. And as it was about to play a third time, I shouted out, “It's on a loop.” Not that I really cared if Pete's piece played all night long, but I had two of my actors in attendance.

Manuel couldn't get my DVD to play on the other machine. He suggested they play it in the lobby space. I made an announcement to the audience that those who wanted to see my film could move to the other room. There were maybe 35 people in the audience. And they ALL got up and began shuffling into the other room. I didn't for a second think that they were hardcore Erik Bosse fans (because I think I only have 2.5 of those), but sometimes people do whatever you tell them to do. And most likely they thought that the technical difficulties would involved any DVD scheduled for the night. But the problem was that the other room was packed. And there was a screening of a block of short pieces by students from NESA. Those films still had another 20 minutes to play out.

One problem led to another. Again, it wouldn't bother me, but I had people who had come to see my film. Finally, it played. Only 45 minutes late. I don't blame Dora or Manuel. I blame that son of a bitch who invented the DVD. Hanging's too good for that bastard.

Later in the evening, I headed back to the rear screening room to watch some of Victor and Sandra's Aztec Gold TV shows. These are wonderful kookie man-on-the-street interviews, but the interviewer is in a suit and a Lucha Libre mask — Victor Payan in his persona of Lou Chalibre. And as I entered, I was happy to see that Victor was in character in his sports coat and wrestling mask, introducing each segment of Aztec Gold.

I perched on a raised bit of stage area where the projector was mounted and watched some of Victor's stuff I had not already seen on his YouTube page. All the while, behind me, Sanda (aka Pocha Pena) was passing out flyers for the upcoming CineFestival. And then I heard that familiar voice say, “Why, if it isn't Erik Bosse.” It was, of course, Jessica Torres, the talented young filmmaker who directed “Trick or Tweet,” one of the films from last year's 48 Hour Film Project (and my personal favorite). You never know when you'll see her. For a kid, Jessica gets around. In fact, she just came back from S
XSW, where a film of hers screened.

“Trick or Tweet” played after the Aztec Gold episodes.

David Casas cracks me up every time I see the film.

And then, my film played again. Manuel was going to try to give me a second screening. And Victor — or should I say, Lou Chalibre — introduced me. He handed me the microphone so I could say something about my film. I blathered some nonsense. I was somewhat taken aback. This is the same masked man who interviewed Jack Black. Okay, admittedly this was hardly a Charlie Rose moment, but I still felt a bit discombobulated.

I walked back out and just wandered idly through the Luminaria district. Ramon Juan Vasquez was running the Writers Block, an open mike area on Houston Street. George Cisneros and Tim Walsh were painting the east side of the Kress Building with abstract video projection and laser art. The San Antonio Symphony was playing beautifully on a low stage in front of the Alamo. Artist Bill FitzGibbons had provided a striking backdrop by setting powerful LED lights to shoot up and splash ever-changing colored light onto the facade of the Alamo. And all the buildings on Alamo Street were splashed in colored lights and abstract shapes.

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Best of all, there was a warm cozy vibe over the whole scene. The crowd level was just right. Not too many people to make movement a problem, but still plenty of people to fill the streets with a sense of excitement and discovery. As I was drifting about from event to performance space to installation, I was aware how congenial everyone was. So many other crowded streets fairs in San Antonio have a crass and vulgar feel with people walking about like zombies — but this was different. I walked up to the Jefferson Street Stage area just as Tim Walsh's laser show was starting up. Fog machines were pumping away and the lasers were cutting through the fog and playing across the palm trees over towards the Bromley Building. As I walked through all this movement and smoke and light and good will a woman ran up to me and spun me around. It was one of the URBAN-15 dancers. She's a rather prim school teacher.

“This laser stuff is great,” she said. “But I think we're supposed to be stoned.”

“Yeah. You're right.” And she was. As I was walking beneath the undulating swaths of laser light, I had this nagging feeling that something was missing.

Of all the outdoor festivals and parades and all this sort of crap San Antonio loves, this Luminaria was by far the most laid-back and enjoyable of these sorts of events.

I had a great time. And it looked like everyone else did too. The question is, will there be a Luminaria in 2009? The problem is that this whole initiative came from the mayor's office. What will happen when we have a different mayor? Luminaria should have been firmly ensconced in the Office of Cultural Affairs from the very beginning, with the mandate and fiscal infrastructure needed to keep this thing going into the future.

I want this to happen next year. (Sure, I want Luminaria 2009 to do a better job respecting and compensating the artists of San Antonio, but there's something wonderful with this project.) If you missed Luminaria, you missed something very special. Let's hope it will become a tradition.

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There are a couple of pieces on the Emvergeoning blog where Ben does a good job of articulating the pros and cons of Luminaria from his percipient point of view from within the San Antonio art community. Give them a read. (And — if you haven't already — make sure you subscrib to the Emvergeoning RSS feed.)

http://emvergeoning.com/?p=1141

http://emvergeoning.com/?p=1142

Preparing for Luminaria — Come for the Turkey Legs, Stay for the Art

I was up late last night. Me and Russ were burning DVDs for three different venues. The Prometheus Thesis, to be screened at the Kress Building on Saturday for the Luminaria event. And a preliminary edit of Christy's dance project we produced, Melancholy, which should be showing in one of the Dillard's storefront windows with some other vids from MoDaCoLabs (Modern Dancers' Co-Laboratory). And, finally, a DVD with all the material from the other two DVDs along with a small poetic experimental piece by Russ called In the Absence of Light — this final DVD was to loop on a flat screen monitor at Alston's art show today.

So, I had quite a few things I needed to run around and take care of today. But that didn't keep me from sleeping late. In fact, as I was checking my email and browsing through my subscribed RSS feeds, and thinking of brewing up a press-pot of coffee, the phone rang. It was Deborah. She was a bit stressed about her Luminaria project. She wanted to know if I had any advice for getting more sound from her CD player which will be used to provide the music that her dancer will be moving to. We went through a quick list of people we know who might have PA systems. She finally hit upon the perfect person. And then, feeling more on an even keel, she invited me to breakfast. Well, a very late breakfast, as most of the patrons were making choices from the list of lunch specials. I had a load of things to do, but I never say no to an invite from Deborah.

We were both pretty busy between bites of eggs and tortillas as we found ourselves fielding calls on our cells from various projects we have going — mostly involving the big Luminaria event tomorrow.

Eventually Deborah headed off to one of the classes she teaches up at Northwest Vista community college. And I drove downtown to track down Dora Pena, who's coordinating the film events for Luminaria. I parked illegally in Peacock Alley, and met her on the street in front of the Kress Building. I handed her Pete's film as well as mine. Inside, I saw some of the guys from PSAV Presentation Services. This is a national company with an office here in San Antonio and they are providing the audio/visual tech for the event. I wish we could have wrangled a locally-owned business, but these folks seem very focused and on top of things.

I headed back home and checked my email to find contact info for the MoDaCoLabs people. It seems that Jayne King lives in my neighborhood. I hopped on my bike and cycled over to her place, three streets over, and slipped the DVD into her mail slot. I hope I didn't get it to her too late.

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I uploaded the current edit of the Prometheus Thesis to YouTube.

Here's where you can see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_CoiJjFTn0

It seems that I spelled Anna's last name wrong in the credits — an over-sight that soon I hope to remedy.

After I got the file up and active, I clicked over to the page to view it. It seemed adequate, and not too overly compressed.

But my eye wandered to a little region on the right side of the screen. “Related videos.” I saw a link to something titled “San Antonio Film District Promo Videos.” Oh, dear me. With the exception of some footage AJ shot, the video is as off-putting as a visit to Mr. Sullivan's crumbling warehouse.

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzTzL-kX9Bk

And also check out another link I saw under that “related” heading. It is a link to an eight minute documentary, Art on the Tracks, by Jose Lozano. It looks like it's a couple of years old. Done as a project for a University of Texas (Austin) documentary class. It's about model train enthusiasts in San Antonio. And it's great stuff. These train guys are nuts, but in a good way.

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And, finally, I called up my car insurance company and cajoled them into letting me renew my premium a bit late — I need to get that little Luminaria artist honorarium check first — I decided to head out for a bike ride.

What a warm, beautiful day. The wind was on my back on the way south. I was struggling on the return trip. When I got back home, I clicked over to the Wether Underground weather site. If they can be believed, it was 103.8 degrees at 4:45 this afternoon. I understand there were record temperatures all across south Texas. But I wonder if other weather reports had it break a hundred here in San Antonio. But, it was damned hot. Still is, and it's eleven at night. Wait, maybe that's just my sunburn humming away.

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Alston Cox's art show began at 5:30 this afternoon on the edge of downtown over near SAC (San Antonio College — the hub of the local Alamo Community College District).

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I headed off, hoping to get there a bit early. But Friday rush hour through the heart of downtown San Antonio slowed me down. As I was crawling down Flores, just past the courthouse, I saw a purple Camaro in the on-coming lane. The driver waved, and then it was gone. It had to be Carlos. I pulled out my cell phone and called him up. He said he was meeting his mother at the downtown bus station. I invited him to Alston's show, if he had time.

The art show was at the Magnolia Gardens on Main Street. It's a little events center — small, but rather up-scale. The place you rent out for wedding receptions and things like that. As I understand it, Alston's mom won an evening's use of the place in a charity auction, and decided to give her daughter a place to display her paintings. There were also arts and craft people set up on a line of tables along the windows. Me and Russ were the film part of this sideshow. We set up a flat screen monitor, a DVD player, and two headphones.

The were maybe sixty or seventy people in about out between 5:30 and 8:30. Not a lot of people were sitting down at the film table. But Alston sold several paintings. Maybe five, but I lost count.

Congrats, Alston!

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And kudos to those people smart enough to buy her work.

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I stopped by my neighborhood grocery store tonight. It's the HEB supermarket on South Presa. They were doing some major cleaning. All the produce along one wall have been pulled out and employees were frantically cleaning the fixtures. And over in the cheese and luncheon meat section the same thing was going on. I recalled a rumor I had heard a couple of weeks back that this store was slated for closure, with a new HEB super store down on Military Drive.

I didn't have the stomach to ask the workers if the end was coming. I will not drive all the way down to Military for groceries. First HEB drove out the Handy Andy eight blocks from my house. And then I had to shop at the HEB. For those who don't live in San Antonio, HEB is a grocery chain. They also own Central Market. They are based in San Antonio, and they had somehow finagled a sweet deal where they have a monopoly. It's true. They have no competition. HEB is pretty much the only game in town. There are maybe three Handy Andy's left. And there are a few little Fiestas scattered around (and these aren't the same Fiestas that are thriving as super latino grocery stores in Houston, Dallas, Austin, etc.).

If HEB closes their South Presa store, there will be no grocery store in the area. I'll have to drive at least four fucking miles to any of the next closest stores. And I can't imagine that the new HEB will be any closer than these other options.

I guess I will have two choices. There's an HEB over on Nogalitos, just past Henry's Tacos to Go. And then there's the Fiesta on South Flores. It's not convenient, but it also ain't HEB. Fuck HEB. Those vile monopolistic swine.

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This is my last reminder to people to show up for Luminaria. It's tomorrow (Saturday). I'm still not sure of the official start time. But if you want to make a day of it, get there by 5:30pm, and stay through to midnight.

Or, if you aren't so ambitious, come anytime in that six and a half hour range.

As it gets darker, there will be more striking events, such as the laser light show, fire dancers, or the firework display shot off the top of the Emily Morgan Hotel.

I understand there is parking at the Alamodome, with a shuttle. Probably parking lot A, accessible from the I-37 access road. But my recommendation is to park anywhere in my neighborhood (King William) — like in the Blue Star Arts Complex — and take the trolly downtown. Because of street closures, I don't know what the bus and trolly routes might be, but surely they will get you to the HemisFair Park — and that's the outer reach of the Luminaria event.

It's going to be loads of fun. And because this is the first year (only year, some wags are already saying), it might not be too crazy. But because San Antonio loves festivals and outdoor events — hell, anything that involves street closures and beer — Luminaria might surprise me and turn into a huge crush of humanity.

There is no doubt a schedule of events in todays Express-News “weekender” section (and damn I forgot to pick one up today). My suggestion is read about all the events to get stoked of the huge variety of stuff offered. Get excited enough to decide to attend. And then throw that guide away. There's too much going on. Don't plan to make this or that event. Just drift around. It's a large region. Three or four blocks of Houston Street. All of Peacock Alley. All of Alamo Plaza. And about six blocks of Alamo Street. There are at least five large stages. And there is stuff happening in all the nooks and crannies. Just don't plan. Drift, and enjoy the accidental discoveries off all the creativity this town has to offer.

It's going to be great.

Circumventing the Digital Impasse

I've hit up against some sort of digit impasse with Photobucket. That's where I park the images I post on this blog. For the last few days, I just wasn't able to upload anything. And so, with a back-log of blog (and doesn't that sound delightful), I decided to take action. I returned to Flicker. The problem was, I couldn't remember my account info. So, I had to start all over from scratch. Because Flicker is owned by Yahoo, I had to open a Yahoo account. It's bad enough having a MySpace account, but I've had months to come to terms with that. This entrée (well, re-entrée … as I forgot my ancient Yahoo info, as well) into the insidious corporate muck of Yahooery has left a bad taste in my mouth. But I now have a plan B for photo posting.

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Saturday we had a production/rehearsal meeting for Sam Lerma's series of SAL Film Festival promo vids. Here we have some of the cast and crew. The rehearsal (more of a table read) went quite well. The first of the four promos (we seem to be calling them PSAs) is pretty funny.

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Earlier in the day I shot a drum demonstration over at URBAN-15. The drummer was from Austin, and he was explaining some techniques he had learned in Brazil. I don't know this type of music very well, but I gather it was some sort of fast beat samba. It was a bit unnerving for me, because as I was wrestling with the audio equipment which fed into the camera, the drummer was warming up. I was about four feet from him and it was painfully loud. Sometimes you just have to tune out certain things. And when we were ready to shoot, I had set the audio levels for the drum. But then he began talking. I wasn't aware this was going to be the sort of instructional piece with a meandering lecture, occasionally pausing for monstrous loud and fast drumming. I called “cut.” I had him start up again, but this time I had the two sound channels coming into the camera radically split, so that one will serve as the voice, the other, the drumming.

After that, things flowed quite well.

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For the last three days me and Russ have been editing the Luminaria film, “The Prometheus Thesis.” It will screen this coming Saturday (March 15) at the Kress building on Houston Street. The piece will be on a loop (with one or two other projects) on a plasma screen in one of the storefront windows of the Kress. Also, it will be projected in the back space inside the Kress Building (there will be two spaces for film projects to be projected — the lobby area, and a larger room in the rear). This projected screening will happen around seven o'clock.

There is probably another two nights of tinkering to get the piece where I want it. But we've locked the version that will screen this weekend. My plan is to add a bit more Foley, add some minor but necessary digital visual effects, and beef up the third act. Hell, it's only a four minute piece, but it has shaped up nicely. Anna's performance continues to impress and amuse me.

Erik _ Anna

Wednesday I showed the current cut to Hector Garcia (one of the actors) and he seemed to like it well enough. I had dropped by URBAN-15 to give Hector a copy of the DVD. Herman showed up. I didn't have the original miniDV tape, but Herman used the computer in the basement studio to rip my DVD and convert the file to QuickTime. He then compressed to for the web. I thanked him and stuck the file on my jumpdrive. But the problem is, he didn't take into account that the piece was composed for a wide screen format, and the image is stretched vertically.

I want to post the piece on line, but, I think I'll wait until I can have the opportunity to compress it myself. Hopefully I'll have it up by Friday.

“The Prometheus Thesis” will also be on view at my friend Alston's art event this Friday. Here is the inside skinny in her own words:

“I want to invite you to an art event Friday, March 14, from 5:30 to 8:30pm. It will be at Magnolia Gardens, 2030 N. Main (on the corner of Main and Ashby by SAC). There will be art on display (including some of mine), opportunities to make art, free food, beer and wine. This will be an evening to connect with the San Antonio arts community and to celebrate creativity.”

I'll certainly be there. And amid all the art, free eats and drinks, there will be a viewing and listening station which will screen, on a loop, “The Prometheus Thesis,” as well as a short experimental piece or two by Russ.

Get there early, because the parking can get damn dense in the hipster neighborhood. Also, you don't wanna get there only to find the free buffet reduced to Cheetos, French onion dip, and light beer. Come on out!

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Wednesday morning, I headed over to a certain west side taqueria to have breakfast with Deborah and Ramon. But because I'm a bit strapped at the moment (though the Luminaria folks say they'll mail my 200 clam honorarium Monday morning), I had to consolidate the change I keep in a battered ceramic atole mug with the change I keep in the ashtray in my truck and head off to the HEB and feed it all into their change machine (ah, yeah, banks used to do this sort of stuff and they did it free). Eight bucks!

I was a bit late. But we had a nice time. Deborah is building a mandala on the sidewalk across the plaza from the Alamo. She'll have an Indian (from India) dancer moving about in the mandala. And before her event, she'll have Ramon (an Indian, in the native-American sense) give a blessing. Ramon will also be showing a few of the canvasses from his Forget the Alamo show he had Friday at Centro Cultural Aztlan.

Here we have it from Deborah's invite:

“You are invited invited to Luminaria, a city-wide celebration of the creative spirit Saturday, March 15th! I will be making a Sand Mandala on the plaza across the street from the Alamo from 12:30- 6:00. Dr. Sreedhara will perform a Mandala Dance at 6:15 and 7:15. Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez will be displaying some works from his Alamo Art Show around the mandala from 6-12. Native American Blessing at 6:00. Erik Bosse will be showing an original film in the Kress Building. We hope to see you there! Deborah.”

And she added this black and white photo of Ramon, me, Dr. Sreedhara, and herself. We're standing where the mandala will be. You might recognize the Alamo in the background.

locosandone

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Spring is here. The last couple of days have been sunny and warmish. I've been back on the bike trail three days in a row. Mid-seventies. And here we see, finally, the trees waking up.

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By May 1, there will be that beautiful pale green mist of young shoots and tender leaves sprayed across the whole city. The crickets are waking up. And the ladybugs are landing on me, at least twice a day.

This had better be the light at the end of a very long and dank and miserable winter. Monday was a prime example of what we had way too often the last few months here in San Antonio. I was buried under the covers, dead to the world, when the phone rang. It was Carlos. He and Shelly were sitting in a dead Windstar van between their home in Seguin and the South Park Mall here in San Antonio where Shelly works. Carlos is the kind of guy I can't say no to. He's a loyal friend who's always there for me. Besides, I had no other plans.

I fired up the truck and head off. I'm not too sure what time it was because daylight savings had happened over the weekend, and I wasn't always sure what clock on what electronic device I had reset. But it was early. And pissing down like a champ.

Carlos and Shelly were in surprisingly good spirits. The van, it seemed, had finally reached the terminal point with an ailing transmission. It was hauled off for good.

I did get to hear all about Carlos' recent gig as a featured extra in a new Disney film to be titled “Will.” He's tenaciously working the acting circuit in Austin. Wisely he's making a name for himself as a dependable extra. And because I've used him as an actor, I know that the people who hire Carlos are getting more than they expected. He's slowly moving along, and soon I'm sure he'll be appreciated as the talented and committed actor who I know him to be.

And then these film folks will give him the money to buy a dependable car.

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I know most people think I'm completely on top of things. The consummate professional. Yeah, I get that a lot. Why, just last night I had a friend ask me to vet his investment portfolio. (The fact that he's five, and the portfolio is a three-ring binder full of photos of plastic dinosaurs and Matchbox cars should be considered irrelevant.)

Therefore, it might surprise — nay, shock — most of my readers to learn that while I was digging around in the piles of miscellany here on my desk, I came across a check from the San Antonio Museum of Art of 150 bucks. What??? Wait, that should read: What the Fuck??? The check was dated April. Of last year.

I can really use that money. Tomorrow I'm running it through my account and hope there will be no problems. They'd better not cross me. You know, just saying….

Hey! Maybe I should dig a bit deeper. Take the paperwork strata all the way down to the tabletop. Who knows what else I might discover?