Would you like a daily poem?

By Ron Rollins | Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 10:39 AM

It won’t be from me…

It’d be from the Writer’s Almanac!

If you are a public radio listener, you probably know this feature, by Garrison Keillor and his crew, which offers up daily encouragement and information for anybody who lives and loves the writer’s life. The website is cool and worth checking out, a printed mirror of the broadcast version, which is narrated by Keillor himself, in that deep bass voice.

But the fun part is that you can have the site send a new daily poem right into your email inbox! It’s a great way to start your online day, and the poems are always well-selected. You’ll also get a few choice tidbits about writers born on that day, and other literary historical notes.

There you go: My gift to you on this snowy, slushy day.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment

Why Hollywood doesn’t matter anymore…

By Ron Rollins | Monday, February 8, 2010, 09:56 PM

Well, OK, it still does. I’m overstating to make the point, which would be obvious from the last story you read about “Avatar.”

But this piece from NPR.com shows how new media are endlessly creating new opportunities for young, up-and-coming, non-mainstream filmmakers that didn’t even exist even a year or two ago. Fascinating.

And by the way: They’re making money with the new ways. That’s the thing that matters. Because not everyone is James Cameron, but they still should get to have their movie seen.

Thoughts?

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment

NYTimes: Dave snuck Leno into secret taping

By Ron Rollins | Monday, February 8, 2010, 07:37 AM

All in all, I thought the Super Bowl commercials were better than most of the pundits and DJs seem to be saying this morning, though I’m also getting the sense each year that dissing the ads as unfunny is some new kind of cool. The folks at Bud, Doritos and Coke did pretty well, if you ask me (loved the dog who garrotes his master with the shock collar so he can snarf his chips).

But the best of the lot, for sheer surprise value alone, was the spot for Dave Letterman’s show that featured him, Oprah and, yes, Jay Leno. The Times this morning has a piece on how they pulled it off, the main problem being just how to sneak Leno into Letterman’s building.

Fake mustache! Works every time.

What was your favorite ad?

Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment

Losing a local arts-scene leader, alas…

By Ron Rollins | Sunday, February 7, 2010, 09:38 AM

Since you’re reading an arts blog, you probably know Cityfolk, the Dayton arts organization that has been bringing folk music, dance, jazz, world and Celtic music to local stages since 1981.

You might not know, however, that its executive director, John Harris, has given the word that he’s moving on. His departure is a real loss.

Harris, who arrived in Dayton in 2003, has emerged as a mainstay on the local arts scene, a quiet and effective leader whose legacy will be that he stabilized and very likely saved one of Dayton’s most important arts groups.

“I think the biggest concern was the finances,” he says of the Cityfolk he found. “They were pretty precarious.”

Cityfolk, after dazzling local music lovers with a great three-year of the National Folk Festival in the late 1990s, fell on tough times. A leadership vacuum, layoffs and interruptions in programming left some people wondering if the group would survive, let alone thrive.

Over time, Harris and a stronger board calmly turned things around. He rebuilt relationships around town, strengthened the annual Cityfolk Festival that is the organization’s biggest event, and raised Cityfolk’s education and outreach efforts — notably, the “Culture Builds Community” program that brings folk art and music to local schools, churches and neighborhoods.

“We expose people to new things,” says Harris, 47. “That’s what we do. Our No. 1 obligation is to put on programs that represent the cultural traditions in our communities — Appalachian, African-American, Hispanic, among others.

“Our second obligation is to give people the opportunity to learn about cultures other than their own; that’s where world music and other things come in.”

There are plenty of metro areas that don’t have an organization like Cityfolk to do such things, and Dayton has always responded well to it. The group operates on an annual budget of about $900,000 with five full-time staffers and several part-time consultants, and things are steady for now.

Harris is sorry to be leaving, but family needs are calling. His father died last summer and he wants to be closer to his 77-year-old mother, who lives in Lexington, Ky. Harris’ wife, Natalie, has taken the job of leading the Coalition for the Homeless in Louisville, and Harris will look for work when he gets there. He admits it’s both “cool and exciting” and “a little scary” to be plunging into the unknown at mid-life, but looks forward to doing something creative.

Mainly, though, he’ll miss Cityfolk. “I’m sad to go, and I’ll miss everybody,” he says. Harris is staying through the next Cityfolk Festival, in July, and the hope is that he will be around to train his replacement. He’s about to start a spring fundraising campaign for the festival, and hopes to leave the group on a solid footing. “I’ll tell him, or her, that there are a lot of people here who care about Cityfolk and what it does, and that he should listen to what they say and consider the support they offer, because there is a lot of it.”

What does he see, down the road, for the city he’s leaving and its arts community? “I think there are going to have to be changes in the ways arts organizations are funded,” he says. “The arts community here was built on money from corporate entities and their employees, and that is going to have to shift to small- and medium-sized companies, or individual support.” The recession, he says, “will force systemic changes” on the arts.

“But overall, the future is bright. People here think the arts are important, and they won’t let the organizations they love fail or let the arts scene diminish — because they know it’s one of the best things about this community.”

Harris, who politely brushes aside suggestions of his own importance, has been a big part of making that true.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment

The White Death arrived!

By Ron Rollins | Saturday, February 6, 2010, 09:23 AM

Well, those wacky forecasters got this one right … the snow arrived, in the amount foretold, and more or less at appointed time. Bravo for modern weather modeling!

As I emerged from hibernation this morning to the scratching sounds of dogs needing to be let outside, I looked outside and saw a miraculous sight: My back yard transformed into a delicate filigree of frozen lace, branches gently swaying in the wind clad comfortably in their soft new coating of white.

The change brought out the inner puppy in my old dogs, who tore through drifts with glee, leaping and prancing and searching for critters under the deep snow. And I found myself smiling as well, enjoying the scene and thinking, yet again, that there may be nothing more transformative on any landscape than that first clean new blanket of white. Ahhhh.

And yet, with it comes a lot of work and headache. We tell ourselves that we’ll just burrow happily into our cribs, staying inside all day and not bothering to go out in it, but that rarely is the case. The need to live intrudes and becomes an inconvenience, as cars get stuck and walks must be dug out. Driving becomes a crawl at best or a danger at worst — something I was reminded of just last night as I struggled to get home safely from Cincinnati as the storm was blowing in and making the darkened interstate a slick, perilous mess.

So with the beauty comes the beast. And isn’t that makes winter the Most Complicated Season, the one that causes us to reflect upon the balance of all things?

Spring’s loveliness is simply what it is, and we we are able to enjoy without irritation or cost as it gradually blooms and unfolds. Summer’s heat can be bothersome, but more of us seem to prefer it to the cold and the frost. Fall and its paintbrush color are simply gorgeous, and the season asks nothing more of us than to clean up after it a bit in the yard — a pleasant enough chore and a good excuse for exercise. Plus, it smells so good.

But winter? Winter is different. Winter demands tribute. It comes with cost. You want to feel the thrill of my beauty? it asks us; fine, but it’s on my terms: I’ll shut you down. With the transcendent sigh of pleasure that comes with that first morning peek into the yard comes the realization that much of the day will be spent with a shovel in hand.

Pretty but painful. Complicated, indeed.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment

What’s the best movie year ever?

By Ron Rollins | Friday, February 5, 2010, 08:17 PM

NPR.com raises that very fun question with this entry on a spin off of the new decision by the Academy to raise the number of top films to 10, from five…

Their vote: 1962.

A good year indeed, but how about 1973? Serpico, The Getaway, High Plains Drifter, Save the Tiger, Papillon, Paper Moon, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, Badlands, The Last Detail, Mean Streets, Bang the Drum Slowly, The Sting, The Way We Were, Sleeper, The Day of the Jackal … In that group you’ll find among the best movies ever, arguably, by Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford and others…

By ANY stretch, a hell of a movie year…

What’s your fave?

Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment

Blog fatigue?

By Ron Rollins | Thursday, February 4, 2010, 08:07 AM

Ran across an interesting story this morning from the Associated Press about some polling that suggests young people are starting to grow tired of a medium that they once actively, enthusiastically embraced: The blog.

Seems that other social networking media such as Facebook and Twitter, with their short and quick status updates, are taking the place of blogs in young folks’ affections and interest.

If this is true, I wonder if it’s all that surprising — not because flashy new things always fade with time, but because blogs are per se designed for writing, and because not that many people are writers. My guess is lots of people, old and young, tried blogging because it seemed cool, but that many of them didn’t really have the writerly itch and urge that makes somebody a real writer. Oh yeah, and talent.

A bit of selectivity in terms of content generation on the Web might be a good thing, and fewer blogs might actually not be such a bad thing — and please, withhold your comments about the world being a better place without this one, OK?

What do you think?

Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment