Ever Changing Journal

Entry 16 - The Big Documentary List

Okay, we admit it. This is a double post. You'll find this fabulous updated list of documentaries on Lisa's Blog AND here. Okay again. We've been gone. Again. Me? I went to Milwaukee. Rufus Wainright calls it "The Paris of the Midwest". Matt took the family and HIT THE ROAD. To celebrate our return to Blogging, and your long and enduring patience with us, we decided to give you our original Documentary List with additions from readers and a bunch that Lisa has seen in the last few months. Print this out and enjoy. Pull up your Netflix queue, run to your local dvd place or slip the list into an envelope as a gift (yes, I KNOW that I said the same thing over at lisahoffman.typepad.com). Just DO it. And thanks again for remaining our faithful readers. We love you.

Todays Additions have stars (*)

*Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

*Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye

*The Cool School

*Herb & Dorothy

*Note by Note: The making of Steinway

*Objectified

*A Man Named Pearl

*Piece by Piece

*Ballerina

*Black, White and Gray

*Drawing the Line

*In a Dream

*The September Issue

*Toys Are Us: A Revolution in Plastic

*Welcome to Macintosh

*$100 and a Tee Shirt

*Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

*Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

*In the Realms of the Unreal

*My Father the Genius

*Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio

*Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of mark O’Brien (not avail on Netflix as of July 2010)

Carmen and Geoffrey Man on Wire

Food, Inc

Helvetica

Keith Haring- Drawing the Line

Following Sean

Paul Bowles- Let it Come Down

Manufactured Landscapes

Seamless

The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio

Leonard Cohen- I'm your Man

51 Birch Street  

Paul Taylor -Dancemaker

Chris & Don- a Love Story

Young at Heart

Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Speaking in Strings

Alfred Stigelitz: The Eloquent Eye

Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse

Paper Clips

Wordplay

Ballet Russes

Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision

Sketches of Frank Gehry

I.M. Pei

Touch the Sound

Andy Goldsworthy: Rivers and Tides

Follow my Voice

Bomb it

Murderball

Grey Gardens (the original )

My Kid Could Paint That

Dark Days

The Gleaners

Jesus Camp

Glass: Portrait in Twelve Parts

Howard Zinn: You  Can’t Be Neutral on a Morning Train

Les Paul: Chasing Sound

Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man

Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About

 

 

Entry 15 - Many Thoughts Mean A Lot

Synchronicity happens. Tell us your story.

 

Entry 14 - Well, well, well... Looky Here

Years ago, my sister in law and I used to sprawl out on the beaches of Long Island near her home and talk about our lives. She was always an amazing cheerleader and encouraged me to continue writing NO MATTER WHAT. In HER mind, there already existed "The Book". A fiction/non-fiction memoir hybrid the size of the NYC phone book. Every time something very good, bad or note-worthy would occur, we'd look at each other and mouth the words: "The Book". as in : "that action is going right into the book....".

As time passed and I was blessed with the ground-shaking eruption of art in my life, I started to notice that my observational skills were being subtlety sharpened. It was as if someone had tweaked the camera lens and everything came into focus. Raising a child and running a business can be distracting, but these things were happening during that time. I started to vacuum up details, bits and pieces of the cultural landscape. Having brilliant and diverse friends helps a ton, lemme tell you. 

Anyway, data was not necessarily for The Book exclusively anymore. It became the fuel of Creative Inspiration. Had enough of THAT phrase? okay, then lets call it : "Fascinating Crap-ola that leads you down one Rabbit Hole of Coolness to the next Level"

Not only do we love seeing what's new, old, head-turning, innovative, creepy and stunning, we see that most of it is somehow connected. Music? Art? Literature? Food? Textiles? Photography? on and on and on.

 Getting a little too weird? Let's knock it back a rung or two and use my favorite tool, bullet points!

• Observing your environment  from a Reporters Perspective allows you objectivity while making way for enthusiasm. You can take a good, close look and make a mental note. Use it or toss it.

• Your medium of choice makes no difference. You know within seconds when you are talking to a Fellow Observer. As Heidi K. would say: "...either you're IN or you're OUT....".

• Observational people tend to be very Open Minded. They are curious and have no desire to accidentally miss something. They tend to be less guarded and have fewer walls.

• I am a talker (BIG surprise) but I find myself blabbering less and asking more questions. Old dog, new trick?

• What better use for those 15 unused journals (you KNOW you have 'em) than converting them into a visual/written document of what you learned today? A traveling file cabinet-notebook.

The Book is still a work in progress in my head. Maybe I'll throw it into the podcast sometime...   Lisa

Entry 13 - Creative Commitment

 

Matt: It’s 3am and I am on deadline. It’s been a hard day. It’s been a LONG day. My wife is asleep, my son is asleep, my daughter is asleep. I’m not. Even so, I feel more alive doing this than anything else I could think of! Practicality tells me I should really being working - you know - WORKING - the stuff that generates income, pays the bills, keeps food in the fridge. But instead, I’m finishing up an illustration that will go up on a blog that maybe a hundred people (hopefully more) will visit this week. And not one of those visitors will pay a dime to see what either I or Lisa will post this week. And, you know what... that makes absolutely no difference to me. Why? Because I’m happy. I’m excited. I’m alive. No longer merely existing.

I really look forward to sitting down with Lisa every few weeks and having our standard 2 1/2 hour talks over coffee about simply ‘EVERYTHING’ in our heads. Creativity, life, spirituality, art, people, music, literature, culture, politics, possibilities, synchronicity, collaboration, physics, the paranormal, comedy, cinema, God, the economy... the list goes on and on and on. And so do we... writing things down, sketching, breying out loud like two free-range juvenile donkeys, rolling our eyes, gafawing, high five-ing, furrowing our brows. We are LIVING.

How many people get THAT chance? Or rather, how many people TAKE that chance?

Lisa: I've known a LOT of hard working people in my life and Matt, YOU have to be one of the top picks for the Overtime Oscar. You always keep things moving and productive. I often get emails from you that were written in the wee hours of the morning.

Me: "Good God Man, go to BED!!!".

But no. There you are, with your priorities very straight making it all work. That's why THIS post of yours makes me SO happy!

I can just feel the bubbly effervescence sizzling off the pen as you draw furiously and that brain visualizes colors, soundtracks, video  (probably even Smell) and every detail of the creative piece that's coming to fruition. You're SO right about the feeling of being ALIVE... that place of time loss and unidentifiable energy source. Working as we are for the moment, in our Creative Group, we can do/make/say anything that we want to. I love the fact that we have animators, videographers, sound techs, musicians, stylists, writers and other brilliant people circling us and asking: "...what can I do?...can I play too?..."

Yes. It's starting to gain momentum. I'm just grateful that when so many things seem to be off kilter, there's a place of sanity and healthy creative output. It's always within the circle of our Tribe.

Entry 12 - Prelude

secret notes from the island

what do they mean?

what do they mean?

Entry 11 - We're Baaaack

After a month-long creative hiatus which included self-imposed seclusion on a desert island, a short stint as bouncers at a tiki bar, some interaction with some friendly natives, a monkey named Kai and a scavenger hunt list as long as your leg ... Matt and Lisa return to the binary waves with a new point of view and some amazing things to share.

We sincerely hope that all of you are doing well and that you are ready to continue this journey with us.Be ready for almost anything.

Aloha!

Entry 10 - I Want Candy

 'Guilty Pleasure' ... isn't that a strange concept?

My Mom was well read. Very well read. 

Once, while recovering from a hospital stay, she asked me to pick up some 'gossip-y' magazines, asking "... do you mind indulging my Guilty Pleasure?" Geez Mom! You just had a major stroke and bounced back like a rubber band. Uh, YEAH. I think that I can get  you anything that you want...

GUILTY?!?!

You have to understand that this woman read everything that she could get her hands on. Her boss used to pass her his old copies of The New Yorker. She swooped up the Times and The Wall Street Journal after readers tossed them aside at her suburban DC coffee shop. This woman was the one that you wanted on YOUR team for Trivial Pursuit. She retained everything. Interesting that she considered People Magazine a 'Guilty Pleasure'. Is that different from a PLEASURE pleasure?

She would sit regally perched in her chair with a Phillip Morris in one hand and a vodka & Tab in the other (I know...) and bark answers at the JEOPARDY contestants as though they were complete idiots... "what's wrong with that guy???... Lemme guess - his Hermes tie is too tight... " and yet when she asked me for those magazines you would have thought that she was asking for crystal meth.

I consider sugar one of my Guilty Pleasures. "Guilty" because if I eat enough, I feel like Hell. On the other hand, if I steer clear MOST of the time and indulge once in a while (one cupcake, not Six... oh yes, I could SO easily do six...) I no longer feel guilty. Interesting. Don't get me wrong, I could eat almost anything sweet. Kids might cringe, gag and run from a bag of spongey orange circus peanuts, I'd pump my fist in the air and shout: "SCORE!!!"

Cotton Candy?... Yes!   Pixie Sticks?... Check!

The tackier the better. Hey, I also got exposure to elegant and rare candy via my grandmothers candy dish. Did we EVER feel guilty? No. Never.

So when does the Guilty Switch get flipped?

• Coffee Drinks  • Cheap Jewelry • Manicure • Car Washes • B-Movies • More Paper • Magazines • Perfume • Candles • Books • Massages • Netflix • Blank Journals • Shoes • Pens • Random Art Supplies • iPhone Apps... come on. Bring it.

Pleasures, guilty or not. Just click the  little Comment button below and start talking. Oh, and to friends who read this Blog... we know who you are. Spill it. We get special emails saying "so and so has read your Blog and decided to NOT comment..."  Oh, the pain...

Lisa

 

Entry 9 - Flashback

Remember how fun it was being a kid? Long, long ago, way back before life became all work and drudgery and our souls were sucked out by the machine? Every day was an adventure, wasn't it? Saturday morning cartoons. Comic books. Family cars with no seat belts. Endless bowlfuls of sickeningly sweet sugar coated cereal. Bologna sandwiches with slices of American cheese. Oreos. Standing in line waiting for the bus to come - wondering which irritating little prissy girl at school was going to fall off the monkey bars today and crack her head on the fully exposed cement footer? Which unsuspecting clod of a snot nosed little boy was going to go face first over the edge of the 3" slide sidewall and plummet screaming into the boiling hot 3/4" gravel below? Remember that constant, in-the-back-of-your-head thought, every recess - 'I wonder who's going to end up in the nurse's office today?' And someone always did! Thank God it wasn't you. The classroom would be abuzz over the bloody nose or gashed chin. How is Tommy doing? Is his mom coming to get him? Will he get stitches? Cool!

We were bound together by those experiences, weren't we? Back then your friends and classmates were more than just other kids you went to school with. They were your buddies. Life was dangerous, and only the strongest were going to survive. Who would make to the end of the school year? How many friends would we lose? Who would be left to go onto the next grade?

Those were the days. Back when parents didn't constantly hover over, coddle and smother/protect their kids from every hard knock, bruise or terrifying misstep. Back when a wrenched arm or a near death experience was as common place as cavities and Band-aids. Back in the day when kids fully understood that life doesn't always come with a safety net! And still, with life coursing through our little veins we would run head-long and screaming into all the fun and happiness we could squeeze out of the day, unfazed by the peril that constantly surrounded us! Life was electric!

Here's to those days - with some of the actual playground equipment I risked my life on!

 

The "Scorcher" - Imagine the feeling of sheer exhilaration scrambling up this all metal slide at noon on a 100+ degree Summer day, in nothing but flip-flops, shorts and a tank top, making it to the top without falling, adrenaline pumping, and plopping down onto the 200+ degree, diamond plate metal "skillet"! I can clearly remember the exact feeling of the skin on the backs of my legs being instantly seared! Then seared further as I slid down the all metal slide! Wow! Awesome!

The "Tooth-Chipper" - The 'funnest' part about this toy was how easy it was to get someone to stand on the metal parabolic dish center piece and try to balance as 4 kids went nuts bouncing away and screaming trying to get them to fall. The 'funniest' part was when one of the 4 would lose track of their mind and the all-metal toy animal they were bouncing on would pop up and wallop them in the mouth. No worries, though. There was always someone else ready to take the injured kid's station! After all, war isn't for sissies!

 

The "Rocket of No Return" - My favorite! This 20-something foot tall, diamond plate steel construction, playground toy is a legend in my home town. More than able to sear skin off a kid in the Summer heat, it has bars running up its sides which should only be construed as an invitation to climb... and as a kid, I recall kids doing this often. Imagine the town's bravest children scaling this sizzling hot vertical fun machine hand over hand, finally making it to the top, exhausted and overcome by heat, and then... then... then... (feel the dread?)... me, too! That's why I love this playground toy! To my knowledge, no kid ever plummeted to their demise onto the hard pack dirt below, but the possibility of seeing that was always vertigo inducing. 

But, funny enough, my daughter (pictured below descending the rocket's slippery metal ladder in flip-flops) did slip and wrench her arm! Which was a standard rite of passage on this beloved toy. She was fine. She survived. She learned. She remembers. Like me! Like all my friends! We remember - and actually, we miss those days! Do you?

Entry 8 - Learning My Left From Your Right

Sproing!!! Wheeeee!!

That's me (Matt) spring-boarding off of the "What are you doing to nurture your passion?" question that Lisa and I have been tossing back and forth at each other lately like a glowing red microwaved potato. 

Now that Lisa's gone VIRAL with that question here at the ECJ (yea! Lisa) - I find this inspiring spud once more in my winter white mitts. SO! This is my answer:

Now, follow closely. Stragglers WILL be left behind to find their own way back to the Club House.

Of late, I've been overwhelmed by deadlines and generally feeling a bit burned out - which lands me (again) in this paradoxical place of: "What am I doing to nurture my passion when my passion (creativity) is my WORK and it's GETTING ON MY NERVES!"

Well, the answer for me has been obvious! In my spare time, explore political and religious view points that are not my own.

Huh?

I told you, stragglers WILL be left behind... please try to keep up. Free coffee and tea will be served immediately following the tour!

 
 It's common knowledge that discussing either religion or politics in mixed company is NOT a good idea. BUT, flying in the face of this sage advice, I HAVE been discussing these things with my friends in order to begin to piece together a basic understanding of HOW people assemble their world-views, WHERE they get their information and ideas, and WHAT kind of effect this has on their lives and their OUTLOOK on life.

WHY? Because a PASSION of mine is to understand how we all TICK. And REGARDLESS of how we tick, WHAT are the things that make us individuals, DO we have a common core as humans? Or is it just an endless garden of variety?

Also, my passion is to be able to talk with people and UNDERSTAND where others are coming from so that I can learn how to relate with them. Hopefully this ensures that my eventual TRIBE is not just an endless rubber stamp of ME! I hope to have a healthy MIX of smooth and rough. People who agree and see things as I do and people who challenge me with other views. Because, really, where is growth without effort and a bit of discomfort?

I am certainly finding a LOT of value in this whole process.

I have a much greater appreciation and awareness of the variety of views that exist around me. Some views make a lot of sense to me, others, I am still asking questions about - and may never make sense to me... but SO WHAT! I value having encountered those views and I value the people who hold those views.

So! "What am I doing to nurture my passion?" 

I am actively and intentionally learning about, discussing and understanding the views of others.

Thank you! This concludes our tour. It has been a pleasure being your guide.

Enjoy your refreshments - feel free to mingle. Later on this evening there will be cocktails and dancing in the Acapulco Room. 

On behalf of the staff, we appreciate your staying with us. Join us next week as we explore... uh... something else... or maybe the same thing.

Who really knows WHAT'S next at - the Ever-Changing Journal???

Entry 7 - The Creatives Wake Up

Greetings from the Colorado Office of The Ever-Changing Web Journal!

Here in the Northern section of the state, we are pretty much OVER the heavy spring snow. Hooray for the moisture. Boo to being caught off guard with only sunblock SPF 100, light clothing and sandals when the freak snowstorms come creeping up. Now I know that everyone usually focuses on the New Year for looking forward, resolutions etc, but Matt, the rest of the staff and I are just NOW thinking about what needs to change and what needs to stay the same. Call it Spring Cleaning for the Slowly Enlightened Creatives. If you mention joining a health club, cleaning a closet or resolving to do ANYTHING on a "more regular basis" on January 1st, we may commit group suicide. Isn't clawing our way through the long, dark days ENOUGH for Gods Sake???

So. With that in mind, we are ready to focus on the next leg of the adventure. We keep asking each other:
"....and what exactly have YOU done today to nurture your passion??!"
.....sometimes one of us will snarl over our shoulder like a vampire retreating from the sun:
"...nothing...OKAY??!!!"
Oh...... Sorry (I guess she's having one of THOSE days...")
But once in a while we'll stop what we're doing and get that far away look in our eyes:
"oh yeah, thanks.....I'm gonna take a break and: sketch/walk/throw out ten tons of crap/finish that tee shirt design/see a movie/buy a new cd......"
There's a lot more to this story, but for now, we just want you to start thinking about what VERY fun thing you need to do. Don't think about lack of money, time, health, faith, access to a lear jet....NONE of that just yet.
We'll get back to ya.

Happy Not-Quite-Spring

Lisa & Matt & the Surly Creatives