Occasional Blogger

I am a terrible blogger. I am terrible with Twitter as well.

It seems there are rules with these things and you are supposed to be consistent and blog or tweet often, but I just can't do that.

I don't have time and I can never remember to do it.

I have lots and lots of thoughts, but, "I should blog about this thought", is not usually one of them.

Also, I don't think the world needs to see my every thought. 140 characters is also not a lot, and it's difficult for me to get everything in such a tight limit. I have a real problem with using incorrect spelling or grammar. I hate shortening words, so tweeting is just not for me.

I use it for promotion purposes only now.

As for this blog, I actually would really like to write often.

Unfortunately, at this time, I just don't have the time for casual writing. Typing on my laptop is generally reserved for emails to artists, media, press, organizations, etc to get the word out about RAW. When I find some down time, I will attempt to be more consistent with this blog. At least once a month would be nice, although I would prefer once a week.

We'll see

Sorry, but I have been busy...

Okay, so it has been quite a long time since my last post, but I have a good excuse. Really.

I have been very hard at work at not one, but three different jobs!

My day job at Macy's is great. I have been rocking the Women's Shoes size world and have been promoted offered a promotion to the Inventory Management team! Very exciting. I will be managing a whole team of bright, shiny Assistant and Associate Inventory Planners. This is nerve-wracking and terrifying, because I don't want to scare them away from Macy's, but I think I'll be a good manager.

My wedding and event planning business is another of my projects. NEW DAWN Wedding and Event Productions is in full swing, in my mind at least. I have been planning New York's first ever bridal shopping party.
The event is called Everything But the Dress. Pretty clever, huh?
It has been quite the undertaking and my first attempt did not work out. So I postponed the event from November until April and it was the best decision I could have made. The response has been really great. I have a lot of interest and a lot more time to plan and get everything together. I have along ways to go and still need sponsors and a liquor vendor, but I'm trying to be optimistic.
A friend created the awesome logo and graphics on the event website and I now have some marketing help so I think the event has the makings of being a success.
Check out the website if you get a chance, www.EBDbynewdawn.com

Finally, I was hired as the New York Event Director for RAW:natural born artists.
It's an amazing independent arts organization that expanding across the country to 22 cities in February.
I had an awesome trip to Southern California in September for a training. I also got to see one of their showcases in action, and it was incredible. A glass blower, fire dancers, fantastic artists, a film, a band all set at a beautiful outdoor in a chic boutique hotel.
I have to say, I'm terrified. What if I suck and screw this up! I have been working really hard to make sure I don't.
I've put together a good staff and found a great host.
We have been having problems securing a venue, but I think I found a great one tonight. I just hope the pricing isn't outrageous. The arts isn't a money making machine.

So that has been my very busy life recently. Moving on towards the holiday season and the New Year should only make my free time dwindle even further.
But I'm loving every minute of it.

Review: The Last Airbender

My first problem came about when this movie was announced and couldn't be called Avatar: The Last Airbender because of that movie with the blue aliens.

Next came the issues with casting. The cartoon has characters of mostly Asian races, this is after all an Anime type cartoon. Two of the main characters are an Eskimo type group of people with dark skin. The three main characters cast were all of Caucasian ethnicity. Now, the little boy who was cast as Aang did look a lot like the character in the cartoon, so I was kind of okay with that. But Saka and Kitara were nothing at all like the original characters and that could have been forgiven if their acting was any good, but it really really wasn't.
Then the Fire Nation somehow became Indian when they were obviously Japanese in the cartoon, but at least it was consistent throughout the cast of Fire Nation people. In the other nations there were a weird mix of people that just didn't seem to go. Anyway, the point is the casting was terrible for the most part.

The main thing that annoyed me watching the movie was the way the characters names were completely mispronounced. As a fan of the show I just didn't understand why the director would do something like that. Anyone going to see this movie who was a fan of the show would be confused and annoyed by this blatant neglect of the integrity if the show.

The movie ran at a weird pace, it dragged a lot and then all of sudden it rushed through a montage of weeks passing to get to the next point. It didn't flow well at all, like they wanted to get in a lot of stuff but weren't sure what was really important.
The bending effects were pretty cool for the most part, though they did have the characters doing prolonged movements before the effect. No one is going to stand around in a battle while someone does a minute of Tai Chi movements for each bending tactic.

Overall, I was quite disappointed. There was a lot of potential for this film and tons of material to work with. However the dialogue was terrible and the directing was worse. I would complain about being forced to watch it in 3D, as there was no other option at the theater I went to, but I can save that angry for a whole separate posting. Instead I will just recommend you don't waste your time on this movie and wait for it to be $5.99 on the clearance DVD rack.


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Book Review: Under the Dome pt 2

Given the enormity of this book I decided to write my review in two parts.
I was surprised how quickly I got through this book. It took me two weeks to read the book, mostly because I didn't want to put it down. I got extremely caught up in the story and the characters. Everytime I had to stop reading I felt anxious about what would happen next to the characters I cared about.
King has a way of making you feel connected to his characters. Which is no great feat. Especially since he tends to trickle their past into the story instead of giving you a lot of background at the beginning like other writers tend to do. Maybe that's why his characters tend to feel like such real people, you get to know along the way just like you do with your real friends.
The story takes place in a small town, Chester's Mill, which gets trapped under an invisible force field. The town goes from a quaint little place to insanity extremely quickly. It's interesting to think about what "good" people would do under such extreme circumstances. In this case, it's not all pretty.
I won't give anything away since almost everything is important to the telling of the story, but I will say that this book tugged at the entire spectrum of my emotions. I loathed so many of the power hungry characters, I loved the brave ones and felt pain whenever any of them got hurt. I rooted for the poor little boy left alone and hoped for the right ending for everyone. I say "right", because I didn't want a happy ending for everyone.

I've read almost every book Stephen King has written and I usually love all of them. There have been a couple that were tough to get through, but were really good stories nonetheless.
This book looked like it would be a difficult read. It's such a large book that it's daunting. I'm glad I tackled it. This turned out to be a very easy read because it was so engaging.
I think it may be one of my new favorite books. I definitely recommend King fans read this book and, as usual, enjoy his talent for writing an amazing story. I also recommend non-King fans to read this book and realize that he's not just a horror writer.

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Book Review: Under the Dome pt 1

I just passed the halfway mark in Stephen King's latest novel. Or should I say, tome, since this book is almost 1100 pages long.
I was expecting this to be my one book of the summer, but I'm actually getting through it really fast. I've only been reading it for a week for about an hour or two before bed. It's really freakin good. I don't want to put it down.
King has an amazing ability to create an "unlikely" situation, and then let us read about how his characters deal with it. His exploration into the psychological make for some pretty scary stuff, mostly because we end up thinking about how we would react in that situation and are afraid of what would happen then.
The story takes place in his usual haunt, a small town in Maine, that one morning ends up under some kind of dome or force field. It's completely impenetrable by anything the government throws at it. Of course there's no explanation of where it's from, at least not at this point in the book.
I'm completely engrossed in the characters and this town. It's amazing how fast things start to go downhill, although not without some help from a very unlikeable character in the town.
I'm sure I'll be done in less than a week with the second half of the book. I'm kind of afraid of what will happen, but I have faith in the good people of Chester's Mill to do the right thing.
I'll just have to wait and see.


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Whedon in the Marvel Universe

Joss Whedon has signed on to direct The Avengers movie.
When I heard that news I was super excited. Whedon is my favorite director ever. I love every project he touches even if it doesn't last long. Everyone who knows me knows what a Buffy freak I am.
Whedon has a very distinct style and he can tell a story very well. So of course I thought, "it's about damn time Marvel signed him on to a major project". I'm sure they had no idea what they were getting into with Whedon. He is now rewriting the script for the Avengers, and I've heard he's rewriting the Captain America script to tie the two movies together better. I can't wait for the end results. It will be quite a while before we get to see these projects on the big screen.
In the meantime, you can get your fix of Whedon soon on the small screen. He directed an episode of Glee with none other than our new favorite singer/dancer Neil Patrick Harris. The episode will air in May.


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Gen Art Film Festival: Night Seven

Closing night of the film festival gave us two more exceptionally well made films.
The short film was The Hirosaki Players directed by Jeff Sousa. A foreign language film about opening night of a Japanese play starring an aging actor being directed by his son who also wrote the play. The struggle of the son to get control over his father is very relatable. The father's arrogance and knowledge of his son's reliance on him shows his desperation to maintain his dominance over his son. As the play finally gets underway, the drama backstage doesn't end.
It was a very good film. I enjoyed watching it and would love to see more from this young director.

The final feature film of the festival was Mercy directed by Patrick Hoelck. Starring Scott Caan, who I've never seen in a lead role before, as Johnny a romance novelist who doesn't believe in love. Caan also wrote and produced the film.
Johnny meets a girl, Mercy played by a stunning Wendy Glenn, at his book party who turns down his usual charms. He later gets a bad review of his book and finds out it was written by Mercy.
The love story bounces around from their meeting to later in their relationship. Written by Scott Caan, the story is very well done and keeps you interested in the characters. The supporting roles, Johnny's two best friends, are extremely well written and add a lot of humor to the otherwise serious film. A nice addition to the film is the always wonderful to watch James Caan, who fittingly plays Johnny's father. His character has surprising depth.
This wasn't my favorite film of the festival, but it was very well done.


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