Dear Friends,
Levon is in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey.

Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration… he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage…

We appreciate all the love and support and concern.

To celebrate him as he is still with us, I share a couple of things.

This February 2012 interview was held after he’d spent two hours of playing drums. I loved around the six-minute mark when Helm said: “I am not the poster boy for good health, but I am not doing too bad.” That man has always possessed a great smile, throughout all his adversity/triumph in recent years.

Watch Quick Hits: An Interview with Levon Helm on PBS. See more from Sound Tracks.

Also, from 2009 at the Ryman, Helm singing The Weight with John Hiatt (and Buddy Miller playing with them along with many, many others).

I love photography, I love any examination of it in the mainstream. Woodman was a photographer who happened to take her life at the age of 22. A tragic loss–and a career ended far too young, admittedly.

But I winced when I saw the headline “Is Francesca Woodman the Sylvia Plath of Photography?” I am trying to find another word, but the word that keeps popping in my head is “offended”. Just because you are talented and recognized for a talent in public (two elements which Plath and Woodman share) does not mean that the choice of suicide makes Woodman the Plath of her chosen art. The comparison is not only lazy, it insults both creative talents.

And yet, there is a familiarity to his Tweets. Consider this.

.@rupertmurdoch Great New Year’s party the other night. I think I left my LMFAO cd at your pad. Need that. Burn it & return it. #watsupdoch

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 3, 2012

Then oddly Dave tweets this

Great New Year’s party the other night.I think I left my LMFAO cd at your pad.Need that.Burn it & return it.

— Late Show (@Late_Show) January 3, 2012

I hope he keeps “jokingly” ripping off his fellow hosts.

]]> http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2011/12/05/typo-of-the-day-nyts-media-decoder/feed/ 0 http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2011/11/21/welcome-back-jim-romenesko/ http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2011/11/21/welcome-back-jim-romenesko/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:40:48 +0000 admin http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/?p=4484 Given how much of a news junkie I am, it should come as no surprise that I’ve been a longtime reader of media observer Jim Romenesko. So I am glad to see that he now has his own website, where he details how his former website host/employer treated him quite badly in his waning weeks.

• Nick Cave on piano, playing his song Into My Arms
• The guy on the left at the beginning? John Cale
• The quality of Cave’s piano on this song

I have better things to do with my time than filter spam, of course.

So while I appreciate those of you that have commented over the years, the era of comments are over. Unless of course you want to comment on my Tumblr page, or if you are pals with me on Facebook.

Action Philosophers

Action Philosophers, the comic book series by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, has been adapted for the theater by award-winning playwright Crystal Skillman (who happens to also be Van Lente’s spouse). The play has been acclaimed for capturing the flavor of the comics series’ comedic exploration of several world philosophers. Action Philosophers is currently in a limited run through October 16 (Thursday & Friday at 8 pm, Saturday & Sunday at 7 pm) at the Brick Theater (in cooperation with Impetuous Theater Group). Dunlavey recently took the time to share his thoughts with me via email on the comic series’ successful transition to the theater.

When you and Fred first developed Action Philosophers, did you ever envision it being adapted for theater?

Never. I arrogantly believed that it was completely unadaptable to other mediums and it would exclusively live and die on the comic book page, but Crystal Skillman, director John Hurley and the actors have done a fantastic job of proving me wrong!

Interestingly enough (maybe only to me) Action Philosophers originally came about when I asked Crystal to collaborate on a comic with me, but then Fred got to me first!

What was it like the first time you saw characters you draw and scenes you created be performed in the theater?

Easily the most surreal experience of my life, but also really exciting! Plato was the most shocking being much more of a caricature of the real-life Plato than the other philosophers that are featured in the play. He’s become our trademark character for the series so seeing him come to life was really, really cool. It’s both a big honor and very humbling to see goofy things that I may have just doodled in a few minutes thoughtfully brought to three-dimensional life by talented people.

Is it awkward or does it make you proud to see the stories in theater form?

Both! I sat through the first performance with my arms folded but with a big grin on my face the whole time. And the audience liked it! As an artist I very rarely get direct feedback like that, and it was a thrill.

How much did Crystal Skillman consult you while she was adapting the story?

Crystal solicited my input from the very beginning but I told her I preferred to not be involved and wanted to let her and John and the actors do their own thing. After the first run-through I offered a few informal suggestions on the staging and backdrops (which John was already planning to do as it turns out), but that was it.

In terms of the characters, who do you think have flourished the most in a theater setting?

Ayn Rand had such a dramatic personal story and I think comes across better in performance than it did in the comic – She’s a real-live super villain that you actually feel sorry for. Bodhidharma and Plato have done great too, thanks in no small part to the hyper-charged performances of Neimah Djourabchi and C.L. Weatherstone, respectively. They both sell those characters better than anyone. My son LOVED Joe Mathers as Karl Marx – mostly because of the fighting, and Joe’s experience as a fight choreographer really made it work. The all-philosopher brawl at the end and the surprise guest philosopher (I won’t spoil it for you) was amazing – it wasn’t something we did in the comic and it was far and away my favorite part of the play.

Now that you have seen the play adaptation, are there narrative elements you want to borrow and utilize in your next comic?

Nope, they’re totally different mediums and have a very different set of storytelling challenges. As director John Hurley astutely pointed out, in comics events are contained in their panels but theatre is fluid – actors and scenery have to move in and out of the stage. I’ve been drawing comics for so long that I have a hard time picturing any of my ideas occurring outside of panel borders. Plus, I’m a terrible actor. Comics 4 Life!

In general, why do you think your and Fred Van Lente work together so effectively as a creative team?

We’re both insufferable wise-asses. We were friends long before we ever did a comic together – the comfort level we both had with each other and our own confidence in our own abilities definitely helped. We rarely second-guess ourselves or each other and it’s very difficult for either of us to bullshit the other.

What’s on the creative horizon for you?

I just wrapped up the art on the final issue of Comic Book Comics – the 100% true story of the American comic book industry. The last issue talks about the rise of graphic novels, Japanese comics (focusing on Tezuka), the ups-and-downs of the direct market and digital comics. In stores any day now and yes, there will be a collected edition not long after that. I’m neck-deep into the art production of The Dirt Candy Cookbook, another non-fiction comic project I’m doing with chef Amanda Cohen, owner/head chef of Dirt Candy, an award-winning gourmet vegetable restaurant in New York’s Lower East Side. It’s part memoir, part cook book, part food theory – Amanda’s been in the trenches since the start of the whole foodie fad and has some amazing behind-the-scene stories of the cutthroat NYC restaurant culture, and we’re telling it all with comics! It’s fun stuff. We also use comics in the recipes to explain and demonstrate cooking techniques. It’s 200 pages! That comes out next summer from Clarkson/Potter – I’m really excited about it! Lastly I’m writing and drawing a fiction comic for a new publisher that I’m very excited about – anyone who liked the MODOK one-shot I did for Marvel will dig this too. Sorry I can’t tell more, it’s being announced at New York Comic Con. And there’s sure to be more stuff from me and Fred very soon, count on it!