Wednesday, February 27, 2013

temple square


Since Salt Lake City was one of our overnight stops on our road trip, we decided to spend the next morning exploring Temple Square, the headquarters for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Neither Dane nor myself is Mormon, but we had heard a lot of buzz about the beauty of the square. And I must say, the grounds were very clean and meticulously landscaped. We also had an absolutely gorgeous blue-sky morning, which never hurts.


The square was a mix of sacred and secular elements existing side by side.


I find religious sites very interesting to visit. I really know very little about Mormonism, and it was fascinating to see their church and tabernacle and to read all of the little plaques scattered about that noted important events and people in their history. I also appreciate that so much passion is always poured into sacred sites by their believers--these types of places always seem to have such a reverent and earnest quality in the air. I felt the same when visiting Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame de Paris--the devoted love for the site was palpable.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

on the shores of Big Bear Lake


On the shores of Big Bear Lake, in the San Bernardino mountains...

There was a boy...


...and a girl.

They took a trip to the lake.

One morning, they set off on a hike to explore the north shore.

He met a new friend...

...while she dove right in.

And on the way back from the observatory...

...there was a heart-pounding question...

...and an tearful answer.



And that's the beginning of the next part of our story.


Monday, February 11, 2013

amoeba


Amoeba is a fairly well known music store in Los Angeles, and as a budding record collector it definitely warranted itself a visit.  My record collection is growing, but nowhere near rivals Dane's (in either quantity or quality. I'll admit it.). Amoeba is a massively huge warehouse-style store packed with records, cds, tapes, movies, and memorabilia.


I claimed the Bee Gee's "Odessa" in its velvet case as my own (and of course, Dane couldn't leave without a few records as well).

Amoeba is pretty cool place to spend a few hours browsing through records. I'd love to find a smaller record store, though, to frequent. Sometimes smaller places carry some true gems that are either considered worthless by larger stores like Amoeba. I also love the vibe of smaller record stores. If you have any local suggestions, send them my way!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

exactly where I need to be


I am feeling extremely inspired these days. I have been working a lot on a collection of movement pieces that I am planning to film, and I feel like I could write for days. What are "movement pieces" you may ask (cause everybody does ask me this)? To put it simply, they are stories I write that use movement instead of dialogue. Kind of a cross between untrained dance and a scene from a play. Most often, they are written to a song that inspires me through its lyrics or musical arrangement.

I started writing and performing movement pieces in college. The song in the above video, "Exactly" by Amy Steinberg, was the first one I performed. My wonderful, creative friend Kathleen created the idea for a directing project and let me run with it. The first one I wrote myself was to the song "Sweet Religion" by Imogen Heap. I loved that the pieces let me fully express a story in a more heightened, stylized manner, and I was hooked.


I am currently writing to "All That You Have Is Your Soul" by Tracey Chapman. I usually prefer to perform my pieces live, but I am thinking of doing little film shorts since producing theatre can be expensive by yourself. My ultimate goal, though, is to do a Night of Movement, performing an entire collection of my pieces.

Movement pieces aren't exactly a real thing--they fall somewhere between theatre, dance, and improvisation. But I kind of like that I have my own little art form. I liked that, in college, I was known for doing movement pieces. I don't know where they quite fit in with some of my other career goals yet. Since I am still inspired to create and perform them, I'll take it as a sign that I should still be writing these pieces without questioning their legitimacy too much.

**please note: these videos are not my own creations. You can find their original pages here and here.