SAVING MR BANKS is the movie version of one short chapter in a biography of veddy proper Englishwoman P.L. Travers (born Helen Lynden Goff in Australia), author of the Mary Poppins series of books, as well as other children's stories, books on myth, poems, and soft-core erotica. Valerie Lawson wrote the bio, Mary Poppins, She Wrote, which was rich ( Read more... )

Remember the old Weird Al? That skinny, nutty, whiter-than-white guy with the mop of curly hair, silly mustache, thick glasses and dorky high voice? He's brilliant -- and I mean, high IQ and so inventive in his song parodies -- but I hadn't really thought of seeing him in concert ( Read more... )

2010 wasn't the worst year ever -- some fun travel, etc. -- but it was the year of a lot of hard work. At home, to get my as-yet-unsold house ready to sell, and at work because my employer practices major denial about how much work can be loaded onto a team they refuse to grow in any significant way. Here's how 2011 is shaping up for me. Appears to ( Read more... )

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I went to such a fun event Saturday night at the home of a wonderful family, the Scarbroughs. Caroline is in Writergrrls with me, plus she has a business mentoring and consulting for creative types. Charley works at Seton, but I met him years ago when I started in Toastmasters, which he remembered. Their two daughters are artists and poets, really ( Read more... )

First, the peppy and inventive music film:

Click to view

Isn't it cute? It's CGI by Animusic. You can find lots of their music machine animations on YouTube, all with robotic arms, tubes and gears playing various music pieces.

But somebody started a thread where this clip is emailed out and here's what the story (HOAX!) says:

AMAZING ( Read more... )

While at the HWC, I, along with the ballroomful of attendees on the first day of the conference, was blown away by the opening ceremonies. The Kanaka'ole family (grandmother, daughter, grandson) did an incredible opening chant and dance, then Kaumakaiwa, the grandson, sort of emcee'd the rest of the event. The whole family is composed of scholars, ( Read more... )

In LAX at the American Airlines gate yesterday, I saw a tall older guy with a mandolin case. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and looked familiar. When we got to Austin and I saw his buddy who'd obviously come to pick him up waiting with him at the baggage carrell, I realized who they were. I went up to the tall guy and ( Read more... )

The Hawaii Writers Conference started early Friday morning, with incredible Hawaiian artists and scholars chanting, singing and dancing. Whoa! Very powerful, and I found that Kaumakaiwa and his family are from the Big Island and their chants and hulas are based on Pele and volcano-creation and lava, so are unusually visceral and powerful ( Read more... )

It was enjoyable. I could totally see how the part of Galinda was written for Kristen Chenoweth. It had an intense perkiness, cuteness and self-absorption. I'd assumed the role of Ephalba was the main role, but it's really the two characters. And Galinda really has the bigger arc as she grows into the lifetime role of Glinda the Good. The actress ( Read more... )