My love of Beantown: Subway performers

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Another reason I love Boston? The subway performers. Boston is lucky to have an abundance of street performers both indoors and out, and as an avid work commuter, there is something about the echo of an accordion/guitar/sax in the subway tunnel that soothes the tired mind.

My other favorite time for street musicians—when I've been out of town traveling, and arrive back home. Getting on the train from the airport and landing at South Station to the riffs of an electric guitar is a great way to be welcomed back to the city. 

That being said, my favorite spots for a real life soundtrack are South Station and Park Street. Even there on a busy Saturday evening, I've seen everything from a solo performer to a boy band performing pop music covers to an attentive crowd. There's something magical about experiencing music in public, and observing how others react as well. It brings people together, and I'm glad we are able to enjoy this luxury.

Photo: kaybee07

I'm tired ... (a stream writing exercise)

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Today is the first day since the Blogathon started that I'm really tired. It's been a long week at work, and writing a post seems almost too laborious at this point. But instead of lying here on my bed staring at my computer with sheer exhaustion lingering in my eyes at 11pm on a Friday, I'm writing about it.

This is what the Blogathon taught me last year—no matter how tired you are, or if you think you have nothing to write about—that blog post needs to be published! No thinking, just writing. Even if you write about how tired you are, well that's something. And look, I just wrote one hundred words. They may not be the best one hundred words I've ever written, but I wrote them, and now my post is done. Exercise complete.

Photo: Juliane Riedl

Noteworthy links for May 12th

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This week's links bring offerings of creativity, food, and web tips:

1. Erica Napoletano: Perfection Never Gets Invited to Pool Parties —This sassy spitfire of a redhead knows how to tell it - her "Bitch Slap" posts really get me back into gear. I'm always wrestling with letting go of perfection, and this post is a good helper, and it offers advice from Ze Frank—what more do you want?

2. Metis Communications: "Do you want to get hired?—A simple and straightforward list of tips on how to succeed at job interviews (and get hired in the process).

3. Orbit Media Studios: Web Content Checklist—A great easy-to-follow checklist for publishing better content.

4. Whole Foods: Cocoa-Almond Baked Breakfast Quinoa—My stomach growls just reading the recipe title. I hope to get together the ingredients this weekend and try these out.

5. Visual News: What to do on your lunch break? Have a party!—Since reading this article I have posted it on Twitter numerous times, and now on my blog. It's such a great idea! What better way to spend lunch than partying, and then heading back to work all inspired. I really want to do this in Boston. Really.

I hope you enjoy the links for this week!

Photo: Michael Adams-Wade

LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! | ANALYSIS AND REVIEW

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There's a very good, lengthy analysis and review from Alec Berry and Shawn Starr of my most recent comic book LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! as well as my other comic book work over at the blog alec reads comics, originally posted to Spandexless.com. Check out the full post here. They get into some interesting discussions about Spiegelman Intellectualism in comics as a result from Kurtzman and EC.

Here's a little of what Alec writes at the beginning of the piece:

I would place myself in that camp of the faithful. Like most of the industry, I too was unaware of Marra’s comics up until this year, but now after having spent time with them, I find his attitude and passion for creating engrossing, and I feel his comics represent a long forgotten aspect of the medium. Representing, of course, for the betterment of comics.Marra’s books, while lewd, grotesque and absurd, are keeping this funny book thing on the ground, balancing out the high reaching works of Craig Thompson, or whatever other clone there may be, celebrating some of the roots associated with comics while simply presenting an artist who doesn’t really give a fuck what you think. Marra’s making the shit he wants to see, and from this I feel it’s appropriate we discuss Marra’s work after our previous discussion which pertained to Rob Liefeld. Because Marra, like Liefeld, celebrates the trash entertainment value found in comics, but does so with an energy and charm that cannot be overridden. Yet, as an added bonus, Marra’s comics juxtapose the trash subject matter by presenting astounding craft and draftsmanship, making his books into these bombastic scraps slammed together with staples.

REVIEW | MANDORLA BLOG

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Santiago Garcia over at his blog Mandorla gives a good survey review of my books from a European perspective of the current American underground comic book movement. Check it out here.

Here's a particularly choice passage (using Google Translator from Spanish) comparing my work to Gilbert Hernandez, whom I consider a hero and who I'm going to try to emulate as far as book production goes (I want to put out a graphic novel a year the same way Béto does it) and Frank Miller and Fletcher Hanks:

But of course, if Marra was interesting conceptual grounds alone, it would not be as great as is. His comics are full of originality and ideas, and are devilishly entertaining read. As entertaining to read as it should be any comic, but especially commercial comics. Its formula of exploitation with breeching is what Gilbert Hernandez brings more than a decade vacuuming without even remotely close to the success that gets Marra in this handful of comics. Reading Night Business one can even reecontrarse with Frank Miller as an icon of the eighties, as a child of the age of the heaters, and realize that while we wanted to ignore it for thirty years, the soundtrack of Daredevil and Elektra was a muscular sax touched by a bodybuilder blurred by smoke in the distance. Yes, exactly what Lost Boys. And the feat of being so vicious and yet maintain a comic naivete of Fletcher Hanks, is that how it is achieved? With a singular talent only.

CD and DVD Release show in Purvcelleville, VA!

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We are happy to announce that we will be having a screening of the documentary at The Franklin Park Barns in Purcelleville, VA on Saturday April 7th at 7 PM.

The film will be followed by a live Appalachian-Himalayan Concert with Danny Knicely, Tara Linhardt, Raj Kapoor, Manoj Mahat, and performing for the first time with The Mountain Music Project gang- bansuri master Rajan Budhathoki, who is coming down from Boston for this momentous concert!

Tickets will be only $15 and can be reserved by calling The Franklin Park Performing Arts Center at (540) 338-7973. The website for the venue is www.FranklinPArkArtsCenter.org.

Our fresh, hot off the shelves CDs and DVDs will be available for purchase for the first time there too!

FIRST 3 LINO'S FROM CHIANG MAI TRIP

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These are the first 3 lino's I've cut and printed based on the sketches from my trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand as part of the group Volunteer Positive. (And one linocut from my friend Phra Kritsada Prueprong) The first 2.5 weeks was spent in service which afforded me very little time to actually draw on my own, most of the prints from the full series were sketched out on my last week in Chiang Mai. The only 1 of these 3 lino's that was sketched during my actual service is the Elephant sketches print. We spent an afternoon at the BAAN CHANG ELEPHANT PARK in Chiang Mai where after a educational introduction to the Asian Elephants in residence we had lunch and a few minutes to digest our food before the 2-hour trek we were about tro partake in. Having not had much opportunity to do any prior sketch work, I had the foresight to bring along a few pieces of pre-cut lino and stole away for 20 minutes after lunch and did these sketches. Let it be known, elephants do not stand still, ever. It was a challenge to get a complete sketch, which explains why there are so many partial elephants in this print.

The print of the Monk is in fact a dear friend I made while in Chiang Mai. He is a 20 year old Monk named Phra Kritsada Prueprong originally from a village outside of Chiang Mai in Loei province. We were paired up as part of something called "Monk Chat" which is an event that creates the opportunity for local monks to practice their conversational skills with English speaking foreigners. On this particular morning, Kritsada and I took a tour of a few of the local temples and I decided that since he would share with me, I would share with him by having us both work on a lino sketch. I offered to take his drawing back to NYC with me where i would cut it out and print it for him. I had no idea that he could actually draw and was quite talented. It turned out to be an incredible opportunity for the both of us.

The print of the banners was from Wat Phrasingh in Chiang Mai. I'm not sure of the exact purpose of the banners, but if you look carefully, you will see representation of 3 Birth Year Animals. As there were many more banners there, I assume that's what they were there to represent.
SKETCH OF ELEPHANTS ON LINO


PARTIALLY CARVED LINO


INKED LINO



FINAL PRINT



PORTRAIT OF "DAVID" - BY KRITSADA PRUEPRONG


PORTRAIT OF KRITSADA - BY DAVID BERUBE


WAT PHRASINGH - CUT LINO



WAT PHRASINGH - FINAL PRINT