Art

Favorite quotes from Olivier Assayas in Filmcomment magazine, March-April 2013, on the film THE DEVIL, PROBABLY (1977, Robert Bresson, A+30): “I had a difficult reaction to it, and it’s fairly obvious, because my situation was like yours. I had the utmost respect for Bresson, but this one, my God…I had no idea what it was about. It seemed wrong. Because it was 1977, and I was into punk rock, and the energy around me was so far away from anything this film depicted. It was all about stuff we were rejecting, which we did not want to deal with anymore, it was the old world. When I looked at the film again away from that context, five or 10 years later, I realized that it was the best depiction of what the Seventies were about. To anybody who was in France at that time it’s obvious, and it’s extraordinary that it was an old man who cracked it. When I saw the film again, it just struck me so cruelly that what I was rejecting was not the movie, it was myself, the person I had been at the time. Because the characters in the film, specifically the central character, are really the closest to whatever I was at that age that I’ve seen in a film. But at the time I did not want to see that! In the end, it must be one of my favorite films of all time.” Reading what Assayas said, I wonder which film best represents your personal youth in the 1980s. Is it included in the list below? 1.THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985, John Hughes) 2.BU SU (1987, Jun Ichikawa, A+30) 3.CLASS ENEMY (1983, Peter Stein, West Germany, A+30) 4.DEADLY FRIEND (1986, Wes Craven, A+15) 5.HEATHERS (1988, Michael Lehmann, A+) 6.PRETTY IN PINK (1986, Howard Deutch, A+15) 7.THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1987, Jean-Claude Brisseau, A+30) 8.TWO OF US (1988, Roger Tonge, UK, A+15) 9.TYPHOON CLUB (1985, Shinji Sômai, A+30) 10.VICTIMS (1987, Chana Kraprayoon, A+30)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl0_fiyI0mc As for my own personal youth in the 1980s, I think BU SU and THE SOUND AND THE FURY are the films that best represent it.

I don’t think I’m alone in holding onto those precious off cuts that are just too special to toss out. You can bet where I am going with this …So this year I decided that my stored lumber piles are completely off limits until I make a dent in the small stock that I have been storing for most of my woodworking career. It seemed logical to make boxes. I’m up to twenty boxes so far and things were going pretty well until I decided to dig into the really special stuff. I have some 12 year old Cuban mahogany burl that were in chunks leftover from my carving days. The average size was 10/4 by 4” by 4”. I’ve now spent four hours milling these blocks into manageable pieces. Then off to the resaw bandsaw to thickness most of them to 3/8” and about 25% of them to 3/4” thick. Next I took a sheet of 3/4” ply cut 24” by 24” and cut strips of carpet tape to hold my little piece of wood in place and made a layer of those to be run through my drum sander. I had enough wood to do this four times. Once all the wood had a fresh face, I put them in piles according to color and grain. My objective is to make a mahogany burl mosaic. This is my plan: I have pieces of cherry that had been resawn to 1/4” awhile back and they needed a job. Those pieces are 16” long and 6” to 8” wide. I’m going to use them as a backer board for my mahogany mosaic. First I have to edge join my pieces three at a time to give them some more width. Remember most pieces aren’t longer than 3” or 4”. Once I have my triads, I’ll laminate them to cherry of the same length. I plan to continue this process until all those pieces have a cherry backing. With that accomplished, I’ll clean up the edges and add those laminates to a larger piece of cherry to create a three layered laminate of the 3/4” thickness necessary for my box sides and lids. This might take a few days and I will photograph the process. Just giving you a heads up. I think this could be fun. Have any of you LJ’s tried this before?Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Had this idea for a Suiseki with a cloud and came up with this rock from ayard sale and a piece of Paduak and a piece of Walnut I shaped withfiles and a Shinto rasp. Sealed with a couple coats of Shellac and the project is finished. It was a fun project and I’ll build another one from another rock fromthe same yard sale.

Various postmark in used Mel Rakyat

Today is Brooks Robinson's 76th birthday, but everything else about this day made me feel like baseball is a cruel, pointless, stupid game. Yes, I was at Camden Yards for Jim Johnson and Darren O'Day's six-run ninth-inning meltdown; why do you ask?

The comments on last night’s post spurred me on into action! I set about looking for a royalty-free image on istockphoto that would make a good cover. As you see, I succeeded. I am pleased with the results, but I have two versions. I would appreciate feedback via the comments. A simple I like the first one, or the second one made me want to stab myself in the eyes with a pointy halibut, you know, that sort of thing. Also, I’m looking for beta readers. I’d like people (adult people) who are willing to read it and then force one of their children to do the same. Okay, maybe force was the wrong word to use. Strongly imply that Santa will never visit them again if they don’t read your middle-aged and bitter, social media friend’s book…yes, that is more the tone I was going for. (I will be ordering about a dozen proofs to send out, after I get it back from my uber cool editor Erin) Also, I would like the adults to agree to give an honest review and, if they felt it was warranted, include a comment from their progeny. Something along the lines, “Little Betty-Mae, said she enjoyed the book so much that she felt her love for mommy had grown because of the opportunity to give it a read and that only bad parents wouldn’t immediately order a copy for their children…only really bad parents.” Something subtle is what I’m looking for there. Not that I’m trying to write the review for you. Let me know.

We needed a clock in the large living room and we have all Mission-Style of Arts & Crafts furniture throughout the house. I made this little clock to match the “Rainbow coming out of the house” project I had done earlier. I truly think on the best tools in my shop are the Veritas Set-Up blocks. I use them for EVERYTHING. You can see where I rabbeted the “back” of the front for the glass, and then glued the deeply rabbeted “box” that holds the clock face and the little motor (which also holds the glass in. Those Set-Up blocks really made all this easy. White Oak with Waterlox Original semi-satin. Best………… Bruce

My wife took this photo of our house (it was still under construction) when she saw all the rainbows down in the valley. She didn’t even realize she had taken a pix of the rainbow coming in (or out of) the new house. (We only moved a couple of blocks. She just put all the photos in her screen-saver file, and every once in a while it would pop up and I would say to myself……….”that photo is deserving of attention”. So I had it carefully resized and then build the frame out of white oak finished with Waterlox Original semi gloss. (And no, the photo is not “fixed-up” or photo-shopped in any way). We really like it. Best…………. Bruce.