New Year's Eve Sailing

Dramatic Desert Locations

I just returned from script supervising a commercial involving lots of cars and lots of stunts.  We shot some drifting scenes at San Bernardino Intl Airport, but the bulk of our shoot was in and near the Mojave Desert.  Dumont Dunes and Silurian Dry Lakebed are two beautiful desert locations, that add so much drama. 

Layers and layers of mountains in magentas, purples, and blues stack behind golden sand dunes.  All I have are iPhone photos, which can't even begin to do it justice, but they are both great locations, though it is a logistical challenge to do a big shoot out there.  No cell service at the dunes, unless you are high on a hill.

While they may be remote, they are also a great place to blow things up!

Last Lunch: Pizzeria Regina

Neptune Oyster

Maria's Pastry Shop

The best cannolis ever. Better than Mike's.

Boston Public Library

A monument to the commitment our forefathers made to public education and the pursuit of knowledge.

Bridge

Went to James Hook and Co for lobster rolls and then crossed this bridge to go to the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Downtown Boston

On the way to Sam Adams Brewery

Dinner at Wai Wai

Old Ironsides

Freedom Trail

Dinner in the North End

Fenway Park: Last Game of the Season

Boston City Hall

View from our Boston hotel

Cactus Garden on Abbott Kinney

glow 2010

This was the second time Santa Monica has hosted "glow," an all night art festival featuring large scale modern art installations sprinkled along the beach and in the parks around the Santa Monica Pier. The first festival was in 2008 and was modeled after Nuit Blanche, which started in Europe in the late 1990's. In 2008, we ventured into the world of glow, not knowing what to expect. While numerous exhibits were underwhelming, a couple were visually and conceptually awesome.  My favorite '08 installation by far was Shih Chieh Huang's  deep sea creatures made from trash installation under the pier (http://www.messymix.com/showvideo/exse08.php).

This year, we hoped to see something equally mind-blowing, but were severely disappointed.  While certain pieces were well executed, nothing was as spectacular as the sea creatures, and many things were not only conceptually boring, but they were so poorly executed that it led one to believe tonight was the first time the artist even actually tested their idea.  Projections weren't strong enough, many installations depended on "feedback" from crowd movement, but didn't really bring anything interesting or unique, and some pieces still weren't functioning or even present at 10:30pm (three and a half hours after the beginning of glow).  Among the better pieces were Hadrian Predock & John Frane's Luminous Passage, a "land bridge" leading the from solid ground to the edge of the ocean; Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Sandbox, an interactive piece that actually worked; 18th St Art Center & LA Commons' Howling at the Sun, an enactment of a Native American myth about the battle between the Sun and Coyote; and Steve Roden's coast lines; two projections of vibrantly colored hand drawn Pacific coastlines, one heading north and one heading south.

DNA Sequencer by Syyn Labs
Would have been cool if it responded to touch and light as promised.
Instead, just a basically a light show to music.

Overall, the whole thing began to take on the feeling of a giant spread out rave.  Drunken teens roaming aimlessly with glow sticks in their hair.  The feeling of rogue creativity of 2008 wasn't even really present and no exhibit really stood up to the night.  It felt like there just wasn't enough light.  I hate to say this, but glow 2010 did not learn from glow 2008.  Despite my ardent hopes to the contrary, glow 2010 was an artistic and cultural failure.