We just got through with our local film festival, and I got to spend the weekend with the maker of my most favorite documentary ever, The Dancing Outlaw. Jacob Young was everything I hoped he would be: funny, smart and fearless...and it only took me a decade to meet him.

We screened his documentary about West Virginia tap dancer (and former inhalant ( Read more... )

I cooked crickets for a "Look Live" for our local ABC affiliate this morning. It's part of an event I'm promoting. For those of you who don't know, a look live involves pretending that the people in the studio are talking to you as though it were a remote broadcast when, in fact, it was taped days earlier. A lot of people don't pull these off well ( Read more... )

A reporter is working on a big print story for our upcoming "Eat a BUG!" Family Arts Day event. We'd done a long interview about how this relates to art (once you've tested your bravery eating a fried cricket, how can a blank canvas be intimidating?), but he didn't believe me that kids love eating these bugs, no matter how scared they are ( Read more... )

...you better make DARNED sure you send the item you promised to the buyer! You could get your life ruined like this guy.

Awhile back a man name Thomas Sawyer bought a laptop from Amir Massoud Tofangsazan. Apparently, the laptop Sawyer received did not work. When Tofangsazan didn't refund Sawyer's money,  Sawyer simply recovered all of Tofangsazan' ( Read more... )

Okay, this is scathing. I'm not sure it's totally on the money, but this animated mock-doc about what would happen if George Lucas had gotten his hands on "Lord of the Rings" instead of Peter Jackson is at least worth a laugh.

OTOH, the idea that Lucas would've made Frodo an impossibly cute 9-year-old is pretty much right on the money.

Or at least the soundtrack to Lethal Weapon


( Read more... )

Australia is one of the few places in the English-speaking world to officially sanction the use of the singular form of "they" in publishing and academic contexts. This, I think, is because the Australians are smart, practical people whose time is better spent worrying about being attacked by sharks than whether their pronoun usage conforms to the ( Read more... )

In a world of people who take themselves WAY too freaking seriously, Iggy Pop's contract rider is a breath of fresh air.

...you're going to have a problem.

I hate to have been so negative in my last few entries here, but I'm going to do it again. Rarely does helen come across something that manages to be not only boneheaded, but also destructive and possibly dangerous.

Britain's former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, (never trust anyone who's name is the title of a ( Read more... )

Believe it or not, it's that time of year where I start going on television and deep frying crickets. The museum is having its quarterly Free Family Arts Day on the 28th, and every October, the main theme of this event is:

Eat a BUG!

So, that explains all the bug crunching. I'm not a freak or anything (okay...maybe a little).

Despite my earlier ( Read more... )