I’ve only had a business card once or twice in my life and rarely used them. But I need one now. I’m going to be publishing my books myself (gulp) and beyond that, people often meet me and ask for a way to communicate with me. I don’t usually give out my phone number, although in modern America, we have all surrendered our privacy for convenience, something I hope we don’t regret but almost certainly will.
Rather than scramble for a cell phone or pen and pencil, I need a simple business card with my contact information, at least some of it. Some people want to have lunch or coffee, others want to send me something. It’s time for a business card.
I asked Sara Kelly, a local graphic artist to design a business card for me. I asked her to keep it simple, and she sent me these two designs today.
I like the one on the bottom with the sheep very much. It’s simple but has something of an animal/farm feel to it. I’m glad she choose the sheep, because I don’t want to only be known as a dog writer. The farm and the blog are wider than that.
So I’m leaning heavenly to the bottom one. If you have any thoughts, please feel to post a comment her on the blog or on FB. I am not crazy about advice, but I value feedback.
I was really anxious to see Isle Of Dogs, the new Wes Anderson movie (The Grand Budapest Hotel) released a couple of weeks ago. I’m curious about Wes Anderson, and I’m interested in dogs.
I haven’t seen all of Anderson’s movies, but it was hard to resist the premise of this genre-busting animal film about a brave and loyal boy’s great adventure in search of his lost dog.
This is a strange, gorgeous, detailed movie, unlike any I have seen. You don’t need to love dogs to enjoy this meticulously conceived, and at times quite beautiful and strikingly imaginative film. The details in the film are hypnotic.
If you don’t care about dogs and love films, it’s still very much worth seeing.
The premise of the movie is that dogs have been rounded up by an evil and corrupt mayor in Japan who accuses them of being diseased and dangerous to the community.
The mayor sends his adopted son Atari’s dog out to live on Trash Island, one of the first to go.
The scientists who want to save them are murdered, and the dogs are all rounded up and sent off to a giant canine concentration camp called Trash Island out in the ocean where they are left to starve, become sick, and sometimes even commit suicide, their lives are so wretched.
They miss their humans, and they eating real food rather than rotting garbage with worms.
The island is dispiriting and scrungy – the could have called the island Scrungeville – , and dog rescuers will drool at the sight of these many thousands of abandoned dogs. These dogs really are abused. This is a dog rescue movie on a whole new magically rendered level.
It also considers the degree to which humans and dogs are bound to one another, and what they owe each other.
Atari escapes the city to fly in a stolen plane to Trash Island, where he sets out – aided by loyal and compassionate and long-suffering dogs – to find Spot, his dog and bodyguard. Atari is determined to risk everything to find his dog. The other dogs understand.
I loved how the movie explored some dog and people ethics, and Craven really went wild with the stop animation, which gave the movie an alternately gorgeous, creepy and troubling feel. It’s a beautiful move in a different way than I am used to, and Craven’s dogs are moral ethicists, survivors, kind spirits and philosophers.
They are vastly more intelligent, empathetic and ethical than their human masters, most of whom are happy to be lied to and coerced into abandoning their dogs to an awful and lonely fate.
I had the feeling Anderson was making a timely political movie in some way, because the Japanese city is run by lying, crooked and arrogant leaders without empathy or compassion, even for dogs, who every politician loves.
There is a dark but never frightening crookedness to the movie. And an uprising meant to unseat the mayor. There are creative chases and confrontations but this movie is meant to dazzle, not to touch the soul.
I enjoyed and highly recommend but it was also so detailed and crafted a film that I felt detached from the characters, none of whom really got through to me on any emotional level. You won’t cry during this movie or tear up, although the plight of the abandoned dogs was wrenching at times.
The dogs are attractive and admirable, but the movie lacks the emotional punch the mostly sappy dog movies evoke.
The movie entertained me but never really got under my skin, or touched as deeply as the heart.
An hour later, I wasn’t feeling it or thinking about it. I’d recommend the movie most highly to film buffs interested in genres like stop animation, design and radical vision.
As a dog lover, I enjoyed it for that also, but It’s not really a dog movie to me, but something more, a story and movie beyond that, a show case for new forms of cinema.
I’m glad I went, it is an intensely interesting movie.
I won’t give the plot away other than to say that people who can’t bear seeing dogs die or be treated cruelly – I can testify that there are many – should feel safe going to see this movie. It is not a horror movie in any way.
From the reviews I read, this is Anderson’s weirdest film ever, almost entirely in good ways.
My idea about portraits is to only take portraits of people i admire or love. I think the photo reflects what is in the heart of the photographer. The cold wind came up this morning, and my Willa Cather girl came into the barn after shoveling some manure. Maria doesn’t pose, and I don’t ask her to, taking her photo is like taking a photo of the sheep or dogs. You have to get lucky because they won’t sit still for you.
I think I got lucky this morning. My new 85 mm Sigma lens does a nice job of blurring the foreground as well as the background, I like images of people that are not literal. They sometimes are more revealing than anything.
My new concrete Froggie The Gremlin has settled into my study comfortably, in a corner by the window and in my clear sight from the study. I watched Froggie when he was on the black-and-white show “Andy’s Gang,” Froggie taunted the pompous and vanished at will.
I found him at Jack’s Outback shop on Main Street, of all places, and didn’t recognize him at first. Then it all came flooding back. I am very happy to have him here, and I had a good round of haggling with Jack (who wasn’t sure who or what he was) and ended up buying him for $150. I consider it a steal, that is, if you want a big concrete wise-ass frog in your office.
Plunk your Magic Twanger, froggie. I should say that some of the kids who watched had prurient things to say about the “Magic Twanger,” but not me. Froggie was always a hero to me.
