Panoply 2010

When I was a young magician, I became TOTALLY fascinated by the concept of "Street Magic". It's a style of magic that has no stage, no lights, no trappings of theater yet it can be (if done correctly) some of the "best" theater you've ever experienced. My friend Jim recently shot me performing some green street magic at the PANOPLY ARTS FESTIVAL in Huntsville, Alabama. The audiences are always great at this festival (intelligent and fun) This audience however was particularly good. Check out the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVhK7xopbA of me performing one of my favorite "found object" magic tricks. Steve :)

Recycled Ink

I've been a fan of recycling for years. Recently (for the last two years or so) I've been buying my printer ink from Carrot Ink http://www.carrotink.com They re-manufacture and recycle ink cartridges AND they'll take your empty old ones back to be recycled. They'll even send you a postage paid box. Closing the loop baby that's what it's all about.

Dozing Into The Future

One of my many dreams is to create a green digital production studio to shoot, rehearse, edit, and perform all of my creative projects. On Monday last, we took the first step in this very cool and exciting direction. We (the Queen & I) hired a bulldozer and driver to level the dirt road that leads to our home (it gets very bumpy thanks to rain and mud) AND to clear a little patch of land to put our "green energy" studio in. We plan to "birm" the building into the earth (just like our home)... so we needed to start digging a hole to put the building in. The earth has excellent insulative abilities and we want to use this natural characteristic to reduce our energy consumption. Next step. Get more green to build green. :)

Charles Moore was a groundbreaking civil rights photographer in the 1950's and 1960's. He was also a stunning portrait photographer. Friends introduced us and in the summer of 2003 he came out to my home in "Frog Pond" Alabama and shot some photos of me in the woods. He was always so delighted to be shooting and I was a willing subject. During the shoot, he spotted a small frog. I reached down and picked it up. It stayed in my hand. It didn't jump off. It didn't even appear to be worried that a big huge magician standing in the middle of a creek was holding him thousands of feet in the air (by frog height measurements). He was ready for his... "Charles Moore Close-Up"... so Charles began shooting and shooting and shooting. That frog stayed on my hand until Charles was finished shooting (probably 5 or 6 minutes). It was a great day and Charles will be missed. Thank you Mr. Frog for a great day with a great photog.

I LOVE to compost! We compost almost all of our kitchen scraps (excluding meat and greasy stuff) in a claw foot bathtub behind our house. Composting is natures way of recycling, AND even more important... my wife can use the excellent "composted material" in our garden. Which is awesome! So I'm starting an experiment with this new 100% compostable Sun Chips bag. I've put it in our second composter (beside the garden) and I'll be checking its degredation over time. I've NOT had very good luck with "so called" biodegradeable plastics in the past. This is supposed to be different...I'll keep you posted. :)