The Accidental, State-Funded Installation

There is an intersection I go through nearly every day of my life here in Houston. It's as I pass under Highway 59, aka the Southwest Freeway. At night, as I'm coming home from the day job that is sometimes an evening job, I usually have to stop at this intersection. It's a very urban scene, all white concrete under the overpass, not anything particularly striking in and of itself. Any city dweller sees the like daily.

This intersection's stoplights are angled in such a way that both, the light facing on-coming traffic and the light facing the one-way traffic coming from my left, gets reflected on the concrete. Some of the light falls under the overpass, on those lines that look like gigantic corrugated cardboard. The play of the green, the yellow, the red against the deeper, black shadows always holds my interest. I find the colors on the concrete somewhat soothing, maybe a bit eerie, but peaceful. There's not much traffic some nights, and there's a feeling of--I hesitate to use the word--intimacy, just me waiting for my green and the changing hues on the concrete. It's like a light installation project just for me and it makes me smile.

I tell you, there is beauty everywhere.

happy new year!

2006 is now history and 2007 lays out before us like a new world to be conquered. While I'm not comfortable with the imperialist nature of that comment, I hope we can move forward with new energy and new vision and be a kinder, gentler conquerer of new years.

Or something like that.

This past year has been a great ride for me. Obviously, the big news here was that neoNuma published its first book, Able to... to more success than I might have hoped for. Of course, I hope it will continue to sell into 2007 and if you haven't gotten your copy yet, bn.com, amazon.com, and oh so many other places are easy to get to. That includes your local bookstore, which can order you a copy as well.

Throughout 2007, there will also be opportunities for you win a free copy. On the first of each month, I plan on posting a contest to different online bulletin boards announcing a drawing for a free copy. The first place I'm posting the contest is on the DC Comics message board for DC Novels and other Books. If you're interested in entering, go to dccomics.com and click on message boards and scroll down until the Novels board. I post there as neowrites. I'm starting on that board because I'm already registered there and I'm lazy, but also because I'd always hoped that I'd get more response or interest from the comics community. I'll also eventually post to boards that are more broadly defined. The only place I'll announce where I'll be posting is on this blog and maybe my newsletter (go to yahoogroups.com and sign up for my newsletter, neoNews, if you haven't already).

Also in 2007, allegedly in late spring, I'll be releasing a collection of short plays by Chicago playwright, screenwriter, actor, and arts entrepreneur Chrstopher Ellis. (No relation to me--he just happens to have a very cool last name. Or I have a very cool middle name.) As I work on that through the winter months, you'll see me talking more and more about The Fatal Gift of Beauty and Other Plays. If you have thespian leanings or know someone who does, you'll want to watch for this. It's a beautiful collection of plays, ranging in length from an extended monolgue (about 10 minutes?) to a long one-act (I'm guessing running time of 45-60 minutes). Christopher and screenwriting partner and director Phillip G. Donlon have had some success on the festival circuit with the short film, Wrestled, which recently premiered on the Independent Film Channel. They have other film projects in the works as well. I first came to know Christopher and his work while living in Chicago. With his wife, Dawn Marie Galtieri, they run The Arts Alliance in the Logan Square neighborhood and Christopher is familiar to audiences there as the host of Vaudeville Underground. I'm excited to be presenting his short plays, but that will become more clear as the year progresses.

Of course, there will be other things coming along in 2007, but there's time for all that later.

Thank you to everyone who helped make 2006 a landmark year for neoNuma Arts. I'll be back soon with more meanderings about neoNuma and artschtuff in general.

Happy 2007 to one and all!