Monday, February 23, 2009

Eden's Hour Opens Its Box 02/21/09

I kinda dropped the ball this week... February 21st is the birthday of one of my most favoritest persons in the world. Richard Beymer! Don't believe the misinformed websites that for some reason or another always list his birthday incorrectly.

This would have been the perfect weekend for us to air an interview, but we will come through on this ongoing conversation one of these days. (Note to Self: follow through on this once you have fewer projects on your plate). Richard and I have been talking for some time now about doing an interview because he is always up to something exciting, whether it's painting, building amazing sculptures or small zen-like pieces (like in the photo that I sneakily shot of him below), editing one of his movies, writing a book or taking amazing photographs (like his beautiful black and white Twin Peaks photos; pictured right), but rarely does he talk about it in public.

ricky boo boo at his desk

There was of course an exception a while back when a Twin Peaks blogger had asked me if I could get Richard to do an interview for him and it just so happened that I was visiting with Richard so I had the chance to sit down and ask him the questions for the Twin Peaks Archive blog. And Ricky Boo would not be satisfied with giving a straight interview ...oh no. Richard had given me a video camera a while back to encourage my mostly latent, but sure to be illustrious directing career so I had the camera with me to record the interview.

As soon as I started asking questions, he grabbed the camera from my hands and began puppeteering the answers out of the stuffed purple hippopotamus that lives on his dashboard. Recipe for the ridiculous. If you have not yet seen the interview in its entirety, do yourself a favor and take a look at it on Mischa's Twin Peaks Archive blog. Although most of the hippo's great answers were eventually transcribed, we couldn't bare to cut out this priceless answer to Mischa's question about working with David Lynch:


There are a couple reasons that I bring this up. The first is because when Richard and I were speaking Saturday morning I mentioned to him the Mashed In Plastic compilation which I wrote about in my previous blog and we launched into a long conversation about the creative process, something we are quite fond of discussing, and also about the question about ownership of property, particularly artwork. This is something that I, just like anyone else who does anything online, often has to think about as everything online is kinda up for grabs unless you go to great lengths to protect it. And while their is definitely a thriving scene of Creative Commons artists, something that the station that my show airs on is all about, not everyone feels that their artwork is to be messed with. For better or for worse.

One thing that both Richard and I agree on 100% is that collage and collaboration are wonderful things and they can open doors of possibility. And the key to any project or any aspect of life is to be open to the infinite possibilities that the universe can bring our way, just as Richard pointed out in the video above.

About two years ago Richard asked me to help him with some projects as he had many things going on, including the publication of his book and the inclusion of his Twin Peaks photos in the Twin Peaks: Definitive Gold Box Edition. When I saw the photos I was blown away. I had only watched Twin Peaks after he and I became friends, but I fell absolutely in love with the magic of the series and Richard's photos definitely brought a whole new level of appreciation for the characters that David Lynch had written into the show.

Around that time I began conversing with Grace Zabriskie (photo at left also by Richard Beymer), when I had discovered her amazing woodworking and suggested to her that she use some of Richard's photos in the collages that she puts on her hand made boxes. I was a little late. She had already done that! Check some of them out here. Of course, she has more that are not on her website. In fact she does custom orders and she did end up using one of the photos that Richard had just prepared for the DVD box set.

I was soon to discover that she was not only one hell of an actress, but she is one of the finest woodworkers and collage artists that I have ever had the great fortune to meet. Grace has given me the grand tour of her home and studio a few times now and each time I discover some magical pocket of well crafted detail, like the hidden stairwells in her hideout series, or the perfect little knobby piece of wood placed impeccably in one of her furniture pieces like a wooden bamboo cabinet handle that feels so good in your hand you may just want to walk out the door carrying her cabinet! You might also see a photo of David's face peaking over C Clamps on the set of Twin Peaks woven into a collage (pictured right) on one of her perfect wooden boxes. You can see the larger view of one of her C Clamps boxes on her website. [Note to Self 2: I would love to interview Grace one of these days. Grace?]

Weaving and doing collage is something that I love and has been a huge part of my creative outlet as well and like everything else in life, it's always been after meditation that I have any sense of clarity about the nature of creativity and when I get the best vision for any particular project that I am working on. Although the universe is a vast and wonderful thing that my peon brain can only begin to fathom at this stage in my evolution ...and I can sense myself going off into a whole other dissertation here about my decade long obsession with weaving, spiders, and creation mythology, but I will keep this brief for now.

What got me going on about this was a series of email exchanges I had with one of the creative writers for the Mashed In Plastic website in which we discussed many aspects of creativity and happy coincidences and how much their project, which wove David and his work together in such a strange new way, reminded me of a quote from the Aitareya Upanishads that David is very fond of reading, particularly when he introduced INLAND EMPIRE during his screening tour, as it helps shed light on the mysterious nature of the film. But it sheds light on so much more...

We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe.


I am incredibly grateful for all of the wonderful people that have been woven into my life. Some of whom, I can't imagine that I would really be living without. Richard Beymer is definitely one of them and I wish him many many many more birthdays to come. And I promise Richard ...one of these days I will weave together some good stuff with that video camera and that we'll do a proper interview for Eden's Hour Radio, because I know how much you love doing interviews ;-)

(Mosaic of detail pics that I shot of Richard Beymer's paintings, sculpture and random things lying around his yard. View more)

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that on this show I played a few artists who are performing at the upcoming David Lynch Foundation benefit concert including Moby, Ben Harper and Paul McCartney. I also featured some superb Seattle artists and a beautiful MIP mashup by The Reborn Identity. If the playlist below isn't complete with links yet, it will be soon :)

Click HERE for the complete 02/21/09 playlist

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