Tranquility and the Revolution at the Wildwood Film Festival!

see a

Tranquility and the Revolution film
at
Wildwood Film Festival

Saturday, March 11, 2017
Performing Arts Center, Appleton


Here is one of the films that will NOT be showing:

Tranquility and the Revolution The Beast from Ekphrasis on Vimeo.

Ekphrasis Film Fest 2016!

join director

Len Borruso

Friday, December 30th, 7pm

The 602 Club, Appleton

starring

John Fleckner (Society of American Archivists) as Moondog

and Joanna Dane (A Wisdom of Wombats) as Tranquility

***

from the director:

The Ekphrasis coterie invites you to our Film Fest. Please join us as we take a look back on the short films we made in 2016, including from the Tranquility Series: “Zeno Effect”, “S P R I N G”, “discovery”, “The Beast” and “Moondog”. We will also screen “Homage à un Rêve”, our tribute to Surrealism. The coterie wishes to thank our collaborators of whom we begged, borrowed and asked permission of after the fact, especially Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana, Matt Turner, Elyse-Krista Mische, Loren Dempster, John Fleckner, Therese Joanis, Luke Jacobs, Andrew Dane, Dane Richeson and Rory Olson. 

Note: Total running time of the Film Fest will be approximately 30 minutes. Movies will be screened on the big screen at The 602 Club on December 30th, 2016 at 7:00 pm. 

Seasons Greetings! 
The Ekphrasis Coterie

Tranquility and the Revolution: Moondog

The long anticipated Moondog: A whimsical short film by Len Borruso

With many special thanks to:

Tad Neuhaus for always playing and selecting the perfect accompaniment,

Elyse-Krista Mische who made Moondog's costume on very short notice,

John Fleckner who agreed to play Moondog with even shorter notice,

Len Borruso who agreed to film, direct, and edit the whole thing on the shortest notice of all,

Therese Joanis of Top Spins and Luke Jacobs of Jacobs Meat Market for their willingness to play along,

Dane Richeson for letting us play his beautiful instruments,

and

Andrew Dane and Rory Olson for always being game.






Moondog from Ekphrasis where you can view all the Tranquility and the Revolution short films and discover where the cassette tape binders came from.

My First Garden, Episode 9: "And Yet It Struggles On"

Finally! Spring Comes to Wisconsin!

another whimsical short film by Len Borruso, Joanna Dane, and Tad Neuhaus 

with special musical guest I Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana

click here to view on youtube

Tranquility and the Revolution: Zeno Effect

What we thought was a podcast, turned out to be a silent film.

photo by Len Borruso

film by Len Borruso
music by Tad Neuhaus and Joanna Dane

Day Dreamer Excursion: Which Way Does Your Wind Blow?

I am still interested in The Pillow Book, the writings of an 11th century Japanese courtesan, 

Sei Shonagon who kept musings, lists, observations, opinions on papers she hid in the pillow box 

of her bed.

Word got out, and at one point, a lover stole her manuscript and passed it around the court.

Sei Shonagon was upset, but also anxious to hear what people thought of it. And here I am, a thousand years later, searching for her book at the Appleton Public Library.

It is checked out.

I browse the 952's, 

hoping to find a book about The Pillow Book

but instead find a book about Basho.

Matsuo Basho, born in Uneo, Japan in 1644, an ambitious and popular poet, fell into a despair so deep that he felt his only way out was to shed all earthly attachments. 

At 40, he took to traveling, though precarious and inadvisable, on his quest to restore his true identity, "the everlasting self which is poetry." His travel sketches are prose interspersed with poetry, both his and those of poets he encounters on his journeys.

They write about black rice, 

globefish soup,

drizzling rain,

and soft beams of the moon. 

Preparing for Homecoming

Say Say My Playmate

I grew up on a long city block in Omaha, 13 houses to a side, the first ring of suburbs that now feels like the inner city.  There used to be a trolley car between Dundee and Downtown.  It is a neighborhood built for walking, not walking for exercise, but for everything.  Within four blocks of our house was a grocery, a dairy, a gas station, a diner, a bar and grill, a drug store with a soda fountain where we used to hang out after school, and a movie theatre, where I first saw Rear Window, and that haunting scene where Grace Kelly gets caught snooping in the apartment across the way, and then caught signaling behind her back to James Stewart who she knows is watching through his telephoto lens, the ring she has stolen, evidence of murder.  The man who they have been spying on for days and nights on end, frowns at her gesturing and looks up, straight into Stewart's camera.

On the walk home, my brother told me that Grace Kelly died of a brain aneurysm, which he was sure to emphasize, could happen to any one at any time.  I fell into a 7-day funk until my mom couldn't stand it any longer and during dinner demanded to know what was wrong with me.  "I'm going to die some day!" I sobbed.  The family rolled their eyes.  Is that it?  We all are.  Life goes on.  Get over it.

There were over 50 kids on the 51st Street block between Howard and Farnam.  We played outside and played in basements, attics, bedrooms and garages.  Factions were formed.  We held court.  The oldest was judge. Some of the games we played had designers, manufacturers, patents, and rules listed on the box. Other games were ancient, passed from one child to another over the centuries.  Hide and Go Seek.  Pickle.  Hopscotch.  Kickball.  Horse.  When we jumped rope, we sang songs.  When we chose who to be it, we chanted rhymes.  We played clapping games and skipping games and games with a circle of string.

No adults had taught us these things.  We just knew all the words without knowing how we knew.

For how long have kids been chanting Say Say My Playmate?  How far its range?

My First Garden, Episode 8: "What Vegetables?"

Cluck or Duck?

Is that the question in your community?

It is in ours.

t-shirt design by Elyse Mische

chicken harness made by Heather Urness

My First Garden, Episode 6: "Hokey Dokey"

My First Garden, Episode 5: "Just Some Cockamamie Idea"

'

My First Garden, Episode 4: "Willy Nilly"

My First Garden, Episode 3 - "A Diagnosis"

My First Garden, Episode 2

Note:

If you are one of the lucky few who receive blog post announcements via email, it has been pointed out to me that videos appear as black boxes.  If you would like to view the video hidden in the black box you must visit the blog site.  I realize this is not always easy.  I appreciate your patronage.

My First Garden: A Study in Perseverance

George's First Skate

Notes:

The best part of moving to Pacific is that we now live across the street from George.  He was over yesterday, for most of the afternoon.  My friend and I played Scrabble in the dining room while George wandered around humming.  Every couple of trips through the kitchen, he ran, chased by some burst of imagination.  He hid behind the couch until all was clear, emerging with a shrug and a grin.

"Can you believe this kid?" I asked my friend who knows what it means to have a spirited child.  My friend shook his head and beat me 313 to 296.  In our family, when my mom lost, she always blamed it on having terrible letters.  I could make no such claim.  The guy is plan smarter than I am, way more than the score implies.

This winter, George had his first skate.  I videoed until the battery ran out.  I didn't know what I was going to get.  Turns out, I caught quite a bit.  In twenty minutes George goes from not being able to stand up straight, to blocking shots on goal.  But it is the free form playing, continuously orbiting George that is equally instructive.

P.S.  I've never made meatloaf.