hans's online journal @hanzondeck - Tumblr Blog

Purple

One who heard us was a Man from the waters of Minnetonka a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her own heart to pay attention to what this man said.

For at one time living among us there was one who was beaten before the cross forced into purple robes mocked as a royal king. He was beaten and his private parts were torn asunder and he lay bruised beneath the cross.

cock hard round ass big nipples small tits Darling Nikki and Doctor Everything be all right Purple

blowjobs in backseats on icy cold midwest nights fucked from behind entered royally ecstatic purple

Beats so Funky that I feel that I can fly And I’m not just saying this just to be nasty but I sincerely want to cream Purple

my high school friend in the hallways jeered for her new choices in clothes and boots and makeup labeled as a whore 4 moving her hips and wearing purple leg warmers on a Detroit night And she doesn’t give a fuck because nothing compares 2 U.

We jumped into stranger’s beds drenched by the spirit of God living in all of us so painful so good so mystic so free so much our very own powers mixed with new impulses toward the Divine.

U dressed us all in purple and rained a light on our profane powers and when we had all come together U turned us all around back to the light and gave us the Music that is always always always always… And that’s a mighty long time. Purple.

One who heard us was a Man from the waters of Minnetonka, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what He said

And what he said was, “Let the rain come down. Let the rain come down. Let the rain come down, down.”

4.21.16 Rest in Power

Sunday, December 18th He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. - Luke 1:52-55

I was not powerful in the ways in which the world measures power, yet I was powerful in my own mind and entitled to boot. If the truth be told, I had no physical throne but the throne in my mind was as grandiose as that of King Solomon’s. There were no riches in my Chase bank account but the coffers in my mind were overflowing with arrogance, self-seeking, and self pity. I was rich in self-delusion. I was potent in my spiritual bankruptcy. Today, I sing of being brought down from that self made (human made) throne and being lifted up for I was indeed one of the lowly. Today, I sing of the grace of God who showed me His radical reversal of justice in my own life. I am the 99 percent in terms of my pocketbook but on any given day I can be the 1 percent in terms of my arrogance and self will. But I come to God again and God shows me the promises, lifting me up one more time and filling me up with good things and making real for me His tender mercies day by day, week after week.

My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength as, I go from here to do your bidding. Amen

#birdman

The Artist’s Way is Here and Now

As Picasso leaves Le Bateau-Lavoir in the Montmartre, he and Fernande Olivier transport all of the easels and all of Picasso’s canvases to the new private flat with the sunlit drawing room that looks out onto the trees of the Avenue Frochot. Together, Pablo and Fernande, have found someplace very special to live and love and create art.

According to Patrick O’Brian’s biography of Picasso, the couple “had one spring mattress with no feet, one round table, one stained white-wood chest of drawers, several broken chairs and a tin bath where (Pablo) kept his books (Nick Carter, Verlaine, Rimbaud) and of course, they had their three cats.”

As a young man in my twenties, I was fascinated by these descriptions of Picasso’s studios and his early artistic life in and around Montmartre with fellow artists such as Max Jacob, Juan Gris and George Braque and I would dream about how Picasso had found heaven on earth. On subsequent wanderings through Paris, I would explore every artist’s atelier I could find and I would spend hours at the Musee Picasso. It was all so magical, mythical and inspiring.

Just last month, I was able to go to another “someplace very special” - a place where two artists and wonderful friends have found their bit of heaven on earth in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

As it happens, Brooke and I were there to attend the wedding of these wonderful people - the painter Brad Reyes and Rachel Reyes, née Hosmer, who has created the Ami handbag line. The wedding was suffused with intimacy, light and all the colors of love and friendship.

The day after their warm ceremony, Brooke and I were invited to Brad and Rachel’s beautiful home where these artists have created a work-live environment where they practice their crafts and create their handmade works of art.

Brad’s art studio is a focused masterpiece of maximized space and organized tools of the trade. The studio reverberates with passion and your eyes can’t help but obsess on the palate of colors that echo the light at play in the surrounding Santa Fe desert and skies. His brushes stand tall and at the ready like the artist himself, always in his elegant poise and demeanor. Brad’s eyes are ever alive with a wisdom and a wit that always seem to be questing to find the next angle or the next faint hue or next subtle shade.

Upstairs in the home is Rachel’s sewing room and it sings with a creative zeal but also a basso continuo of the meditative and painstaking process that is involved in her designs with fabric and metal and leather and suede. The results are gorgeous handmade bags, backpacks and totes that leap out at you across a crowded street or on a woman’s shoulder across the room. In a relatively short span of time, Rachel has already made a dent in the handbag universe by creating an instantly recognizable brand that is infinitely unique. The minute Brooke bought her first Ami bag she was already wanting her next one.

As for me, I’m also lucky to own hand made art from this uber-talented team and that is the painting LA Skyline (Dawn), No. 2 from Brad’s Urbanica Series. The painting is living music made visual and it truly captures the urban essence of the Pacific Los Angeles. It’s a treasure in our home.

If you are looking for hand made, beautifully crafted works of art made in someplace-very-special please go ahead and check out Brad and Rachel’s work. I know you’ll dig it.

Reyes Fine Art: Cities and Skies

Ami Bags

#santafe #amibags #whattocarry #what to wear #leather bags #fineart #painting #newstyle #handmade #art #picasso #museepicasso #paris #prayforparis

Thirteen ways of Looking at a Gun

1 Among five hundred and thirty five minds The only vote winning Is the way of the gun.

2 Pinwheeling past classroom after classroom, With the gun out ahead of Him Like an extension of his mind, He kills.

3. The republic seizes Above dead children, Below killers, among us, free To come and go as they please In black body armor with guns.

4. Son shearing off his pubic hair Off to the movies to celebrate the gun, Fear of his own shadow, His own ribs, His own pimples, He hates that he never held a girl’s hand at the movie show.

5. KA-BLAM Son turns back and sees Father Returned home to the foot of the stairs, Pointing a .44.

6. Son tucks the gun into his jacket, Bug-eyed in his black armor Under a greasy shock of matted hair. Eyes soft for a second.

7. Under a starlit sky, Father slugs Dominican rum And cops a squat over a tackle box Reaching inside he pulls out a Tec-9

He “sells” the gun’s features to Son: Action, trigger, barrel, spinning cylinder. He twirls the piece in his fingers and offers the grip To Son who snaps it up. Father takes a long drag Off the hand rolled cigar in the moonlight. Father produces a silencer.

8. Father tosses two boxes of bullets onto the bed. Son pulls out his wallet and chips off cash. Father counts it and squints. Father beams at Son with his Gun.

9. Son turns to Keanu and glances at the bullets on the bed. Son giggles and puts a bullet into the chamber. Spinning it, he puts the gun in his mouth And looks in the mirror. “Just playin’.”

10. Children singing in the music room. Humming softly to his Tec-9, Son arrives at the school doors.

11. Son staggers his video game gunfire. Bodies buckle. Blood blooms on a girl’s blue coat. One child squirms Past Olga, her classmate. She stares up at Son who has Father’s Hate in his eyes.

12. “Put the gun down.”

13. Madman screams In his Los Angeles apartment. Trolling for days, McDonald’s at every meal. He’s next door.

Rageaholic in my office Explaining away His viral hate That he spewed out all over us last night. Crushing our hopes like a snail On a wet sidewalk.

Truth? We know deep down These men will never surrender Until we’re all dead.

Hans Luttmann

#gun control

The Lao-Tse Transitive Inversion

If there is to be sickness in the world, there must be sickness in the nations. If there is to be sickness in the nations, there must be sickness in the cities. If there is to be sickness in the cities, there must be sickness between neighbors. If there is to be sickness between neighbors, there must be sickness in the home. If there is to be sickness in the home, there must be sickness in the heart.

Lao-Tse

Elogio A Mi Madre

Mamá hace tiempo que no te sueño y te extraño, deteniéndome hoy a oler tus fotos buscando en los agujeros de la polilla, tu memoria, tu sonrisa, tu mirada, todo inmovilizado por el tiempo y tu ausencia.

Exclamando tu nombre, recordando con añoranza cuando era una niña, recibiendo siempre tu amor, sustentando mi vida con tu lenguaje maternal, tu voz que llevo escondida en mi corazón.

Sintiendo tu ausencia sobre de mí, como la neblina antes de la lluvia, retoñando emociones cuando fui adolescente y después una mujer siempre contigo cubriéndome con tu manto inagotable de amor que delegaste en mí, como un abrigo perpetuo sobre mi piel.

Gracias mamá, por la capacidad de amarte eternamente, porque aún después de tu muerte, tu presencia perdura cincelada en mi corazón, a través de mi vejez.

Lucrecia Yaquián-Luttmann

Poetry for St. Patrick: Two Wreathed Octaves. And a Jacked Up Rhyme Royal entitled “The Ballad of Two Salmon Drowning in Butter”.

I recently traveled to Chicago. I arrived on the Saturday when folks were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. To say the least, it stung and it stunk. I was mostly struck by a young blonde boy in his 20′s - a college kid - who was waving to us as we drove past. Stuck at the traffic light, I rolled down my window to get wind of why he was waving and what he could possibly want. He flashed the “Number One” sign and asked, “Do you have room?” I soon figured out that he wanted a ride. Unfortunately, we were not headed to where he was going. We left him there on the sunlit sidewalk at three in the afternoon, drunk. He just wanted a way out. He was desperate.

Poetry for St. Patrick:

Snockered That snockered young man on East Wacker Drive driven to collapse moments before noon had this afternoon plans to come alive by living out the St Paddy’s day tune but tuneless tears and violence arrive like a riven heart cooked up in a spoon and spoonfuls of love gave him a last dive in a dive bar off Erie and Rush

The Dose Fear slithers sideways like that Asp of Kings in the king-sized grass asleep in the bung of a sunset assassin who can sing quizas quizás quizás in a dry tongue with tongue tied mariachis whose tight strings are strung out of tune to strike you alone on the lonely bridge where you leaped to die so your sick friends could raise a glass and drown.

The Ballad of Two Salmon Drowning in Butter

The wrung towels stank of blood Drawn as a ghost with painted lips the deepest shades of ochre and mud like those hairy chunks that eclipse her mad squatter’s hips tilted at the edge of the tub in the holy stained light feels more like death, less like love.

Supplication was once made by the Drunk in a barber’s chair on St Paddy’s Day. He had arrived in a disheveled funk reeking of wet salmon and basmati So the barber’s snipping in the wadi of his mind felt like that silver belly Plumped with pink roe but never a letting.

Sticking to the cornsilk colored skyway She’s a grasshopper in a dark lighthouse rubbing her legs to spin away the day In a saloon fantasy of giving and leaving spoonfuls of whisky to live a stuporous, selfish, recoiled, unloved life of death disguised as a treasure trove.

I have written here on a 3X5 that it will be a Revenge movie and that it will be titled, “The Big Baby” or “Death of Kings”

They meet, the St Paddys Day Drunk whose locks of hair fill his ears and the Grasshopper whose defects progress blindly to lumber out of the wreckage of her untamed mind for runs of wild salmon are dying on rocks for six o’clock reservations made by sick diners who act like patients

They settle down with booze and Beethoven And New Beverly screenings of Hitchcock And those birds on the loose in the open Come to peck, kill and escape the soft talks Of mercy and love of a child that walks And cannot determine if it’s ramen or a plate full of overcooked salmon

The therapist first gave the Drunk the thought that his mind was damaged beyond despair “This is another example that’s caught in the maddening rhythms of your hair. And Grasshoppers, you know, live in the air So they soar on two wings from time to time And leap to freedom from the bondage of mind.”

I have written here on a 3X5 that it will be a Love Story and that it will be titled, “Drunks like Us” or “The Ballad of Two Salmon drowning in Butter”.

Amazing photo by ConstantineD

#poetry

3 Poems: wreathed octaves and a double tanka.

Elementary

did you when the dusky mid-western light shrouded quiet fences and fell on two boys who were there still swinging toward night holding tight to the jungle gym pursue violence? Did you know that the boy’s hands had lost band-aids in the dirt and the sweat had met the sticky parts filthy with sand when you landed and the grass was still wet?

Mind Tanka

Mind is a dark bosque Filling with flowering trees with leaves that blossom in loud belches of madness Blowing through you like crazy

Mind sees like one eye Mind has one eye and then two Hanging flowers mind that we get sick and get well my mind blooms and it is mine.

poem by Hans

This is my poem. I want to name it “shout shit to the rivers and the blue skies” for the wise are refusing to forfeit the bits of the earth and woods that remain in plain view and my poem goes like this: For all the times the rivers made you clean And I mean the times the skies gave you bliss Whisper a prayer of good thanks. That’s it.

Monetizing a Mobile App (notes from a Crowdtorch Webinar)

There are 1.5 Billion smartphones world wide. Smartphones and Tablets now outsell PCs . There will be more smartphones activated this year than babies born. This year more people will have access to smartphones than electricity and water.

Mobile is the first thing we reach for in the morning and it is last thing we put down at night. We are always connected.

They are our second brain.

We rely on these devices for most of our information. What does this all add up to?

Top 10 Ways to monetize your App:

The Paid Download Guaranteed money but an unstable revenue stream. There are 800,000 apps in the App Store. If you go this route, you must do the Due Diligence on price point. You can always go down. It’s hard to go up. 4 out of 5 paid for apps are downloaded less than 100 times

Freemium Apps These Apps are free but generate loads of traffic and build lists through the Opt In. They then charge for added functionality.

In App Advertising 7.3 billion dollar industry. Banner Ads and Offer Ads used to sell books, merchandise, toys, posters.

Out of the App Revenue Optimize the Brick and Mortar event by driving purchases outside of the event. Great for building loyalty programs.

Pay Per Install Pay-per-install programs earn revenue during the installation process. By signing up for a pay per install network, you can join a global network of partners that advertises their products to a global network of users. Each time a user accepts a download from an advertiser, you earn money.

Affiliate Marketing: Develop a relationship with a merchant who has a product or service that fits with your app. If you negotiate the right commission, you can earn very good income from this model.

Search Monetization: Earn money by embedding a third-party search box into your app.

Selling Customer Data to marketing companies or analytics companies. Develop an app that collects useful information, such as user interests, preferences, location information, and more.

Integrate a Subscription Service Model. Render a service that keeps evolving – especially one that is cross-platform and provides critical functionality – you stand a good chance of earning money this way. And since the money keeps rolling in regularly, you can make a very good income with this model.

Social Engagement. Allow social sharing with your App. Once they’ve completed a video game level (or in FestiVee's case a film), blast them into social. This can increase added adoption of the App.

Angry Birds has done an exceptional job leveraging all monetization opportunities. It’s a paid app. It’s free app. They use advertising. They have in app purchasing (adding levels to the game) 45% of their revenue comes from merchandising, licensing and selling toys.

Go Team CineVee!

Your laptop is broken. How do you, the world and Steve McQueen respond?

I had come to St. Bart’s Church on Park Avenue for the choir and they did not disappoint. Their rendition of Healey Willan’s “Missa Sancti” filled the sanctuary and provided me respite from the cold temperatures of January in Manhattan.

As my ears blissed over with the sounds, I suddenly heard a “thump”. It wasn’t God tapping me on my chest. It was my backpack falling off the pew onto the church’s stone floor.

Since my eyes were closed and my ears were tuned into the Missa Sancti, I keenly heard the thump and the slightly off putting sound of my laptop (inside the bag) hitting the floor. It was a tinny sound. It was a plasticized ting within the thump, within the choral beauty that filled my ears.

I decided to ignore the sound within the sound.

Like any well seasoned traveler, I wasn’t about to ruin my only Sunday in Manhattan by obsessing about the worrisome implications of the Thump. Instead, I enjoyed the Missa to its end and then sailed through the stained glass doors of St. Bart’s into the frosty streets of Manhattan, backpack over my shoulders, laptop tucked inside.

I headed up Park Ave and cut across snowy Central Park to meet up with my friend Beth Caron, a photographer, for a friendly repast. It wasn’t until evening time when I had trudged all over the city and returned to the hotel that I remembered that thump again.

I opened my backpack and withdrew my laptop. I mumbled an emergency prayer to the Mac Genius in the clouds. She didn’t listen. Because when I opened the laptop, I could see that the display screen was strewn with vertical lines and the desktop was barely legible. There were not enough lines to convince me that my laptop was toast but there were enough of them to ring the alarm bells of self pity and victimhood. Why me? Why now?

When my wife Brooke returned to the hotel room after a long day of training with sweetgreen, she immediately read my energy. “What’s wrong?” she asked. I told her the story of the Thump and she said everything was going to be alright and headed for the shower.

While she cleaned up, I recoiled into a position of resentment because she didn’t want to join me in the “Woe is me - the end is near - apocalypse now” scenario in my brain. Didn’t she realize that my laptop and my life were now completely over? Didn’t she want to go down the rabbit hole with me? Instead, she set up a magnificent picnic meal that she’d picked up at Dean & DeLuca on the hotel bed and we watched the Golden Globes. “Everything is going to be alright,” she said.

How dare she?

The next morning I returned to LA for a brief twenty hours before having to fly to Michigan to start a brand new job. In my mind, it was essential that my laptop be functioning when I got to the new job site, otherwise suffer the dread and anxiety of being the unprepared New Guy. I determined that I was going to fix that laptop at any cost.

I arrived that night at LAX just in time to make a mad dash across the city to hit the local Apple Store before they closed. I got there with minutes to spare. I marched up to the nearest Mac Genius and regaled him with the Story of the Thump. He went quiet and told me that the rest of the night’s appointments were dedicated to iPhones only. “Sorry, Man,” he said.

The next morning, I went into phase two of my plan. I headed over to the local fix-it guy with glowing five star reviews on Yelp. When I got to his store there was a posted message that he had a doctor’s appoint and wouldn’t be back until late that day. Today of all days!

I suddenly remembered another MacStore over on Melrose and drove like Steve McQueen (actor not director) to get there. I raced up to the service desk and laid out the Story of the Thump. This service guy was cordial enough but his whole vibe screamed that he didn’t want anything to do with me. He went into a spiel about a three day backup to get a diagnostic and then I’d probably have to wait five more days for them to fix it and that it sounded to him like a $500 job or even $1000 job and I’d be better off getting a new laptop. He smiled and said, “Have a cool day!”

Steve McQueen, Actor.

My mind raced with the “Woe is me - I am screwed - I’m the unprepared new guy going to work at CineVee without a laptop.” In my mind, I was already disgraced and fired and living on the street and eating from a can. I suddenly felt like Steve McQueen (actor not director) in“Papillon”.

Then it hit me. I still had another try in me. I raced over to a place called UBREAKIFIX on 3rd Street in Los Angeles. I soon found myself standing on the sidewalk as their doors opened. I was now weary from the travel and spun from all the self-talking drama. My shoulders slumped when I read the sign inside the store that stated that their specialty was iPhones, not laptops.

I trudged to the counter anyway. Johnny was cool and laid back and acted as if he was actually interested in the Story of the Thump. I expressed to him my dismay that his store only fixed phones.

“Let’s take a look,” Johnny said. He studied the lines on the display screen. Johnny was the first guy to take a look at my laptop before quoting prices and delays and backups.

“Can I open it up?” Johnny asked. “Hell, Yes,” I said. Desperate. Johnny disappeared with the laptop into the back room.

I collapsed into a chair and meditated on my fate and soon something remarkable happened. I realized that I had to let go of this laptop drama. I took a deep breath and accepted the fact that I could not change the Story of the Thump. And then a strange feeling of bliss crawled into my heart space. It was going to be alright. I could show up at the new job without a laptop. I could simply adapt and overcome and improvise and ask for help.

Johnny emerged from the backroom and showed me the insides of my laptop. He pointed out that there was no visual damage. He also informed me that similar to a car in a crash there could be damage that we couldn’t see with the naked eye. He had noticed that a wire was loose and he adjusted it with his pinky finger. He then retreated to the backroom and came back three minutes later. “Hey, Hans,” he said, “Take a look.”

He showed me the screen and it had no lines. It was working again. Fist bump. Hand slap. High five. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

Johnny explained to me that sometimes a “thump” will send a laptop into shock and that all it really needs is a reboot after a little tinkering.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. My worrying collapsed all around me. The display was clean once more.I turned to Johnny. “How much do I owe you?”

Johnny smiled and said, “Nothing, Brother. All I did was open it up.”

It’s been fourteen days now and the display is still working just fine. I flew to Michigan that night with a working laptop.

Steve McQueen, Director

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#customerservice #apple #stevemcqueen #festiVee #CineVee #lifestreams

The Power of the Email

The Power of the Email (crib notes from Justin Wise’s podcast #thinkdigital) Emails are ten times more powerful and more effective than any type of social media. They are the direct contact with the client and often their first and ongoing impression of us.

Justin Wise's sage mantra is “Respect their Inbox”. We need to respect it by being effective and elegant with our messaging. 1. The Email cannot be too cluttered or packed with too much text. Online recipients are scanners not readers. They want key points. The effective email gives essence and may link to other landing spots - blog posts for example for other information. 2. The Subject line should grab their attention. Questions are great: "Do you have a second?" or "Quick Question?" 3. Most importantly, the email has to be about the Recipient and not about us. This is not our “about page” - this is our opportunity to let the recipient know what’s in it for them and how they benefit from our proposition? Recipients don’t care about what we are doing - they care about what we will do for them. We need to look at this from the recipient’s point of view as they read and ask themselves, “What’s in this for me?”

3. The email is crafted around the ask - The ask should be clear as day and user friendly. 4. The email offers the recipient options on to how to proceed: “How open are you to discussing this further?” and “What’s the best time and form of communication to continue?” 5. The Email uplifts and inspires a call to action. For further study, ask yourself what emails do you like to get? Which ones get your attention? How do they do it?

#justinwise #marketing #email #thinkdigital #festivee

What are you missing by missing"Mr. Turner"?

Mike Leigh’s magnificent film, “Mr. Turner”, is the life story of Joseph Mallord William Turner, the English Romantic painter. Leigh’s screenplay is a well oiled construction that moves its audience across a lifetime and an age. The film’s engine is a controlled narrative that powers its audience toward a slow and overwhelming revelation into the rich, layered inner lives of its characters. The deliberate pace of the film is set forth by a confident master at work and Mr. Leigh’s mature approach stands in striking counterpoint to the well established Hollywood Superhero conventionalism that dominates our movie houses today. Filmgoers may be so startled by the honest storytelling here that it may take a quarter of the film for them to surrender to its meditative gifts and allow themselves a cinematic experience that hearkens back to a time before 3D and video games. Timothy Spall embodies Turner as an earthy genius who grunts his way through love, loss and every painted canvas. Turner’s one pointed actions are always trundling toward the next creation of a seascape painting that soon establishes Turner as a hugely successful painter in his time. Spall’s eyes are always leaking out the painter’s preverbal passions as well as an innocent spirituality hampered by a frightened and naive heart. Dick Pope, the cinematographer, is in many ways the real star of this film. His eye-scorching and contemplative cinematography carry the color and the weight of the main character’s all too human heart and vision. Pope’s light is at times dew wet or steam-filled while in other moments it bursts like a supernova in every nook and cranny of Turner’s studio. Pope’s captured light deepens and underscores Leigh’s story lines of science and creationism and the striking palate reflects the hero's deeds and sufferings by the sea. Without question, Pope’s work here is the Academy Award winner for this year’s cinematography and should not be missed on the big screen.

When Turner, the painter, suddenly finds his maritime seascapes out of fashion and his modus operandi questioned by the critic John Ruskin (hysterically portrayed by Joshua McGuire), Leigh’s film grips us even tighter. We witness Turner’s bucolic walks now corrupted by oncoming steam trains and we feel not just the doom of our romantic hero but that of an entire epoch of art and sensibility. Something much, much deeper is at stake here. Leigh does not sentimentalize by manipulating higher stakes or by fashioning deeper ones, he instead allows us the dignity of our own experience as we piece together our own humanity in the darkness. In the end, love in its many forms rises and falls on the screen like the tides themselves and the beautiful beating we hear beneath Leigh’s poetic structure is our own human heart. It is there beneath a father’s final exhale and it is there in the soulful eyes of Turner’s seaside landlady, Sophia Booth (a brilliant Marion Bailey). And finally and most hauntingly, it is there in the unrequited love of Turner’s forever-and-a-day housekeeper Hannah Danby, portrayed both comically and tragically by the magnificent Dorothy Atkinson. Mike Leigh’s “Mr. Turner” is a masterpiece.

by Hans Luttmann

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#cinema #mr.turner #mikeleigh #filmfestival #timothyspall #painting #popular

IFFS/IMFCON: A REPORT

FESTiVEE HITS AUSTIN

There’s music everywhere in Austin. It greets you when you arrive and it plays behind you as you depart. When you’re grabbing a coffee at the airport, that strange sound you hear is a mic check from a sound guy in the corner of the cafe setting up for some Joe next to him tuning up his guitar. It’s Tuesday afternoon at one o’clock. Who has a gig on a Tuesday afternoon? At the airport? Welcome to Austin. It’s weird. And it’s wonderful. And it’s a portal for the convergence of sound and light and technology. When I arrive at IFFS on Monday afternoon, my FestiVee partner Keith Mitchell is in full swing. He’s amplified and grounded. He’s tuned in and knows the players and the set list. Within minutes, we’re shaking hands with Drew Stack, the Chairman of the San Diego Film Festival which has exhibited both Oscar winners for Best Picture the last two years. Soon we are conversing with David Glanzer, Director of Marketing and PR at Comic Con. It all happens fast and we are grateful to be surrounded by two gurus in the festival world.

At 3PM, Keith speaks on a distribution panel with Tim League, Founder and CEO of Alamo Drafthouse, Joseph Beyer, Director of Digital Initiatives at Sundance, and Alex Nohe of Circus Roads Films. It’s about as rock star as it’s gets at the film festival summit. Keith puts forth some honest and iconoclastic observations about the festival landscape. As a former Executive Director of the NUHO Online Film Festival, his knowledge is hard won and his message is "Be creative. Be brave. And be rewarded." Afterward, we connect with Tim League. And later on, we have a great conversation with Eric Stein, of Impact Global Media and the moderator of the panel.

We screen our Festivee Overview for Eric and he expertly assesses that we are a “white label back-end provider for the brick and mortar festival.” Eric is a savvy digital solutions expert and the fact that he gets what Festivee has to offer so quickly and intuitively speaks volumes. In the afternoon, we connect with Beth Caldarello of the Telluride Film Festival and Beau Blanchard of the California Film Institute. Beth is a connector and a whip smart impresario in the Festival world. Her insights and experience are far reaching and she's generous of spirit on every panel discussion in which she participates. At the roundtable discussion I get to participate in, Beau proves to be a visionary on the pulse of marketing and sponsorship in the FF world. Sponsorship/Marketing

It was ideal that the International Music Festival Conference was paired with IFFS. We availed ourselves of the offered music panels and discovered that our FestiVee platform benefits from tuning into the trends and developments in the music festival world as well. What was notable to me was that the Film Festival world talks about getting “Sponsors”. On the other side of the wall, the Music Festival world talks about getting “brands to participate”. The mindset of the music festival accentuates collaboration.

The film festival mindset in regards to sponsorship was expressed beautifully by Tonya Mantooth of the San Diego FF and Mantooth Studios. She said that we are now involved in the "creative approach to honoring sponsorship beyond the Logo." During Beau Blanchard's sponsorship and marketing roundtable session, we spoke of metrics and impressions and materials and he and I agreed that it really boiled down to the relationships and service the festival provides to those relationships. In the festival landscape, we must nurture those relationships over time and make it personal. Even Tim League saw the need for a Director of Hospitality and a Culture Keeper as Alamo Drafthouse continues to grow. Technical Aspects: Addressing the Filmmaker’s fears. The filmmaker has many fears in the digital space as we know. They worry about piracy and technical security. And they worry about the quality of the presentation. How is their baby going to look? How is it going to play? Will it be a user friendly experience for the viewer and filmmaker as well? I heard one filmmaker who also worried about the expenses involved in playing at brick and mortar festivals - having to make blue rays and all of the incurred costs of duplicates and deliverables. The filmmaker underscored the fact that he has budget constraints. The filmmaker also wants a seamless presentation. ATt FestiVee, we can service that need and also save the filmmaker and the Festival Director money while increasing their audience and influence. Sponsors and the Brands have directly expressed their attraction to our innovative platform because of our metrics in engaging audiences with a high quality experience. The brands want that audience to stay engaged in the content for as long as possible. We do that.

Our technical prowess that is powered by Cinevee services and allays the filmmaker's fears while also saving the client money. The FestiVee service platform creates another window for monetizing that will be a welcome relief to the film festival operator.

Distributors: Our new friend When we spoke to people about streaming festival films, we heard an old refrain of Distributors who would be afraid of their films being cannibalized. We have seen first hand how much that position has softened in such a short time since Keith and I launched the NUHO Online Film Festival last February. The landscape has evolved and the smart distributors see this as an opportunity to grow rather than shrink. They are on our side. How does FestiVee stand out? By partnering with the cutting edge tech team of CineVee, we are executing our product vision and evolving it on a daily basis with some of the industry's leading Film Festival Directors. How can FestiVee stand out? We offer a global and local platform to the Festival Director who is looking for that new experience that activizes its audience and provides a greater outreach for lifestyle brand collaboration. Can Festivee thrive? We are thriving. We are connecting with domestic and international Film Festival Directors to bring forth a new vision and new audience for the festival experience with multi-tiered windows for greater monetization and brand collaboration.

Thank you IFFS and IMFCON for hosting a great time in wonderful Austin. We look forward to next year.

With Festivee, it's personal.

Hans Luttmann

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#filmfestival #film #brand #iffs #comiccon #sxsw #imfcon #austin

The Winter Travelers of Manhattan

Plumes of snow whisk sideways on West End Avenue at Sixty-Fourth Street as Quigley and I shuttle northward on what has become our daily walk. “She still dominating your every thought?” Quigley asks. “No, just every other one,” I say. “Some would call that progress.” “Aren’t you going to have a look?” he says. I stop at the corner and count floors up to the sixteenth floor of the city high rise. I see her apartment. The lights are on. “You think they are together again?” Quigley asks. “I know they are,” I say. The icy winds whip through my wool coat, lick my ribs and send my teeth to chattering. Quigley is smug and warm in his mummy-like coat from Alaska, forever sacrificing personal style for warmth. Turning onto Sixty-Seventh, we pick up our pace as the taxis slide up the slush filled street. Quigley raises his voice above the wind. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without em.” he says. “Sure you can,” I say. For the past week now we’ve made it a habit of stopping midway up the block to peek through a ground level apartment window. Today is no different. We stare at the Christmas ornaments and the white candles and the golden bells hanging there in the perfect Christmas Tree inside. We know not whose tree it is nor the family who has decorated it with such care. We just like the looks of it and the fact that you can almost smell the pine. When the doorman sees us, he steps outside and swats at the awning with a broom. We take it as our cue to scoot up Broadway. Striking three matches at once, I light a bent cigarette in the shelter of a doorway. Broadway’s traffic hums as we rejoin the sidewalk. The greasy shift of gears grinds forward as snow falls and my cheeks register the freezing air like pricks from a thousand needles. Suddenly, we spot a fire truck siren flickering down Amsterdam and Quigley insists we make tracks down the frigid tunnel that is Seventy-Second street to witness the goings on. There on Amsterdam, a squatty bodega burns in the December air. Alarms scream across the West Side as the storefront breathes like a dragon. As the flames lick the building, I begin to notice the other onlookers in the street: a Mexican couple in white aprons, a sharp dressed man with a carnation in the lapel of his greatcoat staring at the burning top floor, a homeless woman I know yelling at the top of her lungs. When the firefighters push us out of harm’s away, a tangle of rats erupt from the trash bins and dance into the sewer grates as one. “Let’s eat,” Quigley says. Warming over cups of black coffee in the Omega Diner, Quigley’s blue eyes glimmer. He suspects the fire to be the work of an arsonist and constructs an absurd plot to satisfy our need to know. The waitress lays out the Swiss omelets and the home fries and the pancakes and Quigley takes a deep breath and we pray together. Halfway through the meal, he looks up at me. “Walking up Park Avenue is when it happened for us,” he says. “She was walking south and I was walking north. She said it was love at first sight.” “That’s the most painful kind of love there is,” I say. “Why? Because it comes from the heart?” Quigley says. “No, because it comes from the pelvis,” I say. Quigley smiles. Since she was diagnosed I haven’t seen him smile too much but I’ve also never seen him shed a tear. He rides out everything with an uncommon courage and valor. Everything about her illness has been painful and malignant and humiliating and cruel and constantly reeks of death but he handles it all with an equanimity that I didn’t know he possessed. I hand him the maple syrup and finally get the courage to ask him how he’s doing. “I’m a medical student experiencing the death of my fiancee,” he says. “That’s how I am doing. You know, last night she told me one of her fondest memories was of running through her family’s yard in Michigan. After a good, hard rain she would run through the wet grass in her bare feet. Isn’t that something? That’s the fondest memory.” After breakfast, we walk home to Hell’s Kitchen. Quigley speaks of Paul, his favorite apostle and soon we find ourselves assembling a baseball team out of the Bible. “Moses has to bat clean up,” Quigley suggests. “David is a solid lead off hitter,” I offer. “He’d find a way to get on base.” Arguing whether Job should make the team, Quigley grows indignant. “They stole his oxen. Herdsmen put him to the sword. He survives lightning and attacks by his enemies. He could at least bat eight in this lineup!” I give it to him. I taste the syrup of the pancakes still on my teeth. I reach for a cigarette. We fall silent as we ambulate in the cold and hear the distant sirens of the firetrucks. The white facade of a building on West End Avenue reminds me of a house where I stayed once on a sun drenched isle with her and now she’s with him in a luxury apartment on the sixteenth floor overlooking Central Park but that’s okay I guess. Steam escapes from the sewer grates and pigeons fly upward and land on stacks of bricks beside the rusted vents of the rooftops as we head south. We stop at a crosswalk and let the traffic go by. Quigley stares out toward the Hudson River. His teeth chatter slightly in the freezing cold. “I imagine a safe lodging for her when it’s all said and done,” Quigley says. “And a holy rest and a peace at the last. That’s what I imagine for her. And fond memories.” When the light blinks white, we cross.

Hans Luttmann

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#writers #storyteller #manhattan #shortstory

All of us get a little scared sometimes

Neosporin oozed oily onto his right middle finger. With the middle digit on his left hand he pulled the skin tight, pressing hard to his cheekbones to apply the cream to his nose. His other fingers were curled up like dead leaves from the arthritis. “Monkey hands” is what Doris used to call him. When she called him that the first time he lashed out at her with his violent temper. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence during their thirty-five year marriage. This morning the memory seared his brain and his heart sank. “Sorry, Doris,” McGinty said to himself. “Sorry, my dear.” The light of the April morning tightened McGinty’s eyeballs as he stepped outside into the Michigan air. For a moment he thought to return inside for his Blue Blockers but a thick cloud snuffed out the sun and he decided that he could go without the shades. The grass boulevards were flooded from last night’s storm. McGinty would have to stick to the suburb sidewalks today and avoid McClumpha Park because it would be a swamp at this early hour with all the torrents that had fallen past midnight. He suddenly remembered that thunder clap and the lightning that lit up his bedroom in the middle of the night and caused his heart to race. How long had it been since a spring storm had frightened him like that, he wondered. How long since one had quickened his pulse so much so that he couldn’t fall back asleep and laid awake listening to the rain. Branches lay scattered in the street and on the lawns at the bottom of Priscilla Lane. The homes down here always suffered the worst of the storms. For some reason the winds were a touch more violent down here where the paved roads met the original gravel. As McGinty rounded onto Harvey Street past the old blue spruce he saw Mr. Braun out in his yard clearing branches. The men were roughly the same age but Braun always seemed older to McGinty. A mean sonofabitch even when his Grace was still alive, Braun was a successful auto dealer and his two daughters, Lisa and Susan, had always lit up the community newspapers with their athletic skills and their homecoming celebrations. Hitting the gravel road, McGinty saw Braun’s dilemma: a sapling had toppled onto his driveway behind his Oldsmobile Aurora. “Good day, Mr. Braun,” said McGinty. “Peter,” said Braun. “Some blast last night. Thought the windows would shatter.” “Most likely did. In some parts.” Mr. Braun was dressed in golf attire. His smart white shoes were covered with green and yellow leaves that matched his mustard pants and yellow golf hat. Regular Bing Crosby, thought McGinty to himself. “Playing eighteen today?” asked McGinty. “Every Wednesday,” answered Braun. “Only I’m blocked in here. I told Gary I didn’t want anymore trees in this fucking overgrown yard. And he did it anyway. I’m late goddamnit!” McGinty looked down at the sapling. It was a dogwood with budding red flowers. Hadn’t snapped anywhere near as McGinty could tell. It was still alive and well. She’d simply been blown over by the winds. She looked helpless though on the black tar of the driveway. “We can save her,” said McGinty. “Let’s just get the goddamn thing out of the way,” said Braun punching numbers into his cellular phone. Soon Braun hesitated and seemed to fog over after four or five digits. “Goddamned phones,” Braun said stuffing his cellular into the pockets of his mustard britches. “I’ll back over this damn thing if I have to!” That’s when McGinty heard it. There was a crack in Braun’s voice and he watched as Braun looked down at his leaf covered shoes, hands at his hips. The old man was crying. McGinty watched as Braun’s shoulders started to shake and the old man kicked his right leg at the tree. McGinty glanced two low flying cardinals flitter up into the blue spruce and he pretended not to notice Braun’s tears. “We’ll just slide her out of the way, Mr. Braun. Swing her around,” said McGinty reaching past the red buds and gripping onto the white bark. “Fine then,” said Braun. “Got her,” said McGinty, ignoring Braun’s gruffness. And in the pulling of the sapling McGinty all but forgot about the stiffness in his back that hampered him as of late and the weakness in his left knee that irked him on the stairways. The two men pulled the dogwood just enough to let Mr. Braun back out the Oldsmobile onto the dirt road with golf clubs secured in his trunk off to make his tee time. Braun sped off down the gravel road without even a “Thank you”. The rain soaked route made for a shorter walk than usual for McGinty. The cardinals seemed to follow him up the road and disappeared into a Russian Maple and an American Goldfinch bathed in the Holloway’s fountain. Up on Canton Center Road, butterflies danced about Mrs. Garagiola’s butterfly bush as she waved hello to McGinty from the side of her sunlit home. “'Allo Jackie,” said McGinty. “Some storm last night,” said Mrs. Garagiola. “Yes indeed,” said McGinty. Her two year old was already in a mess of wet grass and splashing at the puddles with her yellow rain boots. As the little girl’s feet splashed, she looked up at McGinty.

“Thunder,” the little girl said. “That’s right. Big thunder last night,” said McGinty. “She was afraid last night. Storms really scared her,” said Mrs. Garagiola. McGinty felt a small pain in this back as he bent before the child. “Scared me too.” said McGinty. He looked into the little girl’s eyes. “All of us get a little scared sometimes.”

Hans Luttmann

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#fiction #michigan #writing

The Apology Letter of Diego Rivera and the Shaking of Trees

My dear Frida,

I haven’t seen many birds in Belle Isle since you left. Only the occasional house sparrow. I haven’t even seen those slippery starlings that we saw here on your last visit- the ones that you hated. This little isle here is still essential for my sanity among all the cement and the skyscrapers and the cold watery breezes from Canada. Today I sat on a flat rock hidden among the bare bushes and I drew a circle on my sketch pad. I divided the circle into six parts. Work. Frida. Faith. Frida. Adventure. Frida. I gave myself a score from one to ten in each category and then I connected the dots along the lines to see if my circle was round. It wasn’t even close. There is not enough of you, “Fridita”. Last night in my dreams a group of travelers rode in from Calvary with the word “three” on their lips and “three” in their hearts. They told me that the First Thief was gone, gone, gone but that they still held out hope for the Second Thief who they called St. Dismas. They thought that this second thief might be spared. I couldn’t be sure but I felt that they were talking about me. As for the third one on the cross, they could only report that He was midway between the saving grace and the wrecking ball. I watched the riders leave my dream and the last rider turned to me and said only one word, “Frida”. Outside my workshop today, I saw a winter cloud and I prayed for escape from this place and my safe return to Mexico and La Casa Azul and your warm embraces. I turned and saw a naked winter tree and I walked toward it and sat under it in the freezing cold. This was no small feat. To start this small journey, I needed a pair of reasonably comfortable shoes. The ones I was wearing however lacked any kind of comfort. I was able to ignore this because they had a touch of style. The more stylish, the more I wear them, the more I wear them the more I inevitably dig some groove into the heel, warping the boot into disrepair and then I abandon them. And then I find myself yearning to wear those old shoes once again. I'd wear them even now stinking as they do of my desperate parades, cold marches and bitter retreats. I’d wear them even now to avoid your storming out and my straying feet - this last bit of business I shall call our final regrettable waltz? Frida? As I stood underneath the naked tree in Detroit, I realized that I love walking with you and sitting with you on the wet park benches of Belle Isle. And I realize that if you were here you would probably shake this naked tree with your bare little hands. There is no one else who would do such a thing but my little Fridita. You are the only one I want to shake trees with. Do you know how challenging it can be to find a partner to shake trees with, Frida? I can go on and on about the challenges of finding someone to shake trees with. I could go for days about the qualifications and the requirements. For instance, there's the obvious fact that they must be good shakers. Jiggle-tremblers and quaking unnervers need not apply. And then, of course, they must be thick skinned for there is the constant detritus of leaves and brambles and branches and acorns and fruits that will fall from a shaken tree. And I also know that great humor saves the day when coping with those unexpected things that fall, be they apples or snakes. My shaking-of-the-tree-partner must also have a great ability to climb for some days we would be bolder, more questioning, more defiant and we would climb from our safe havens here on earth and reach out to shake near the very tops of the trees out to the far reaches of the distant branches. A Trusty Grip would also be imperative because the heights are great when climbing and looking down, down, down you can see that it is quite a fall. And that brings me to the last thing. What if we did fall? Would it be that awful thing they tell us it is? Or could it be that this falling itself was essential and could be the happiest of falls? Yes, that felix culpa the elders speak of? Who is to say that the falling isn't the very best part of it all, Frida? Oh, that rush, that catch of the breath, that feeling in the stomach, our throats, our hearts pounding and aching as we fall. Where are we, Frida? Have we fallen again, Frida? Can I come home again and find my Shaking of The Tree Partner awake and waiting for me and willing to simply listen. Look out the window now, Frida. There's a tree outside and it’s wondering if you'd like to shake it -with me? Canto, cantando, cantaré desde hoy nuestra magia amor Diego

as dreamed up, imagined and translated by Hans Luttmann

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#frida #fridakahlo #painter #detroit #love #loveletter #epistolary #fiction #fictionwriting #diego #diegorivera #mexico

Nudity in our Culture: An invitation to a Naked Life

“Nudity in our culture is inseparable from a theological signature.” Giorgio Agamben This is your birth. You come in naked (naked is how you come into this world). But it will not be how you leave it. You will be found dead. You will spend some time in the morgue where you will be returned to your nakedness. At a certain point, your corpse will be transported to a funeral parlor where a man or a woman will clothe you anew and make your body ready for viewing by those who were near and dear to you. You have been born and you have died and what has happened between these events is your life. In this life, you will live among others who will be just like you and unlike you. These others will be your tribe. With these others you will gain experiences, attain beliefs, develop values, learn attitudes, process meanings, establish hierarchies, confirm religious faiths and be endowed with notions of time and space. These things and many more will make up your culture. Now you are alive. Now you are in a culture. Now you have places to go and people to see. You will often be required to wear pants when you go and see these people and visit these places. You will also be asked to carry your culture with you which is a form of wearing pants. You will bring with you your attitudes and beliefs and your experiences and you will no longer be the way you were when you first came into this world: pantless. You have now been stamped with the marks of your culture and you will make your way in this world and you will also make your way in this life. Underneath all of this, you are still naked. You still have the vestige of your nakedness and that will always be in you and is entirely yours and yours alone. There may be days when you catch glimpses of this nudity in your now fully clothed life. It may come on a mountaintop when you are meditating and in atonement with a higher power. It may come when you are horseback riding under a Montana sky. It may come when you see a girl holding a flower next to a tipped over apple cart along a river in Guatemala. Or when a loved one announces that they are leaving you for good because you have both hit your bottoms and life as you know it has now gone the way of the big bang theory all up in your faces. That is when you get the glimpse into your nakedness because now nothing is as you once knew it to be. Your cool new running shoes no longer matter. Your fair to middling career floats away on the smoke cloud it came in on. Funny how that happens. Your job leaves you. Your home leaves you. All of it is gone in a flash except your nakedness and the faint beating of your own heart and then - wait for it - the rush of breath that you begin to recognize is your own. This is the last breath of your life. This is now an invitation back to the nakedness of your life. If you choose to accept this invitation, you will now have to go back and unlearn all of the gained experiences, the attained beliefs, the developed values, the learned attitudes, the well processed meanings, the well established hierarchies, the confirmed faiths, and the endowed notions of time and space. You will now have to begin the journey back to the original nakedness. And one day you will be found alive. I hope someone finds you alive today. And maybe the nakedness of your aliveness will meet your journey back to the nakedness of your birth. Either way, these events are the alpha and the omega of this thing called the naked life and this just may be the spiritual experience you were waiting for all of this time.

By Hans Luttmann

Twitter: @HansLuttmann

#kimkardashian #naked #popular #paper #agamben #giorgioagamben #theology

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