City of Legends

The TVC2008 has a winner!

It is SevenLamps, for their video version of DARFUR (Jesus Wept).

To see the video, please go here

SevenLamps gets a $100 cash prize and a bookshelf of my CDs and books worth more than an additional $100.00!  Yay!  And they get bragging rights!

The runner up does not go away empty handed…Minnever’s rendition of from out of the city gets her a free book and CD combo and a place of honor with us.

We will be announcing the details of the TVC2009 (yes, we’re doing it again) next week.

Oh…and, Happy Birthday to me.  Happy Birthday to me…

According to various sources, including myself, my web hosting company (web.com), my publisher, my friend Dan McTaggart, the remaining judges for the TVC2008 who have not yet gotten their votes in to me (harrumph), Barnes & Noble, my parents, my sibs, the media, my sons, one of my ex wives and two or three inspirationally-gifted friends, the next three days of my life should unfold with some of the following milestones.

Tomorrow we will announce the winner of the TVC2008. Mass hysteria will abound as we announce the TVC2009.

peacat.com will vanish, by midnight tonight. If no one with greater claim to the name asks for it before the registration runs out next year, it will go back on the open market.

I will give three two-hour readings at Barnes & Noble in Morgantown, WV, Sunday (10-12, 1-3, 4-6) with the assistance of the amazing Dan McTaggart, who co-authored Psalms of the Monster River Cult with me. I don’t think they could handle the intensity of the Long Beach reads, so I am trying to strike a balance.

Michael Phelps will win two more Olympic Gold Medals.

I will add ten more pieces to williamfdevault.com. Someone will blast me for the lovely nudity that is interspersed with the other artwork on the site. I will feel bad that I am being criticized, but will soldier on.

I will hear from someone out of an unexpected quarter.

I will write something inexplicably charming.

I will announce sometime today…oops, already did, that some of the Fields of Arbol pieces appearing on Amomancer will find their way onto williamfdevault.com.

Some doucebag will leave a stupid (definition: willfully ignorant), presumptive and irrelevant comment on one of my blogs.

I will drive over 500 miles in the next three days. I will still be alive Monday morning.

I will have dinner with my family on Saturday, and visit with my Grandmother, who is 96…bearing down on 97 next month.

I will discover a fantastic new muse.

It has been a long three months, all I am asking for is five more days before we announce the winner of the TVC2008 poetry video contest. I have a judging panel in place, they are at work, and I will announce the winner of the $100 cash and over $100 worth of my books and CDs early Saturday morning.

I’m just glad it isn’t my choice.

Next year we’ll get the contest started sooner, make sure I am not in the middle of a romantic meltdown at the kickoff and increase the prize(s).

Oh, and I have decided that no one walks empty handed.

Also, I am considering contests to design a new logo for this site and perhaps even Amomancer and williamfdevault.com. Maybe three separate logos/banners, or perhaps one unify one. Hmmmmmm.

Today my sons, Dante and Elric, turn 15. I will be taking them to see The Dark Knight on the iMax screen at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian. They are pumped. As a combined present to them and their sister, Peri, their mother and I flew Peri in and surprised the boys yesterday. It is fun watching teenaged boys trying to act cool when they are surprised, taking all their low-key poses.

Today is the final day for submissions to the TVC2008 video contest (see above). If you haven’t started your project, you are probably too late. Next year, more lead time and bigger prizes, I promise. This has been mishandled by me. Thanks to those who have submitted and there will be an award on August 16th.

I have been pondering the logistics of the new version of williamfdevault.com. I was thinking of making it in two stages of 50-100 poems each, but have decided that is too complicated and grandiose and boring (to me). So, starting this Wednesday, July 23, you will start seeing slow, subtle changes on that site as the new works (and some old ones) and the art and photography begin to flow like vodka and Red Bull at an all-night disco. I want to thank the dozens of artists, photographers and models who have entertained the notion. I only received two rejections, and both were heart-breaking (it is a fragile thing, patched as it is) I found some amazing people who I trust will not only contribute to this effort, but will be my friends for many years to come.

I have much to do today, and it only gathers momentum as the days and weeks fly by. So, I am off to Ka Latil to do what I am expected to do.

TVC2008:  One week left to enter.  If you are a professional or amateur who wants to win a prize, get a humble cash prize and a bookshelf full of books for doing a three-minute or so video that you keep the rights to…check out the link above.

www.williamfdevault.com:  Still herding the cats.  The models are checking in, and I can’t name all models and photographers we will be using…but here are a few humble samples of some of the shots we have received clearance for.  Right now our library to choose from is numbering near 1,000 photos.  My brain hurts.

From top to bottom, left to right, the pictures I am displaying here are crops of works I have received permission for from Patrix (like the blue yes?  I found them very interesting.)…

Shye. This is, unlike the picture in my previous entry, a sample of her work with another model (she has worked with some incredible people, many of whom I am right now trying to negotiate with for access to their portfolios).  I have worked, as I mentioned before, with Shye in the past and found her to be an incredibly talented, visionary and open model and photographer, and I want to make sure she gets her share of the credit for what evolves out of this effort.

Elizabeth May is producing some very evocative and exciting work, with a hint of the occult in many, which makes the natural and supernatural, innocent and evil dichotomy excellent for some of my works. You will see, in the finished products what I am talking about. This piece put me in mind of some of my Goldenheart works. A shame she is not a redhead and/or the skirt is not a patchwork.  She has so many excellent images I have considered establishing her images as the pool for one of the more common muses.

Some of the photgraphy by Rinnea shows a very naturalistic rejection of special effects and tweaking. Some, on the other hand, likes to capture a natural feel and the unnatural aspect of just tricks of the light and angle. She is one of the younger photographers I am working with on this project, but there is a freshness to her work that will lend itself to many pieces of classic romanticism.

Vanoku is just plain spot-on with using the human form and face to communicate complex and stark emotions. I am very excited about the energy she brings to this project and am looking forward to see the finished results.  She was one of the first I approached and when you see the coupling of certain works and images, you will see why.

Gasimira is one of several non-American photographers and models I will be working with. There is a bleak intensity and beauty to so many of her images I just had to have her aboard for this. The photo here is a crop of a larger work that is only the tip of the iceberg of her talent and her intensity of expression.

There are several others, some friends and associates, some new talents even I am just becoming aware of. There will be some surprises, I assure you, as I launch the new presence.

A special Happy Birthday to Laurie Wielenga, my former protege who has served as my editor on more than one occasion.  Many happy returns.  I knew you before the long shower. 

Internet videographer SevenLamps, whose adaptation of my Darfur (Jesus Wept) was what first planted the seed for the TVC2008, has thrown their hat into the ring for this year’s contest.

If you have a chance, check out their entry (it is embedding disabled) at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSsmppqEgNw

And welcome!

Okay, I just wanted to show everyone some of the "flair" I created over on FaceBook. It was fun converting book covers, CD case artwork and even a few odds and ends to buttons to send to my friends and acquaintances.

Now comes the fun part. I am declaring a scavenger hunt for my flair. Not too difficult, no? perhaps more difficult than you might imagine, as a few of the pieces, while relevant to my works, are not obviously labeled as such. You’ll figure it out (hint: this will be slightly easier for my "friends").

So, you may find it simple to locate the covers of amomancer: nightblooming or from an unexpected quarter, you may have a harder time with the less obvious flair. To be fair with the flair, I will tell you know that there are a total of 14 pieces.

The first person (based on my received email timestamp) to collect all 14 pieces to their flair corkboard on FaceBook (remember to refresh so they show) and email me here so I can verify by looking at your profile, wins free CDs and books from the City of Legends Store worth more than $50.00. Not a ton of bucks, but if you’re smart this should take you all of 15 minutes to complete, so that’s about, what, $200 bucks an hour? And I’m paying postage, so it doesn’t matter if you’re in the USA, or Australia or Portugal or South Africa (here’s your chance, Rich).