10 Life Changing Items

(in no particular order)

Encountering a spirit

Becoming a father

Playing live music in another country

Skinny dippin in the ocean

A tour of my father's hometown by his childhood best friend on the day of my father's funeral

Losing Lenny in a motorcycle accident

Receiving my finalized divorce papers

Teaching a drawing class in the prisons

Seeing my grandfather cry as he shows me pictures of his mother

My grandmothers face as she sees my father on his death bed

From Margi Scharff

Margi Scharff wrote:

Hi Alan, Well I think I may have some stories to send you-- as I did some writing during the cancer /chemo time in India and unfortunately the cancer is back and so I'm dealing with the issues all over again. Will be trying alternative treatments this time around. The conventional route is just too nightmarish for me. Anyway-- I'll send you the stories when I catch up on things-- right now I'm overloaded with alternative appointments. In the meantime-- I'm still here-- not dead or anything!

All the best!
Margi

p.s. love your food blog!

Call 2 Artists

Dear Artists,

Collage Ensemble Inc., Mona Kasra and I, are looking for artists who have experienced battle. Battle can be interpreted in anyway. Of course, war comes to mind but their are other forms, i.e. daily battles, gang battles, battling the elements, etc. We may incorporate these stories into a zine and perhaps include them in a collaborative performance with EZTV this Fall at Highways in Santa Monica CA.

If you have a story or know of an artists who is interested in contributing a story, please let us know at:

produceartcenter@yahoo.com

Mona and I have a blog up about this project:

http://itsabattleproject.blogspot.com/

Lastly, our web site has been recently updated:

www.pacce.com

Have a great weekend! Thanks.

-Alan Nakagawa

Update

Mona is really busy. I think this may be the bussiest I've ever seen her since we met several years ago. She's teaching at CSUN but she started teaching at SMCC as well. It's like having two jobs.

We were scheduled to meet Thursday evening but she had to postpone it for two weeks. She also hasn't had any time to place anything on this blog since we started. I suspect the summer will be a better time for her but certainly this changes the schedule of our zine. The nice thing is that we have no deadline. The bad thing is we have no deadline.

I emailed Mona today. I asked if we should send out a call to artists for stories about "battle".

On another front, Hiromi and Rick's friend, the musician who went to Nam, has backed out of participating. He said that he thought about it and if we interviewed him, it would bring back too many bad memories, memories he has been trying to forget.

I thought that alone was pretty powerful.