THE CREATIVE LIFE – HEATHER KING

MAKING WAVES: THE ART OF CINEMATIC SOUND

October 26, 2019November 4, 2019
by Heather King

**OSCAR-NOMINATED RE-RECORDING MIXER** **ANNA BEHLMER AT HER CONSOLE**

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Midge Costin’s documentary, “Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound,” is a fascinating and instructive peek into a world hitherto unknown to most of us.

The film traces the history of sound in film, examines the ways directors and sound designers work together, and features the latest discoveries and advances in sound technology, all while managing to remain warm, lively, and human.

Director-producer Costin is a graduate of USC Film School, a veteran, award-winning feature film sound editor in Hollywood, and the holder of the Kay Rose Endowed Chair in the Art of Sound Editing at the USC School of Cinematic Arts given by George Lucas in 2005. Producers-writers Bobette Buster and Karen Johnson round out the team.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

AVOIDANCE OF FANTASY

August 26, 2019September 16, 2019
by Heather King

SUNRISE FROM MY STUDIO AT
THE MONASTERY OF ST. GERTRUDE, COTTONWOOD, IDAHO

Here’s an interview I did with Aleteia last week re my new book, RAVISHED: Notes on Womanhood.

*****

“Christ has asked me to “die” so that I can really begin to live now. This is what the fourth gospel calls abundant life. It is a new and fuller life; it means not so much any external difference as a different quality of life.

I think that it means above all the avoidance of fantasy. I also suspect, though I really cannot be quite sure, that is is one of God’s gifts to us as we grow older, that in the second half of our lives the paschal mystery touches us more closely. As our bodies become less strong, and our faculties begin to fail, we are forced to recognize what diminishment may mean, and we have to accept the many things that we will never do, the many doors now closed to us.”

–Esther de Waal, Living With Contradictions

DUSK

AND SUNSET….

COTTONWOOD, IDAHO

August 21, 2019September 16, 2019
by Heather King

Living in relative silence and solitude is interesting.

I see that a lot of the “noise” for which I blame the world is really noise inside of me!

“Christ has asked me to “die” so that I can really begin to live now. This is what the fourth Gospel calls abundant life. It is a new and fuller life; it means not so much any external difference as a different quality of life.”

–Esther de Waal, Living with Contradictions

TOVE JANSSON’S THE SUMMER BOOK AND A RADIO INTERVIEW

July 7, 2019September 16, 2019
by Heather King

I always forget to say when I’m going to be on the radio. So tune in tonight to “Amplify,” KDKA Pittsburgh, 9-11 EST. Fr. Ron Lengwin and I will be discussing my new book, RAVISHED.

Meanwhile, here’s how last week’s arts and culture piece begins:

Tove Jansson (1914-2001), a Swedish-speaking Finnish writer and artist, is perhaps best known as the creator of the Moomins. These impish creatures and their adventures, featured in the numerous books that Jansson wrote and illustrated, have delighted children worldwide.

Born in Helsinki, Jansson was raised and formed by bohemian parents. Her father sculpted. Her mother, a painter, did illustrations for Garm, one of the few bravely anti-Fascist magazines in Finland in the years leading up to World War II.

She studied art in Stockholm, Helsinki, and Paris. Her love life was, let’s say, eventful.

In the summer of 1953, Jansson was commissioned to paint the altarpiece of Finland’s Teuva Church. The result was the “Ten Virgins” altarpiece, the only altar of her career. “I feel very competent when I glue gold,” she remarked of the project.

At the time, she was working on the book “Moominsummer Madness.” But the Moomins didn’t bring me to Jansson. What did was a strange and singular work called “The Summer Book,” written in 1972.

The story takes place on a small island over the space of a summer. There are other characters — a mostly absent father, an obnoxious child named Berenice. But the main action is between 6-year-old Sophia and her grandmother.

Here’s how the book, delectably, begins:

It was an early, very warm morning in July, and it had rained during the night. The bare granite steamed, the moss and crevices were drenched with moisture, and all the colors everywhere had deepened. Below the veranda, the vegetation in the morning shade was like a rainforest of lush, evil leaves and flowers, which she had to be careful not to break as she searched. She held one hand in front of her mouth and was constantly afraid of losing her balance.

“What are you doing?” asked little Sophia.

“Nothing,” her grandmother answered. “That is to say,” she added angrily, “I’m looking for my false teeth.”

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

THE JOURNEY BACK HOME

June 18, 2019October 12, 2019
by Heather King

DC METRO

Hey folks, here’s the link to my conversion story on EWTN’s “The Journey Home” with Marcus Grodi. Question: why does Marcus looks giant and why do I look like a midget?

Speaking of journeying home, I’ve been in DC all week and HAVE LOVED IT! I’m staying at the Dominican Priory (not to be confused with the Dominican House of Studies across from the National Shrine) and the priests and brothers have been magnificent. Tons of walking and sightseeing. All is much more beautiful, charming and graceful than I imagined.

Today I’m headed to Dumbarton Oaks and then tomorrow I fly home. My plane doesn’t leave till 3:30 so I’m going to arrive at Dulles early, take advantage of one of the two United Club passes I get each year with my Visa, and relax with food and beverages before boarding and being whisked back to LA at a reasonable hour (instead of having to get up at 4 am and schlep in a twilight state to LAX as happens when you live on the West Coast and fly East).

Thanks to all the well-wishers who watched the show last night and wrote or texted.

EASTERN REDBUD
U.S. BOTANIC GARDEN

THE AVERAGE CROWD

June 11, 2019October 12, 2019
by Heather King

ROBERT FRANK
DRUGSTORE, DETROIT, 1955

This then is how it is when God descends to men! The apparent folly and danger of it are so great that the just and orthodox prepare for legal condemnation. The event is not even clothed in the dignity of genuine poverty. That would also have been impressive, for side by side with the power of greatness there exists the moving or august power of poverty, which stirs by its own mysterious power. But it is not genuine poverty that accompanies Jesus–neither among his disciples nor in the cheering masses. It is simply the average crowd as it is to be found everywhere in workshop, store and street. Crowd in which we call could find our place–human reality, mediocrity bare of the pathos both of splendor and of misery.

How difficult it is to recognize the self-revealing God! How difficult to steer clear of the scandal to the worldly sense of propriety and righteousness!

–Romano Guardini, The Lord, from Part V, Chapter 1, “Entry Into Jerusalem”

Saw a wonderful documentary over the weekend on the photographer Robert Frank (best known for his 1958 volume “The Americans”): “Leaving Home, Coming Home.”

Speaking of leaving home, I am taking off tomorrow for Washington DC where I hope to straighten things out for all of us once and for all. I mean enough’s enough!

No seriously, I’ll be staying at the Dominican Priory and plan to creep about to museums, gardens and churches and in some small, probably doomed way, have a teeny bit of a “vacation.” I mean when you are single-handedly holding the burden of the world on your shoulders, it is kind of a dereliction of duty to take “time off!” I really do need a long nap, and am madly looking forward to my visit.

I could care less about the White House or Lincoln Memorial of any of that stuff. Dumbarton Oaks is more my speed.

ROBERT FRANK
HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY, 1955

LA’S INTERNATIONAL PRINTING MUSEUM

May 31, 2019October 12, 2019
by Heather King

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins:

The International Printing Museum, located at 315 W. Torrance Blvd., Carson, is open Saturdays only, 10-4. I visited on an open house day that culminated in the screening of the documentary “Endless Letterpress.”

The spot is a throwback to another era. First, the smell: a homey combination of ink, paper, and wood, grandmother’s attic. Older guys in vests, newsboys’ visors, and denim aprons feed paper into hand-cranked presses.

Lining the walls are grainy black and white photos of printing press days gone by. Stacks of narrow, long wooden drawers are filled with lead slugs of type: Roman, Antique, Gothic.

The museum hosts frequent events. “Inside the Box: Clamshell Boxes and Antiquarian Books”; “Krazy Krafts Day” for the kids.

They’re trying to raise $20,000 to save a rare 1905 Heidelberg Cylinder Press, one of eight in the world. (Don’t miss the annual International Printing Museum and Los Angeles Printers Fair, which this year will take place over the course of the weekend of October 19-20.)

But the heart of the museum consists in its Ernest A. Lindler Collection, touted as “one of the world’s largest and finest collections of working antique presses.”

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

THE SMELL OF FRESH INK IS INTOXICATING!

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

May 22, 2019October 12, 2019
by Heather King

WELCOME TO MY WORLD
photo: Mary Beth Paul

The above was taken at a glacial kettle (basically, a bog) outside Columbus, Ohio. I met my Columbus pal at Corpus Christi this morning for 8:30 Mass and then she took me for breakfast to the Fox in the Snow and then we went and visited some of the “habitats” outside the city. In the course of our three walks, we saw two herons, one pretty long snake, several turtles and frogs, a red-winged blackbird and a whole bunch of squirrels. She, my friend Mary Beth, recently spied a muskrat at the glacial kettle.

This afternoon I’m going to visit The Book Loft.

Then I fly back to LA early in the morning.

“The Journey Home,” speaking of home, taping went fine and the episode should air in a month or so; will post here when the time comes.

THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN WOODCUTS BY JAMES REID

April 1, 2019October 13, 2019
by Heather King

“COULDSN’T NOT THOU WATCH WITH ME
ONE HOUR?”
COPYRIGHT ESTATE OF JAMES COLBERT REID

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

A few years ago a friend gave me a book called “The Life of Christ in Woodcuts” by James Reid — per the jacket one of “a host of maverick artists” from the early 20th century who “introduced the idea of the graphic novel, a story told exclusively with wood engravings.”

Originally brought out in 1930, the book was republished in 2009 by Dover Press.

“Glory be to God,” wrote poet Gerard Manley Hopkins for “All things counter, original, spare, strange.” I can hardly think of a better description of the person of Christ, nor of a more eloquent portrayal of that strangeness than that to be found in Reid’s work.

These beautiful, highly accomplished woodcuts make for a deeply moving book. Without using a single word, Reid somehow manages to convey the whole sweep of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. Interestingly, the cuts are not even titled: instead, the book is divided into four sections: “The Infant,” “The Boy,” “The Son of Man” and “The Messiah.”

A sorrow and a deep silence seem to surround Christ, starting in infancy and continuing throughout his exile on earth: the flight into Egypt, the garden of Gethsemane, the deposition before Pilate, the crowning with thorns.

One of my favorite blocks is of Christ as a young man, watching from afar as the other young people are pairing up, walking arm in arm around town.

Though only the back of his head is visible, you can see the idea forming: “Oh, that looks lovely. That is one of the highest callings for a human being, marriage and children! … And somehow … I am meant to live out another mystery”…

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

GAME, SET, MATCH: TENNIS AT INDIAN WELLS

March 26, 2019October 13, 2019
by Heather King

GO, GARBI!

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

“Welcome to Tennis Paradise” reads the flower-encrusted archway over the entrance to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

And for once in this culture of fake news, that’s not total hyperbole.

A bit of backstory: One day at a time, for more than 30 years, I have surrendered my addiction to alcohol. But nature abhors a vacuum, and one of the things that has sprung up in its stead is a fervent — an unkind person might call it obsessive — interest in women’s professional tennis.

I started by acquainting myself with the four annual “grand slams” — the Australian Open in January (hard court), Roland Garros aka the French Open in June (clay), Wimbledon (grass) in July, and the U.S. Open (hard court) right around Labor Day.

Then, slowly, God help me, I came to understand that the tournament schedule lasts, with the exception of December, the whole year. I learned the difference between a Premier Mandatory, Premier 5, Premier, and International Tournament. I pored over the WTA ranking system.

I downloaded an app — ATP/WTA Live — that delivers live scores, daily schedules and for every match the bios — height, weight, place of birth, current residence (why so many in Monte Carlo and Geneva? Ah — tax purposes!), WTA ranking, total career money earned (fascinating!) and previous record between any given two players.

I downloaded another app called Time Snap so I could sync, as need be, with the clocks in Dubai, Qatar, Singapore, St. Petersburg, Stuttgart, Prague, Tokyo, Wuhan. I started sleeping fitfully when an exciting middle-of-the-night PST match was taking place halfway across the world.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

CAMILA GIORGI, I’M YOUR FAN!
THE ONLY REASON I DON’T FELLOW MEN’S TENNIS AS WELL
IS THAT I HAVE TO WORK DURING AT LEAST SOME DAYLIGHT HOURS, AND PAY RENT…

Category: THE CREATIVE LIFE