Weekend Report

After the poets' dinner on Saturday night, I headed over to Sycamore Place Gallery in Decatur for the opening of Kodac Harrison's first art exhibition, Random Intent. The work is all on drop cloths Kodac used while painting houses, but then morphed in Jackson Pollock territory. It was a fun evening.

This afternoon, I went to the 70th anniversary screening of Gone With the Wind at The Fox Theatre with Atlanta historian Ann Boutwell. I hadn't seen GWTW in many years, and I think the older I get the longer it gets. The screening was sold out (over 4,000 people!) and Robert Osborne from Turner Movie Classics and film critic Molly Haskell were on hand to discuss and introduce. If it were shorter, GWTW would make a great audience participation film: throwing plastic babies at the screen when Prissy utters her famous line, cigarette lighters up high for the burning of Atlanta, etc. I've seen GWTW so many times, I know most of the lines by heart and I've long stopped getting misty-eyed at the "march of death" that begins with Scarlett's miscarriage and continues until Melanie draws her last breath. However,  Mammy's (the brilliant Hattie McDaniel) account of Bonnie Blue Butler's death as she walks up the stairs with Melly is still one of the finest moments ever committed to film. Not a dry eye in the house.

I've seen what will probably be the final cover rendering for Conquering Venus. It's a little different from what I've posted here. I'll be posting up and image soon. Now I'm off to work on getting a panel proposal in for AWP 2010 in Denver.