Time Machine Giveaway

1 Sawdust
53rd Annual Summer Sawdust Art Festival (2019). You’ll have to trust me it looks like a little man in the spaceship. Photo by M.C.

Sawdust Festival Artists & Makers

Walking into the Sawdust Festival’s outdoor Hobbit house, we are greeted by the white rabbit sitting in a shack topped with a gray spaceship with a tiny man inside. Note the man and not an alien. Straight ahead is Kirk Milette Jewelry booth, the woman’s alarm on her phone rings. She says Kirk made the UFO and that it will move at this very minute. We stare, but no action.

Close to the time travel installation, is new-to-Sawdust, Artist David Kizziar from Blue Bird Studio Arts. Prisma pencil drawings of Laguna Beach are sepia tone photo like. Ornate, dark wood frames give the art a time travel vibe. I imagine being in a coffered ceiling and wainscoted family room with a lit stone fireplace and brown leather sofas. Let’s make them pleather. One frame is ordained with beach rock.

His effervescent wife explains David is self-taught and only went public with his art three years ago. She points at a piece and says he spent 300 hours working on the drawing. Pulling out a sample with sketches here and there, she explains he likes to draw the most difficult part first. From a photo, David begins sketching the grass rather than the buildings. Renaissance Man says, “He could have grown the grass faster.” She laughs and says, “I told him the same thing.”

3 Kizziar Mermaid Card.jpg
Ascend by Artist David Kizziar. Photo of card by M.C.

At the entrance of the booth is a huge replica of David’s oil painted mermaid, which won the City of Laguna Beach Banner Juried Competition. His wife shows us a photo on her phone. It’s of David in his classic jeans and T-shirt standing under Ascend as the banner hangs from a streetlight on Coast Highway 101 in Laguna Beach.

David’s art has many personalities. His earthy drawings that Bo Derek and Robert Englund, known as Freddy Krueger, (Photos sit on a desk.) bought are completely different from his paintings of the blue mermaid. According to David’s postcard, “He wants his art to emit a ‘mood’ that reflects life’s camera and moves the person to ‘feel’ something.

Nancy gives me one of David Kizziar’s Ascend cards. I’d love to give you the card along with my new book Superfly, book three in the MerSea series. Sign up for my newsletter and one lucky winner will be mailed the mermaid card with a signed copy of my book. I’ll choose the winner from the new names on my newsletter list. Just go to my Newsletter page and wait for the pop-up. Newsletter sign up. (Contest is from July 11-July 15, 2019. This time around I’ll only mail to U.S. entrants.)

4 Pageant TIme Machine
The Pageant of the Masters 2019. Photo by M.C.

 Pageant of the Masters

Across the street at The Pageant of the Masters, we stroll through fine art exhibits while waiting for The Time Machine show. I notice a jeweler who was at the Sawdust last year is showing at the Pageant. And the guy who makes gorgeous wood furniture is at the Sawdust and not at the Pageant like he has been for years. I’m not sure why people switch, but hopefully they are getting more traffic. I go to both because both exhibits are fabulous. An artist and I were saying how much we love being at the Sawdust. It’s good vibes.

The Time Machine production loosely follows H.G. Wells’ novella “The Time Machine” and one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks. The Victorian gentleman and his steampunk carriage are joined by Countess De La Maitrie in her equestrian dress and with her dachshund from the painting by Charles Albert Walhain. The Victorian gentleman finds Da Vinci’s notebook and they are off in a gold vehicle with a large disc and red carpet.

Napoleon-Gérome
Napoleon And His General Staff In Egypt, Jean-Leon Gerome, Oil, 1867. Photo of painting from Wikimedia Commons.

Living art begins with Napoleon And His General Staff In Egypt, 1867. Napoleon is on his camel with his men on camels and horse trudging through the desert. Narration explains the pyramids and hieroglyphs. There is only a mention of the advanced civilization and that there isn’t real explanation as to why. In the program under the photo of the painting is a quote.

“What is history but a fable agreed upon?” ~Napoleon Bonaparte

The show moves through different chapters like The Art of Science which includes Sir Isaac Newton with Prism, Unknown, Engraving, 1868 to Nikola Tesla Monument, Les Drysdale, Bronze, 2006 to Stephen Hawking Ubermensch, J. & D. Chapman, Fiberglass, 1995.

Marty McFly and Doc ride in their “modified” DeLorean, yep a DMC-12, in The Music Machine chapter. Jumping out of the car and onto the stage, Marty surprises the dancers around the jukebox as Working on the Jalopy, Stevan Dohanos, The Saturday Evening Post, 1950 sets up. There is a lot of great Jitterbugging as an audience member sings along.

One of the final chapters takes us to the moon with Norman Rockwell’s The Final Impossibility, Man’s Tracks On The Moon, 1969 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The props disappear and “Neil” floats reminding the audience these are real people not just paintings.

There is a floating earth and a floating spaceship. The show seems to have gotten cheesier through the years, but I still love it. We have been taught historical inaccuracies in school and in media and many are repeated in the show. The Time Machine isn’t enough to satisfy a MUFON member, but the “living pictures” are always perfection, which is what the show is about.

Sawdust • 935 Laguna Canyon Road • Laguna Beach • CA • 92651

Festival of Arts • Pageant of the Masters • 650 Laguna Canyon Rd • Laguna Beach • CA • 92651 • 1-800-487-3378 (On 7/11/2019 I received an email with a savings code. Main Tier Madness $25, 3 Dates Only, Use Code: MTM25. Main Tier is where I sat and is good seating. Director’s Tier is also on sale, but too far.)

Copyright 2019 Melissa Crismon

Fireworks with Capt. Dave

2 July 4th 2019 Dana Point Sea Shepherd Sticker
Fourth of July Dana Point Harbor. If you look to the right hand corner on the black bucket is a Sea Shepherd sticker. Photo by M.C.

For Independence Day, we cruise on a boat with Captain Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari. Some years back, Dave’s friends wanted him to take them out into the harbor for the Dana Point fireworks then he offered the opportunity to his clients. I’m so glad he did.

We arrive early thinking there will be traffic. There isn’t any traffic on the 5 freeway. Most of the congestion is on the beach. We park at Dana Hills High School then take the shuttle (school bus) to the harbor, all for free. Everyone is dressed in summer clothes except for those of us going onto the bay.

In the marina, people are having parties on their boats. Everyone is decked out in red, white, and blue. Older couples on the boardwalk watch the boat of twenty-somethings singing Don McLean’s long, iconic song “American Pie.” It is enjoyable to watch the watchers watching the partiers. As we walk away, the singing revs up.

So bye, bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ole boys were drinkin’ whisky and rye singing, “This will be the day that I die. This will be the day that I die.”

We hang out upstairs at Captain Dave’s cute building with a nice view of the marina. The girl working there likes my Sea Shepherd baseball cap. A friendly couple sit with us and tell us they’re almost empty nesters. They are out on their own for the first time. He asks me about Sea Shepherd. I always tell people Captain Paul Watson saved whales in Antarctica for ten years. Then that gets the reaction of, “Oh like Greenpeace?” Actually, yes Capt. Watson was one of three who started Greenpeace, but the Earth defenders had differing opinions on how to approach Earth destroyers and then began Sea Shepherd kind of.

On the Lily, we wait for someone who is a no show. The seat is damp on the bow and I keep warm with my Sea Shepherd sweatshirt, which Captain Mark notices. With a chill in the air, I switch from my Sea Shepherd baseball cap to my Sea Shepherd beanie. The man of the friendly couple we’ve been talking to all evening notices my hat change. I wear many hats I say. He makes a comment about how I have all their gear and asks if I have the underwear too. I say no, but I will tell them to make some like Ellen DeGeneres underwear—bikini and thong. One couple left. I don’t really care about the wait. Just being in Dana Point on the water makes me happy. It’s “research.”

The man we’ve been talking to is in between jobs so he is catching up on “real news” during his time off and also watching some shows like Jane the Virgin and Game of Thrones. I don’t push my books on people, but he’s wakening up to what’s really going on in the world and then he mentions Game of Thrones. (I tried reading the first book.) I said I haven’t watched the show, but I did love Beauty and the Beast the TV show in the late 80s co-written by George R. R. Martin. That leads into my books.

I currently have the first ebook, Superfreak, in my MerSea series on sale for .99¢ at Amazon. Or you can buy all three. Amazon bundled the MerSea series so you can buy them with one click for $6.97.

Captain Mark entertains us with a story about his favorite boat that passes us going the opposite direction as we leave the bay. The boat is a schooner made of Alder that was abandoned and lost in Bermuda. It was salvaged and claimed. Whoever tugs a boat or ship in gets to claim it. Never have another ship pull your ship in with their lines or they can claim your ship. Ya know, cause I got yachts lining the marina. Which reminds me of Dweezil Zappa’s song “I Want A Yacht.”

I want a yacht. What about you? Nothing less will ever do. 

6 July 4th 2019 Dana Point fireworks 1
Dana Point fireworks on the barge. We can see fireworks from Oceanside to San Clemente and inland. Photo by M.C.

I’m a little concerned the fireworks will bother the fish and marine mammals, but the show isn’t too loud. Dana Point has managed to keep tall buildings out of their town. The noise doesn’t have anywhere to echo or bounce off which is good.

Kudos to whomever designed the show. There are some fireworks I have never seen. There are the smiley faces and big blooms. Tight clusters of stars float almost like a bunch of fairies. Then five lined up dots sit in the sky. So if you think you saw a spaceship, it might just be fireworks.

Earthquake update

I didn’t feel the 6.4 earthquake on the morning of Fourth of July. I was too busy walking. But tonight on the 5th as I took a break from writing this post and gardened I felt the long earthquake. It was a 7.1. Now yesterday when I talked to the lady from the friendly couple on the boat ride, she said the earthquakes are good because they loosen up the tension so we don’t have a big earthquake. I said that’s the same thing Renaissance Man says, but the news always says different. After the boat ride and earthquakes, I feel like I’m sloshing around like a mermaid in the sea. Just another day in California.

Captain Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari • 24440 Dana Point Harbor Drive • Dana Point • CA • 92629 • dolphinsafari.com • 1-949-488-2828