Evan & Rachel's Magnets Mix

This mixtape was created for you by both Evan Rowe & Rachel Gainer, who will be husband and wife this coming August ... don't they make a happy couple?!

(photo by Wes Frazer)

Needless to say, this mix is just chock-full of songs old & new about love, happiness and pure, giddy excitement ... I'll let Evan and Rachel give you more of an inside scoop on the whole thing:

"Music is an integral part of the courtship process. New lovers exchange mix tapes--or CDs or playlists, depending up their technological bent--expressing their taste, style, and often including secret messages about how they feel about one another. That message is almost always "I can't believe I like you this much already." In fact, I had to show a lot of restraint to keep "You you you you you," a song with exactly that message, off of the first mix I ever made for my now fiancee." -evan

"A few things to do while listening: practice writing your new last name. test the strength of magnets. get lost in atlanta. save the date: 08.28.2010" -rachel

Very well put, kids! I must say that, aside from Charlie's mix last week, this also makes quite a swinging & flowery Spring mix ... Congratulations, Evan & Rachel! and thanks! HERE is their mightily magnetic mix.

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So this week I decided that I wanna tell how everything went more with pictures than with words ...

My own private Cheshire cat, Charley's been rather restless and

distracted (and moody, as you can see!) these last couple of days ...

She's a 100% inside cat, but watches the bedroom window as if

it were a thrilling Tv show ...

I think the ever-chirping Springtime birds are teasing and tempting her

... haha

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Oh yeah, I have no pictures for this (although I AM in the process of editing the new BNB video) but anyway my softball team, the Bad News Bearons are having a Kick-off Party is this Saturday, April 3rd at Magic City Wholesale, which should be tons of fun ...

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Speaking of tons of fun, Friday night I attended the opening of Jonathan Purvis' amazing art show, "Bible Skillet" at Boutwell Studios ... You should go by there ... it has to seen to be believed ...

The whole experience was rather colorful psychedelically invigorating ...

Jon himself seemed pretty pleased with the turn out ...

Jon asked me, along with other B'ham artists Merrilee Challiss, Daisy Winfrey & Dick Jemison to collaborate with him on a piece each and this is how mine turned out ...

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The previous day, Thursday was pretty epic ... and exhausting! As previously reported, I'd done a paint-by-number version of one of my paintings (for school kids to paint) to be presented at the Operation New Birmingham breakfast briefing, where they would raffle the finished product off to some lucky business person ... Well, the kids didn't get to finish it (because they had a lot of testing) so here's what appeared at the briefing ...

Anyway, the kids will finish it later and then I'll re-ink it blah blah blah ... So when I got to the Harbert Center, the whole place was packed with suits and ties, which made me feel a bit like "country mouse / city mouse", on top of the meeting being at 7:30 AM, which made the whole thing sleepily surreal ... there were actually tons more folks there (than in the following photo) ... I was just too shy to turn around and oddly photograph everybody ...

Anyway, they raffled off the painting and later posted the following on the ONB website:

Congratulations:
To the Winner of the the
Collaborative Paint-by-Number Work
by Artist Paul Cordes Wilm and
Christopher McClendon's 4th Grade Class
at Phillips Academy

Charles Ball

As the "guest artist" there, I got to stand up and wave to all the suits, which was even more surreal! Here's a view of the painting from the table where I was sitting...

Speaking of surreal, later that evening Nancy Tran and I went to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra's production of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" where, beforehand we sat at a table in the lobby and talked to folks who bidded on the actual painting that I did for the poster for the event ... I also displayed 3 other examples of my work there and handed out my business cards ... yippee!

Nancy and I had a really fun time sipping wine and chatting with folks ... the piece ending up going for $350 and it was really cool watching the different orchestra members work as a giant "human machine" performing all the music that night ...

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Also, painting-wise the big Magic City Art Connection festival (which was actually the main focus of that ONB meeting Thursday) is slowly but surely creeping up (the weekend of April 23rd) and I have some commissioned works I need to wrap up ... So I am and will be really busy painting for many moons! Here's some foundations & works in progress ...

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In video news, can you tell I'm a big fan of Jonsi from the Iclandic band Sigur Ros? Well, just in case you didn't get the hint, here's a nice "acoustic" version of his song "Go Do" with the amazing Nico Muhly (I really dig his music too) doing accompaniment:

And here's a nice watery one from YACHT:


Laura recently turned me on to Bear In Heaven's new album ... and even though I don't particularly care for this video, I think the song is incredible (the video might get cut off so click it if you wanna see the full picture):

By the way, did I mention that I like Jonsi's music? haha:

And lastly, fellow Bearon Steve Olson turned me on to this astonishingly beautiful and very playful animated piece by Art Clokey (best known for his Gumby cartoons) ... enjoy: