Mid-day basking

Basking, not busking.

This lucky little dog has her own stroller to bask in while her human companion is busy on her tablet. I'm amused by the BLM ANTIFA graffito. That's my city!

I have a migraine today, but I had some errands to run, and I stopped in a park to rest. While I was making this photograph, the phone rang with wonderful news.

Silent Voices, the movie Donna Hayes and I worked so hard to realize last summer, has been accepted as an entry into the (virtual) Oakland International Film Festival. 

That means more people will see it. We've had over 1200 views on Youtube, which is more than we'd have had if it had been the live reading we intended; but we hope that being included in a large film festival will lead to even more views.

With a year of hindsight, I see that the performances are "uneven," meaning some of the actors are fabulous and a few struggle to get through, which is not surprising. We auditioned people for a live "reading," not a performance; when Covid-19 changed our plans, we made it a movie with the volunteers who had agreed to read it (not perform it)--and we had no money and made the whole production on volunteer effort. Some of the "actors" had never studied theatre and had no acting experience at all. Despite this, I think many of the monologues are riveting. What connects all the performances is murder-by-police, an aspect of the USA's white supremacist policing. We're happy for more people to think about what that means to families whose loved ones are murdered by violent agents of the State.