Thanksgiving Week

The Golden Compass

So what do storytellers do as we are driving around the countryside on
our way between gigs? For one thing, we listen to stories and books
on CD (we used to listen to books on tape, before finally being able
to update to a new car!)

The latest things we have been listening to is "The Dark Materials "
series by Philip Pullman, the first book of which is coming out in a
week as the movie "The Golden Compass". Take a look at the website at
http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/ We first had the chance to run
across this series at last summer's ComiCon convention in San Diego
where many of the pop culture hits and trends for the next year are
rolled out. We had the chance to get our photos taken in front of a
blue screen before we ever really heard of the books or the movie.
Now, having nearly completed the third book in the series, we have a
lot more respect for the photo of us along with the armored bear. As
it turned out, this is the movie poster for this fun movie. Take a
look at the real one at Cinemablend

This is one of those movies that although the heroes are children, is
really much more of an adult/young adult romp through fantasy,
theology and metaphysics. We enjoyed it, hope you do, too.

As for some of the gigs we drove to in the last week were to the Downey Library, Hope Elementary School and to the Bowers Museum.

We were invited to the Downey Library to tell Spooky Ghost Stories. It looks like the Halloween season can stretch into the Thanksgiving season these days. We had a blast there with a terrific audience. On the way out James noticed a couple of gold records in a display case. We stopped to take a closer look to find that they were actual gold records form the Carpenters! We had never seen real gold albums in person before. It turns out that the Carpenters went to High School in Downey. Who knew? So Richard Carpenter donated the records and a bunch of memorabilia to the library for display. Oh they interesting we see and learn on the road.

The next day we performed two assemblies at Hope, a local Elementary School. We told some our tried and true World folk
and Fairy Tales, and a few new ones too

Saturday night we were at Tellebration, an international storytelling event. We told Middle Woman by Orson Scott Card, as well as being joined by a bunch of other great area teller. This was an adult oriented show, but there was a bunch of engaged young folks there too. Once again James emceed the event.

Today James returned from a successful private for a special eight year girl, her friends and attendant parents. The parents had glowing comments and were amazed that he was able to hold the rambunctious kids attention.

Big Patchwork Players News! We are in the process

of putting together a children's picture book. We are having a wonderful creative process with our artist Jezreel Lopez. The book is based on our favorite show closer; Baby Coyote. Expect to hear more about this project. We hope to have our published book ready next Spring