Wilder Times: The Life of Billy Wilder by Kevin Lally

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been savoring this book since this past January. It’s a very fine book that primarily examines the films of Wilder. His personal life is presented at first and then takes a distant back seat through the rest of the book. The bulk of the book carefully looks at all that goes into a Wilder film.

That is what makes this book excellent to me. What stands out more than anything else from this book is the importance of the English language. Wilder fell in love playing with our language. His fun was batting about the words into a one liners and heart-felt dialogue assembled into terrific screenplay.

As I read I kept thinking of the insanity as efforts continue to water down, or dumb down, our language. That and the heavy handed effort to make us learn Spanish. Texting adds to the mess. It’s no wonder we hear the inanity we do in movies, television, music and books today. We should be heralding our ability to communicate, instead of launching backwards to days when men couldn’t communicate each other and used a giant club or fists to make a point. Alas, that seems our fate judging by the blood we see continuing to spill on our streets.

Bottom line: I highly recommend this book to any film buff and to those who wish to better understand the methods of producing humor and outstanding storytelling.

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Journey of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is my sixth go round with Smoke Jensen and friends and it’s familiar territory. Though there are new turns in the story, the foundation is basically the same. Instead of a town in trouble, it’s a range war. A town is still involved and scenes are repeated from the other 5 novels.

As usual the characters carry the story and the strongest parts of the entire book. The characters are well written and distinct. The dialogue is excellent.

Bottom line: I recommend the book.

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Attended a political meeting near Interlachen, Florida, at Backwoods Smokehouse and sketched these folks. I was there to support Thuy Lowe, who is running for Congress and graduated with my sister in high school.

Did a series of courtroom illustrations for my friend Sally Baptiste today. I’ll now take the art and further work on the illustrations. Sally now has art of the courtroom scene of her winning her case today.

The Lions Of Lucerne by Brad Thor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really great first book with lavish setting descriptions that are not over board. The characters are very well written. The story is well balanced with action, drama and humor. Dialogue is very good. It’s easy to see how Thor and the publishers continue this series.

This is the fourth book I’ve read in the series. This one is also my favorite. The other three are good, but I never got all that excited about actively following the series. I think I will get on to another Scot Harvath book soon.

Bottom line: I recommend the ‘Lions of Lucerne’.

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Above is the prepped version  in the process getting the watercolor painting below finished. Above I’ve penciled the caricature incorporating the image of the person’s head and a large amount of information about her to assemble a really personal drawing of who she is.
Adding the ink that won’t run with the watercolor, I prep the art and then add the watercolor.
This artwork was done from start to finish with the client at Beefy king in Orlando, Florida

Above Dr. Bob Knight, Lisa Saupp and Natalie Lyons save Swampy from the bite of the saber-tooth tiger!

Had a lot of fun tonight at a party celebrating Silver Springs becoming part of the Florida State Park system. The event was held at the Silver River Museum with famed photographer Clyde Butcher headlining the event. Clyde featured a slideshow and film of his recent photography work out west and in the past week around the Silver River.

Otherwise, for me, the room was filled with many, many friends. Most of my fellow members of the Marion County Historical Commission were there. As were Marion County Commissioner David Moore and his wife, designer and fellow Florida buff Rick Kilby, new vice-manager of Silver River State Park Nicky Aiken, the Ocala Star-Banner photographer who snapped pictures of me a couple days ago, a whole variety of folks from the Springs Alliance and the Springs Festival committees.

It was a great celebration with great food – Especially the grits bar! Looking forward to the “soft” opening of Silver River State Park this coming Tuesday.

Here’s the final inked art from the pencils seen below. You can see I altered a few things here and there I went from pencils to inks. The client also made a few requests involving the lady in the illustration. This is a private commission.

Found Christmas in September in K-Mart yesterday. Saw they started this last week. They have more shelves set up with lights. ornaments and the like out. I’m sure there is more to come.

Melbourne A Century of Memories by Melbourne Chamber of Commerce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful selection of columns telling of the history of Melbourne and surrounding area. Lots of great first hand stories and tales and Florida history. All involve interviews with Florida natives and other very long term residences. The writing is very good and photographs illustrate all of the entries.

The unfortunate part is that this book is out of print and very hard to find. Also should be noted is that the book came out in 1980 and the columns were written throughout the 1970s. So, the history time frame is prior to the ’70s.
Bottom line: I highly recommend this book for the Florida history lover or those that like to read about people’s lives.

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