S03 Episode 11: Luke Bassuener, Art Teacher

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The person that I meet today I read about in the Isthmus. He was creating a stop-motion film with the students he teaches in his art class at Crestwood Elementary school. And the film they made was screened at this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival. After reading that article I kind of had to talk to him. How could I not? And he’s a musician too.

We decided to meet at the Monona Terrace during the Mini Makers Fair.

But the pop-up interview I’m going to play for you this week took place just a few weeks ago when Merijoy and I had visited Browsers Bookstore on state street. After meeting the woman that worked there we just had to come back and talk to her again, because she was kind of awesome.

See the animated short "A Valkyrie's Tale" on YouTube - https://youtu.be/LR6MB_4TeRM

I Accidentally Promised to Run a Big Tech Summit Music Stream!

The Origin Story: From Prague Summit to Virtual London Event This week, I have a couple of things scheduled that I need to do. And one of them is because I talked myself into a project that I wasn't necessarily ready for. A few years back, I played at a summit that happened in Prague. It was for the Ubuntu Summit. It's a summit that's for free and open source culture, and mainly is about the operating system Ubuntu, which is a Linux operating system. My band played there because we are Ubuntu users and we are open-source artists. They announced that they were going to be doing another one this year from London. They were going to announce the details and all this and I was like, I would like to go to London. So, I contacted them and they were kind of like, well, we're not really doing it the same way this year. And I'm like, well, what's going on? And then they finally announced that it is going to be an online streaming event that is being hosted from London...

Artwork for the original Candy Land game by Milton Bradley from 1955.

I have a vintage Candy Land game from 1955 by Milton Bradley and I was about to sell it so I thought I would add it to my personal art history course concept I've been doing . I'm going to try and see if I can find out how this game was created, designed and why? Here is what I found out about this game https://candy-land.fandom.com/wiki/Candy_Land_Wiki Candy Land is a board game about children exploring a world made out of candy and other sweets that originally came out in 1949. In every version of the game, there are a group of children that go through Candy Land. In the earliest versions of the game, it was a realistically drawn boy and girl. Drawing of the Candy Land kids I did on my phone ☝ https://board-games-galore.fandom.com/wiki/Candy_Land The game was designed in 1948 by Eleanor Abbott , while she was recovering from polio in San Diego, California. It's rumored that Eleanor also did the original artwork but I didn't find anything that...

Some history about artist Alex Toth

So recently I decided I was going to try and learn something about each item in my toy collection and the artwork behind it . Kind of like my own impromptu art history class. Then I'm going to sell it so I can start collecting more! :) Moltar One of the first things I put up for sale was this Space Ghost Coast to Coast Moltar Action Figure from back in 2000. By the way, I learned a valuable lesson when shipping this item to the person who bought it. Never let the people at the post office touch your collectibles! The Space Ghost Coast to Coast show actually used the original artwork from the Hanna Barbera Space Ghost cartoon from the 1960s. Those characters were designed by Alex Toth . I knew his name but didn't really know anything else about him. Here is a sketch I did of Moltar on my phone. So I decided for my first art history lesson I would do a little bit of research on Alex Toth . he died at his drawing table on May 27, 2006, from a heart attac...

How I use one Gmail address for multiple Soundcloud accounts

Do you know the Gmail "+" trick to use one email for multiple accounts on one service? Here's a little trick I use that works for any service. I talked about this on the podcast episode I did with artist Mortimur K . In this case, let's say I used up all the uploads I have for my free Soundcloud account . With this trick, I can open a new free account and use the same Gmail address. I don't want to create another Gmail account to sign up again. Using my one Gmail address for multiple accounts on the same service I don't remember when I learned this but you can alter the name on a Gmail address. Like, let's say mine is "tom@gmail.com". To be clear that is not my email. I wish it was, but this is just a short example. Start with the original Gmail address Add a "+" after the email name Where it says "tom" on the address I can put a "+" after that. Add a "+" after the email name After that "+" I ca...

Tom Ray

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