A doodle a day

Sometimes you do strike gold down the dark mine shaft of the Internet.

The other day, I found this terrific blog called Alex Noriega Sketchblog. Alex says he's an illustrator from Barcelona "whose goal in life is to draw a doodle a day."

More than a doodle. I'm charmed by the lively drawings and the way they jump out of the bright acrylic paint in the background.

Especially nice is Alex's posting of May 21, in which he demonstrates step-by-step how he creates his paintings. He writes with a nice humorous, easygoing style as well. Check it out.

My favorite fountain

I've always liked this little water fountain, but I worry about it, the way you fuss over a skinny kitten, or wonder whether your tomato plant is getting enough water.

It has a brave, geometric flair under the overgrown ferns, but you have to stop walking along Gilman Street in downtown Palo Alto long enough to get a good look. The water fountain doesn't work any more, and its silver basin is filled with leaves and rocks. I bet the bowl on the bottom left was once for dogs (and perhaps skinny kittens), but it's also full.

Today I wiped the dirt off the small plaque on top and read "Altoan Press Fountain, April 1973." The plaque also says that the sculptor was Adrienne Duncan, the designer was Marlene Lawrence, and the artisan was Tony Ramirez.

Does anyone know the story behind my favorite fountain?

You can't go home again

Palo Alto as a stand-in for Wisconsin? Now that's movie magic.

Today, a movie crew is in our neck of the woods, shooting an independent feature film at a home in downtown Palo Alto. "Presque Isle" is set in the Rhinelander, Wisconsin childhood home of director Rob Nilsson.

Here's the cool collaborative piece of the story: Nilsson, who nabbed the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1987 for "Heat and Sunlight," is working together with students from the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking, which is just over a year old. It's all to give the students hands-on experience in making a high-def digital movie -- this is the school's first feature-film project.

And what more do we know about "Presque Isle"? Well, Nilsson says the story covers "themes of memory, human suffering, family reconciliation, and also a portrait of a land much neglected by American cinema." Much of it is also being shot in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Pictured: Nilsson hard at work. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking.

Tiffany tale ends happily

As I so humbly predicted on June 14, the special promotional brochure that TheatreWorks mailed out to a random patron -- it was good for one Tiffany necklace -- never surfaced. Oh, the misty murk of our postal system.

But the tale ends happily. The TheatreWorks folks instead drew a name at random from theatergoers at the June 24 opening night of "Vanities." Debbie Appel of La Honda went home with a 12-strand pearl necklace.

Good for her. See? It pays to go to the theater.

The quilt is mightier than the sword

Can you catch more flies with quilting than shouting? OK, so I mixed my metaphors just a tad, but my question is apt when looking at the work of Los Altos artist Linda Gass. She's an avid outdoorswoman who makes beautiful, lush statements about the environment through her art quilts and other works.

I'm especially taken with her quilt "South Bay" (above). It depicts the southern part of San Francisco Bay in remarkable detail, including the salt ponds that stand out so jarringly against the landscape.

With the quilt, Gass's hope is to educate people about the need for restoring wetlands. It's a compelling yet gentle way to do so.

Gass, a Stanford graduate who was in software development before making the move to a fiber artist's life 11 years ago, has a personal record this summer. Her work is being shown in four exhibits miles apart: in France, Washington, North Carolina and Santa Monica.

Apropos for an artist who shows such curiosity about the world.

Pictured: "South Bay," a quilt by Linda Gass. Photo by James Dewrance.

Dream a little dream

A hot, drowsy Friday afternoon: how can I work when I want to snooze under my desk with the AP stylebook as a pillow?

I blame my relaxation on the Stanford Jazz Festival. Whilst typing, I'm tooling around the Internet listening to clips of some of the musicians playing there this summer. Smoooooth.

Check out their sites:
* Cyrus Chestnut (performing at Stanford Jazz on June 24)
* Anton Schwartz (July 17)
* Taylor Eigsti (July 23)

But I thought it was a Fry's ad

I know one little Tiffany's necklace who's feeling mighty lonely.

See, the folks at TheatreWorks decided to try a glittery promotion. A few weeks ago they mailed out 20,000 season brochures -- one had a gold sticker on it. If you get that brochure, you win a necklace designed by Paloma Picasso, with 12 strands of pearls and sterling silver clasps. The bauble is scheduled to be presented on stage June 24 during a production of "Vanities."

But, um, no one has claimed the prize. And the special brochure was randomly placed in a pile of mailers before the address labels got popped on, so there aren't any clues about who the winner is.

I throw out piles of junk mail every week. Doesn't everyone? Do you now kinda wish you hadn't?

Unfortunately, with the amount of dreck clogging our mailboxes, I would be very surprised if the golden ticket ever saw the light of day. (In case I'm wrong, I'll be out back shuffling through the recycle bin.)

Photo by Clara Natoli