Once a year I'm fortunate enough to be asked to teach at Creative Spark, a learning center for children and teens in Mount Pleasant, SC. Here are details of my latest class, which starts on Monday July 30:

How to Audition for Films, Television and Commercials

Hundreds of locals are cast each year in films, commercials and television shows.If you aspire to get paid jobs acting, even non-speaking roles require that you...

- know the terminology and etiquette
- learn how to recite a monologue
- improvise
- follow direction.

Learn from a pro, Nick Smith, who founded the Film School Scotland and has worked on dozens of film and TV productions, including "Gulliver's Travels" and "The Little Vampire."

July 30 to August 3

Tuition is $85.

Ages 8 to 12 from 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Ages 13 and up from 3:00 to 5:00 PM

Phone: 843-881-3780
Fax: 843-881-8487

Since moving to South Carolina four years ago, I've encountered some weird and wonderful creatures I'd only ever seen on TV before: alligators, possums, black widows, brown recluses, termites and cockroaches. I've been gnawed on by fire ants and had my nether regions inhabited by ticks.



This summer I made some new friends. I went camping with my family on the banks of Lake Marion; the nights were hot and buggy, but the cool waters of the lake made the heat bearable. Get too steamed, and you could just jump in and cool off a bit.



I wondered why my wife, Ros, wasn't staying in too long. Not wanting to get sunstroke, I paddled around in the water for a long time - and when I got out, I found that some little critters had become very attached to me.





Now I can add leeches to my list of zoological night terrors. Thankfully, they were small and I got them off my feet and ankles fairly easily. But I'll be thinking twice before I spend a day in a South Carolinian lake again.

Now up on Photobucket: snaps I took a couple of weeks back at an underground art show in Downtown Charleston.

The Upper Deck Tavern's been hosting weekly solo shows for the past couple of months. When I visited, it was the turn of John Pundt to fill the place with his prints. And I mean fill it - there were posters on the walls, floor, bar, hanging from signs and shelves, you name it.

Although organizers Fear Fear have found the weekly schedule gruelling, they're hoping to go monthly and keep the shows going. I'm hoping it won't be too long before the next artist squeezes a heap of work into the Tavern.

On the cut for tonight (July 7th): a graffiti art show at a downtown salon.

Ishmael, Nova, Leder, Destro, Dewd, Egroe, Proton, Came, Gonzo, Detor, Quiet, and Bars will all provide work for the show, held at Elysium, 4 Liberty St, just off King.

Like the show's curator says, it keeps 'em off the streets. It also validates a maligned art form, even in an alternate space like this one.

The Charleston City Paper website has an update on the blame game that's followed the June 18th Sofa Super Store fire, which I mentioned in my last blog.

The fire's effect was even felt in my wife's home town of Greenock, Scotland, where the deaths of nine firefighters caught in the blaze made headlines in the local paper - just as it did all over the world.

At first I thought it was a typical thundercloud - a big black tumus high in the sky, threatening to bucket down on my neighborhood.

I was driving home after teaching a class in North Chuck, the first week of a course with a friendly bunch of folk who'd set me at ease with their curious attitudes. I was looking forward to relaxing at home as the evening drew to a close.

As I drove along Cosgrove Avenure and over the bridge back into West Ashley, I saw that the dark cloud was rising from the ground far ahead. It was a column of smoke that, for a moment, was thick enough to block the sun.

I got a sick feeling in my stomach. The smoke seemed to be coming from my neighborhood right enough, and I started to wory about my neighbors. In the distance I could hear multiple sirens.

My street was safe but from my porch, I could still see the smoke belching from Highway 17, a few blocks away. Eventually, the smoke stopped pouring out and I breathed a sigh of relief. Our local firefighters had done it again, stopping a fire before it spread too far.

This time was different. The fire was at the Sofa Super Store on Highway 17; nine firefighters lost their lives that day.

Artist John Pundt lives just around the corner from the store, and took pictures and video as the fire worsened. "I've taken pictures of fires before," he told me, meaning his back yard bonfires, "So I concentrated on faces instead." At the start, he says, it was just another blaze for the firefighters and onlookers. When part of the store collapsed and they realized that men had died inside, the mood changed completely. But the firefighters finished the job and put out the flames.

The genuine outpouring of grief and condolence since the fire has been overwhelming. Finally, it looks like out local firemen will get some much-needed new equipment and we've been reminded what an incredible, dangerous and thankless job those guys do.

Seth's Sites

Seth Curcio's a Charleston-based artist who's recently switched from painted abstract work to the remix of cultural icons via photocopies, screenprints, enamel paints and whatever other "materials of mass commerce" he can get his hands on. His new solo show, American Landscape, just opened at the Modernisme Gallery in Avondale, West Ashley.

Seth is a force to be reckoned with, and his Daily Serving artsite gets sexier the longer it's up... unlike the site for Redux Contemporary Art Center, which he executive directs. That site is frustratingly bare, with minimal information on its exhibits.

Redux has had some great exhibits promoting new media as art forms - so it's surprising that the accompanying website is no great shakes.

Judge for yourself. Click on the Redux link and let me know how useful you think it is. Then visit Daily Serving for what I consider a much more edifying internet experience.