Baseball, Dali, and a Singer.

     I'm sure that I've mentioned it before, but I love baseball. I got go to my first game of the season in St. Pete today. Unfortunately my RAYS lost, but tomorrow is another day, and you don't have to win them all, you just have to win series. The Trop may not be the best ballpark, but when the temperature is 90+ degrees and random storms in the area, that constant 72 Degrees under the dome, feels pretty nice. It was a good game even though they took the loss. They made an adventure of it up until the last out. It was exciting even though it went the wrong way.

     One of the other reasons I love going over to St. Pete, is that I get to stop in the Dali Museum. From the building to the amazing artwork inside, it is just a remarkable experience. I'm a member at the museum, so I flash my little card, and I get to walk right in.

     They generally house two exhibits at the museum. The main gallery is for Dali's works, and I can spend hours in there, just looking at the tiny features of each painting. I always find something new in each one of them, that blows my mind. The other gallery houses another artist that they can tie to Dali. The current exhibit, which ends tomorrow, is Disney & Dali. Most people don't know that Walt Disney and Salvador Dali collaborated on an animated film. It was called Destino. Money ran short on the project and it was scraped, but Roy Disney later picked the project back up in 2003 and finished it, and because you can find everything on the internet, here is the completed Destino.

 
     It's very short, and absolutely beautiful. You may have noticed near the end, there was a baseball player. I told you I love baseball. The Dali gift shop happened to have a 3/4 sleeve baseball shirt with a sketch from a piece titled baseball and ballerina, which was kind of a story board rendering for Destino. Below is the sketch to give you an idea. Oh, the shirt only has the batter on it, and has baseball stitching where the sleeves meets the body of the shirt. I of course, had to get it.

     Fun little sketch, right? They had the actual sketch in the exhibit, and it was fun seeing pen and pencil sketches by the master himself. They even had a book of Walt's that Dali autographed for him, but instead of a plain old ordinary autograph, Dali drew a sketch on the page in pen. It was outstanding.

     Now on to my favorite painting by Dali. It is none other than the Hallucinogenic Toreador. I stare at that massive master piece for at least 15 minutes every time I am there. I believe it stands 30 feet tall, and the remarkable thing, is that Dali only painted at eye level, and he didn't use a ladder. He rented two floors in a Manhattan apartment, and had them cut a hole in the floor just large enough for the canvas to slide through. He had a wench and pulley system set up, so that he could have it raised and lowered as he desired. If you've never seen it, it is hard to believe that someone could paint something so smooth. The brush strokes are nearly invisible.  Pictures do not do the painting justice, but here it is.

Last but not least tonight, is a clip of a little girl that was on America's Got Talent this past week. her name is Grace VanderWaal. I have a feeling that you will be hearing more about her. She has a truly unique voice. She did an original song on the show, which is a bit of a shock considering that she is only 12 years old. The song was good, and it really fit her well. While I was watching the video package that the put up for her, I kept getting this Taylor Swift vibe, and sure enough when the song was over, that is one of the first things that Simon said, "you could be the next Taylor Swift". Instead of me telling you all of this, why don't you just watch the clip.

     I think she has a great  deal of talent, and I hope to watch her career blossom. I believe I've kept you long enough tonight, and possibly given you sensory overload with all the video clips and pictures, but I do have one last thing to talk about. I noticed a trend with this blog, and I don't really like it. I originally started out to do this once I was done the 365, but I couldn't wait any longer and decided to do a post on Monday nights. I soon got restless again and asked readers of my 365 to pick another day in the week to put up a second post. They picked Saturday. Here is where the problem comes in. By the time that I get this written and posted, it is Sunday morning, and that means that I have posts on back to back days, where I wanted to have them spread out a bit. Here is the remedy to that problem. My intent all along was to have this a three day a week post when the 365 is over. The days that I have chosen were; Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. I'm making the move to Tuesday night starting this week. It was going to end up there anyway, and this will create a gap between posts. So, I will see you again on Tuesday night. Peace in and goodnight.