This past week, I worked on finishing a track started back in Episode 364 accompanying a short segment from The Thirteenth Hour where Logan meets his crewmates again in a dream. When I finished the episode, I put it aside since it didn’t quite feel done, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it needed. I tossed around a number of ideas for a time, but it was not until recently that I hit on the right sound – the additional of a choral backing track and modifying the bell-like lead with a wah-wah sound to make it sound more ethereal. I do think this is the last track for the second Thirteenth Hour soundtrack! Now, I have to put it all together, make sure it has the finishing touches, and make the packaging. I think the Thirteenth Hour action figures (basically done!) and the magnet dolls will be accompanying this album.
This week, I’m working on the last piece in the upcoming second Thirteenth Hour soundtrack. The track, called “Homecoming” is an incidental piece of music I made back in the summer but wasn’t sure how to finish. But today, I’m wrapping it up by adding two additional layers – a short melody for the “verses” using a xylophone sound (to invoke the feeling of nostalgia/childhood) as well as a choral vocal overlay. The draft plays at the end of the episode. A few pictures from part of the book that inspired this piece:
Next week, we’re going to do another Q and A episode! If you have questions or things you’d like to share, feel free to email me them at writejoshuablum@gmail.com.
This week, I’d like to welcome screenwriter, actress, and producer Nicole Dubuc to the show. She is the executive producer of the Rocketeer cartoon that came out about a year ago (which, as of 10/16/20, is now also available on Disney+.) She joins the show under another installment of the Like a Hood Ornament Rocketeer segment to discuss the creation of the series, the music, and some of the ideals she and her team brought to the cartoon. It was especially great to see how they were able to take Dave Stevens’ and the 1991 film’s visions of the Rocketeer universe and turn it into something that young children could easily digest and fall in love with (as my kids did).
My own children started watching the show when it came out. We don’t have cable, so I had no idea how to watch the episodes initially but eventually figured out that you could buy the episodes individually on iTunes (and then, ultimately, as a whole season on Amazon). It’s been great to share my favorite movie with the kids in a form they can digest, and as I mentioned here before and on social media, we’ve done a bunch of things from that love of the show, like reading books about airplanes together, making a Halloween costume for my daughter (almost done, more on the first Patreon exclusive episode coming soon), and making little resin figurines. I also have the Rocketeer comics to thank for helping to keep my three-year-old son on the potty long enough to, you know, take care of business.
If you haven’t seen the show, here is a clip of our favorite song, which has all the 80s pop glory of flying to the sound of synths and guitars.
Can you spot the original Rocketeer film/comic Easter Eggs? Here are a few to get you started …
-recreation of the scene in the original comic and film of the Rocketeer saving a pilot in trouble at an airshow
-Butch the bulldog
–Billy Campbell, the original Rocketeer in the 1991 film, who voices the pilot in trouble (the father of Kit, the new Rocketeer).
-gum in a white wrapper (a la Beeman’s) that saves the day
If you don’t have Disney+ or another streaming service with the show, you can, of course, buy episodes or the season individually like I did.
However, you can also watch an episode for free (which has a nice cameo by the original Rocketeer) on Youtube:
Although I wasn’t able to get it to work since I think my phone is too old, there was a Rocketeer game with the same bright color palate the series has that used to be part of the Disney Now app. I’m not sure it’s still available since I wasn’t able to find it this time around, but you can check out the gameplay below. Looks like fun! I hope it gets released to be more widely available!
Thanks, Nicole, for coming on the show! You can find out more about her on Twitter and Instagram.
Look for more Rocketeer cartoon content in future episodes, and if you’re a member of the Thirteenth Hour Arts Patreon group, look for more updates on the costume we’re currently making. Here’s a preview:
As I mentioned last week, I wanted to finish the short story, “The Last Rocketeer” (which tells the story of what might happen if a 71-year-old Cliff from The Rocketeer met up with Centauri from The Last Starfighter) by Halloween since the story ends on Halloween, but also because, when writing it, I wanted to pay homage to the timeline the Rocketeer cartoon established for Cliff and Jenny later in life. Although the IDW comics had stories that went up through World War 2 (and that was with Betty and the Dave Stevens version of the rocketpack), I don’t think there is anything that discussed what life was life for these characters after that. That is, until the cartoon! So, there are some cameos and mentions of Ambrose, Cliff’s son, and Dave, his grandson in “The Last Rocketeer.” Here are a few of the illustrations, mostly done with the kids in daddy day care art time:
By the way, proceeds from the next Thirteenth Hour LP, Once Upon a Dream, will also be donated to the organization Corazon de Vida (see episode 268). If you are also interested in helping to support their mission, learn more at https://www.corazondevida.org/get-involved. Join me and others at the virtual event that Corazon de Vida is throwing on 10/29/20 at 7 PM PST by clicking on the picture below or here.
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
I first heard of his work on this episode of The Rocketeer Minute with Jim O’Kane and Hal Bryan (who were on episodes 249 and 250) talking, of course, about the Rocketeer but also his graphic novel, What Ever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, which chronicles America’s journey in the 20th century from a pre-WW2 sense of optimism in the future of less disease, better living through chemistry, jet packs for all, flying cars, and wrist communicators through the Space Race with the USSR to the gradual waning and disillusionment with space exploration in the 80s and beyond.
We also touch on his most recent work, A Fire Story, about the loss of his home in the 2017 California fires (timely especially now given that US West coast residents are again dealing with the same situation). Here’s a frame from his initial version (drawn at the time of the loss as a kind of chronicle of what was happening).
I wanted to finish the short story, “The Last Rocketeer” in time for this episode, since they are tied together serendipitously, as we’ll discuss in the episode. Some of the lost luster of the early part of the 20th century discussed in What Ever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? kind of reminded me of the quietly reluctant hero portrayed by Sam Elliot in The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, and I figured all these forces converging together meant I should proceed with my weird idea of combining The Rocketeer with The Last Starfighter after all. Well, the story’s done, just in time for Halloween, which figures into the end, though I won’t say how. It’s been a fun ride! I hope Cliff has earned some well deserved rest and inner peace. A few of the illustrations, mostly done with the kids in daddy day care art time:
By the way, proceeds from the next Thirteenth Hour LP, Once Upon a Dream, will also be donated to the organization Corazon de Vida (see episode 268). If you are also interested in helping to support their mission, learn more at https://www.corazondevida.org/get-involved. Join me and others at the virtual event that Corazon de Vida is throwing on 10/29/20 at 7 PM PST by clicking on the picture below or here.
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, there was so much “housekeeping” business to take care of, I made it a whole episode. Here’s the lineup:
-I am just about done the title track, “Once Upon a Dream,” for the next Thirteenth Hour soundtrack LP. I finally figured out what was missing from the backing part. More synth (there’s a surprise). Then it all fit together. It’s odd, in a way, since the beat is fast (120 bpm), but the vocals are actually quite slow, much slower than I anticipated. So there’s an alternating ascending / descending note progression that can be heard in the background (that’s the new part) that helps to bridge the gap between the tempo of the beat and the speed of the vocals. This version can be heard at the end of the episode.
-Speaking of synth, check out the weekly podcast, SR Weekly. Steven, the host, who goes by the alias Synth Redneck, used to host his show on youtube but has since moved it over to an audio only format that is available on major podcasting platforms. If you check out the 9/16/20 episode, you’ll hear The Thirteenth Hour synth orchestra theme as one of the selections in that week’s set. If you’re a synth musician yourself, you can submit your music for consideration to be included in a future episode or just check out the lineup with each episode to discover some great new music.
-By the way, proceeds from the next Thirteenth Hour LP, Once Upon a Dream, will also be donated to the organization Corazon de Vida (see last week’s episode). If you are also interested in helping to support their mission, learn more at https://www.corazondevida.org/get-involved. Join me and others at the virtual event that Corazon de Vida is throwing on 10/29/20 at 7 PM PST by clicking on the picture below or here.
-Speaking of guests, next week’s we’ll be hearing from author and illustrator Brian Fies, of works such as What Ever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? for another installment of the Like a Hood Ornament Rocketeer segment. I hope also to have finished the short story, “The Last Rocketeer” in time for that episode, since they are tied together serendipitously, as we’ll discuss in the episode.
-Speaking of other creative folks, check out frequent podcast guest Adam of ACToyDesign on Patreon for an exclusive podcast all about toys, including a lot of retro 80s content.
-This year, Halloween falls on a Saturday, always a treat when you’re a kid (at least it was that way when I was a kid and you could spend all day out collecting bags a bags of candy – one year, I collected two whole pillowcases). Stay tuned! I’ll try to come up with something special for the end of the month!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m pleased to welcome Hilda Pacheco-Taylor of the organization Corazon de Vida, which helps to raise funds for a number of orphanages in Baja, Mexico (which are 100% reliant on donations to stay open). We met in a very serendipitous way, but I thought it would be really interesting to speak to someone who knew more about what life was like in orphanages given that Logan and Aurora from The Thirteenth Hour both grew up in one.
When writing the initial draft of the story, I wanted to create a better home for them in the Aquarian Orphanage than movies and fairy tales often give their protagonists. In a lot of stories, childhood trauma is used to fuel later motivations, and the lack of parents gives the writer free reign to have the characters do things that most parents in their right minds would never allow their kids to do.
Instead of the usual dark and oppressive views of orphanages and other public institutions, I remember wondering – what would happen if the kids at the Aquarian Orphanage basically just lived there, kind of like an extended summer camp? What would happen if the staff that worked there actually cared about the kids and tried to raise them as their own children? What would happen if they went to school there, grew their own food, and were responsible for the upkeep of the orphanage as if it were their own home – since that’s essentially what it was? What would happen if the orphanage environment were designed to build the kids up rather than just exacerbate the bad things that had already happened to them?
I had no idea when I was teen writing the story if such a place existed. I figured it could and have seen such places as an adult that gave me hope that such places did, in fact, exist. And today’s conversation is further evidence of that. Kids are our future, yet for some reason, when there are funding cuts to be made, often the first things to go are organizations and supports that help children. Thanks, Hilda, for coming on the show to share your story and talk about the work that your organization does to make a positive difference in the lives of the children in your area.
Proceeds from the next Thirteenth Hour LP, Once Upon a Dream, will also be donated to Corazon de Vida. If you are also interested in helping to support their mission, learn more at https://www.corazondevida.org/get-involved.
Join me and others at the virtual event that Corazon de Vida is throwing on 10/29/20 at 7 PM PST by clicking on the picture below or here.
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m wrapping up “Once Upon a Dream” and discussing more on the idea of creating a creative arts collective. Last week, I created a private Facebook group called Thirteenth Hour Arts – For Creators, Not Haters. Many thanks to all who joined!
This week, I’m launching a Patreon of the same name and idea – a place to share in the creative process, though more specific to things related to the creation of The Thirteenth Hour books, music, podcast, pictures, figures, and the like, as well all the other things that have influenced those properties. Hopefully, people will be able to share what they do as well so we can all build off each others’ creative energy.
You can go to the Pateron by clicking the picture below of going here:
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m adding vocals to “Once Upon a Dream” and discussing more on the idea of creating a creative arts collective. To start, I ended up creating a private Facebook group called Thirteenth Hour Arts – For Creators, Not Haters.
Here’s the premise I’ve copied from my inaugural post there:
Welcome to The Thirteenth Hour Arts Collective – a place to create, not hate!
There are so many ways to be creative in the world. Although I publicly create books, music, and toys for The Thirteenth Hour stories, those are informed by a number of other things, like 80s films, new wave music, martial arts, dance, and so forth.
I’m sure you have or had many things in your own life that are kind of the same. Please share them here – you may inspire someone else (or yourself) to make time and space for creative pursuits!
When Logan’s hoverboard flies in The Thirteenth Hour, it emits a cloud of rainbow colored smoke. There were rainbows all over the place in the 80s (Rainbow Brite, Skittles, Reading Rainbow, etc), and if not exactly rainbows, plenty of kids’ shows used the idea of different colors coming together to represent strength or unity through diversity and/or teamwork (Voltron, Captain Planet, etc). Rainbows encourage us to look off into the distance, towards that ephemeral spot where the rainbow ends. To me, they have always represented hope and possibility for the future, so I’m using them as a symbol for this group to represent creativity, especially the diversity of creative pursuits and people that practice them in hopes that it can be something we all share in and benefit from.
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m continuing to record the backing tracks for “Once Upon a Dream” – the solo, the chorus, and so forth. Next will be the vocals, the outro riffs, and maybe a few electric guitar accents here and there.
Speaking of which, I thought it might be a nice thing to add some of the magnet dolls I talked about recently as part of the special edition of the Once Upon a Dream LP. Here are the magnet dolls, by the way, of Logan and Aurora plus all their stuff:
In the latter part of the podcast, I talk about the idea of trying to create some kind of online community to showcase the creative process. I touch on that in many of these podcasts, and I’ve been thinking about trying to help people showcase the creative things they do in their own lives. In may ways, that’s one of the messages of The Thirteenth Hour – creating the world you want to inhabit. You may have noticed that on my Instagram posts, I have little emoticons before the post, kind of like these: 👾🎤📖🎸🍓🎨🕹🏹🙋🏽♀️🤸🏼♂️🌈🎭🎬
I’ve organized the different kinds of art types by sense, more or less, to showcase them
Sight
🎨 – visual art (e.g. paintings, illustrations, sketches, sculptures …)
🕹- digital worlds
🎬 – films
📖 – stories
Sound
🎤 – audio entertainment (e.g. podcasts, audiobooks …)
🎸 – music
Taste / Smell
🍓- food, gardens
Touch
⚒- tools made of metal, wood, plastic, ceramic …
🪑- furniture
🏕- places to live
📟 – electronics
💍 – jewelry
🧣- clothing
🧸- toys
Movement
🏹 – safety, confidence, inner peace (e.g. through martial arts disciplines)
🤸🏼♂️- movement, health (e.g. dance, gymnastics …)
Mind
🙋🏽♀️- knowledge (e.g. through teaching)
🎭 – characters (e.g. acting)
👾 – memory
👨👩👦👦 – community
🌈 – hope and possibility, freedom of expression
Especially in 2020, when there is so much turmoil in the world, we could all use a little positivity to bring out the better parts of humanity – our desire to explore and create – rather than human drama and politics.
I’ve been thinking about creating a Facebook group for this for awhile or perhaps a Patreon community to do this. What do you think?
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working up and wrapping up few concurrent projects – starting the recording of the backing track for “Once Upon a Dream” discussed last on episode 261 and finishing up a little “kitbashed” minifigure of Aurora from The Thirteenth Hour discussed a bit last episode. The magnet dolls discussed last episode are in the editing process, so I’ll be printing those out soon!
One of Aurora’s costumes is this one from a picture in the book:
I’ve been working on a custom miniature of Aurora in this outfit made from a few different Wonder Woman mini figures.
I ended up using parts from all three different verions of these little Wonder Women to make the figure, plus some Apoxie Sculpt clay and paint. These are the pics from last week. Here’s what the finished figure looks like:
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on the title track from the next Thirteenth Hour soundtrack LP, Once Upon a Dream. I have the keyboard riffs and the lyrics mostly done and am now trying to figure out how they go together. I’ve recorded a bare bones version here with just the vocals and the piano chords, which is how many of these songs start. In the coming week’s, I’ll be refining the skeleton of the song as I figure out how the different riffs work into the song, where the backing beat will come in, how the solo will sound, etc.
In the Like a Hood Ornament segment, I’m talking a bit about how my kids and I have been working on a costume paper mache rocketpack for my daughter for Halloween (she’d like to be Kit Secord from the cartoon, who you can see at the bottom of these images below).
We still have to figure out how to attach straps, and I’m wondering if it might be fun to figure out how to light up the engines and/or attach the little banks of purple LEDs on the bottom that this version of the pack has. Maybe we’ll make an electrical switch wired to the gloves, like in the movie.
Also, the next segment of the fanfic short story, “The Last Rocketeer,” describing a team-up between Centauri from The Last Starfighter and a 71 year-old Cliff Secord who has long since given up being the Rocketeer (but secretly wants one last flight) is up.
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
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In the latter part of the podcast, I talk about the idea of trying to create some kind of online community to showcase the creative process. I touch on that in many of these podcasts, and I’ve been thinking about trying to help people showcase the creative things they do in their own lives. In may ways, that’s one of the messages of The Thirteenth Hour – creating the world you want to inhabit. You may have noticed that on my Instagram posts, I have little emoticons before the post, kind of like these: 👾🎤📖🎸🍓🎨🕹🏹🙋🏽♀️🤸🏼♂️🌈🎭🎬
The Thirteenth Hour 