The Arts and Entertainment Magazine wants our readers to take notice of some of the great advertisers that grace our pages. With our magazine dedicated to the advancement of education, and our magazine now being read in colleges around the world, many advertisers are taking advantage of the exposure that we offer. Don’t forget too, that with our vast connections to cinema and the Hollywood crowd, we offer connections to many of outlets to assist filmmakers from around the world.

For those seeking employment click on Monster.com in the right hand column of our magazine as well as Industry Deal.com for special offers for the world of Cinema. Operation Smile at the top of our homepage lets you donate directly to a most worthy cause that helps impoverished children overcome their medical circumstances. Read more »

TAEM- Filmmaking has taken a great leap in progress over the last twenty years and more young filmmakers have been realizing their dreams through the Web. One promising filmmaker from Canada who has pounced upon the idea of creating web series is Travis Gordon.

Travis, tell us what first interested you in filmmaking, and who was your greatest influence ?

TG- I was really inspired by George Lucas’s Star Wars and Richard Donner’s Superman when I was a child.  I’ve been making videos since I was around 13 starting with the family video camera.  My first short film was called “Attack of the Evil Eggs” and I used all my siblings as actors.

TAEM- What made you choose creating a web series as your medium of choice?

TG- Making videos online is a dream come true for filmmakers. You get to show your videos directly to an audience. There’s no middleman and if you do it right you can make money. Read more »

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine needs to look no further for new writers then our own back yard. In Northern Virginia we have discovered much talent in the literary field. One such talent is Brandt Legg who has just released his new book Outview.

Brandt, we have learned that you were a child prodigy who became a well-known stamp collector as a youth. Please tell our readers about your early years.

BL- I grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.), the youngest of five boys. My father died suddenly when I was eight, gutting my family emotionally and financially. A couple of years later, I began collecting stamps (my dad had loved the hobby). At age ten I started helping a local dealer at stamp shows. I bought a cover (envelope with a stamp affixed) for twenty-five cents and minutes later another collector offered me $85 for it. Of course I sold and thought I was rich! Immediately, I decided to be a stamp dealer and gave up collecting. Read more »

Can’t Get Out of Our Own Way - While the S&P 500 managed to eke out a gain of 0.3% during the past six weeks despite just suffering its worst weekly loss since November, our portfolio in the same period slipped 1.2%.  An 11% loss in SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), combined with 8% losses in GE (GE) and Facebook (FB), could not be overcome by 8% gains in Boeing (BA) and Wisdom Tree Japan Hedged Equity (DXJ).  Since its January 10 inception our portfolio has gained 0.2% while the S&P 500 has gained 6.1%.

Gold’s collapse has driven our SPDR Gold Trust shares down 17.6% so far, making it our second worst performing position.  I feel that Gold is still a valid part of any portfolio as a hedge against currency swings and world turmoil, but its price can take nasty turns when traders with large margin positions are forced to liquidate, as must have happened when the price of gold continued its plunge on April 14 despite the bombings in Boston.  Facebook’s share price simply refuses to stabilize.  For most of the past six weeks the shares had benefited from favorable reviews of the new Facebook home page for Android devices.  But the shares plunged during the selling of the week of April 14.  To stabilize the share price, Facebook will likely need to deliver an impressive earnings report showing mobile revenue success.  Read more »

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine did not have to look far to find another great author. By chance my photographer and I were visiting my favorite  Barnes & Nobles Bookstore when I chanced upon meeting a local author conducting a book signing for her latest work. It always pays for an author to show their work in this way, as they never know who fate throws at them.

Author Patricia Chapman Meder comes from a military family and has seen much of life at an early age. Patricia, please tell our readers about your childhood and the impact that it had on you.

PCM- When I came into this world there were 2 factors at play that determined the direction of my life. The first of these was the fact that I was born a Gemini, a creative sign, and the second was due to my father’s choice to attend West Point. Consequently my sister and I were born in to a highly mobile Air Force family.

This military lifestyle mandated that every 2-3 years, we would step away from the familiar and take on a new set of circumstances, location, schools, friends, etc.. This wasn’t always easy but it was expected. And it was what all of our acquaintances did as well. It was our norm. This lifestyle put me in every state in our Union and, eventually, 13 years in Europe. It is a type of background that tends to produce an individual comfortable with other cultures. Read more »