Buffalo gals

We have entered one of my favorite times of year. Chrixmouse time. As a kid this time of year was typified by the continuous airing of "It's a Wonderful Life." Now I was a devotee of the Movie Loft and the Creature Double Feature, but few things captured my attention like "IAWL," that and the annual springtime airing of "The Wizard of Oz." While I have yet to have my yearly viewing of holiday classic, I have basically the entire film committed to memory. I have recently seen "The Wizard of Oz" and noticed a parallel between the two, I'll call it the Backyard Phenomenon. George Bailey wants travel the world, he is a member of the then newly founded National Geographic Society. He feels that the three most exciting sounds in the world are "anchor chains, plane motors and train whistles." But he ultimately realizes, like Dorothy, that when looking for his "heart's desire" he need never look "further than [his] own backyard." These films were made seven years apart, bookending the Second World War, so was this the fantasy of the men in uniform, or was this our culture's mindset at the time, a way to remind us of what we were fighting for? Or was this a way to discourage people from looking beyond their own small worlds, past distant horizons, to a life that was broader, larger, and therefore unamerican? Or a way to make those people who were home feel like they were contributing something valuable, like George running scrap drives and air raid drills. Maybe keeping a light in the window, the yellow ribbon around the old oak tree (which is where the yellow ribbon as a symbol of support for our troops comes from), the home hearths blazing, has a value and a courageousness that at that time needed to be recognized. If hope dies at home it will not survive on the battlefield. But the reactionary, revolutionary, liberal in me can't help but look for some agenda, some kind neutering of open dialog and questioning of authority inherent in the idea that those at home should just keep the candles lit and dinners warm. At this point in time it was the reverse of what it is now, the public wanted answers for why our nation was unwilling to join the fight. Now we seem to always be fighting. To my few and lovely readers  my christmas wish for us all is peace on earth and a brief moment of feeling what George Bailey discovered. Merry Christmas you wonderful old building and loan.

Illuminated Manuscripts, the next generation

This article about Jonathan Sarfran Foer's new book got me thinking. Normally I'm not really a fan of the writer, but I found the ideas he raised here interesting. His new book is essentially an art object. An already published novel that he has cut up to make a sort of a literary Mad Libs/Lift-the-flap novel. As a novel, I'm not willing to give it my time, but to me it holds far more credibility as  as an artist's book. This feels both snobby and elitist of me, and a bit close minded too. But I'm old school. A book is a book. And I'm not interested in it being diluted with anything. All I want is words, and all on one page, in regular sentences. I can't get through Breakfast of Champions because of the rudimentary line drawing of an asshole. Not only is this perspective close minded of me, but it also reveals my own myopic vision of the future. A vision that I'm trying hard to improve with this blog.  "Foer counters that only in writing do such incursions from other art forms draw much attention." And he's right, if text can appear in visual art, why do images somehow devalue literature? Maybe because to us old school types, images don't seem to add anything, they instead feel like a crutch. Your words should be able to create the visual you want to add. And yet here I am, incorporating images, using them to further my ideas, to help me reach beyond my own limited range as an artist. I began this blog with the dim understanding that, as Foer points out, "It’s not enough. . . for authors to tell stories in the same old ways, even as publishing transforms." Maybe I'm the worst kind writer, standing on the sinking ship, lightening striking the rocks ahead, saying, "the weather's fine, this is just a shower."  All while I'm frantically strapping on my life vest. 


When I spent a month at the Vermont Studio Center (a shamefully long time ago), one of the great lessons that stayed with me was that writers often think too literally about their craft. That as a group we get stuck thinking that being productive and committing to our creative process has to mean sitting in front of our computer for hours everyday (frog you, Stephen King). The painters and sculptors I met in Vermont showed me that your process can be anything that fuels your desire to make work. One painter said, "today my process will be sitting in the river all afternoon." Maybe some of being walled off in our writer's world has to do with the way people experience our art. Reading is a private experience. It does not have the benefit of being able to be enjoyed immediately, en masse, like visual art. (Don't even talk to me about going to readings, that can only give you a suggestion of what someone's work is truly like) We are a bunch of antisocial nerds, writing for a bunch of antisocial nerds and we don't want anyone questioning our perfect, bitter isolation. So we have built a wall around our genre, hanging a hand scrawled sign, "No visual artists allowed, keep out, this means you."  I may not be ready to take down that sign when it comes to my fiction. But at least here, in this completely topsy turvy world of the interwebs, I am able to chisel out a brick in that ridiculous fortification. 


That said, here are some artists' books to help inspire the inevitable crossover. Like Euraka and Warehouse 13. 

lastly, an image from Max Ernst's graphic novel

laugh it up fuzz ball

There are lots of funny people, movies, bits, jokes, gags, comics and even routines in this world, but it takes a certain kind of stupidity to make me laugh out loud. Some of that is because I live with a ridiculously funny, smart man with impulse control problems, who continually says and does outrageous things. Things that will one day inspire the wrath of god, I'm sure. Because of him I have become desensitized me to most shocking, inappropriate or intelligent humor. Or maybe it is because my father subsists on bad puns. Or because my friends, (Mr. Mannis, Mr. Fogg) with their humor or just their general carriage, have made me squirt all manner of beverages out of my nose.

Sometimes I feel like I've lost my sense of humor completely. Someone will show me a video, or tell me a joke, to which the general reaction is total hilarity, but my reaction is usually just a smile or nod and "yeah, that's funny."No actual laughter. My man (who will now be known as PBT, until I come up with something better, plus it makes him sound like a sandwich, and I think he will like that), PBT thinks that makes me the ultimate straight man (I've encouraged him to write a humor book entitled, Married to a Straight Man). I'm afraid this lack of laughter makes me boring.

I am left to find my chuckles where I can. There isn't enough room in the post for the amount of Bill Murray I want to include, so I'll just give you my favorite quote, "you can't leave, all the plants are gonna die."

 Here is what works for me (at varying levels of quality):
(the first two and a half minutes)




Or this, which didn't have a stupid embedding code.

Or this, which also didn't have an embedding code. Is it me?

so you want to take a vacation from your problems...

There is a saying in my house, a phrase we use when someone is trying to escape their lives, their reality, through avoidance. Usually commercial grade, illicit avoidance. Any practicing or relapsing addicted can be described as "taking a vacation from his/her problems." I think it is safe to say that I am an expert in such vacationers. I could even call them travelers, riding the snake or dragon or any other reptile, men and women who walk a dark road, one that often doubles back on itself, full of menacing pot holes and lined with houses of ill repute. Whether a traveler is collecting poppies or dusting snow caps or wearing vibrating beads, he or she is actually not traveling at all but sitting at the bottom of a forgotten, dry well wondering when someone will send down the bucket. 

I have been in such a well, and I too thought I was on a vacation. I was still riding the wave of my emo nineties cred (yeah, I know, I'm old). I was out six nights a week. Searching searching searching. I went back stage at shows, and skipped the line at clubs, and had all manner of doormen call me "sweetie." Being young and being cute and being able to hold my liquor was the trifecta. At least that was how it felt at the time.  I'll dub this time period in my life as "college." I did go to class, but I did not live in a dorm, or have the typical experience which that word usually reflects.

(this is me back then, obviously about to tell the photographer to frog off)

While I was in "college" I met hundreds of people and made no friends (Miss j the exception that proved the rule). For someone who valued her life, I spent far too much time lingering in 24 hour fast food spots, throwing up into their parking lot bushes. Glamorous, I know. I went to magical places like the city impound lot at 3 am, the rooftop of the Johnson Paint Company (though I can't remember how I got there) and the Micky D's on the McGrath O'Brien highway. Maybe I wasn't technically an addict, or maybe I was. I often embarrassed myself, told lies, put myself and others in danger, did things I couldn't remember and generally made poor decisions. 

Amazingly, one day it stopped being fun. One day I woke up at the bottom of a well and thought, this is not as nice as I thought it would be. When I was 18 and first started traveling, I realized that drugs (including alcohol) just made doing nothing fun, and I promised myself that I wouldn't let them take over my life. I saw too many friends go down that road. Some scratched and kicked their way into rehab, some turned blue on the hardwood floor of my apartment and had to be kept awake and breathing for hours, some disappeared in the middle of the night, some went to jail, some were burned up, some buried alive under all their wasted potential. Many years later I remembered that realization. It took a whole year to find a way out of that well. But when I did, I was all done. I turned it off. One day I just didn't want to drink any more. One day I just didn't want to be miserable any more. I think that is what leads all addicts to recovery, not the hope of happiness, but the rejection of misery. Maybe I'm not really an addict or maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones in recovery. I still have a drink or occasionally two (after two I am a mess). And if I have two I often want a third, and I feel that old twinge, the old rubber neck of the addict in me looking for the next party, not wanting the night to end, searching for some like-mined soul to join me in my dank little well. But I never do have that third drink. 

this isn't a poem, it's just a thing I wrote... with line breaks

Sometimes I want to walk by the river, hold stones,

watch the water rise with distant rains,

and drink from foreign hands.

I want you across from me, my hand on your ankle.

I want to find a place when we aren’t always saying goodbye,

a place between yours and mine.

A chair in the sun,

a slim view,

where wind is welcome.

Long pages, long hours. 

when a cold cloth over the eyes just isn't enough

Sometimes, when you have a kid, you can feel like they are sucking away your life force, like a cat sucking out your soul, like Rogue leeching super powers from her fellow X-men. They are the little Dorians and you are reduced to a painting, a shell of your former self, growing rapidly more hideous as they venture further out into the world. Even their small crimes, a tiny hand scattering cat kibble to all corners of the house, ages you, adds jowls, produces dozens of wiry grey hairs that grow not from your formerly distinguished temples but directly from the top of your head, as a visual reminder of your energy leaving you through your crown chakra. It is at this point that you feel sorry for your own parents, when you understand why they went to bed at ten, why they were on occasion too tired to finish their beers, why it is that they never went anywhere or did anything (or that was how it seemed then). It is times like this when I really want to invest in a more comfortable couch. I just need more sleep. Then I can resemble this painting instead.

Luckily, when my kid says my name or asks very sweetly where her baby doll might be so she can hug it and kiss it, I don't feel any of this. She warps my mind with her cuteness.

this is to all the haters out there

I have recently notice an anti-New York City trend, not just among tourists, but among New Yorkers themselves (see Onion article, see all whiny commuters). The typical complaint usually goes something like this: New York is crowded, dirty, expensive, overrated, and generally just too hard. Their solution is usually to leave, or to talk incessently about leaving. Do not get me wrong, there are many beautiful and worthy cities out there (San Francisco, Boston), and there are plenty of reasons to move to said cities. I would love to be closer to my own family. That said, I feel that in the face of all this negativity I need to utter some rare words: I never want to leave New York City.

Yes, New York is hard. Life is hard, people. Michelangelo didn't say, "you know Julius, the ceiling seems like a great idea, but why don't we go ahead and just do the walls?" I will admit that while in New York you may see the bare ass of a homeless person in the middle of the day on a public street. You may see chicken bones on the ground, and you may smell something ungodly burning. You may also see a slow-moving cockroach zigzagging down the sidewalk with a camera around his neck, stopping at every goddamn corner to take a picture. You may later see thousands of his friends boil up from a sewer grate in a way that makes you think you should run for high ground. This is all totally normal.

But there is also Bach's solo cello suites in the subway; delicious Ethiopian food; watching Cary Grant try to salvage Ingrid Bergman's modesty in Notorious on the big screen; the mo' stormy at The Farm; the Highline (finally the city realized it needed to preserve its strange and wonderful archiectural oddities); the Met (one of the best museums in the world and it's free); getting a reserve book brought out of the stacks at the main branch of the New York Public Library, completely entertaining street fashion, 5 Pointz and the Broken Angel house. And that is just the obvious stuff. There is a whole secret New York, perfect hidden jewels that can be mined by taking circuitous routes home and lingering in doorways and talking to strangers.

This weekend I went to Central Park with my friend (self-dubbed the Derelict House Guest), and I was reminded of just how much I love New York. It is an inspiring place, not only because of all the amazing things to do and see, but because of all the people--the artists, the madmen, the writers, the thinkers, the magicians, the furries, the losers, the cruisers--who choose to live here. There is adventure here and courage, not only because it is hard (and yes it is frogging hard) but because it is full of seekers, people looking to be part of, and contribute to, something bigger than themselves. This population exists everywhere, but is particularly vibrant in New York. My dear Derelict House Guest has helped remind me of this. Here is her completely inspiring foot.

I was struck by the texture of the stone and her leather shoe. She is the stone, we are all the stone and the park and 72nd street, and the plastic roses on the horse bridles, and The Dakota, and the moon. Henry James knew. John Lennon knew. David Byrne knows. New York is not a lonely place.

even better than Christopher Cross

Since I discover a new band (new to me, of course) about every five years, I thought I should share my latest revelation. Tennis. The band is comprised of a couple who ditched life in their land-locked state, sold everything, bought a boat, sailed up and down the eastern seaboard, and wrote some sweet and perfect songs, of which this may be my favorite.

And now I'm completely obsessed with the idea of a couple on living on a sailboat. It may be a cliche, but checking out of life on land is the ultimate geographic cure. When he wants to quit MI6, James Bond does it with that hot girl from The Dreamers. In a classic uptight-tight-girl-lets-her-hair-down make over, Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas do it at the end of Romancing the Stone. The elves, when they are all done with their life among the humans, sail to the West. It seems like a great idea. In it there is escapism, decadence, romance, adventure. But what happens once land is out of sight, once the clouds begin to gather and the foul weather gear has to come out (I'm talking the yellow rubber waders with suspenders)? What happens when you aren't Jack and Jackie circumnavigating Chappaquiddick? What happens when you are on day 639 eating sprouts grown in a can and drinking wine out of a box because the bottles were too hard to strap down? I guess that is the other side of this image. The salty dog alone on his boat, left by his lady. Now a drop out he finds comfort in bars close to marinas singing "...my life my love and my lady is the sea." None of it matters when you listen to this song. This song is good weather and safe harbor, even if that's not what the lyrics say.

You have to believe...

The other day, meaning sometime in the last year, my man and I were discussing how heartbreaking it was, as children, to discover that magic wasn't real. I don't actually remember the moment of that realization, instead I remember faking it. I remember knowing that Santa Claus was a lie, but still hoping for the sound of hooves on the roof. I wanted to be wrong. But I wasn't. I pretended to believe. After a real low point around junior high, I began to rediscover magic, to search it out, to manufacture it, if necessary.

Magic, I use the word because I like the sound of it, the inherent sparkle within it (I feel the same way about the word "amazing"),  but I am referring to anything strange, mysterious, enchanting, supernatural (in feel, if not in reality), heartwarming, secret, or cool. As I amassed a mental list of places where I find magic, I noticed a trend. These magical places or things seems to be where humans and nature overlap, the seam where the two worlds are stitched together, where the two exist simultaneously.  Like Avalon and Glastonbury. The sound of a fog horn over still water. The whistle of a train drowning out the chirp of crickets. Church bells. Tires on gravel (the sound of vacation). Listening to someone practice music, hearing it float out of windows, the saxophonist across the street, the bagpiper walking the bridle paths of prospect park, the xylophone on the subway platform, even the off-key aging barber shop quartet on the train. (sorry pan flute dudes, you don't make the cut).

Then there is art.  Public: Things hidden in trees or hanging from building facades. Graffiti. Murals (Precita Eyes!). Street light shadow tracings, making night surreal, a time when objects seem alive. Private: there are too many to list here. But Joseph Cornell cornered the market on magic.

Then there are things that seem pregnant with possibility, that are exciting to see, hear, pretend, play along with, or generally encourage: like jazz at three in the morning, strong cocktails at sunset, The Rapture ('cause who knows?), tarot cards, the smell of wood smoke when walking in the snow, hide and go seek with little kids who can cram themselves into ridiculously good hiding spots, oh god swimming (this will one day be its own post), teenagers making out in the park, pretending to be a teenager making out in the park, vintage cars, art cars, and those roller skaters in central park.

I feel like I could ramble on about sunshine on water and ice cream cones with jimmies and hot baths with good music and tiny teeny flowers, but my Julie Andrews-in-a-thunderstorm moment is coming to a close. (I forgot to put thunder and lightening on the list!) Any way, just a few things to think about when the dogs bite and the bees sting.

going public

This is my first crack at blogging, so I'm going to put forth some rules for myself, things to keep me from becoming stymied by my own ridiculous idea that perfection is necessary or even possible.
1. This blog will never be perfect.
2. It does not need to be original, or smart, or funny. Or have correct spelling. (Sounds great, right?)
3. This is an expression of opinions not expertise (no matter how truly right those opinions may seem to me at the time).
4. In the words of a great blogger, if it stops being fun I won't do it.
5. This is not a blog exclusively focused on writing, pop culture, art, music (definitely not music, I can tell my embarrassing misunderstanding lyrics story another time), cats, or my baby. But I may talk about any and all of those topics.
6. This is a blog about stuff I like. Things that make me happy. Things that make me angry. I'll leave it to the good people who read it to decide if it is about more than that.
7. One can not stop at list at 6
8. Potatoes
9. I may post multiple times a day or every few months. Got to keep readers on their toes.
10. A public journal is a very strange endeavor and I'm sure there are thousands of articles about the narcissistic tendencies of our culture and our need to be seen by the larger world, there by considering ourselves some form of famous. Gross. And I am forever behind the times when it comes to this sort of discussion. But I know this: writing with an audience in mind is a dangerous thing that can lead to bad writing and ego-mania. Editing with an audience in mind keeps a writer from putting out utter garbage. Blogging: life on the razor's edge, clearly. As I learned recently from my ridiculously smart brother in law, I am very attached to an outmoded model of media consumption, and as a writer, my place in that world. So this is my first step into the modern era. I am moving into the future. I am a time traveller. Bring on the ego massage.