Natural Disasters, Manmade Suffering
Archive for the ‘iPhone art’ category
Too Many Explosions
March 21, 2011
You Can Find Them Anywhere – Even with Pearl!
March 19, 2011
Naptime
Pearl- (Like the world) Unstable.
March 18, 2011
Pearl Going Unsteady
So much that’s difficult going on in the world, I decided to focus on matters closer to home today. Pearl!
Only she’s also losing stability; she also can be a source of distress.
The fact is that Pearl will be sixteen later this year, and though she capable of brief rituals of puppyesque enthusiasm, her legs are skewed and her vision is terrible. She is capable of running into even major obstacles (park benches) much less minor ones. Her walker has to continually watch for even very shallow stairs or steps.
Still, she’s intrepid, walking slowly, trotting briskly, (or simply allowing herself to be slightly dragged) forward.
Ongoing Nuclear Disaster Draws Fear (Japan)
March 17, 2011
Fear Continues To Spread.
Bad News, Writing, The Warm Fuzzy Blanket
March 16, 2011
I am so distressed by the situation in Japan that I am finding it difficult to think about other things.
The heartbreaking loss, the continuing catastrophes, the overload of uncertain information–all make the situation completely torturous.
Then again, torturous situations seem to abound these days–the onslaught of pro-Khadafi forces in Libya; the onslaught of the Republican Congress at home; the never-ending winter in Battery Park City.
I am not saying that these onslaughts are in any way similar; only that their combined force makes me feel like crawling under a blanket.
Which brings me to the subject of escapism.
And, since I am on the subject of escapism, writing.
How do you keep going as a writer when you feel like just crawling under a blanket?
In the face of terrible events in the world, in the face of personal obscurity, there can be an extremely strong sense that one’s writing really is pretty trivial.
This is an especial problem when your writing really is pretty trivial. There is a big part of me that would like to write profound, thought-provoking, English-language-expanding books. But the fact is that my mind tends towards the silly. (The verbal equivalent of cute little elephants.)
Right now, I am in the midst of a final, or next to final, draft of an extremely silly novel, a teen novel, no less.
I have given up at about this stage on other manuscripts. What’s different this time is I’ve enlisted the help of others–a young illustrator, and a young editor (more on them another time.)
Involving other people makes it a whole lot harder to just bunk off.
Still, that blanket lures me like a woolen Siren. What I’m trying to do at the moment is to just put it over my legs (a layer beneath my laptop) and not completely succumb.
Impression of Images of Japan Post-Tsunami – A Detailed Shattering
March 14, 2011
The news out of Japan continues to be heartbreaking. The translated words of survivors are devastating, their stoicism inspiring (and devastating).
The landscape is, of course, devastated. One of the most shocking aspects of the images, for me, is simply the clutter, the jam of detritus, the crisscross of shard, the shattered layering of mud and rooftop and car, fender and mattress, washing basin, chair, the wayward smile of child’s illustrated toy.
One doesn’t associate this kind of disarray with Japan. Crushes, yes, odd disjointed pairings (Colonel Sanders in the Ginza), but always, always, even in the plastic samples of dinner offerings in restaurant windows, there is a carefully decorous attention to detail.
I think of a visit there many years ago. Every leaf in our host’s not-inconsiderable garden seemed to extend from its twig (every twig from its branch) at a gently harmonious angle; the man-made and the organic accompanied each other like thirds or fifths or beautifully atonal sevenths in a single line of music. Yet the details were executed so thoughtfully that the garden (okay, forget about the plastic food) also seemed perfectly natural, randomly special–signs of forceful manicure a la Versailles were no where visible.
In the images of the last few days, one is conscious of a great and terrible force, careless of both men and the man-made, nature at its most ungentle,
Worried about Japan
March 13, 2011
No iPad 2 or Phone….
March 12, 2011
Interest in my household in the iPad 2
As an avid user of the Brushes painting app on the iPhone 4, I have waited eagerly for the iPad 2. (Finally, I could make little “paintings” without the constant zoom.)
I’m not normally a gadget-freak, but I really have been bitten by this painting app, so I was set to buy yesterday, launch day, March 11.
I’d reviewed the differences between wireless and 3G, the various gigabites, the types of dock.
My only point of indecision was whether to order online or go to an actual store (completely uncharacteristic of me), so I could get the stupid thing sooner.
Then I woke up Friday, as we all did, to news of the Japanese earthquake. My consumerist zeal crumpled so fast I didn’t even have time to be embarrassed of myself. How could I think of anything but the news, the wave, the reactor, the discipline and indominability of the Japanese people?
And yet, and yet–as the day moved on, I called Apple–not to actually place an order–I still didn’t feel up to that–but to ask more questions. Shipping times were up to two or three weeks by then.
Two to three weeks!
I checked out the lines at the stores. I even resorted, repeatedly, to Twitter trying to get current info.
I thought of getting up at 5 this morning and going to tbe Fifth Avenue flagship store. (I didn’t, which was just as well, since they were sold out of the model I wanted.)
In the midst of all this –how could I think of buying stuff in the face of the nuclear reactor explosion– I spilled tea on my iPhone.
It was only for a moment, it wasn’t boiling, but… yikes.
My addiction stared me in the face. As did the price tag of a new phone.
How could I even think of pencils and paper? Paint? An iPad 2?
Heat blowers, rice bowls, more heat blowers…. it seems to be working….
Aahhh…..
Dear Japan
March 11, 2011
Thinking of you.
ManicDDaily 
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