Merry (Lame Duck) Christmas
More iPhone art, new techniques. (You know, you can start with something called a “pencil”–works pretty well.)
I’m not sure the allegory is correct, as I started this just drawing elephant and donkey because I like drawing elephants and donkeys. The implications were then pointed out to me, so added the duck.
Merry enough!
I have to confess that this past couple of weeks I have had intermittent but very strong urges to halt this blog. At least temporarily. It’s not that I don’t enjoy both posting and the sense of community the blog sometimes gives. (I obviously do.)
But there is the proverbial problem of choices. Really, limits: minutes in the day, energy in the brain, will in the will.
The immediacy of a blog tends to crowd out longer-term projects; these (mainly old novels) had been languishing even before I began this blog. Now a year and a half later, they are calling for last rites.
Which leads me once again to….the iPhone!
The “Brushes” App.
Rather than simply stop the blog, I’ve been thinking that it might be nice to try going visual. Post pictures, save up words.
I started drawing on the iPhone yesterday with the “Brushes” App. After I learned how not to block out the entire drawing, I ran into problems with issues like big and little:
Big Tortoise, Little Dog
This morning, I learned how to get finer detail. This led to such small detail, the picture seemed all background:
All backdrop?
Finally got it right this evening, while in the waiting area for Chinese take-out.
Duplicate Santas? (Or Skating Imposter?)
I still don’t know what I’ll do with the blog, but going “visual” sure seems fun.
Have a very Merry Christmas Eve! (And thanks, as always, for stopping by.)
The iPhone is not all things to all people.
While it is purportedly the toy of choice for many (presumably well-to-do) toddlers, it has a pretty steep learning curve for many adults.
That said (along with the disclosure that I hold Apple stock), once you get over some of the initial humps (no finger keys), it can be pretty terrific.
Especially if you are someone who spends a lot of time on computers, because, frankly, the more time you spend on computers, the more that non-computer life can seem obstacle-ridden. (As in, ‘what! I have to look for a stamp?!’)
This is where Apps can be handy. I’ve hardly used Apps, but I tried today a “drawing” App called “Brushes.”
Keeping track of physical art materials in a New York City apartment (without room for studio or even desk) can feel extremely trying. Especially if you are used to having the world at your fingertips (in bed.) This is what attracted me to the idea of computer art.
Sure, it would be better with an iPad. But I only have an iPhone. So, this morning, I made my first little extremely clumsy two inch drawing of an elephant kneeling in front of a fir tree in a Christmas tree stand. It may have worked out better had I read the directions.
(I did not understand "layering".)
The second try:
(I avoided background fill, but the mountains started as Christmas Tree.)
And third.
It’s amazing how intriguing it is to manipulate something that is nearly mechanically impossible (i.e. your fingers on a teeny-tiny screen.) It somehow reminds me of Gloucester in King Lear describing how he sees the world – “feelingly.”
But there we are! Or me anyway! Feeling, in limps and bounds, my way.
I Have Seeds On My Feet
Cookies! Christmas Cookies!
An under-appreciated art. So many possibilities. So many risks.
(I used to be a squid.)
Some practitioners, sticking to standard shapes provided by metal cutters, focus on surface area, going for the painterly. (Or, as seen above, the textual.)
Some are more involved with the textural (i.e. dried-fruital!) They may seek out historical themes.
Joan Of Arc (In Dried Papaya)
Intrigued by the plasticity of the dough (we are using this as term of art rather than taste), some eschew standard cookie cutters, and go for their personal cutting-edges. The self-made bas relief offers a huge range, from the high brow (ahem) to the fungal.
Some, seeking, perhaps, ultimate naturalism, both shape and paint.
All delicious, though (almost) too beautiful to eat.
(My preferences for the dough: in making gingerbread, go for the really thick, almost bitter, blackstrap, health food store molasses. For plain old sugar cookies–try a recipe with tons of lemon zest. Those who made the frosting for the cookies above also put quite a bit of lemon in the ordinary confectioners’ sugar/egg white mixture, which was wonderful.)
PS. I can’t take credit for any of the cookies here. I was feeding the artists, and occasionally, washing bowls. (As always, all rights reserved.)
Certain leading Republicans, such as Lindsay Graham, have now announced a suddenly unbending hostility to the New Start treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty would resume on-site inspections of nuclear missile sites (lapsed last year) and pare down nuclear missile heads and launchers; the provisions are aimed at keeping track of these weapons, attempting to avoid their loss or transfer to third parties (i.e. terrorists.)
Some complain of certain verification provisions. (This could be a legitimate issue for longterm treaty naysayers.) But the newer complaints focus on non-binding language in the treaty’s preamble.
The weapons the Republicans seem truly worried about are their own political salvos: Hey, I thought we torpedoed this President.
And btw since when didn’t you realize a nation with gay soldiers practically deserves to face nuclear weapons?)
And p.s. how dare Obama take credit for tax cuts?
Filibustering majority positions is a-okay, but making congressmen work into December? Through their full terms of service?!
Nuclear proliferation be damned!
(One wants to remind them that Russia can almost be seen from Alaska. Better think again.)
Not opening till Christmas.
The tree is in its stand, not yet fully decorated, but the perfect shape and size. (This is more amazing than it may seem to a non-downtown New Yorker. Although Battery Park City is a residential neighborhood, the tree guys only swoop down for a few hours on a couple of pre-xmas days–you have to be alert.)
Lights are up.
My messy closet is even messier than usual, a small stash of bags and boxes thrust to its side.
Cookies are planned. Sugar has been purchased. (Organic!)
The office party has been enjoyed, and with a commendably modest level of tipsiness. (I have only rarely forgotten the teachings of my very first office holiday event, held at the Copacabana on the same wintry day that Bar Exam results were announced. One of my fellow first year associates was so pleased by passing that he ended up pissing against one of the club’s deep red walls, thus calling a close to his legal career on the same day that it officially began.)
We are, in other words, deep into December.
What makes it so hard to feel cheery?
Of course, there’s always the issue of personal chemistry.
And age. (On the one hand, I can’t remember many of the details of last year’s Christmas. On the other, the stuffing of annual tip envelopes for the huge building staff feels like yesterday.)
Not doing the caroling and Christmas concerts and other events that go with raising younger children–mine are grown–is part of the problem.
Just as I am about to slip into a seasonal morass of self-castigation and pity–hey! I suddenly shake off societal expectations: what’s so terrible about not feeling Christmasy for weeks in advance?
Why can’t I wait until about 5:00 pm on December 24th, when I hope to squeeze into the pew of the really lovely church we always go to (at least on religious holidays) as organ chords of Bethlehem and babes reverberate in my bones. I have a pretty strong feeling that when I begin singing along then, I will, in fact, be singing along.
What’s so terrible about that?
Nothing.
Pearl does not seem to have any more will than I.
Do you ever wake up with no will?
Your spine has softened, shrunk, during the night, turning you into something akin to a shell fish (willful enough, perhaps, when it comes to survival, but low on the ‘let’s just hurry up and get things done’ ladder.)
Somewhere inside that shellfish self, you are excited about the upcoming holiday, but outward enthusiasm has wilted, puddled, dessicated. You feel like one of those mosaics of dried earth that are always depicted in articles about droughts. (A sub-arctic drought–it’s really freezing in your apartment.)
You make a list, wishing (for a moment) that you could just live your life on a mouse pad, running through each task with a few soft swipes of the finger, ordering not just merchandise, but activities, even a certain passage of time.
You are not, in other words, interested in process.
Mince tarts help. (If someone hands them to you.) That murky mixture of raisin and rum somehow sustaining.
The sounds of that same someone banging around your kitchen looking for something also tend to inspire a certain kind of “oh geez, I’ll get it,” motility.
Until you get back into bed again.
Under your covers.
And laptop.
And list…..
Ahhh……
Actually, maybe she has a little more. (But not much.)
I am a truly terrible self-promoter.
Every once in a while, I feel I should try.
A while ago, I published a (I think) very cute little children’s book called 1 Mississippi. It is a counting book–its most notable feature are watercolor illustrations, mainly of elephants, that tend to be, well, more watery than the illustrations in many children’s books–more variegated, less blocky. I think this is because I paint in a somewhat brushy way, with of different tints. (Sort of like this blog.)
It is a sweet book for a young child, new parent, or, perhaps, a pet pachyderm.
The book is on sale on Amazon (with my other books Going on Somewhere, and Nose Dive), and there is related gear on the publishing site BackStroke Books. (if you want to buy or receive a book at a discount, contact me and I’ll see what I can do.)
Thanks much!
PS – I am linking this post to the wonderful Jingle and gooseberry garden.
(PS – yes, the above video is not good! Alas, my favorite movie actor, Pearl, is away this morning. I will try to re-do later with her assistance.)
In Discomfort
Oh, how prominent the body
when it does but hurt.
When it works,
it’s the slovenly servant
(each not as pretty or clever
or fast
as others in its class.)
But when it pains,
the servant reigns.
We supplicate, cajole,
pretend to ignore,
pray for, hold
(in its arms), pledge allegiance to
(hoping for a truce.)
It is not amused; it is not
amused.
More poetry! Or draft poetry! Whatever you want to call it. I think it’s a little difficult to consider a poem finished on the day it’s first written. (The initial draft of this was actually written on the subway yesterday, but still to say it’s “finished” may be a bit premature.)
The Conversation
He, who has not always been
kind, but wants to be,
told me of a dream.
“I was crying,” he said,
“as I looked at you,”
and that it had to do, he thought,
with something painful that
I had once refused to disclose,
he’d forgotten what.
I knew the conversation,
but also could not remember
exactly what I’d not said–there is so much
I would not tell him–only
that it was suddenly more painful than ever
it might have been
in the reflection of that girl,
the girl in his dream, enough so that
when he looked at me, I felt small
cracks at the backs
of my eyes and, for a moment,
could not speak again.
“Well?” he asked, and I said,
“anything else?”
ManicDDaily 
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