Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Health of Our Soldiers
The government recently proposed improving the health of members of the military by banning tobacco, citing the predictable rise in cancers and cardiovascular diseases after years of use. But I posit, if the government really wants to improve the health of soldiers, they should stop having wars. Why worry about long-term smoking risks when smoking guns give instant health effects?
The Luxury of Grandmothers
At my age it is a very fine thing to have a grandmother. Plenty of my friends no longer have parents. And most of my generation lost their grandparents decades ago, or worse, never got to meet them at all.
My Grandma Hal (Florence Dawald Miller) was acquired by the sound decision my father made to marry my stepmother when I was a baby. But, today, at the age of 95, my last grandmother has become past tense.
We spent many summers in Grandma's homes in the small utterly flat town of Rochester, Indiana. She had one rather large house with a wrap around porch and backyard filled with bright flowers and sting happy bees. Across the street she rented out several apartments and we stayed in one of these on our visits. Here too were planted swaths of flowers, their colors duplicated in the patterns she painted on her saucers and vases at her ceramics store, a few blocks away downtown.
She made us all replicas of Victorian porcelain dolls, sewing their kid leather arms and legs, painting in their features and making outfits of such small precision you could understand why she was once an exacting instructor at the Singer Sewing Machine store. I treasured my doll and named her "Indiana" in honor of her state of manufacture, as I too had been born a Hoosier, a distinction none of my half-brothers and -sisters can share. She taught me to crotchet. I also got to make piggy banks and daschund ring holders in her ceramics store. And she made all of us gifts that came from her hands, blankets, our names in lace, crotchet Xmas tree ornaments of starched white cotton snowflakes, and more.
But just in case you are thinking Florence was the epitome of grandmotherly cotton candy, let me say she was a woman with sharp comments, hasty judgements, smug gossip, quick wit, and the ability to stretch a short tale into a mini-series of needless detail. Saturday Night Live could have done a skit on her recounting a typical road trip with her friend June. You heard what diners they ate at. What pie they chose, that the waitress had folk from Michigantown who were now living in Peru. Which reminded her of a trip to Indianapolis and the time she and June rode their mopeds around town... And this would only be the first pit stop. The point of interest was dutifully recorded in her odd photojournalism, for some reason she never could frame a shot and more often than not it was crooked and the heads of her fellow travellers cut off.
And unlike storybook grandmas, Florence was a bad cook. She favored the boil into goo school. She once got us to eat boiled potatoes only by claiming she was serving whale blubber. And when she was dieting, which was often, she made nasty concoctions using ersatz ingredients. Non-sugar sugar, non-mayo mayo, and so on.
She loved local history. When my father interviewed her for his family history she was in her element. She had so much to recount and what she didn't remember her research (years in the local historical society and DAR) supplied back to the first family members who settled the flats of the Midwest.
When I was about thirteen and she suddenly widowed, we spent a rough summer together in San Diego. She yelled at me for not making my bed, for using too much toilet tissue, for giving lip, for making faces, for reading too much, for not being nice enough to my little sisters, for not being like my little sisters. She made me put soap in my mouth once and I stopped swearing in earshot after that... And being Grandma, she got relief from my sullenness by gossiping about me. And being 13, I wasn't able to see she was grieving. Grandpa Hal had been the love of her life.
And as much as we fought, we didn't disown each other. I defended my right to claim her as a grandmother to my mother's side of the family, where great aunts would tell me "stop calling her your grandma, she isn't BLOOD you know dear, your real grandmother is your ONLY grandmother and you are hurting her by claiming this woman is." And I fiercely disagreed. It isn't about blood.
Luckily, we got older. I came to appreciate her artistry and skill in making quilts, crotchet, knitting, and anything else she crafted. She wanted to be useful, and she was. She had the courage to take on old age and call the terms. Even in her wheelchair she was leaf blowing the driveway. Her delight in my daughters was wonderful. I know they enjoyed doing puzzles with her. When my mother-in-law came for a visit carrying her own extensively researched oral histories and genealogies, Florence read the entire thing, through a magnifying glass, and enjoyed discussing the work of recording history with Jeanne.
When she moved into an old age home I made sure to send her occasional boxes of diabetic chocolate truffles from Mondel's Chocolates. If those treats were good enough for Katherine Hepburn, they were surely good enough for my Grandma Hal, who shared my sweet tooth.
Thank you Florence Dawald Miller for being my grandmother these many years.
My Grandma Hal (Florence Dawald Miller) was acquired by the sound decision my father made to marry my stepmother when I was a baby. But, today, at the age of 95, my last grandmother has become past tense.
We spent many summers in Grandma's homes in the small utterly flat town of Rochester, Indiana. She had one rather large house with a wrap around porch and backyard filled with bright flowers and sting happy bees. Across the street she rented out several apartments and we stayed in one of these on our visits. Here too were planted swaths of flowers, their colors duplicated in the patterns she painted on her saucers and vases at her ceramics store, a few blocks away downtown.
She made us all replicas of Victorian porcelain dolls, sewing their kid leather arms and legs, painting in their features and making outfits of such small precision you could understand why she was once an exacting instructor at the Singer Sewing Machine store. I treasured my doll and named her "Indiana" in honor of her state of manufacture, as I too had been born a Hoosier, a distinction none of my half-brothers and -sisters can share. She taught me to crotchet. I also got to make piggy banks and daschund ring holders in her ceramics store. And she made all of us gifts that came from her hands, blankets, our names in lace, crotchet Xmas tree ornaments of starched white cotton snowflakes, and more.
But just in case you are thinking Florence was the epitome of grandmotherly cotton candy, let me say she was a woman with sharp comments, hasty judgements, smug gossip, quick wit, and the ability to stretch a short tale into a mini-series of needless detail. Saturday Night Live could have done a skit on her recounting a typical road trip with her friend June. You heard what diners they ate at. What pie they chose, that the waitress had folk from Michigantown who were now living in Peru. Which reminded her of a trip to Indianapolis and the time she and June rode their mopeds around town... And this would only be the first pit stop. The point of interest was dutifully recorded in her odd photojournalism, for some reason she never could frame a shot and more often than not it was crooked and the heads of her fellow travellers cut off.
And unlike storybook grandmas, Florence was a bad cook. She favored the boil into goo school. She once got us to eat boiled potatoes only by claiming she was serving whale blubber. And when she was dieting, which was often, she made nasty concoctions using ersatz ingredients. Non-sugar sugar, non-mayo mayo, and so on.
She loved local history. When my father interviewed her for his family history she was in her element. She had so much to recount and what she didn't remember her research (years in the local historical society and DAR) supplied back to the first family members who settled the flats of the Midwest.
When I was about thirteen and she suddenly widowed, we spent a rough summer together in San Diego. She yelled at me for not making my bed, for using too much toilet tissue, for giving lip, for making faces, for reading too much, for not being nice enough to my little sisters, for not being like my little sisters. She made me put soap in my mouth once and I stopped swearing in earshot after that... And being Grandma, she got relief from my sullenness by gossiping about me. And being 13, I wasn't able to see she was grieving. Grandpa Hal had been the love of her life.
And as much as we fought, we didn't disown each other. I defended my right to claim her as a grandmother to my mother's side of the family, where great aunts would tell me "stop calling her your grandma, she isn't BLOOD you know dear, your real grandmother is your ONLY grandmother and you are hurting her by claiming this woman is." And I fiercely disagreed. It isn't about blood.
Luckily, we got older. I came to appreciate her artistry and skill in making quilts, crotchet, knitting, and anything else she crafted. She wanted to be useful, and she was. She had the courage to take on old age and call the terms. Even in her wheelchair she was leaf blowing the driveway. Her delight in my daughters was wonderful. I know they enjoyed doing puzzles with her. When my mother-in-law came for a visit carrying her own extensively researched oral histories and genealogies, Florence read the entire thing, through a magnifying glass, and enjoyed discussing the work of recording history with Jeanne.
When she moved into an old age home I made sure to send her occasional boxes of diabetic chocolate truffles from Mondel's Chocolates. If those treats were good enough for Katherine Hepburn, they were surely good enough for my Grandma Hal, who shared my sweet tooth.
Thank you Florence Dawald Miller for being my grandmother these many years.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Family Reunion Special Guests edition
My family and close friends of my parents (father & step mum) are gathering weekend after next in a 50th wedding anniversary/family reunion event in Ocean Grove that is sure to bring my parents joy, their grandchildren delight, and for those of us in the middle, a memorable mix of roles and reactions.
What I expect: some tension, mosquitoes, and an unexpected heat wave competing with my own daily hot flashes. Pack two swimsuits and plenty of tee shirts. What I also expect are moments where I think how lucky I am to be part of this crazy creative smart snappy snappish warm and unpredictable clan.
What I didn't expect, the dreams I am having for those who would like to attend but are otherwise unable to appear.
Last night I was talking to my daughter Natalie. Which isn't odd since she was here for a visit. This talk however was happening while I was sleeping. As we talked about her upcoming acting apprentice year in Louisville, I noticed someone appear behind her right shoulder, at first in silhouette and then, yes, oh my god, it was my mother! My mother looking good, before the cancer whittled her, a glowing 35, and she had her delighted proud grin. Natalie noticed I was no longer making eye contact.
"What are you looking at Ma?"
"Can't you see her? It's my mother, your grandmother, she's right behind you." And my mother could see us both, had been enjoying our conversation.
Natalie couldn't see her. But I stepped over and gave mom a huge hug. And even in my dream state I could smell the familiar mix of gardening mulch, lightly sweaty skin, and marlboro smoke in the weave of her cambric shirt. I could feel her warm solid body.
I had so much I wanted to say, to ask, but as soon as I started to be aware this was Only a Dream it faded away.
When we all woke up I told Natalie the dream. She said, "I have a dream to tell you, I've had it several times. Just as I doze off I can sometimes enter a meditative state. I come to a place that is a huge grassy plain. There is cloudy light everywhere, it is a feeling of whiteness. I arrive alone. Then off in the distance I see two small figures. I am not afraid. They come closer and closer and then I see they are Grandma Helen and her mother Great Grandma Rose. They smile and tell me how happy they are to see me. I am happy too but also weirded out and want to go and I tell them this. They say it is OK. They are glad to see me, anyway. We hug. Then I leave. I've had this dream during tough times. Once I had it after our building burned down, another time after our babysitter Pat died and she came with the grandmothers and I felt less odd with her because I had really known her in life. I think they are protective spirits."
"Well next time you see them, don't be afraid, give them my love, talk awhile if you can. They both would have been delighted by you, they each did community theater and wrote plays... and at least Grandma Rose got to hold you when you were a newborn..."
At this point Natalie and I are both crying.
I wonder who else didn't get an invitation? No doubt they will let me know.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Great lunch with my friend Jeff
I had lunch today with my former colleague and now friend Jeff Krum. Jeff is one of those guys who is always excited about some aspect of creativity and teaching. He regularly checks out Life hacker and other good places to get ideas on the Internet. If Santa Claus were Jeff, he'd be considerably thinner, but his bag of gifting ideas would be even bigger.
We went to a Mexican place. After I tucked into my delicious almond/mole glazed chicken tortilla, which strangely looked like a sweet French pastry but was utterly subtle and not sweet (and I must bring my brother Anders there when he next comes East, we are both people who are delighted by almost anything almond and chocolate) and I ate enough to return to the world of talking...
Jeff asked me how freelancing was going. I told him I was still in the say yes to everything phase and it was seeming like I should turn down a job or two when they bore signs of inducing strife or insanity, or worse, weeks of utter dullness.
Jeff then asked if I had a sheet of paper. I did. He took my pencil and quickly sketched a nifty diagram that he'd seen by Bud Caddell "how to be happy in business--venn diagram." Here it is:
To take it further, if I get paid only for what I do well, I risk getting bored unless I keep learning what I want to do (passions). This diagram is so useful. I understand it has gone viral across cyberspace. So yes, I will continue in my quest to draw better, design better, write better and make all the things I do play nice with each other...and earn me a living.
Jeff was a teacher before he became an ESL editor and publishing manager. He once told me one of his favorite aspects of working with authors was the phase before the book was even written, when they could take a walk and talk about the concepts, how the ideas could be used, could be expressed... He is clearly an idea junkie.
I think generating ideas and synthesizing concepts must also be one of the intelligences that come in a bell curve. Jeff would be at the far end, where ideas are as plentiful as several bags of jelly beans filling a big bowl. And then there are the people who can entertain only one concept at a time. You know, the ones that tell you the only way to get to heaven and avoid freelancing in hell is through playing simon says with their prophet. These are people whose jelly bean bowl has only one stale bean.
Thank goodness for friends with lively minds!
We went to a Mexican place. After I tucked into my delicious almond/mole glazed chicken tortilla, which strangely looked like a sweet French pastry but was utterly subtle and not sweet (and I must bring my brother Anders there when he next comes East, we are both people who are delighted by almost anything almond and chocolate) and I ate enough to return to the world of talking...
Jeff asked me how freelancing was going. I told him I was still in the say yes to everything phase and it was seeming like I should turn down a job or two when they bore signs of inducing strife or insanity, or worse, weeks of utter dullness.
Jeff then asked if I had a sheet of paper. I did. He took my pencil and quickly sketched a nifty diagram that he'd seen by Bud Caddell "how to be happy in business--venn diagram." Here it is:
To take it further, if I get paid only for what I do well, I risk getting bored unless I keep learning what I want to do (passions). This diagram is so useful. I understand it has gone viral across cyberspace. So yes, I will continue in my quest to draw better, design better, write better and make all the things I do play nice with each other...and earn me a living.Jeff was a teacher before he became an ESL editor and publishing manager. He once told me one of his favorite aspects of working with authors was the phase before the book was even written, when they could take a walk and talk about the concepts, how the ideas could be used, could be expressed... He is clearly an idea junkie.
I think generating ideas and synthesizing concepts must also be one of the intelligences that come in a bell curve. Jeff would be at the far end, where ideas are as plentiful as several bags of jelly beans filling a big bowl. And then there are the people who can entertain only one concept at a time. You know, the ones that tell you the only way to get to heaven and avoid freelancing in hell is through playing simon says with their prophet. These are people whose jelly bean bowl has only one stale bean.
Thank goodness for friends with lively minds!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Teaching what you have known so long you can't teach it.
I come from a proud line of teachers.
And I'm proud of them too.
My father Elof Carlson with his 50,000 former Bio 101 students, 99.2% of them grateful. And I run into them. And they tell me his was one of their very favorite classes at Stony Brook or he inspired them to teach with his dramatic, at times funny, and warm style or his class led to a change of major and the career they now embrace. Certainly he won awards for his teaching. My mother Helen Carlson taught, with wit and ripostes, more in the The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie style, but her favorites were inspired and the students she publicly whipped with sarcasm (for not doing the work or paying attention), I am sure they didn't forget her or the poems she was explicating.
My step-mother Nedra has a masters in teaching. My sister Christina has a teaching masters and taught for many years. My brother John was a teacher. My brother Anders is about to turn to teaching full time. With this background, it is easy to see why I thought I was qualified to teach without any training or experience whatsoever.
Ha.
I have now discovered a corollary, the more years you have been immersed in a profession and it's tools and jargon, the less able you are to remember what it was like to know nothing and explain it in plain English. I have been trying to describe what I do to Jim. I have been trying to tell clients why things are Done A Certain Way.
Hah.
Teachers of the world, I salute you.
Last night I attended a terrific well attended free seminar at Noble Desktop. For two hours Daniel Rodney explained how websites can be built more efficiently, using Dreamweaver software and cascading style sheets. But it was way more than a pitch for taking classes in software. He managed to give an overview of how all projects can be better managed when they are better planned. That this method of building sites allows for the minimum fuss and time in making changes. That his approach frees him to try things, allows him to be more creative as well as efficient.
As we talked about it over a Wendy's dinner with our friend Michael, the three of us were inspired. Enjoyed the concepts. Felt excited about the possibility of working in the way Dan showed us. Now that is teaching.
Wish I could send all my clients to Dan's seminars for an overview. Then they'd stop saying, could you just change this or that, I'm sure it won't take long. They'd know which was a lot and which was a little work. But no, I can't send them all to Dan the Man. I have to be the Dan. I am going to remember how he explained things. Clients, I will do my best to use regular words, not webspeak, so we can talk about the jobs I'm doing for you. I will channel my inner Dan.
And I'm proud of them too.
My father Elof Carlson with his 50,000 former Bio 101 students, 99.2% of them grateful. And I run into them. And they tell me his was one of their very favorite classes at Stony Brook or he inspired them to teach with his dramatic, at times funny, and warm style or his class led to a change of major and the career they now embrace. Certainly he won awards for his teaching. My mother Helen Carlson taught, with wit and ripostes, more in the The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie style, but her favorites were inspired and the students she publicly whipped with sarcasm (for not doing the work or paying attention), I am sure they didn't forget her or the poems she was explicating.
My step-mother Nedra has a masters in teaching. My sister Christina has a teaching masters and taught for many years. My brother John was a teacher. My brother Anders is about to turn to teaching full time. With this background, it is easy to see why I thought I was qualified to teach without any training or experience whatsoever.
Ha.
I have now discovered a corollary, the more years you have been immersed in a profession and it's tools and jargon, the less able you are to remember what it was like to know nothing and explain it in plain English. I have been trying to describe what I do to Jim. I have been trying to tell clients why things are Done A Certain Way.
Hah.
Teachers of the world, I salute you.
Last night I attended a terrific well attended free seminar at Noble Desktop. For two hours Daniel Rodney explained how websites can be built more efficiently, using Dreamweaver software and cascading style sheets. But it was way more than a pitch for taking classes in software. He managed to give an overview of how all projects can be better managed when they are better planned. That this method of building sites allows for the minimum fuss and time in making changes. That his approach frees him to try things, allows him to be more creative as well as efficient.
As we talked about it over a Wendy's dinner with our friend Michael, the three of us were inspired. Enjoyed the concepts. Felt excited about the possibility of working in the way Dan showed us. Now that is teaching.
Wish I could send all my clients to Dan's seminars for an overview. Then they'd stop saying, could you just change this or that, I'm sure it won't take long. They'd know which was a lot and which was a little work. But no, I can't send them all to Dan the Man. I have to be the Dan. I am going to remember how he explained things. Clients, I will do my best to use regular words, not webspeak, so we can talk about the jobs I'm doing for you. I will channel my inner Dan.
Monday, June 8, 2009
My four Fridays
Friday 1.
I had a huge freelance project to finish. Illustrating a picture book for a sweet guy who wants to give wife a surprise gift, her story turned into a book. So when the first hour of Friday shows up I'm still printing it out onto special Kolo pages (with borderless printing turned on, edge to edge color thank you very much and thanks to Flash Rosenberg for showing me how to do this Kolo thang) and assembling it all into a presentation binder. 32 pages of last minute hysteria to finish. Hands hurting from so much digital painting. Jim cheering me on in an increasingly fainter voice. I finally wrapped the book at 3 am and fell asleep on Friday morning.
Friday 2.
Woke at 6:30, not refreshed. Waited for employee of the man who wanted me to illustrate the book to drive by and pick it up. SUV pulls up to my building. I walk out with package. Guy in vehicle takes package and hands me an envelope containing my check. Very spy feeling. But he is nice, says the whole office has been enjoying my progress reports (I sent PDFs of work to date), and great that I made the characters look like real people, namely the boss and his family. Not feeling sleepy, yet, I clean up huge cyclone both on dining room table and in my mac. Stagger to bed at some point.
Friday 3.
Woke at some hour in early afternoon. Am feeling it must be Sunday by now. But no, it is actually and really Friday. How can it still be f*gging Friday? I ask my dog. Silly question, for dogs, it is always Saturday. Check email. Client lets me know he is very happy with the book. Now hoping wife will like it. We both hope she will. Just before dinner I lay down for a nap...
Friday 4.
And it is still Friday when I wake up. I stagger with arms out and gaze at hands that are not drawing.
And then, unbelievably, finally, I had only one Saturday and a singular Sunday.
--------
On Saturday I went to the New York Public Library and heard a slide show and talk by William Low about becoming a digital illustrator after starting in oils and other traditional media. One of the many events that the lively, smart, and well-connected children's librarian Elizabeth Bird organizes for people who love children's books. I was familiar with Low's lovely, painterly, approach to illustration. It was great to see how he uses a Wacom digitizing tablet, photo reference, and his many years of training to create original art digitally. He told us that some of his students at FIT fail to transform the source material, they just apply an effect in photoshop and he can still see the copyright watermark on their bits and pieces. A real artist takes sources and reimagines them with the lighting, perspective, gesture, and mood that the illustration demands. Low has a Bronx accent mixed with Chinese. His parents ran a laundry. The drawings he did as a boy are astounding. Meticulously correct super heroes and space ships. At the same age I was still doing blob heads with stick arms and legs.
On Sunday I went to Books of Wonder, one of my favorite bookstores in the world, for a reading from the new fairy tale anthology for kids 8-12, Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales. Edited, natch, by Datlow and Windling. Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, and Holly Black read teasers from their stories. I bought a copy for my niece and two nephews. Planning, of course, to read it myself before sending it on. I am now more convinced than ever that I want to resume my efforts to write short fiction. There is something just so delightfully unfussy about a good short story. Concision. Brevitas. As Delia said, a 3,500 word story is a lot like writing a poem, every word has to count. They all read well, I just love that, authors reading to me, their own expressions given their signature phrasing. Then it was time to buy the book and get it signed. As I waited, lucky #13, as the line wound past the shelves of expensive "older" editions. It sort of horrified me how many of them I have read (almost all) and actually own (more than half). The man behind me on line, about my age, had the same thought at the same moment. He murmured that he'd recently realized you can't take the books with you. Yes, I replied, my father recently donated his collection of genetics books to the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory library. But who will want my collection of YA, picture books, poetry, and fairy tales? Hmmm.
--------
I finally catch up on email and gossip. As I suspected, Neil Gaiman is dating Amanda Palmer. Despite the fact I've never met him socially and am older and, OK, I'm married, I just sort of had a baseless crush on him...and the horror is that at his book readings or signings I see all these other middle aged women who doubtless have that same wee crush. There must be millions of us. And now we can all take that big sigh. Ooooh ungh. He's with a sexy 33 year old punk rock experimental artist who used to be a living statue and likes to pull her clothing off as often as possible for Arts sake. I went to a Ramones concert in the 80s, I wore fish net stockings in the late 60s, I went skinny dipping--in darkest night--during college in the 70s...but no, not even close. Lets face it, I'm practically the face of October in the Upper Westside Mom calendar. Except I have cool glasses. Take that Amanda Palmer, I have very cool glasses.
I had a huge freelance project to finish. Illustrating a picture book for a sweet guy who wants to give wife a surprise gift, her story turned into a book. So when the first hour of Friday shows up I'm still printing it out onto special Kolo pages (with borderless printing turned on, edge to edge color thank you very much and thanks to Flash Rosenberg for showing me how to do this Kolo thang) and assembling it all into a presentation binder. 32 pages of last minute hysteria to finish. Hands hurting from so much digital painting. Jim cheering me on in an increasingly fainter voice. I finally wrapped the book at 3 am and fell asleep on Friday morning.
Friday 2.
Woke at 6:30, not refreshed. Waited for employee of the man who wanted me to illustrate the book to drive by and pick it up. SUV pulls up to my building. I walk out with package. Guy in vehicle takes package and hands me an envelope containing my check. Very spy feeling. But he is nice, says the whole office has been enjoying my progress reports (I sent PDFs of work to date), and great that I made the characters look like real people, namely the boss and his family. Not feeling sleepy, yet, I clean up huge cyclone both on dining room table and in my mac. Stagger to bed at some point.
Friday 3.
Woke at some hour in early afternoon. Am feeling it must be Sunday by now. But no, it is actually and really Friday. How can it still be f*gging Friday? I ask my dog. Silly question, for dogs, it is always Saturday. Check email. Client lets me know he is very happy with the book. Now hoping wife will like it. We both hope she will. Just before dinner I lay down for a nap...
Friday 4.
And it is still Friday when I wake up. I stagger with arms out and gaze at hands that are not drawing.
And then, unbelievably, finally, I had only one Saturday and a singular Sunday.
--------
On Saturday I went to the New York Public Library and heard a slide show and talk by William Low about becoming a digital illustrator after starting in oils and other traditional media. One of the many events that the lively, smart, and well-connected children's librarian Elizabeth Bird organizes for people who love children's books. I was familiar with Low's lovely, painterly, approach to illustration. It was great to see how he uses a Wacom digitizing tablet, photo reference, and his many years of training to create original art digitally. He told us that some of his students at FIT fail to transform the source material, they just apply an effect in photoshop and he can still see the copyright watermark on their bits and pieces. A real artist takes sources and reimagines them with the lighting, perspective, gesture, and mood that the illustration demands. Low has a Bronx accent mixed with Chinese. His parents ran a laundry. The drawings he did as a boy are astounding. Meticulously correct super heroes and space ships. At the same age I was still doing blob heads with stick arms and legs.
On Sunday I went to Books of Wonder, one of my favorite bookstores in the world, for a reading from the new fairy tale anthology for kids 8-12, Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales. Edited, natch, by Datlow and Windling. Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, and Holly Black read teasers from their stories. I bought a copy for my niece and two nephews. Planning, of course, to read it myself before sending it on. I am now more convinced than ever that I want to resume my efforts to write short fiction. There is something just so delightfully unfussy about a good short story. Concision. Brevitas. As Delia said, a 3,500 word story is a lot like writing a poem, every word has to count. They all read well, I just love that, authors reading to me, their own expressions given their signature phrasing. Then it was time to buy the book and get it signed. As I waited, lucky #13, as the line wound past the shelves of expensive "older" editions. It sort of horrified me how many of them I have read (almost all) and actually own (more than half). The man behind me on line, about my age, had the same thought at the same moment. He murmured that he'd recently realized you can't take the books with you. Yes, I replied, my father recently donated his collection of genetics books to the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory library. But who will want my collection of YA, picture books, poetry, and fairy tales? Hmmm.
--------
I finally catch up on email and gossip. As I suspected, Neil Gaiman is dating Amanda Palmer. Despite the fact I've never met him socially and am older and, OK, I'm married, I just sort of had a baseless crush on him...and the horror is that at his book readings or signings I see all these other middle aged women who doubtless have that same wee crush. There must be millions of us. And now we can all take that big sigh. Ooooh ungh. He's with a sexy 33 year old punk rock experimental artist who used to be a living statue and likes to pull her clothing off as often as possible for Arts sake. I went to a Ramones concert in the 80s, I wore fish net stockings in the late 60s, I went skinny dipping--in darkest night--during college in the 70s...but no, not even close. Lets face it, I'm practically the face of October in the Upper Westside Mom calendar. Except I have cool glasses. Take that Amanda Palmer, I have very cool glasses.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The questions of illustration
As I madly draw and color the art for a picture book I'm illustrating, I watch my fingers move a real pencil and then an electronic brush, hear my mind make conscious decisions about composition, content, and color and after awhile float into the meta questions. I went to college for 5 years to dally in meta-think.
For instance, I draw the baby in a high chair. I suggest a bit of the room. I look online for high chairs that aren't circa 1980s. (My brain is curiously stuck on images of things in the 80s.) But judging from my own feet, sneaker design sure changed since then so too most likely high chairs. And indeed, newer high chairs look different. Here is where the drifting begins. I ask myself what is the most high chair aspect of high chairs. A tray, a tiny seat raised to adult level, a way to strap in squirming food throwing chaos. Wouldn't it be more fun to make the high chair kind of kooky? Three legs like those jogging strollers. Lockable wheels. A force field that collects flying cheerios and funnels it to the dog dish. I push back further, am I creating a world where such fine high chairs can sit? What world would I like my characters to live in? Indeed, what is the best of all possible worlds to illustrate today?
And my characters? Take a baby's hand. What is the most meta aspect of this pudgy item? Dimples on the knuckles, creases around the wrists, a way to suggest the strong but unrefined motor skills? This leads to a consideration of the Fibinocci sequence (1; 1; 2; 3; 5; 8;... ) of finger length. Starting from the tip of a finger, if the bone length to the first joint is 1, the second bone is 1+1=2 or twice as long, the third is the sum of the previous two 1+2=3, the bones in the back of the hand are also the sum of the previous two 2+3=5... and this numeric sequence is what enables a hand to curl up like a snail shell. But baby hands are so tiny, so round, do they move in the same ways? Are the hand proportions basically the same as the ones busy drawing at the ends of my arms? Babies sure have disproportionally big heads. More research proves their hands are in fibinocci order, just can't reach an octave on the piano and are permanently sticky. But I am illustrating a particular baby, not the sum of all babies. Does this particular child use her hands in a telling character driven way? And what are the meta considerations of character gesture anyway?
I'm running out of time. I draw and draw and tell myself that the worlds I make in poems or art are worth exploring and defining. That the best picture books make arbitrary but delicious rules for themselves, such as no perspective or no light source, or only mid range value hues, or all people and animals will have very big but flat heads... it comes down to deciding what to leave in and how you want to twist it for art's sake.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Why do otherwise lively writers use tired descriptions?
Dear Blog,
You should know I am the person who takes 10 books out of the library and can only finish one of them. Is it because I am lazy? Hardly. I read fast and frequently. Is it because I get distracted? Nope. My imagination gets hunger pangs for novels. But I carry those mostly unread books back to the library because the writing is too annoying to shovel into my brain.
Every cliche, overused description, and lost opportunity to use language well distracts me. I'm reading along and think, good set-up or interesting characters, and then--yuck--the dreadful clunkers interrupt my ability to enter this crafted world. I start reading as an editor, fixing each one as I go along, and after a couple of chapters, I'm cringing or arguing with the author.
"Why didn't you THINK I'd notice you were using flabby phrases?"
If a character is speaking in cliches, and that's who they are, fine. But the author had better prove to me that they can write the rest with fresh observation.
Some writers have told me that I'm too picky. That these are teeny tweaks that nobody really cares about. I think not. It is the difference between a pretty good book and a really good one. In a great book, I'm engaged by plot, character, philosophy, conflict, and the surprising magic of good language. Take away the delights of good sentences and the story deflates.
It's like the authors forgot to do the final rewrite. Shame on them. Read some poetry if you want to see what it looks like when every word is well chosen.
Best Wishes,
Cranky Reader.
You should know I am the person who takes 10 books out of the library and can only finish one of them. Is it because I am lazy? Hardly. I read fast and frequently. Is it because I get distracted? Nope. My imagination gets hunger pangs for novels. But I carry those mostly unread books back to the library because the writing is too annoying to shovel into my brain.
Every cliche, overused description, and lost opportunity to use language well distracts me. I'm reading along and think, good set-up or interesting characters, and then--yuck--the dreadful clunkers interrupt my ability to enter this crafted world. I start reading as an editor, fixing each one as I go along, and after a couple of chapters, I'm cringing or arguing with the author.
"Why didn't you THINK I'd notice you were using flabby phrases?"
If a character is speaking in cliches, and that's who they are, fine. But the author had better prove to me that they can write the rest with fresh observation.
Some writers have told me that I'm too picky. That these are teeny tweaks that nobody really cares about. I think not. It is the difference between a pretty good book and a really good one. In a great book, I'm engaged by plot, character, philosophy, conflict, and the surprising magic of good language. Take away the delights of good sentences and the story deflates.
It's like the authors forgot to do the final rewrite. Shame on them. Read some poetry if you want to see what it looks like when every word is well chosen.
Best Wishes,
Cranky Reader.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
