Elephant House

Photoshop: the awe and awful

2012-01-25T10:42:00.001-05:00

I love photoshop. It was like the gift of fire to mankind and artists. One could start with a photo and recreate at will. Layering and collages without glue! Color changes and editing out Uncle Mort's head, easy! No more zits, a result so perfect Dr. Zizmor—dermatologist to subway riders—would weep in envy.

The laws of physics bent to the needs of imagination with a few la-di-da filters and warp effects. (And maybe hundreds of hours of effort.) Like manna from on high it gave us drop shadows and a new reality where all light sources are bright, colors ever ultra saturated, and no random objects daring to interfere. In fact, looking away from the computer screen to the ordinary January day happening outside my window, I see a pallid disorienting mishmash. Where is the focus of the world? Diffuse dim lightsource, really? Why is that power line making an annoying squiggle against the corner of sky? And who put the smudge of smog on the window--very distracting!

But, even as such gifts became part of an everyday workflow, so too did the products. This morning as I walked to the office I passed a poster and flinched. In my brief shuddering eye assault it presented twisty balls of fire, a hero with sweat slicked spandexed muscles, and a robotic lizard doing an aerial ballet of badass. "Ah," I thought, "another example of too many photoshop-like special effects." Actually I thought SPX but this would reveal a disquieting amount of geekyness.

I note that designers are pulling away from using every single photoshop effect on one crummy title...fewer typefaces tortured by drop shadows and beveling and texture and glow effects. A little moderation folks, please. As for me? I plan to go out on my lunch hour and look at the world as it is...until I whip out my camera and think about what I can do to the view, cropped and cornered.

Unexpected visitors

2012-01-21T17:49:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was slated for staying at home and doing freelance. I wasn't expecting much beyond my work and concomitant work avoidance maneuvers: reading, iPadding, and watching old movies...

Then I got a phone call. A friend I hadn't seen in two decades was interested in talking to me about getting a website. Along with moving out of NYC she had also pretty much left the digital revolution behind too. I will call her Kay.

"Do you have dial-up" I asked. "Do you have a computer you are comfortable using?"
"I am in bear country. There are no hot spots here. And I don't really like computers." I started explaining how browsers and websites work. I could hear, over the phone, the sound of Kay's brain going off-line. Clearly I had to show her this stuff, it was just gibberish otherwise.

"Actually I am in the city this weekend, would it be terribly inconvenient if I dropped by?"

She came for a visit. Yes, we both looked older but were essentially the same. I had remembered that Kay was smart and had one of those spoken vocabularies that would help anyone ace the verbal section of the SATs. Her vocabulary was richer in everything but the internet and software. It was odd to talk to someone my age who had avoided all that.

I sometimes get frustrated with software and hardware and the constant Keeping Up with social media. But would I give it up? No, never. They will pry my iPad45 from my stiff cold fingers. I know I am just beginning to figure out how to use all these new tools. This blog is a celebration of what I do and how I do. I write, I draw, I design, I photo. Some of it is on paper with pencil, some on tablets with fingers...more tools, more possibilities. And learning to think digital media is like pushing into another dimension with the art and words. I may never master it--think hypertext poetry--but it informs my imagination.

Kay was fascinated by my husband's expertise as a lyricist...something she was doing now too... I loved her creative vision. She has been working on these projects for several years, in the woods. They are seriously great ideas. We agreed to talk more the next day. Kay came back after my first beginners tap class. (Where I was the least able to follow directions of anyone there and totally loved it anyway.) When I walked in the door, on noodle legs and rather bedewed tee shirt and floppy jeans, Kay was sitting on the couch listening to one of Jim's musicals.

"Er, we have more company..." Jim said. "I see that," I noted, breezily heading to the bedroom to change. Then I saw what Jim really meant, sitting on our bed was an unknown cat. She was fairly small, orange and white in patches, and quite friendly.

I emerged from the shower and heard another of Jim's musicals playing. The unknown cat was cheerfully sniffing our dog's nose and the dog's tail was a rotary blade of joy. Kay was sipping some of Jim's bounty from China, fragrant lichee tea.

The cat had entered the door with Kay but did not in any way belong to Kay. I snapped a photo of the cat and put it by the elevator downstairs with our apartment number. Kay and I looked at various sites she liked and discussed what she might like done.

Then the cat's owner came by clutching her missing cat flyer she had just gone to hang by the elevator. It turned out the cat likes to wander and tends to prefer the J-K line. Kay departed, and I was amazed to find that everyone had had an unexpected visitor.

End of the Year Roundup Blather

2011-12-31T13:09:00.000-05:00

I am sure many of my friends and various pundits are happily summing up the departing year and making certain pronouncements about the next, with a big nod to wishes and blessings. I won't. I spare you, and by that I mean me, this exercise. Instead I will take out a piece of paper, a pencil, a thought... and until then, see you in 2012.

Seasons of Small Changes in Poems, Photos, Sketches

2011-12-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

I am at work on my next poetry collection, just in case all the visuals on this blog had you worried I'd forsaken words. I frequently walk to a small urban pocket park near where I work. You could walk by it in a hum-de-dum and not notice it was there. Or glance quickly at the slice of trees and reflecting pool and just as quickly have it fade from view as your thoughts or smartphone claimed your eyes. But by going there through the seasons of my first year on this job, I am in the habit of observing this sliver of the universe. I worry, who will want to read my urban pastorals; what can I bring to this place that has not been wrung out of far grander minds and views? But that way of thinking never did me any good. I go, I respond. I send the poems like brief letters to the friendly ears of the world.

This is my true meaning of being "observant" since I don't frequent any churches or temples... The spirit is mine, in the end, my tenure on the bench, my allotted days... and it is good to slow down enough to see and feel a place with my particular collection of associations and skills. I write, I draw, I photograph the park. My eye is at the center but sometimes I push beyond myself and it is in those moments I hope to reach you.

Good News comes in Twos

2011-12-30T13:15:00.000-05:00

Nice. My portrait show at the Cornelia St. Cafe is extended by up to a week into January 2012 as next person not ready yet to hang their show. Hooray! Join me for drinks there.

I just sent the last issue (in paper) of Alimentum to press. It contains wonderful spot drawings by my very own artist daughter Caitlin Allen–her first time in print (I didn't let the editors know she was related to me until they said yes after seeing her sample art!) and another fun food map by me. Doing this map illustration/cartoon I discovered I can use real photos as textures in photoshop to add to my drawing instead of drawing them. I like the effect! Here it is:

My Jewish and Christian halves enjoy T-Day entirely.

Please buy this issue, it will be the last of 13 of this gem-like magazine. I am genuinely sad it is leaving the land of print. It fit so nicely in the hand. I won design awards for this one... But the marvelous publisher Paulette will continue the project online, however I am not the designer of the online incarnation. So goodbye paper Alimentum...and long live digital Alimentum.

Some of the spot drawings by Caitlin Allen for Alimentum, issue 13, published Winter 2012.

The Miracle of Glass & Wood

2011-12-11T18:40:00.001-05:00

I've been sketching people for years. Especially at readings where the expressions and gestures of the poets and my need to do something with my hands led to my art show currently on display at the Cornelia St. Café. There are nearly 40 framed watercolors and drawings on the wall. It is rather like putting together a chapbook, one general theme, lots of white space around the content, and the act of framing the work, in a page or under glass, makes it feel more real.

It makes me want to venture out with a glass and wood frame around my head, surely this would make me more real to others, define and sharpen my appearance? But a bit difficult to maneuver in rush hour. At the very least a hat does this and I am fond of wearing hats that don't shatter easily.

Tuesday is the opening, please come if you are in the area. The food there is good too. I'll be staying for dinner and a glass of wine. I am so happy to have this moment. So many friends helped me focus my efforts, Flash in particular for pushing me to show my work to Robin Hirsch at the Café. And Deborah and Sarah and Caitlin and always, Jim...

Loosening up...seeing into the face of the Earth

2011-10-30T22:46:00.001-04:00

Doing more sketches and studies from sketches...for upcoming show... am wondering where caricature and sketches cross the line and hurt or help the final work... Not all the poets and writers are going to like what I did, I can hear them mutter "too cartoony" or "my nose is not that big!" Maybe I didn't capture them well or my view of them doesn't match their preferred view. And there is always a sneaking in flavor of the artist's self portrait in any attempt to look into another human face.

I continue to write poems in "my" pocket park near where I work. The season is changing, the stone seats are getting cold, a chill creeps along spine as I sip hot soup... and again, as I send myself out into the trees, the reflecting pool, the sparrows and fellow passengers in this immobile platform of a lunch hour, I am sometimes all that I see and it is time to push deeper to become aware of what is beyond my immediate concerns. My mind is a scrim always muddying up the view. What the hell does it mean to write poems about trees anyway? I am not a tree, I was never a tree. Look up, look out.

My brother-in-law recently called me wanting some advice about posting poetry online and unspoken, a bit of encouragement. I told him he absolutely should share his poems, no matter what anyone says. That I enjoy his work and so will others. And that said, make sure the comments are moderated to delete the crazies.

Don Pettit is interested in looking at the natural world and finding a way to express how deeply he feels, loves, and appreciates his good fortune...all from a most unusual seat. While I sit in a small urban park and see a few yards around me...Don will soon be in the space station and looking down on an earth at once close to his heart and 250 miles away. I suggested he bring a good thesaurus and rhyming dictionary, and maybe some Robert Frost this time (he likes Robert Service too). I said he could get inspiration from how Frost would write about nature and it also was about something else. Don being a science guy, he will always bring that view, but he is also a guy with a huge heart... Weight being an issue, he will need to have electronic versions uploaded to him. Just think, I may be responsible for the first rhyming dictionary being beamed up to the space station.

So here's to trees and that great cloud trailing marble of earth. And portraits. The face of humanity is everywhere and my own eternal fascination. I hope I can see the you in you oh subjects of my scrutiny.

Study of Phillip Lopate

Study of Adrienne Rich

I give a talk to Washington Map Society in the Library of Congress

2011-10-16T22:09:00.001-04:00

J.C. McElveen, Program Chair of Washington Map Society, gives me a nifty plaque in Library of Congress

Through the serendipity of worlds colliding, I was invited to give a talk on the sort of decorative and often illustrated maps I've been producing for the last 30 years to the Washington Map Society in the Geography & Map Reading Room in the Library of Congress on October 13, 2011.

Years ago, I met my friends Ernest Lilly and his wife Esther McClure at Lunicon, a science fiction convention held in Westchester, NY. They currently live near DC, Esther works at the Pentagon...Ernest reviews tech gear...their church friends, lawyer J.C. McElveen, and his wife Mary (recent poet-laureate of Alexandria) brought up the topic of mapmaking and Ernest mentioned he had a friend who made maps...and thanks to map geeks and science-fiction aficionados having a talk, I was invited to speak.

J.C. kindly gave me a topic and description: Mapping Real and Imaginary Worlds: Graphic Design in the Pursuit of Learning.

The "pursuit of learning" part troubled me a tad. I'd made maps in pursuit of a fee, for the love of a challenge, for the joy of combining illustration, calligraphy, and narrative interpretation into a graphic representation of the book's story, but I wasn't sure about the education. Then I realized, duh, I'd been the one to learn things along the way. That I'd learned to go from a 19th century style of drawing with a crow quill and Mitchell's calligraphy nibs (sizes 5 & 6 for text, 3 1/2 for titles) to the 21st century using Adobe Illustrator with a digital pen.

I found and scanned about 70% of the maps I've done, doing high resolution first then saving a copy for PowerPoint at a smaller size. I struggled with making the slide show in PowerPoint on my mac. Come on BILL GATES make it easy! The circular spinning time hazard symbol happened with every action.

Here is what Jim would hear as I was working:

"Oooh, I forgot about this cool map I did for that murder mystery book!"
[sound of scanner wearily buzzing]
"Too bad I don't have a bigger scanner, I am getting so tired of matching up two scans."
[Jim grunts a bit off-stage]
"Wow I am up to slide 36, Jim..."
"Great" he says, shaking salad dressing.
"OMG I can't F&*#&ing get this image to drop onto the page, it keeps disappearing and taking the text with it. Why the f*&$^ is this taking so long? Now I have the circling eye of endless Godot ff&%&*"
"Maybe you should eat," he says, plating the salad.
"Maybe Bill Gates should apologize for not making PowerPoint work on a Mac, he said such nice things about Steve, couldn't he make nice with the software now that Jobs is dead?"

I switched to using Jim's laptop, all PC and here PowerPoint worked as it was supposed to, clunky, but doing the job.

On the Bolt bus to DC I continued to rewrite my talk. I was feeling nervous. After all, these were map experts. I'd come to it as a graphic designer. I was a lightweight.

And then... after being treated to a Chinese dinner (thank you for the meal!) where my nerves made my conversation less than scintillating...we walked through a dramatic lightning storm to the map reading room, a wonderful cavern in the basement of the modern Library of Congress building. The space is teeming with history, maps, and globes that just beg you to look at them...I enjoyed talking to Mary McElveen about poetry until I started to notice people sitting down and looking expectant...then it was time. I was introduced by J.C.. Jim clicked the slides and the opening one appeared on a large monitor. I held my notes in one hand and once I started, I never once needed to look at them. As I talked, some mysterious process took over. I channelled my father's ability to give a lecture, my mother's ability to engage a class, and I enjoyed myself. The best part was watching people relax, especially those who might have been a bit worried I'd do a face plant. People nodded, laughed, leaned forward. It was fun! I discussed failures and milestones, difficult unnamed clients and amazing projects...And 45 minutes later I was done. I answered questions, had my photo taken as I was given a commemorative plaque, more excited buzz, I was asked to give electronic copies of my maps to the library collection! Tom Sander, the editor of The Portolan (the Washington Map Society journal) wants me to write a 3,500 word article based on my talk, and the head of the division, Ralph Ehrenberg, offered to show me around their collection on my next visit to D.C. Oh, it was grand. I am ready to speak again.

Later Jim told me he was so proud and added "you are one of the only people I know who speaks in full sentences." Yet another one to thank all my parents for, full sentences are a fine way to talk, even when cursing out software.

Back with pencil and tree

2011-09-13T22:22:00.001-04:00

The long silence? A new day job. The sort that takes rather a lot of time to learn, it's a new field, a new culture... But my lunch hours have been another sort of learning...I go to a small park and feel the wind & sun on my skin, watch the birds, water in a reflecting pool, and two rather droopy trees... I will have a chapbook of poems out of my lunches. Plan to sketch the scene as well. So this is good. And I still draw every day on the way to and from work. Have introduced color pencils. You can see me start to figure out what I want to do with color in the sketches below with 4 colors: black, red, blue, yellow and ochre. The stops go by so fast. A little yellow on a lip, a lid, a hat, oh yes, in my subway the light may not be flattering exactly but it is bold.

Drawn as Jim watches TV...

Using yellow, red, blue and black inktense pencils.

When the process is better than any results

2011-07-13T08:39:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to an opening of a friend of a friend's art at the Cornelia Street Cafe. Robert Woodward makes beautiful semi transparent scultptures with resin, found objects and swirls of color, unexpected holes, and lyrical lines of metal. I had a glass of wine, talked to the owner of the cafe about my upcoming show, met some cool artists and writers, and chatted with both my daughters—Natalie working downstairs in the performance room and Caitlin dropping by to see the art and then go meet friends...

So I had a glass of wine, no food, happy art eyes, and was taking the subway home and felt the urge to sketch despite tippiness. I was surrounded by a group of sandy footed black kids in flip flops, holding beach gear, and clearly had their usual high energy well dampered by a day at the shore.

I selected an older Vanessa Redgrave-ish lady dozing diagonally across from me. I had to lean around a wide person to see both sides of her face. At some point the young man next to her became convinced I was drawing his portrait! He began to pose, with a deeply pleased and self conscious grin on his face, and I really didn't notice him for half the trip. The boys were of interest, some claiming they could really draw anything and others saying there was no way they could draw even a rabbit. One child said dourly that the beach had been bad for her as she'd cut her mouth on something...and it turned out she loved to read (Junie B. Jones books).

The posing young man said "Can I see?"
I realized what had happened and laughed.
"Oh no, I wasn't drawing you, I was drawing her!"
At this point the young woman minding the boys began to laugh and repeat what I'd said. The older woman chuckled.
I sketched the young man in one stop, showed him, he nodded with appreciation and ran off the train.
"Wait, you forgot your umbrella!" shouted the lady.
"It's yours...." called the young guy.
She didn't want it. The boys considered wanting it but one of them decided I had better have it as they would fight over it.
I took the umbrella and declared to the car, "it is nice to get paid for what I do!"

Then the boys wanted me to do their portraits but it was my stop. I told them to draw each other and thanked them for making my ride much more interesting.

Just this morning I'd been complaining all our umbrellas had disappeared, funny how the universe resets the balance.

The Donald (Justice) portrait, first try

2011-07-10T15:45:00.003-04:00

As you may know (if you read sidebar) I have an art opening coming up in December in the intimate upstairs studio/dining space at the Cornelia Street Cafe. I had suggested to Robin Hirsch, one of the owners, that I feature the small impromptu sketches I do of poets and writers as they give readings. I'd call it something like "Poets Corner at Cornelia" and feature as many poets as I can that have graced the small vibrant downstairs performance space with their words (plus a few that would have undoubtedly read there if they weren't otherwise deceased). Robin liked my small works but after a moment of staring at the 3 x 5 inch pencils and watercolors, asked if I could perhaps also work a little bigger. I blithely assured him I would do various sizes. And I have worked MUCH larger--too big for these walls and not with this subject matter...

Scale is a bitch. Did I just say that out loud? What works in postcard size doesn't automatically improve with enlargement. So now I am politely asking my muse how to revise my process. So far, she isn't returning my face book pleadings and "likes" on her enigmatic comments.

I tried a surrealistic photo shop collage for Sylvia Plath but suspect I need to stick with paper, pencil, and paints.

This weekend my daughter Caitlin helped me temporarily turn our living room into an art studio. Out came easel, thick arches watercolor paper, brushes, and pliers to undo gummed up tubes of paint.

I love the words of Donald Justice and wish I could have met him. But he is, alas, in that category of poet that can only pose past tense.

But how do I work? In my quick sketches, I scribble in the dark, shade/smudge with my pinkie, and add color at my peril since I can't really see what I'm doing. How do I do this at home with too much time to get precise or timid?

My friend Jeanne Marie Beaumont was once at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference when Justice was there. She assures me he was, as he appears in the photos, nice, rather shy, and more focused on the work of making poetry than working the business of being a poet.

He has a great poem about a dress maker's dummy in the attic, a naked ghost that appealed to his teenage imagination.

So here is my first sketch, with dummy, pre-paint... and I will try other approaches...want to work in some couplets from the poem... (penciled in, photocopied and stuck to the paper, pin pricked calligraphy?) Now if I only knew what were the color of his eyes...?

Daily Sketch 6/30/11-7/1/11

2011-07-01T08:33:00.004-04:00

A week of sketching has made me aware of how much I've forgotten. I took out my trusty best guide to the anatomy of the bones and muscles of the human noggin, Gary Faigin's The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression. Years ago I was a monitor in his late afternoon sketch class at the Art Students League, he was a great teacher and I watched me and everyone else—from stick figure beginners to pros—gain the ability to see what they were looking at. We look at faces with our animal brain, so tend to draw larger what is most likely to help or hurt us. All beginners draw anacephalic heads with grievously small craniums and overly large eyes and mouths. As Little Red Riding Hood says "What big teeth you have Granny!" The natural way we draw heads is a map of how our brains process expression. But if you want to do portraits it is good to be able to see the actual topography of the subject and then feel free to distort it any way your artistic soul wants.

Daily Sketch 6-29-11

2011-06-29T20:11:00.001-04:00

I am getting plenty of attention as I draw.
"What you have is a gift, a gift!" says lady with crisply curled yellow hair to my left.
"Actually I prefer to think of it as a craft, I've had years of lessons."
"No," she insists, "it's a gift, I can't do it."

"OH MY GOD I saw you draw that man in like 5 minutes, with all that detail! Who are you?"
It occurs to me to offer a spot of self-promotion.
"Er, I'm the December gallery art show at the Cornelia St. Cafe." The salt 'n pepper woman leans over for one last look.
"Oh good, I live in the Village, I will come to your show!" She exits.
The woman she leaned over takes an interest. We have a nice chat. Her work in marketing research overlaps mine. She tells me it was one of the most entertaining rides she has had in ages.

Young guy on my left reads my comment about big black glasses and says "Yeah, I wonder that too." And he was the one who noted I sure enjoy drawing when I missed my station by two stops.

Yes. I do like to draw. I do. Feels good to get into practice again.

Daily Sketch: subway & lunch hour series of unwitting models

2011-06-28T19:52:00.001-04:00

Why I mention you won't meet The Donald or Justin Bieber in this post

2011-06-25T23:07:00.003-04:00

I went to a webmaster's round table (yes, big oval table) held at the New York Law School (no, not the NYU Law School). It was for not-for-profit webmasters, which, according to my new job description, I sort of am. Although far more qualified people are in charge of the "back end" (data bases and programs that run everything under the hood).

It was a fine informative group and I learned plenty—even as some of the talk left me slightly stunned. Jargon. Trends. Usability. More Jargon. Hits. Conversions. CMS Solutions. These were seriously smart tech people. They shared a central casting appearance that comes from spending most waking hours slouched in front of a glowing monitor, not moving much more than a mouse, and intensively problem solving. The woman were better dressed.

I learned that if I were to mention The Donald, The Beiber, Lindsay Lohan, or Britney Spears in my blog I would get many more "hits" (visits to the site). And hits can turn into something called "conversions" (people going on to buy something from you). Isn't market-speak grand? For the charity I work for, I plan to design them a new website that visually clarifies their mission and this hopefully brings in more money—without using even one troubled starlet, shady tycoon, or annoying teenybop heart throb.

But I will NOT stoop to listing celebrities I care nothing about to boost my own blog ratings. I will let my takes on POETRY and ART and DESIGN and MAPS and VISUAL NARRATIVE attract those hoards who share my passions. I am not here to sell you anything except, perhaps, a little of my own excitement over the unexpected and fine flavors of life and art. No more Donald. Begone. Delete. Delete.

Cheesecake, Guardian Angels, and the Feminist Mystique

2011-06-20T23:18:00.004-04:00

My daughters and a friend marched in the Mermaid Parade this weekend and got a LOT of attention. The three of them were splashed across page 6 of the Daily News and also in the Post. They were the merbabe cheesecakes du jour. I am guessing millions now know just what my daughters look like between their necks and navels.

Caitlin projected serenity, Natalie was "LOOK AT ME—WOW this is FUN!!!!" and their friend Courtney reveled in a bad girl rocker chick attitude. They enjoyed themselves and were enjoyed in turn. But a lot of grunty gross guys made grunty gross suggestions as the trio waved, posed, and vamped along the boardwalk. Clearly many women (and men!) love to show their assets in this costume (or rather almost no costume) event of the summer, but I also felt protective, THESE ARE MY GIRLS! Smutty pleasures and feminism make for psychotic photojournalism. Put it this way, my best photo of the day was Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, on the phone and a little boy next to him also on the phone--as if they were talking to each other... my friend Michael says sometimes the best shot isn't what you came to see but what's in the other direction.

Junk Food map for Alimentum: The Literature of Food!

2011-06-18T10:21:00.005-04:00

It's out! The 12th issue of Alimentum (which I designed) printed well and my map is in it. When I laid out the issue there was one blank page and seeing an opportunity I asked Paulette (head honcho) if I could try something... I created the map first on paper, rough pencil sketch, that I scanned and used as a basis for finished drawings in Photoshop (head outline) and Adobe Illustrator (everything else). Coming up with the A-B-C commentary was not a cinch. The humor lurched from too personal to too snarky to just pathetically unfunny. In fact you may still think it is all of those things! I tested it on friends who raised eyebrows as they realized what churns through my gray matter. I thank Jim, Natalie, Deborah, Joe, Flash and Mia for their input...

Trump SoHo Redux--say what?

2011-06-16T22:25:00.001-04:00

I don't blog everyday. Especially when I've started a new job and am madly figuring out how to put together a one woman show of my poet portraits (Cornelia St. Cafe art gallery in December)—maybe I let a few things slip.

Yesterday, I'd finally posted something new and idly checked my google analytics. My blog was showing a 985.13% improvement in visitors. SAY WHAT?!? I'd had this huge unprecedented spike on one day—May 27th, to be exact—over 1,300 people came to read something I'd written in 2007. The analytics indicated curious folks had followed a link from an article in The Daily Beast written by Wayne Barrett "Inside Donald Trump's Empire: Why He Won't Run for President" and read my "Possess Your Own SoHo--sez Trump". It's just possible Barrett* had meant to link to a news report and accidentally got me, but I prefer to believe this professor of journalism and major investigative reporter was tickled by my rant.

How nice. I've wondered if anyone is reading the older pieces. On May 27th they did. And who knows what stray thoughts in 2011 will appeal to readers in 2015? Spike away dear readers and thank you.

*(or Valerie Bogard, Bryan Finlayson, Nichole Sobecki, Barry Shifrin, and Katie Thompson who contributed reporting to Barrett's article)

A small step out of traditional

2011-06-15T23:27:00.001-04:00

I often sketch writers as they personally read me their works—while ignoring the large audience that also sits in the same auditorium. In this way I've gotten rather good at scribbling on a tiny pad of paper in the near dark with all attempts made to keep the pencil from squeaking or percussing the paper. The sketches are a bit cartoony but still traditional, kind of old fashioned. I have offended nobody with them.

Lately in my quest to work bigger and fill a few walls at the Cornelia Street Cafe art gallery (my show is coming later this year!) I have begun experimenting. For this exercise I sketched a poet who could not pose live. I drew on paper. I wrangled in photoshop. I turned her black and white photo into color. I added type and more photos. I showed it to people who either disliked it a lot or said I was on to something. I have taken my first not very startling toddle out of safety.

Being that I am a book designer, the piece has that book jacket feel. I know. Occupational hazard. But I had to start somewhere. But I do feel excited by combining pencil and photoshop.... Maybe in time, if I do a few more of these, I'll get it nudged into a portrait that does not seem like it hugs a spine and sixteen signatures. Should I add more bees?

The holiday weekend sneezathon

2011-05-30T14:16:00.000-04:00

Yes, I spent Memorial Day and more with a cold. The fever makes me listless. Also, can't figure out where I hid the air conditioner... It must be lurking somewhere.

I am passing my time between naps trying to write in terza rima. Specifically, I'm trying to write a terzanelle, which is the unholy offspring of a villanelle using terza rima rhyme. Villanelle's are notoriously difficult to write, the terzanelle is supposed to be a bit easier, it isn't quite so overpoweringly repeating. I feel rather like Bartolomeo Ammannati must have felt after carving his Neptune, a slavish homage to Michelangelo's David--adding a beard just wasn't enough to keep the populace from noting it was a rank imitation. In this case, the populace is my own feverish gallery of critics who generally sit in the gray matter house seats and throw me unsolicited reviews of work-in-progress. Would ibuprofen help shut them up? No? I don't think wine is the answer either.

The word "terzanelle" has a Tarzan sort of echo, and it is a muscular verse form. Repetitions after all are the key to glutes and form.

I write free verse because I can't do the harder stuff well. I default to my easiest mode of expression. But I also believe I'm supposed to Grow and Learn and generally Improve my tool kit. It is me, the thesaurus and rhyming dictionary today...and the sneezes, no doubt they will inform the rhythm of my lines.

I am interviewed in my writer's hat

2011-03-26T12:03:00.001-04:00

Jill Dearman, who interviews writers for a feature "Writer to Writer" on the Barnes & Noble community blog, has interviewed me.

The interview is >> here.

When she first asked me about myself, I wrote a long ramble to what became the interview. Here is the long version, but really, what is distilled is often best....
--------------------

Dear Jill,

So many of my writing friends grew up in working class families that didn’t read much besides the bible or reader’s digest. These friends were the first in the family to go to college and when they committed to writing poetry that was such uncharted territory their families shook their heads or begged them to come home.

There is a kind of freedom in switching tracks. But that wasn’t my journey.

Instead I grew up in a two-person nuclear family, a divorcee and daughter in tow. We migrated from one university town to another chasing the seasonal work of an assistant professor. Besides teaching poetry and women’s lit, my mother was openly a poet and quietly a lesbian. I grew up with English professors snorting theories in our backyard, poets declaiming in the living room, and adoring and hungry students hogging my mother’s attention.

I found the poets the most annoying. They drooped, they blathered, they hideously quoted themselves. In general they disliked children and ignored me. My mother smoked her cigarettes in a long holder and quoted Roethke and Dylan Thomas in theatrical tones that made my teeth clench.

As I child I so detested poetry I refused to listen to any bits that littered Winnie-the-Pooh.

My mother planned for me to be an artist, one talent she didn’t pursue, and bought me art supplies and lovely blank pads of paper. She had me sketching her portrait when I was nine and was pleased with my ability to catch a likeness. She often encouraged me to talk about what I SAW, and delighted in my saying things like “pink is my favorite color of lightning.”

Then I had one of those dismal childhood illnesses when I was in third grade that kept me in bed for several months and I began to read to pass the time. Soon I lived to read. I tore through most of the interesting children’s books at the library and my mother, looking much as Piaget must have looked observing his child, began to experiment. I was started on Jane Eyre but grew bored with her once she was an adult. In fourth grade I read my mother’s heavily annotated copy of Sister Carrie and fell in love with Dreiser. I read everything, from comfort novels by E. Nesbit to tough stuff like Treblinka when I was 9.

When I was ten and visiting my father, he gave me a blank journal and advised me to keep a diary. It had helped him develop his writing skills, and Pepys’ like, he fills them to this day. Since he has retired as a biology and genetics professor he publishes a science book a year!

By the time I was in high school I established a habit of borrowing a stack of books a week from the library and only reading though the ones that deserved all my attention. I applauded and cried for Harold and Maude long before it became a movie, ditto Cold Comfort Farm, The Mouse that Roared, I Captured the Castle, and many others. I devoured Jane Austen and Dickens, Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, Joan Aiken, and only judged a book on how well it entranced me with story and style.

I never expected to be a writer let alone a poet. I started college planning to be a studio art major. Then my mother died when I was eighteen. I switched majors to English. I felt a need to know what she knew about literature, beyond my voracious consumption. Professors David Sheehan and Paul Dolin helped me fall in love with poetry, from Chaucer to Yeats to Elizabeth Bishop. I began to jot parodies of the poets on scraps of paper. I kept writing in my journals about all the heartache, hopes, fears, gossip and love affairs that life supplied. I wrote one final exam in blank verse.

I graduated, came to NYC, and became a book designer. I tried writing novels but they always drifted away from me. I was working full time and had two children, I just had no time for long works… I started a writing group. It didn’t work out. I started another one, learning from my mistakes, and it worked quite well. One day my writing group (River Writers) outed me as a poet. It was hard for me to own it. And then I dived in. I took workshops, I read current poets and revisited the greats. I found amazing, delightful, deep and currently living and writing poets all over the world.

I discovered Amy Gerstler and Donald Justice as well as the translated works from Zbigniew Herbert and Wislawa Symborska. And by taking classes at the 92^nd St. Y and The Frost Place, I learned from some remarkable poets, among them, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Baron Wormser, Jeffrey Harrison, and Sharon Dolin, who are all great reading. Jeanne Marie asked me to help her create an anthology of fairy tale poems after a workshop. The Poets’ Grimm came out in 2003.

I also took on more and more freelance work designing books for poets and novelists. It was thanks to Marsh Hawk Press that my first book of poetry was published. They noticed that their designer was also a poet and asked if I had a manuscript…did I have a manuscript!? Did I ever…ten years in the making. The Elephant House came out in 2007.

I chose not to go the academic route, so no MFA. I never stopped loving good writing in any genre. I reject the snobbism of genre ghettos. Some of the best novels are on the YA shelf—read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, YA short story collections by Kelly Link, and fantasy books by Diana Wynne Jones. John Crowley, Kelly Link, and Jonathan Letham go to the same science fiction conventions that I do, I adore literary graphic novels, like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and David Small’s Stitches. The social satire and literary spoofs of Posy Simmonds, such as Gemma Bovary, are brilliant. Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel, The Arrival, is haunting and works for any age although it is on the children’s bookshelf.

Now that my children are grown and I’ve gone entirely freelance, I am taking on longer projects, a novel, an illustrated picture book, and of course, my next poetry book. I have never been able to cut off the writing from the drawing. I do see the pink lightning but it also shakes the landscape of words.

I still borrow stacks of books every week and only read the ones that demand my time. I carry a sketchbook and draw the writers as they read their works, at the 92^nd St Y, Cornelia St. Café, Comic Book Conventions, Book Fairs, and Poets House. I hope to do a show of my sketch portraits this year.

Thanks,

Claudia

On a lighter note, let's hear from Death and Art

2011-03-05T16:27:00.010-05:00

Had a great time drawing the poets night before last at the 92nd St. Y. Sharon Dolin (who teaches poetry classes there) brought me as her guest. C. K. Williams and C. D. Wright touched on similar themes of death and loss. I had a funeral (for the father of a friend) the next morning, so was hoping for more upbeat choices, but as always art consoles no matter the theme.

And they read so well! Daisy Fried introduced Williams. His long lines, infused by his breath, arching eyebrows, expressive line of a mouth, and hunched left shoulder, built in intensity. I didn't have time to draw the guy who introduced the second poet, alas... Wright has a lovely full head of wavy white hair, brisk eyes, and smiles that pass over the planes of her triangular face transforming it into a heart.

As I approached the poets after the reading they mentioned they had heard someone might draw them, was that person me? A bit in shock I said yes, I supposed it was. I got their autographs and thanked them for their work and then looked around for the guy who had spread the rumor that there might be a portrait sketcher. Fried pointed me to a slender nice-looking youngish man in a dark suit in a dark corner of the auditorium. My advance praiser turned out to be Bernard Schwartz, who heads the 92nd St. Y writing programs and had introduced the event. He was delighted with my work! How wonderful that feels. I promised to come back and draw more, he encouraged me to do so. I sent him the scans. And now I put them here.

The One Thousand Dollar Box of Tea

2011-03-05T15:47:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago I had the flu and discovered the savory soothing pleasures of licorice tea. IF ONLY I had stopped at a few cups. But no, I had a whole box of the stuff and drank it in the evenings and at work, it's wispy fragrance filling the borrowed cubicle where I worked on ads and brochures for a publishing company in it's busy season.

At first I felt tired and off balance and blamed it on my flu recovery
I began to have heart thumps and blamed it on too much sitting.
My belly and ankles swelled by mid-afternoon and I thought too little exercise was causing my body to melt and bloat.
I blamed the headaches on eyestrain from working two jobs.
I didn't like the tingling in my left hand and cramps in my legs and ignored it.
Then I started having full fledged panic attacks with trembles, until they were almost a daily beast. I blamed it on financial woes, world upheaval, my cat's demise, a bad review, and watching too much news.

Then last Thursday at 4pm, as I idly wondered if I was a total namby-pamby--or going off the deeps--I sipped my final cup of licorice tea and within minutes had all the symptoms slam me. I was faint, I was having heart thumps, my feet looked ready to burst the straps of my mary janes...and I had an epiphany and looked up the effects of too much licorice (glycyrrhizin). I had most of the symptoms, except the guy ones, eureka!

Wiki: "Excessive consumption of liquorice or liquorice candy is known to be toxic to the liver and cardiovascular system, and may produce hypertension and oedema. In occasional cases blood pressure has increased with excessive consumption of liquorice tea, but such occasions are rare and reversible when the herb is withdrawn. Doses as low as 50 grams (2 oz) of liquorice daily for two weeks can cause a significant rise in blood pressure." I'd been having it daily for 2 months!
emedicine: "Symptoms of licorice toxicity may include the following:

Fatigue and muscle cramping
Dark urine (myoglobinuria)
Weakness (hypokalemia, myopathies)
Polyuria/nocturia (increased extracellular volume)
Edema (increased extracellular volume)
Dyspnea (pulmonary edema)
Headache (hypertension)
Paresthesias/dysesthesias (eg, burning sensations of extremities)
Impotence and diminished libido
Amenorrhea "

I'm currently uninsured, so I paid these (kindly reduced) prices: I went to my doctor ($125, ka-ching) who sent me to a lab for tests of my fluids ($125 ka-ching). My blood pressure which had been 90/60 two months ago was now 160/90. He told me I looked greenish and tests showed my liver function was off. But being a doctor he dismissed my self-diagnosis and sent me for an echo cardiogram ($500, ka-ching!) heart OK! I need further blood, pee and liver tests, ka-ching, ka-ching... at $30 a cup!

I read it takes about 2 weeks for symptoms to improve. Months for the adrenal system to fully bounce back. Already I feel better, but tire out by evenings... I am eating lots of potassium rich foods and avoiding the salty ones. I am measuring my weight and ankle circumference every morning and they are going down. I have fewer of all the nasty effects. I am not crazy, just poisoned. And licorice is an ingredient in many of my other tea mixes, with names like Peaceful Mix and Happy Day. They are in a landfill now.

What is shocking? Dog medicine is better regulated than human. Any health food store can sell herbals that can kill you if used to excess. And what is excess? Not listed on the box, that's for sure.

The curious symbiosis of literary presses and writing programs

2011-02-20T11:44:00.005-05:00

It is a curious fact that literary presses with reputable writing contests will be supported by MFA students in possession of a manuscript.

But it goes further than that. The non-tenured or would-be teachers of such programs will also want to have their works published to enhance their prospects.

All the students and teachers must pay the entrance fees to the contests which help fund the costs of hiring a judge and producing and publishing the prize winning books.

The AWP (Associated Writing Programs) book fair was filled with hundreds of presses offering contest information. Their tables were covered in books, stickers, small candies and the all important prize entry flyer. And there was this hungry look in so many eyes, the yearning to not be spurned by a contest judge, the desire to be published. On the other side of the table sat representatives of the presses, eager to sell the lottery tickets of publication.

What was curiously lacking was rapture over the poetry and prose itself. Unlike the Dodge or Frost Place Poetry Festival I didn't see as many folks buying books to read for pleasure. I saw tit for tat book exchanges. It was an industry of writers and publishers without the general readers. It was an inside job. Think ouroboros devouring it's own press release.

The writing programs pump out thousands of students a year, each with a manuscript. The presses publish hundreds of prize winning books. But who will read these mountains of books? How do you know where to start?

And I am part of it, I design books for literary presses and I am published by them too. After AWP I decided it was important to get the word out on books I have loved reading. So expect some more book reviews in this blog.

Through the Heart

2011-02-19T13:33:00.004-05:00

This Valentine's Day started and ended with a massacre.

At my temporary freelance job, a jolt ran though the halls after a dozen people were fired on Monday the 14th. I imagine them at their pre-paid romantic dinners handing over gifts of dark chocolate accompanied by the unromantic conversation (and often held these days) about how the middle class can survive on lost income...

I spent my lunch hour wandering through the church-like splendor of the Wall Street Borders, enjoying the feeling of books all around me, new books, with their inviting covers and sexy flap copy. The carved and gilded wooden ceiling an appropriate dome, a bookish cerebral cortex above all the thoughts captured in page. But they are going into Chapter 11... I said to the man behind the help counter, "I don't want you to go," and with deep feeling he replied "we don't want to go." But soon, they will. And with the unfolding huge shift in technology, paper books will become high end gift and art objects and the reference books, textbooks, and quick reads will be electronic.

I came home to face death. Our cat, who has gradually been getting sicker, got to the place where there was not much good about being alive. Barely moving, she slept on my heart, her weight barely more than a blanket, her purr a dim throttle. I thanked her for the good times and petted her until the vet came to our place and with a final shot to her heart she died with eyes wide open.
------
Loss always echos with other losses. I miss my cat and our sixteen years together (yes, I know, I am a trope myself, middle aged writer with a cat, I know) I miss my mother and our 18 years together, and I miss Scribners, the plethora of used bookstores on 4th, the specialty Mystery bookstores, the recently closed Barnes & Noble on 67th, and all the other bookstores I have known and loved.

But books will still be read and written. I cannot be a paper Luddite. I am learning all the new web technology as fast as I can. It is like dating a fast talking mystery man...maybe at some point I'll understand what he is saying and even fall in love. My friend Flash Rosenberg has invited me to come and learn more about the possibilities of electronic books. I'd like to help her turn her cartoon art into inviting experiences on any kind of page, wood pulp or pixels. And do the same for myself with my art and words... It kills me that it is all changing. I'm sure they said the same thing when Gutenberg's presses replaced the scribes. The Book is dead, long live the Book! This is my world, goodbye and hello.

To the bookfair

2011-02-03T11:46:00.003-05:00

I'm in a Bolt bus heading to Washington. The view is snow on ice on snow but in a break from all the storms, bright skies are giving my retinas more sun than I've seen in a month. Sharp shadows and very long smokestack plumes are pointing my way and that small high from sunlight, feels happy, yes.

I just launched a redesign of my website claudiagraphics.com and have a stack of new business cards to hand out to anyone considering my design/writing/drawing services. My last site was looking horribly dated. It was 10 years old, in web years that is like using papyrus to advertise. People would say things like, "nice covers buried in there." Right. Huge thanks to my husband Jim who made epic trek to Brooklyn to pick up the cards from the printer on a day of slush and wind while I worked in an office for a client.

It was a week of little sleep, in my quest to finish an illustrated map for a Mary Gordon novel, being published by Knopf, I had two nights I worked until 5am, the other 3 nights until 2am and had to go into freelance job on Wall St.

Cool. Bus is pulling into a weighing station. Do light thoughts help?
Good news, I've been Invited to read with Jeannie Beaumont at the Perfect Sense reading series in June at the Cornelia St. Cafe. More details to come.

I look forward to helping at the Marsh Hawk Press table, finally meeting some of the authors and publishers of Benu Press and running into thousands of my fellow poets of whom I know quite a few from workshops, readings and the life in and around books.

Flu and one new year's resolution.

2011-01-09T11:37:00.000-05:00

It is tempting to think of illness as a metaphor or languid literary excuse to read. I am here to report that my first flu in 15 years was lacking in romance and opportunity to improve my mind. No stoic was I, nor bedside philosopher, rather, I was a many faces of Eve amalgam of Dopey, Sneezy and Grumpy and the new dwarf, Bitchy. My brain was stupid. My dreams were stupid. I watched stupid TV shows and had trouble following the stupid commercials. A week of hacking and fever finally brought me to a point where I could read a book and watch old movies as long as they didn't make me laugh due to sore ribs. Jim came down with it too and we were so sick we sort of flopped and growled at each other. New year's resolution, now that I don't have health insurance and a job that gives me free flu shots, I pay the local drug store to give me one every damn year, period.

I started working again yesterday. Slooooowwwwly.

"That's a really nice monitor," said Caitlin's friend Jon. Did I mention I got sick while I had house guests and my daughter was visiting for a week before her semester abroad in Italy. (Both daughters did semesters in "I" name places 5 characters long, India, Italy...Hey wait, I went to China last year, that's 5 letters too. Maybe the mapmakers insisted on short names to fit on the maps?)
"It is, isn't it?" I said looking at the apple screen, a 27-inch beauty.
"What are you working on," he asked politely.
For me a loaded question. Book stores closing down, people blithely announcing they will never read another paper book. My livelihood as a book designer undergoing a potential extinction...the need to get used to digital editions and web production.
"I need to learn how to design websites, lots of them," I replied.
We both gazed at the site I was designing in photoshop.
Jon mentioned he liked the background color. Something tells me I haven't caught the first crest of avant guard with this design. But he is 20, I am not designing this site for a 20 year old art major.
No, the one good thing to remember is that whatever the platform, I still have a good feel for giving clients what they want and need.

When Jon went with Caitlin to the Brooklyn Museum, I wrote a poem. I began a new blog for reviews of books I read. I thought about how good it feels to have a mind that works again.

How to hide a sketch in plain sight

2010-12-02T00:02:00.002-05:00

As I commute to Wall Street I draw my fellow passengers. But it is rather awkward when they catch me staring at them. What can I do?

1. wear a hat with a big brim. No problem, I own a Tilly hat. But the Tilly hat inevitably starts a conversation with some hearty type asking me what river rafting or mounting hiking or glacier gliding I've done (almost none, I like the hat)
2. wear sunglasses (but I only have the clip on ones, not cool)
3. get over the embarrassment and draw anyway.

There is an invasion of personal space that an artist must negotiate to make images of other people. At the Art Students League, models are paid to pose. It is understood I will stare at them and make marks on paper or canvas. But the commuters probably have the right to tell me to bugger off...they didn't agree to model. But I want to find a way to do these quick studies. I'm inspired by other commuting sketchers on the subway. Drawing from photos is rather, uh, flat. Reality yields more as the subject shifts, thinks, nods off, moves their hand while holding a book, cellphone, rosary beads, a child's backpack...they hide and reveal parts of themselves and morph through perspectives...as an artist I can capture the movement and select the most telling expression. But did I capture their expression or project mine? Maybe it is an indefinable both. And here is my stop. Gotcha.

Good news and the proper use of envy

2010-11-29T21:42:00.003-05:00

I just found out one of the books I designed for Benu Press, High Notes, by Lois Roma-Deeley, has won a design award and will be part of the 2011 New York Book Show! Don't know yet just what it won, it is in the general trade/poetry category, but to be part of the show, an honor.

I became a designer because one day in my early 20s, as I was filing signed author contracts in a wall full of gray metal cabinets, I watched a graphic designer working in the spotlight of her full spectrum lamp. I was transfixed. She held up a bright photo and font sample, squinted at them as she held them at arms length and called over to me "Hey Carlson, do you think this type looks like cowboy boots?"

"Without pausing for thought I blurted, "I want your job!" I wanted her job, her work questions, and the drafting table with Pantone swatches and pots of rubber cement. I wanted her straight hair and 20-20 vision too but was wise enough to know that envy is a good prod for careers but rather undermining when applied to the realities of appearance.

I took design classes and was not one of the better students, the professors would say, "Carlson, stop illustrating the cover and use type and design features to express the author's concept!" I looked at the best work in the class, a bit enviously, and decided I'd figure out what they were doing that made it work so well.

I carried my portfolio from art director to publishing director looking for my first book designer job. One creative director took the time to sit me down and say "Carlson, see all the other people in the waiting room, they all want this one job. I am going to do you a favor and tell you I don't see anything in your portfolio that stands out, this is a tough low-paying field. Do yourself a favor and find well paid work where you can excel!" I looked at her shelf of design awards and decided I'd find a way to get there.

After years of designing book interiors I watched the brilliant Cynthia Krupat design a cover for a Farrar Strauss & Giroux book. She repeatedly photocopied some type to give it a weathered look. "Ah hah!" How cool, she had ways to play with type that made the design fit her aesthetic while serving the book...I hoped some day to create covers that looked like I had designed them, in the way everyone could identify a Krupat design. I envied the happy authors and editors and marketing folks who felt her cover was right, right for the vision and the marketplace. In order to get cover design experience I took on freelance work since my day job was as an interior designer.

Sometimes they turn out well, other times I wish the muse had visited with a larger bucket of ideas. I look at the work of the best folks in the business and know I still have a lot to learn. But it is lovely when the universe sometimes says "Hey Carlson, good one!"

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Why spend? Black Friday becomes Pencil Sketchday.

2010-11-26T17:21:00.000-05:00

We're kinda broke and don't need any more things in the apartment at the moment (other than the digital camera I yearn for...but that can wait until it goes down in price or my ships sail in with full cargoes of cash). So here is Black Friday and Jim, Caitlin and I went to sketch folks at the local Starbucks while Natalie worked out at her gym in Queens.

I discovered the line for the bathroom offered quick sketch opportunities of people tense and expressive in posture. I tried to not make eye contact since that was when people figured out I was drawing them...one woman tried to catch my eye and I managed to evade her! Then I heard her talking, it was an old friend Charlotte, who I hadn't spoken to in years. Hah!

So thanks to the models, mostly anonymous, and to the three of us indulging our inner artist. Natalie joined us glowing with health. Spending Black Friday in the gym puts her in the halo of workout ethic.

Yes, having a lovely holiday.

Book collections and book-a-brack

2010-11-19T00:43:00.000-05:00

Last week we were invited to a lovely dinner party with new friends, Valeria Susanina and Jack Womack. They are both lively minds, he's a writer, and their bookshelves are well organized offerings of loveliness. Their friends were lovely too. Since Jack and I are the same age, he handed me vintage 1960s and 70s catalogs to peruse...each item of clothing, toasters, luggage, clocks, brought back time-shots, the way sniffing Chanel #5 invokes my Grandmother's elegant and yeasty soul. I hope to get back soon to devour his books on typography and design...

I came home and looked at my disorganized and doubled-up collection. The books used to be in order, by kind, before the fire. Then they were shoved in boxes and stored for three years. And when I put them back in our rebuilt apartment, I had half as many bookshelves. They are a hodge-podge, treasures hidden behind paperbacks and magazines and old mechanical cameras, all teeming in their shelf slums. I want to invite Jack to see my really cool books. Show Valeria some of my drawings and our family photos...and the truth is, I will have to, finally, go through the books and reorganize, prune fiercely and shed the unread or no longer loved tomes. Another donation trip to the housing works cafe is in our future...

It is a daunting thought. The books, just now, are shifting in mutiny and shoving their spines out in a j'accuse way. I pity the ones that will have to leave...but look forward to finding once again my 1910s books illustrated by Frank Pape, novels embellished with Ernest Shepard's amazing line work, and the small joy of having nearly every Diana Wynne Jones book... and the poetry, and the books about maps, and the design section, and the fine art... plus I need an entire bookshelf for the volumes I have designed inside and out, with maps, illustrations, and graphic design. Although even there I am willing to make cuts. Only the best, dammit, only the best shall remain.

Back to the Front Lines of the City Bloggage

2010-11-17T23:31:00.006-05:00

There is an escaped robber somewhere in the bi-state area. Despite every danger, I have gone outside and returned safely. I need to stop listening to the news. I could have taken the dog for a walk without piling on any additional fears. There is plenty of threat on an ordinary day! For instance, the dog is color blind and does not regard red lights as any more significant than green. She leans towards traffic with a careless disregard for her own three-dimensionality. And given her height challenges--she barely rises above my ankles--I have to wonder if the ordinary car driver or lawless skateboarder can see her in time to avoid a calamitous collision. Plus she tries to eat hazardous roadside materials. She sniffs strangers and who knows what kind of weirdos they are? Worst of all, no matter where we go, someone says "ooooh, cute, a hotdog doggie!" I just told the hound we are no longer going to go into an orange alert state based on breaking news threats, besides, she doesn't see orange and only eats fruit if there is nothing else better to chew.
----
I read a poem at the Fall Marsh Hawk Press launch a few weeks ago and four short poems at the annual Brevitas Festival last weekend. I have now done enough readings that fear is at a low throttle, could be classified as excitement. My pulse goes up, I take a deep breath, brush aside an urge to flee or pee and then I am behind a podium and I have a wobbly faith that the words I wrote will not let me down. Then I start to enjoy reading my own work because it sounds right in my mouth. It only took a few decades. My very first reading, at an open mic at the Columbia U. Bookstore, I was so hyped I spoke in a freaky high voice at twice the speed of Minnie Mouse. And by the time my voice stopped racing my audience was snoring. Gotta start somewhere.
----
I am writing again. Poems and prose. In dribs. Drabs. Dabs. While listening to jazz violin. Something about syncopation and the almost voice of a fiddle. Wish I could write that sound. Draw that beat. Tried. Not in me. I will leave great jazz poetry to the folks that have a better ear. But I can listen, oh, yes, I can.

A gift for the producer

2010-10-06T18:33:00.003-04:00

I wanted create a unique card to thank Mr. Li, who has done so much to make The Joker's Game happen. So I decided to paint him as the magician who is pulling the musical out of his hat. The butterfly refers to his previous show. Mia Shen (translator and lovely person) was able to write a thank you for us in Chinese. Mr. Li seemed to like it! He said he will get it framed for his office.

Foot soup

2010-09-30T01:50:00.002-04:00

After a delicious Italian dinner hosted by the producers, Jim, Mark and I enjoyed a traditional foot massage. Tony led us to one of his favorite spots and left us with a "take care of them" to the desk lady.

Here is the run down of Beijing massage:

1. place feet in boiling water.
2. while sissies whimper--that would be me--10 minute shoulder massage.
3. pummel, jab, pull, knead, twist, scrunch, fillet, pop and sooth feet with skin cream.
4. repeat step 3 for 60 minutes.
5. massage begins to feel good when flesh surrenders to tenderizing.

Because of 5,000 years of considering feet as nerve keypads mapped to your entire body, massage therapists will tell you where you have problems. For instance, while exorcising my big toe I was told I was having trouble sleeping. True! While I writhed in tickle-torture as arches assaulted by 20 finger bayonets, I heard my guts were in disorder. Also true (see older blogs on Genghis Khan revenge).

I took a photo of Mark's feet, which, like a lobster, had turned as pink as his masseuse's gown.

Mark had never done anything like this before. He LOVED it and declared it was like crack, instantly addicting. He couldn't wait for his wife Kelly to come to Beijing and share this experience. And she did, and loved it just as much as he did and accurately had her headaches and breathing difficulties diagnosed. There is something to this...especially when it costs a fraction of what it would in New York.

It felt terribly wrong to put shoes on my feet after, like trapping clouds in leather buckets.

After the Dream some Pure Lotus

2010-09-27T00:13:00.003-04:00

When our bus got back to Beijing from Dream Valley, Jim, Mark and I had dinner at the lovely vegetarian restaurant Pure Lotus. Steven Fock, the COO, drove us there as we would have had not a chance of finding it on our own, tucked as it is behind a gate and S shaped driveway. The place is lyrically lovely, very much a spot to bring a romantic date. They specialize in food that has the taste and texture of meats, but are magicked tofu. Our friend Kemin is mildly scornful and won't eat there, he thinks if you are going to make veggies taste like meat, just eat the cow. But I was entranced. From the muted purplish lights and multi cultural videos, objects, and music, it was like eating in an ABC Carpets with wait staff in glittery tunics. Mark got a bit tired of my taking photos (before the food arrived we were cranky) and snapped that I should stop photographing and try to actually experience reality. I was sort of flummoxed and put my camera away. How could he mistake me, an artiste, for one of those funny tourists that snap snap snap bad photos all the time? Er...When I could marshal what to say a few days later, I told him I have a creative process that involves the camera and in fact my photos have been on book covers and featured in magazines... he got it. By the end of the trip we were joking about it.

The food was delivered in imaginative ways, from statues to shells to giant leaves. And was delicious. From skewers of grilled "meats" to spring rolls so delicious I still have dreams about them... I was handed a purple-blue lotus as I left and it graced my hotel window the rest of my stay.

The trip to Dream Valley

2010-09-16T23:55:00.018-04:00

One afternoon Tony Stimac, the director, had to leave the rehearsal studio in Beijing to attend the VIP opening of an arts complex he is helping to create in the mountains--an hour due East from the city. It is near Niangniangding Mountain and some ancient temples (as best as I can tell). Jim, Mark, Kemin, and friends of classical music and modern dance were invited to attend. We caught a cab that hit terrible traffic and were 15 minutes late for the chartered bus. Luckily the bus waited for us...as we stepped on, young women in long satin dresses handed us complimentary tickets, two handed of course which is the polite way to do things here, and we took our seats in the back near Kemin and his entourage.

Since this was our first trip out of the big city, I sat next to a window and took plenty of blurry snapshots of the passing countryside. The mountains around Beijing emerged from the smog once we were on the highway. Soon time worn hutongs and new condos filled my view. Then we were into areas of countryside where the agricultural fields looked familiar but the buildings and sheds were decidedly Chinese. Jim pointed out how many lines of trees had been planted. China is going green. Even in the city all the motor scooters are electric. So instead of announcing themselves with noisy belches and tinny thrum, they can quietly sneak up on pedestrians and pass by with a few microns of air space to spare. This causes me to jump rather a lot.

Near us sat a young woman from Wales named Tanya who directs and teaches in a music school and a film maker who has lived all around the globe and was originally from Hawaii. We enjoyed meeting them. Mark is so good at talking to new people.

Dream Valley is in the midst of construction. An entire valley with tall rounded peaks, including one famous rocky notch, is being excavated and transformed into a series of theater complexes, classrooms, and, to help support this output of arts, they are building many condos. Tony said the whole idea boiled down to "if we build it, they will come." He is acting as a creative consultant for this enterprise which they call an "Eastern Culture Aggregation." All the condos have already been bought as investments. Hopefully people will want to actually live here. It is so beautiful, I'd buy in if I could.


Newly completed Dream Valley Theatre


Tony Stimac welcomes our arrival. Kemin Zhang on right.

Famous notch.

We arrived and there was Tony, in a white suit, looking very pleased as he stood on the steps leading to the brand new arts reception center. We were led to an open area with many windows and huge photos of dancers as shades against the sun. We sat in chairs covered in cloth and tied with bows. The Beijing Contemporary Dance Theater performed several modern pieces, very skillful, in that style where the dancers' faces are utterly expressionless while their bodies do all the feeling. The first dance was "Changes" and the men and women wore skirt-like dance costumes. In "Crossing" they unrolled cloth lines on the stage and danced with and over and around the demarcations. They were so thin and graceful and precise. Their artistic director watched them from her VIP seat. I wonder if that made them more nervous? One dancer rubbed her leg when she was off stage and looked to be crying, had she injured herself?

Men and women dance in skirts.

The little boy is the only person I saw who yawned through Classical Music.

Speeches and welcomes were made in formal Chinese by our very own celebrity Charolotte MacInnis! We are used to seeing her on TV teaching Mandarin “Growing up with Chinese” or talking culture in casual outfits. Looking smashing in a long gown and heels, she is the very definition of poise. Tony spoke, Charolotte translated. Hands clapped. And the Beijing trio played Beethoven and Tchaikovsky with great skill (although I prefer my Beethoven to be less lovely and more in your face). Outside the floor to ceiling windows I could see orange trucks hauling rocks on unpaved roads as crews worked on building condos in the yellowish stone hills. Behind me, curious construction crew and families of staff peered through the window of the rear door with wonder. One older woman held up a toddler in his split no undies pants. This was the first performance here and a very grand opening. Scores of photographers recorded the event. How crass some of them were...one had jingling keys, and very few of them seem to realize that on a digital camera it is possible to turn off the fake sound of a "click" and I wished I could scold them. But did not. The cellist gave one of them a look to kill.


The really last row...	Workers watch through back door. Even the toddler.

Outside were the condos in the colors of the stones of the mountains. That is Mark Allen's head in silhouette.

Inside were gift wrapped seats, large posters of dancers, and a slew of photographers.


Charlotte was MC	Charlotte translates Tony's remarks.

The reception offered small coffees and smaller sweets. Since we had missed lunch it was sad that we didn't have real food, I ate several teensy tarts...I got to meet Dong Yuan, Director of Cultural Industry for Beijing-Tianjin Real Estate, and major partner in Dream Valley. I was most enthusiastic and asked her about schools and classes. She assured me they would teach from children to adult, including summer programs! What a great thing!!! In time, Dream Valley will become a highly respected training program for professional artists. And a Musical Theatre Works East for musical theater training.

We were handed a complimentary book of the art show. I hadn't realized I'd missed a gallery opening while munching and gabbing! I passed a diorama of the finished center and took photos of it. Then took photos of the same view under excavation as we low geared it off the mountain. The bus ride back to Beijing went quickly. Tony stayed behind, a bouquet of bright blossoms in his arm.

Mark Allen, Tony Stimac, Jim Racheff admire view.

Jim later told me that when we left, Tony was hoping the opening ceremony, signing, publicity, would somehow get the word out and help ensure this venture is a success. He was feeling a bit...tense... especially since a high-placed government official had left the show early, practically running out of the room. Apparently this man had located a group of other officials and commandeered a bus to come directly to Dream Valley, he was so impressed with what is being started here. Tony gave a tour to the even more high-ranking officials, apologized that they had missed the live show, and happily watched their positive reactions. Something tells me Dream Valley will become Reality Valley.

Excavation

Diorama

Dirty air in Beijing...

2010-09-15T21:45:00.005-04:00

Not everyday is a smog alert! But the air was awful last night, I tasted dirt in every breath... Hopefully the rain will come soon and I can make my way to the terrific gardens around the Summer Palace. Today the visibility is about 3 blocks. Two rough poems, first drafts...

AQI Hazardous

Ah sun how you squint through this yellow fog
as if your yolk burst.

All of Beijing fades behind me...
before me...like memory.

We stroll a stone path around a lake
shops lit by red lanterns and laser sparkles.

Lady want see my store?
Lady want drink my disco?

Air gritty on my tongue,
thick in my lungs

Two-step dancers and paddle boats sway
lights scattering into inky ripples.

Let wind from the ocean or mountains
wash this sky blue tomorrow.

Outside our hotel, Beijing, 4 pm, hazardous smog.

The Drum Tower

Built in 1272 during the reign of Kublai Kahn
24 drums thrummed the evening hours,
using water clocks and incense timers...
Three times it has been rebuilt from ashes.

Now the arched roof keeps acid rain
off the one remaining drum.
A single oxhide wide, bearing sword scars
from the allied invasion of 1901.

Isn't history fun?

Drum Tower on smoggy night behind hutong rooftops.

My Dragon painting now on view at Jefferson Market Library

2010-09-10T00:29:00.010-04:00

I am part of a group show

Dragons and Magic

An exhibition at the Jefferson Market Library
Greenwich Village, NYC
425 Ave. of the Americas (10th St.)
Sept. 7, 2010 - Oct. 29, 2010

Illustrations based on the classic children's books
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Graham and
The Magic City by E. Nesbitt
http://www.cbig-nyc.com/fallexhibition.html
http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/dragons-and-magic

I am in the show because my friend Flash Rosenberg printed out my digital drawing in her studio and put it in a frame and my daughter Natalie delivered it to the library on the very day she moved to Queens! I owe them both a huge hug of thanks. I, of course, did not finish the art before we left for China, so I spent the first week of rehearsals (for my husband's musical that was translated into Mandarin) in Beijing painting the bongo playing beat dragon (on my laptop using wacom tablet with digital pen in photoshop) while various actors and creative team watched me with bemused interest during their breaks. Not sure if any of the Chinese actors understood what the art was for, but they liked seeing it emerge. This interpretation is based on Graham's novel, The Reluctant Dragon. Like a precursor to Ferdinand The Bull, the dragon doesn't want to fight knights, including Sir George, preferring to read, write, and recite poetry. So I thought why not make him a beat poet dragon? The title is "Bongo Beat." I look forward to seeing the artshow at the Library, one of my favorite looking libraries in New York, a 19th century turret rising over Greenwich Village.

UPDATE! Great news, an agent contacted me after seeing this art and asked if I was working on a children's picture book. Yes I am, I told her. Several actually. Wow. Hopefully this will lead to something. See, doing the show, which involved no money, just a leap of effort--and I do love dragons--has lead to the delight of possibilities.

Decided against the close-ups of bongo playing. Jim suggested adding tail.

Lulichang Cultural Street--Art Heaven

2010-09-09T21:44:00.009-04:00

During a recent lunch hour Jim took me to the ancient art supply hutong. It was lined with shops selling brushes, rice paper, blank fans, inks, how-to books on calligraphy and art, blank books and far more. I was agape. The occasional tea shop, with hand made pots and offering delicious sips of lychee tea, punctuated the street (bought tea, one of the few always expensive things in Beijing). The shops also sold art prints, original art, chops (blank stones ready to be carved with your Chinese name and used as ink stamps), small statues, clothing and antiques.

Some of the calligraphy brushes are as long as a man's forearm. They are used to write poems in water on pavement. Like listening to spoken verse, the words disappear in time. An evaporating recital. Fabulous to watch.

Even on this most ancient of streets, some enterprising shop owners had put up a starbucks-like coca-cola branded sign advertising "Coffee: Latte, Expresso, American" and the whiteboard sign rested against an old stone lion statue the size of a child.

Jim went back to rehearsal and I kept wandering. I inserted myself in a cluster of Chinese to cross a busy thoroughfare (and avoid becoming road kill). The other half of Lulichang had more shops selling chops and antiques. A few stringed instrument shops as well. But plenty of bookstores, artshops, and galleries as well.

At the end of the narrowing hutong, I saw a man in the window who painted on a big sheet of rice paper. Vermilion flowers exploded on a gray and black tree branch... Entranced, I went in to watch him. His wife hurried forth, all her front teeth missing, and assured me in blurry English that he was famous and had been on Canadian TV and many art magazines in the US and Canada. She eagerly showed me laminated articles. I thought he was only a bit better than a Bob Ross, not a deep talent. I wanted to love his work but didn't, there was a leaden quality to it, although a 4 season study of the Summer Palace was lovely. His wife tried to sell me the Summer Palace set for 32,000 RMB! Now even divided by 6.8 to get to US dollars that is a hell of a lot of dough. I was not going to pay $4,700 (1.00 Chinese Yuan = 0.1471 U.S. Dollar). I had to leave without a purchase, there was no way I could convince them I couldn't afford such prices.

I soon found shops where I assume I bought original art (unless it was printed so well I can't tell the difference) and bought a large lovely wall painting of two white birds for Natalie and a sketch of the great wall for Caitlin. At a percent of what the famous artist wanted.

The street is daunting to walk on. Traffic flows in all directions. Rather like a stream with many rocks and waterfalls...tourists, like myself, wander in drunken eyelust darting at shiny things, determined cyclists--often with another passenger or bulky load--arrow through the foot traffic, the pedi-cabs make noisy passage, a horse pulls a heavy cart, school children race and bounce balls, and seem to come from all directions at once and then the cars, kings of the road, brake for no one, and honk their imperious way through the throng. Kindly strangers often indicated I was about to be run down. I hopped like a rabbit off the street into more shops.

I found a carved wooden monkey holding a peach in one hand and licking peach juice off his finger. His feet rested one on top of the other. Now I am not saying Jim looks like a monkey, but I will note the uncanny resemblance to Jim deep in thought as he writes lyrics. I bought it for him, especially since he has been reading the long myth of The Monkey King.

By 3 pm I was hungry. Just off Lulichang I found an old fashioned eatery that had a sign in English assuring me it was a "designated tourist restaurant." I ordered, from the photo heavy menu (so good for illiterates like myself) a bowl of rice noodles with egg and tomato. It was delicious but a bit tricky to eat. One older gentleman kept staring at me. He wore the white silk traditional shirt the younger generation avoids. Was I making an embarrassingly bad a mess of my dining? He came over and instead of admonishing my chopsticking, he asked where I was from. I told him Beijing and New York had a lot in common, always busy and plenty of art to see. He liked that answer. Wished me well. The waitress brought an empty plastic bin and placed my shopping bag in it and put the bin under the table. What an excellent idea! More US restaurants should do this. Especially since a close inspection of the floor is not advised when dining. I either see small roaches looking about for crumbs, or in some places, heavily stained fly swatters stationed all around the room near the floor. Doesn't bear thinking about. I returned to my lunch and took out my new blank accordion page book (size of a hand) and drew the scene.

At one shop, a sales woman with excellent English helped me to find a good beginners set of rice paper printed with character outlines and instructions on how to draw them indicated by arrows. I also bought a brush and bottle of ink. I looked at the art in the room and said to her that it was all rather pretty but only one piece in the room seemed to have real mastery. I pointed to the one painting. She assured me that this was in fact their featured master painter (always compliment the customer?) and he had an exclusive contract with them. She led me to another room and showed me more of his work. Oh he was good! A real artist has a feeling of discovery in their work that schlock art cannot have. The Bob Ross artists of the world repeat themselves without finding anything new to say. This guy used the watercolor in a very loose and suggestive way, leaving out needless detail, capturing motion of water, solidity of land, and beat of sunlight with astonishingly few strokes. I assured the sales woman that I will come back with Jim and we will buy one of his paintings to remember our trip. I am sure Jim will love this work.

I left at 4 pm to avoid the rush hour, returning by subway and starting to feel like an honorary Beijinger. I took my usual seat at rehearsal and I handed the monkey to Jim. He smiled. It fit just right in the palm of his hand.

brushes

Calligraphy in water on street

Modern art and calligraphy supply store

Can you see the crickets? Tthey sang again as soon as I stopped taking their portraits.

Looking out of a gallery into an alley

Entrance to Eastern side of Lulichang Street

Lovely horse jade pendant

Here I ate lunch

Men discussing a large calligraphy painting and water evaporates from words on the street.

All dogs are small in Beijing, large ones killed on sight by police to control rabies

Lovely sales lady in teapot shop, her cousin makes many of the teapots

Wish I had bought this set... next trip. The lotus seeds rotate near the frog. Very cool.

Enterprise, modern, on Lulichang, a starbucks-like western sign

Cheap Cure suggested by my Dad...yogurt saves the day

2010-09-06T22:23:00.008-04:00

Just 100 grams of live culture, via yogurt, and I am quickly getting better. Yay Dad for the suggestion. I had been taking pills with "live" culture so I could avoid the milk, which doesn't agree with me, but that didn't work. Not so live after all...and I would far rather suffer a bit of milk than a bout of traveler's belly.

With my new found freedom I went to the following amazing places:

1. A good bye party in a photo studio hutong for Kemin's supermodel girlfriend Mia Qiqi (nickname in English).
The hutongs are built in a warm gray brick and as I stepped up to the raised door I suddenly realized there was a courtyard inside. Just like the temples, an entrance needs a gate. This courtyard was small but fit a table and chairs and the table was laden with party food that included French pastries, fresh tiny apples the size of my thumb, and vinyard grapes with their snap of citrus and earthy tang. The inner rooms of the house had been combined into a studio with drop cloths and lamps at one end and a computer and cameras at the other. A cluster of beautiful people sat and watched a slideshow of fashion photos on the large monitor. The old wooden beams looked like an inverted hull of a ship over our heads.
Mia is not only tall, thin, 23, and beautiful, natch; but artistic, fully involved in a charity for kids and adults with special needs, and wildly in love with all things Paris. She is off to live in the city of lights for awhile and when not modeling, learning French, and taking art classes, she will be drawing her adventures in her whimsical dreamy art and words. And no doubt publishing them at some time! The party was full of Beijing's artsy types, from the supermodels who swayed overhead, to photographers, TV show hosts, producers, actors, and a man who has to be the world's expert rubic's cube performer--with a book out too! He did every variety of rubic, one of them looked to be 8 or 12 squares across, and he also did one blindfolded. He could do them one handed and blindingly fast. A normal cube he could do in under 22 seconds.
We got to talking to a very attractive honey blonde woman named Charlotte MacInnis. I asked her how long she had been in Beijing and she got a bemused look and said she had been born here. She must be assumed to be a foreigner all the time. She does two different TV shows for CCTV, one on learning to speak Chinese and the other on cultural events in Beijing! That night when we got back to our hotel room, we turned on the TV and there was Charlotte, in a pink hoodie, explaining how to say "I'm sorry about that" with video clips, grammar cartoons, and her own warm and animated face! Charlotte grew up in China, then attended Columbia University, and returned to work here in Beijing. She described a huge culture shock coming to America! Unfortunately, acting parts for whites are somewhat limited since non-traditional casting isn't done very often, but she seems very involved in her shows. She has written over 60 episodes for the language show!
I also got to talk to Nick, a friend of Kemin's who grew up in the Midwest and developed strip malls. He looks Asian but I quickly saw how American his gestures and expressions are. He came to Beijing 10 years ago when his bilingual and real estate skills were highly in demand. He was able to name his own price (plus a villa and full time driver) but soon enough, more folks came over and things got a bit more competitive for guys with his skills. He said he is currently involved in developing good nursing homes in China. He says what currently exists is appalling, even for people who can afford to pay, it is like incarceration. Locked in, fed and pilled three times a day, an occasional sponge bath, and nothing else. And these are the "good" ones! Awful. He feels happy about what he is doing, it makes up for all those strip malls! he says with a laugh, and he is looking at multi-use places with retiree apartments on golf courses with hardly any help provided (other than doctor access and house cleaning) to full hospital care and everything in between. When he speaks about nursing homes the Chinese at first say no way, never! Because their images of such places are so grim. But once he describes what he is doing, they want to sign right up. He says he has to start with the very wealthy, but hopes this model spreads to the middle class as well, with a bit less luxury... His very cute toddler Darwin carefully picked up runaway grapes from under the table and threw them out. And what grapes didn't drop from his pudgy little fingers went into his mouth.

Tony Stimac

Amazing Rubic's Cube guy

In the photo studio

Nick and Darwin


Mia relating to toddler Darwin. She is tall when standing up!

2. The Temple of Heaven
You would think I'd have known how important it is to have a street map, in scale, with English, Pinyin, and Chinese characters on it. Right? Sigh. I got out at a subway stop I thought was close to the large park which holds the Temple of Heaven compound. I ended up walking miles through hutongs and busy highways (passing a district of plumbing supplies), over rivers and under overpasses...it seems like every inch of street that hasn't been taken over by parked cars has a merchant selling trinkets and produce on a bit of cloth over the curb or sidewalk. I kept asking directions of people who could only point, backtracking and second guessing my miserably out of scale map...before I finally saw the southern gate. The first tourist shop selling cold water in a bottle was like finding an oasis after sweating through the cement desert. The droplets of cold felt like heaven against my forehead. The young woman who sold me the water practiced her English on me. She was amazed I was from New York City. I told her Beijing was just as amazing as the big apple...
Here is what the guide books say: "The Temple was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty to offer sacrifice to Heaven. It is much bigger than the Forbidden City and smaller than the Summer Palace with an area of about 2,700,000 square meters....The Temple is divided by two enclosed walls into inner part and outer part. The main buildings of the Temple lie at the south and north ends of the middle axis line of the inner part. The most magnificent buildings are The Circular Mound Altar (Yuanqiutan), Imperial Vault of Heaven (Huangqiongyu) and Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest (Qiniandian) from south to north. Also, there are some additional buildings like Three Echo Stones and Echo Wall. Almost all of the buildings are connected by a wide bridge called Vermilion Steps Bridge (Danbiqiao) or called Sacred Way."
I moved slowly because of the heat and my now tired legs (I had spent the previous week chained to the bathroom so I'd lost a lot of walking muscle). But I was glad I'd taken the southern route. The gates and walkways each led to buildings of greater size and magnificence, culminating in the three tier Temple of Good Harvest.
I didn't buy the audio tour or join a group. The signs were in Chinese and English. Not to mention loudspeakers everywhere playing music or giving lectures... I relished taking it slowly. Letting my fingers touch the warm slightly pitted marble and glazed heads of tile dragons. The entire place was designed to go together. It is "branded" by symbols. Square for earth, round for heaven. Blue and gold tile to speak of heaven. As I stood in line to look into the temples, I was surrounded by all the languages of the world. I took so many photos the camera grew hot in my hands. But my little pocket camera was defeated. I could not find a shot that showed how it felt to be there with ancient history all around me. I tried to imagine the Emperor taking three days to make his annual report to god. Everything one man does to make prayer becomes separate buildings. There was a yellow roofed structure just for changing his clothes. I was unable to be the Emperor in my mind. It was much easier to think of myself as a worker with a twig broom sweeping the many steps and paving stones. I sank onto the steps on the shadow side and joined many other weary visitors and simply looked at the brightly colored pagoda shaped rooftops against the gray backdrop of skyscrapers.
I bought a charmingly illustrated tourist map of the park and enjoyed the almost English translations...
I followed an ancient covered walkway through the park. Small children played as their parents rested a moment on the sides. Off to my right a group of singers were enjoyed by a large middle aged crowd and everyone sang the traditional songs except for me. Some large white bumpy stones turned out to be where sacrifices where beaten to death with mallets before dispatch by knife became popular.
And there at the eastern gate was the subway stop I should have used. I gratefully hobbled down the many steps and went back to the hotel for a nap.

Oh, time to see a run through of Jim's play, more later...

Beijing a go go go go

2010-09-02T01:13:00.002-04:00

Sadly, I've been confined to my hotel room for three days straight with traveler's belly. I've worked on freelance. Wrote a couple of poems. Slept, and you know, did the go go go thing. I watch the ceaseless traffic of people in cars, buses, bicycles, taxis, and on foot and think "they are not holed up in here, they can move about without needing a bathroom no more than 3 feet away!" Jim has been wonderful bringing me the Chinese version of gatoraid and bowls of broth with fishy lumps rather like gefilta fish, but better. Well, I had wanted to lose weight...but can't recommend this method.

Night Storm

Thunder echoes down the hutongs
shakes metal cranes and rising towers
drives yellow smog to the Yellow Sea,
a dragon screaming light and tears
over it's home so changed by men.

Flux in the East

So much to see
and I am stuck
in a bathroom.
Oh tell me the
Great Wall and
Temple of Heaven
will still be there
when I can
leave my hotel?

Hutongs, in case you didn't know, are the streets with low buildings, so ancient and the real "old" China, now so few left with the pace of development...

Beijing with purple fingernails and much hospitality

2010-08-31T02:00:00.002-04:00

I have been busy finishing an illustration while attending rehearsals so my full exploration of Beijing has been confined to the evenings when Jim is free to join me.

We have been thrice to an upscale mall called "Sanlitun Village" which has an apple store and nearly every other franchise you would find in the US, McDonalds, Le Sportsac, etc. But we didn't go there to shop, really! It has to be the most expensive place in Beijing, costs just the same as a fancy mall in NJ. The cab ride takes us past the panorama of modern Beijing, part Miami part Dallas. Skyscrapers everywhere but spaced out more than Manhattan. In fact, it looks much bigger than the big Apple! The national bird of China is said to be the crane, the construction crane, and they were everywhere. Hopefully the urban planners realize they should preserve some of the old before it is all gone. What tourist wants to see only modern malls? But back to the one mall I kept seeing...

The first time we attended a 9th year party at Hatsune, a Japanese restaurant. The place was mobbed and almost half the party was foreign born. I met a young tall Austrian, Raphael, who is managing a jazz club and hotel in the art district. A friendly Chinese business man pressed his special projects card on me, he is apparently in construction. The owner of Hatsune, Alan Wong, was born in California and came to China ten years ago. He is a friend of Kemin's (one of Jim's cowriters). I spoke to a friendly young Beijing woman whose English wasn't quite up to telling me much but we smiled a lot at each other. The scene was so expat bar, full of mostly young chic types...for entertainment some drummers played lion drums and then 4 sumo fat suits were handed out to the owner and friends. It was so funny to see thin elegant girls climb into the ridiculous costumes and wrestle on the floor. Unlike a similar bar in Manhattan, I was treated as a person of interest. People wanted to exchange business cards with me...perhaps as a foreigner I represent potential investments? It was refreshing to not be met with the usual 20-something's disdain or avoidance of elders.

The next time we headed to Sanlitun Village it was to have my nails done, along with Louis St. Louis (music director), at a chic spa, Lovely Nails, just around the corner from the mall. Louis has more stories about show biz than an encyclopedia has entries. He has met EVERYONE and worked with many stars, John Travolta, Olivia Newton John, Ann Magaret, and on an on. But as interesting as his stories about others, he is himself an interesting story! He told me Jim is one of the most talented lyricists he has met in a long time! Some of his songs could be instant hits! He and I sat in adjacent chairs as dainty women sawed off our calluses with super-sized files. I was sure I'd lose a shoe size by the time they were done. I let Louis help pick a deep purply magenta for my fingers and toes. It just seemed to fit the mood, Louis brings out the diva in me. He had his back waxed, I sank into the upholstered chair as my polish dried and watched koi swim in a tank, their scales as glittery and my nails.

Jim took photos of me being primped, but alas, the next day his camera was lifted skillfully from it's velcro case on his belt, as we strolled the neighborhood around our hotel, and we lost all the photos he took.

The third trip to the mall was to go to the nearby, found at last!, Bookworm, a cafe, event space, and bookstore. It was everything Jim had said it would be. I loved it. Walls full of books, a lending library as well, tables galore, views (it is upstairs and has windows that show the sparkling lights of the curving and torqued modern buildings in the area) and a western style toilet! A book discussion was just winding up in one of the rooms. I heard bits of questions about philosophy and religion and wandered away, didn't sound like my kind of book judging from the earnest discussion.

I have been having pains in my stomach, not Ghengis Khan's revenge! but jabbing acid reflux. So I went with one of our translators to a traditional Chinese medicine shop and was given two types of pills to take for two weeks. One appears to be a root turned into tiny ball bearing sized brown pellets, I take a table spoon of those a half hour before two meals a day. The other pill I take three a day and it has the color and flavor of a dehydrated lump of instant minty beef bullion. I am already feeling better.

The Chinese we are working with, both the actors, tech, and creative team, are remarkably generous and warm. They really want us to have a good time. Last night Jim and I and Mark Allen were invited out by the talented guy, we call Ben, who is putting together the score with the chinese lyrics in a program called Finale. He can do a rubics cube in nine seconds flat. He is also a drummer and both the translator (age 20) and a friend "Idy" (19) who joined us were his students. The friend also speaks English. We were treated to dinner at a traditional restaurant that had members of the Beijing opera singing in a stylized warble to two stringed instruments. The food was, well, terrific, and conversation flowed thanks to the two translators. We were a bit upset that Ben was treating us but were told this is the Chinese way, we could pay next time. It is a concept, guanxi, that involves planting favors and building networks of friendly connections. Hopefully I learn how much to accept and give so I can be a good visitor.

Next we went to a hutang (alley) district on S. Luogu Alley full of shops and bars. The bus we took was as modern and clean as the subway. And, as always in China, more people are employed to provide services than in the US. Someone had a job to take tickets as well as someone else to drive the bus. We left behind the ancient gate and lion statue and the bus took us a few blocks to the famous hutangs. The old north south street we walked is unbelievably ancient! But it reminded me of Greenwhich Village, a bit touristy but full of fine goods and crafts. The single story buildings, fronts opened into shops, made for a warmer more human sized window shopping. I bought some tea and looked at blank leather and board bound books using tan paper inside with images of Mao--Andy Warhol style--on the cover... The first bar had some loud drunk Americans playing a game and cursing their luck or wins in the same vocabulary. Bleary and weaving they chugged and played on. Oh how they made me wince. The second bar, where we were joined by two more friends, was nicer, we could talk more easily and ate popcorn and I watched the men and one translator get a bit tipsy. The couple that joined us were really cool, he is a musician--traditional guitar--and she is in graduate school learning how the brain makes connections, the sociology of affection studied in the lab. She plans to do a post doc in the US if she can.

Mark Allen (composer) did a bar game with Ben where he said if Ben could copy everything he did, then Ben could pay, but if he missed something Mark did, Mark would buy the round of drinks! We were all laughing at their antics. Mark did a little sleight of hand and won.

The bar was full of cigarette smoke, as was the restaurant, the streets. It was odd to feel like I'd gone back in time to a place where second hand smoke gave me a fuzzy second hand buzz and dry throat, I sure don't miss it. A lot of young Chinese smoke. Of course, a lot of young Americans smoke too. Idiots.

Before she left to go start college in Toronto, Kemin's younger sister Rosy played Rachmaninoff for us on the rehearsal grand piano. Kemin accompianed her on the other piano. What a talented skilled family they are. Rosy has a wonderful mix of sweetness and sarcasm. We enjoyed her so much. She plans to major in cello, not piano. I'm sure she will be terrific.

I am loving it here. Beijing is a city to rival any other world city. I only wish I knew the language better.

Wish you were here to see all of this!
C

Welcome to Beijing

2010-08-25T20:45:00.010-04:00

The first few days have gone by too quickly. But I do keep popping awake at 3 or 4 am so I thought I'd send my first dispatch.

13 hour flight was quite uncomfortable by the 9th hour. My legs just wanted to move, go anywhere but frozen in front of me. The small elderly Chinese woman to my right took to sleeping with her bare feet tucked into the magazine pocket. I wished I was small enough to do the same...the overhead projector had color problems and the movies became purple and green, as a result the feel good football movie had giant eggplants tackling each other on the fields and talking in blurry chinese characters. I couldn't see the subtitles or hear the sound track--my supplied headphones were not so good, so I turned instead to books I'd saved for free on my iPhone. I read Heidi for the first time since I was a kid. What a weird cultural experience. By today's standards the story goes like this: A neglected Swiss girl is dumped on her crazy loner grandpa who lives in a mountaintop cabin cursing humanity. Despite her upbringing she is unaffected by any neuroses, takes to the hills like a euphoric goat, and reforms not only nasty gramps, but by novel's end she had three sugar granddaddies, heals a lame girl, brings religion to the entire Alps and still believes her friends, the goats, will frolic uneaten forever.. And her greatest reward for being cute, innocent, and prayer inducing? The most ardent sugargrandaddy wants to adopt her so she need never work again and her job in life will be to nurse him through old age and hold his hand when he croaks. Wow, have things changed, what I remembered wasn't what I read. It was a long flight...

Day 1

China in no way matched my ancient National Geographic images. The airport was huge, modern, attractive, and indistinguishable from any other international hub. Except for the signs in Chinese characters with Pinyin (sounded out in English) and English. They have tight security. Giant machines sniffed us, took our temperature (thank goodness I didn't have a hotflash at that moment) and filmed our entry down an astonishingly long corridor with moving walkways. The duty free shops sold all the usual brands.

We, Jim, Mark Allen (the composer) and I, were met by Mr. Li's driver and an assistant who spoke no English. They drove us on a modern highway, and since it was night, all I could see were tall modern buildings. It was like driving through Dallas. Then we left the highway, took some more local but still modern looking streets, and were soon at the Song Lie Hotel. There is also a SongLie compound of apartments and a rehearsal building behind the hotel. We were met by Mars, who spoke English and made us must welcome. I got a hug. Then we were taken to our quarters. Since I was with Jim on this trip they gave us a rather deluxe setup. We have a room with a bed, desk, and table--but our bathroom has a huge round water bed in the middle. And a jacuzzi. All the walls within the bathroom are glass, from shower to toilet, so there could be such a thing as too much togetherness in my opinion. We are sleeping on the terra firma bed.

Waterbed in bathroom a problem with the frequent aroma of overwhelmed Beijing sewers.

We are behind the blue and purple stripes in the Songlei Hotel. Prison view.
The buildings behind are all part of the complex, with theatre rehearsal studio,
pool, canteen, and apartments.

By morning, I looked out our window, as best as I could. Since it is partially obscured by slats of exterior decorating and that has left the glass behind rather spattered with smoggy rain drops, I saw long thin views. Here was the Beijing of today, modern buses (rather like the ones in Manhattan) moving a steady stream of commuters from the nearby subway station. But also, people on bicycles of every description, some clearly off to the office, others were mini cabs, and some were3 wheeled and fitted with wooden trays on supports that turned them into leg powered heavy transport. A bike piled high with melons gracefully sped by. Street crossing looks dangerous, and it is! Cars, scooters, and bikes don't slow for pedestrians.

We were treated to a breakfast that was our host's best estimation of western, in our room. Two waiters placed trays of cold sunny side up eggs, glasses of hot milk, bowls of a powdery granola like substance, and a fruit platter that included tomatoes. And no utensils. Well, how would you know what was hot or cold just looking at a photo?

We were escorted around the corner to the large new SongLie musical theater workshop by the courteous Mars.It is a multi floor building with many rehearsal rooms. This is really the first and best rehearsal space for musical theater in China! There Jim was reunited with the creative team and met the actors and new crew. I spent the first day watching the cast read through the play.His director and cowriter is Tony Stimic, tall and white haired.Tony started Musical Theater Works in New York City and he is starting a Chinese version out here. So in addition to directing and producing plays for Mr. Lei, he is launching this huge theater training and performing center being built outside of Beijing. The other cowriter is Kemin Zhang, a young Chinese man who is translating the play into Mandarin. Kemin is multi talented, he performs magic, plays piano, conducts... I got to share one of the scripts that had both chinese and english with Rosy, Kemin's little sister. Kemin and Rosie have been raised in Beijing and Toronto.

The building was only used for the musical Butterflies, but now has several productions going.
Note stair entry. My workout.

Largest musical theatre rehearsal space in Beijing. Big windows are the room we were in.

It was fun watching the cast get the humor and start to take on the characters they will be playing. THE JOKER'S GAME is a musical comedy with magic. But very much a Beijing show. Kemin has found Mandarin equivalents to some of Jim's colloquialisms and that in turn has suggested new but appropriate veins of verbal humor. That afternoon the cast did short auditions to show the range of their voices and they were invited to add any other skills they might have. We were treated to two displays of martial arts, one with a sword, the other with a stick, that were amazing! It is one thing to see it in an action movie, it is a thrill to have someone do spinning acrobatic leaps right in front of you. One plump actor danced the salsa at high speed, the comic relief guy did a funny singing scene he told us was like Lady Gaga.

First day, read through the script.

Creative team meeting.

We were treated to a formal round table luncheon at the hotel. The entire table center spun and bowls and platters of food would go by. It was all good, rather formal, I particularly liked the duck. A dessert, with cold inside and hot crispy outside was delicious.

For dinner, Kemin and Rosy treated us to a place in a nearby mall where there were 20 food stations...I started to feel overwhelmed as each station had a mock rivalry to get business. Kemin ordered some very traditional fare, we each had a rice bowl and added toppings. Bits of fish with mixed vegetables was outstanding. The subway is so clean, well marked, modern and air conditioned and it puts the New York subway to shame. All the trains have an announcement of the stops in mandarin and English. Tight security includes scanners of bags.

Claudia, Jim, Kemin, Mark on Beijing #5 line subway, photo by Rosy.

Day 2

Learning the songs.

Rehearsals now focusing on learning the music. Jim has to write a new song. We went in search of an expat hangout THE BOOKWORM (bookstore and restaurant and at night book readings) that was 3 trains and 55 minutes away. Unfortunately Jim didn't quite remember where it was and we didn't find it. It was hard to be without phone, translated map, or anyone to ask directions. I took a deep breath and just looked around as we finally decided to give up and head back after shopping for toothpaste, shampoo and the very necessary small packets of toilet tissue. I saw the lives people lead. Men sleeping on their now empty bike wagons in any shade they can find. Babies in open bottomed pants followed by hungry pet dogs... A middle aged man on a tiny balcony tending his one plant. Everyone seems able to sit in a squat, and since their bathrooms usually have squat toilets, I am the creaky kneed outsider. All guards are soldiers. All stores have way more staff than I am used to in the US. And, I was happy to see that the widely reported story of Beijingers never giving up their seats to the old was not true. We saw it happen twice on our fruitless quest for the bookworm. For dinner we took Kemin and Mark out to a hot pot place across the street from the hotel. What a thing! A huge yin yang bowl of both spice and tame broth boiled like mad as we dumped in progressive trays of raw food. The fish we started with was shown to us live and swimming in agitation, whiskers whirling, in a bucket before we ate it.

Jim is going to be too busy to go exploring and I am sad our few hours yesterday didn't get us anywhere. And yet...I will start to plan trips. I want to see the art district and go to all the usual sights--forbidden palace, gardens, temples--but also the paint and brush street, and look into taking some painting lessons in traditional style.

I also need to find a good wifi connection, the hotel has ethernet but it only seems to work OK. No big files. Well it is about 6 am... day begins. Hopefully, I stop waking up at 3 am soon!

One staff member to hold stool on mattress...

So, how many Chinese does it take
to screw in a lightbulb?

Bye for now.
C

In the swing of Beijing

2010-08-24T23:11:00.003-04:00

Well, not yet. But just got the internet guy at the hotel to fix my access so I can do more internet than only checking my email. Yay! Now, except for some sites that are unavailable, I can do web searches for maps, weather, what bongo drums looked like in the 60s, spelling and etymologies, not to mention things to do!

This city is modern and timeless side by side but the modern seems to be winning. My first two days have been rather jet lagged...I watched rehearsals of Jim's musical (and I could easily spend the entire month enjoying their creative process) but at some point I need to pull away and define my relationship to this extraordinary city and myself as a creative at whim. Jim is busy, I am now going to explore on my own...the temple of heaven and hall of abstinence are only 2 subway stops away.

What do I want to write? So much freedom. Yikes. And yet I am without language in this city. Odd.

I have some freelance work, thanks to Flash Rosenberg, and have done more thinking about the novel I want to write, thanks to a lovely lunch with Delia... maybe this city will infuse me, shift what I want to write about. I am open to the muse, please do feel free to visit me here on the other side of the world.

The Song Lie Hotel is behind the blue and purple strips. Our view is in thin inches.

Along the ring roads, many skyscrapers...CCTV tower on right.
Cabs are green and orange.

Cartoonists and a scotch with two speech balloons

2010-08-12T15:45:00.007-04:00

Last night Flash Rosenberg invited me, and two other female friends, to attend the (largely male) monthly happy hour gathering of The National Cartoonist Society at O'Casey's bar near Grand Central Station.

I arrived early and was directed upstairs. There were two long tables. One was nearly full, with a crowd of jolly folks and the other had only two guys sitting there quietly. Assuming cartoonists were noisy, I sat at the full table. I shook hands, introduced myself, made small talk, and then someone asked me what firm I ran or worked for. Firm? Cartoonists have firms? They started to laugh deep laughs.
"We are accountants, the cartoonists must be on the other side of the room."
"Well," I said, "I am enjoying you all anyway, so I'll have a few more sips of my scotch before I join the other side. Besides, my brother is an actuary, that makes me almost related."

I made my way over to the slowly filling table of cartoonists and had the luck to sit right next to a short, sweet, funny, old man. Our patter was delightfully snappy and silly. At one point I told him I was taken and held out my ring finger, he pulled out an imaginary loop and inspected the diamond. I told him it didn't melt in the shower so the love had to be real... then I asked him what he draws.

"You mean, drew, what I drew."
"I guess I do," I replied.
"I drew Dondi, The Green Hornet, Wonder Woman, to name a few. I'm Irwin Hasen."
"WOW!" I made bowing motions. I was clearly sitting next to a flirtatious legend.
"My father loves Dondi, we always read it!" He smiled happily.

Irwin Hasen with me at the Cartoonists happy hour. Photo by Flash Rosenberg.

I also sat next to Ellen Abramowitz one of the other women Flash invited. She is the skilled, smart, and sophisticated (best dressed at any table in the joint) chairman of the board of trustees at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. She was brimming with good ideas, professionalism, and enthusiasm for the museum. She also tells great stories about the cartoon world, movies from cartoons, cartoonists... Cool. She knew who I was because she responded to a previous blog about my visit to their current (go see it!) show "NeoIntegrity" and had heartily agreed that the museum needs to grow in size. If comic con can fill the ENTIRE Javit's conference center, then surely, MoCCA deserves to fill a building too. One suite is just too little space for a museum. (So anybody with cash to spare, do donate.)

Ellen Abramowitz and Karen Green, photo by Flash Rosenberg

The other Flash invitee was Karen Green, both a Graphic Novels and Ancient and Medieval History and Religion Librarian at Columbia University. She, too, was fascinating to talk to. Think about how medieval manuscripts relate to graphic novel layouts. I got to ride home on the subway with her and the time flew by as she and I talked about what cartoons we devoured as we grew up, our ages being close, we went through similar stages of discovery. From daily newspaper strips to New Yorker cartoons to Edward Gorey to Crazy Cat to Archy and Mehitabel...We took a moment of silence around 86th street for the untoppable genius of Winsor McCay! Karen said (something she heard from Feiffer) "Imagine being there at the start of the golden age of cartooning and having his talent and creating Little Nemo without having to know that you would be the pinnacle that all others had to follow and could never top." Karen is great. I think all colleges should immediately contact her to come and speak to their students.

I also got to take home a truly funny new (free) newspaper full of cartoons "Coffee Talk" put together by Tony Murphy. The third strip on the front page was done by Marc Bilgrey who sat opposite me. It turns out he is also a fantasy novelist and we had both attended Lunacon a few months back and somehow I'd never heard of him or met him there. He was on the panels as a featured author and I was one of the listeners. So nice to meet someone who draws and writes fantasy. See! I'm not the only one.

I talked to so many...it was great to meet all of you...even the accountants. Thanks Flash Rosenberg for the invitation!

Going to China for a month

2010-08-06T10:42:00.000-04:00

It is official. I even have a plane ticket and visa. A house/dog/cat/3-plants sitter has arrived fortuitously and I am clearing space in my creative (tottery piles), project filled (clutter in progress), apartment to make room for our pet caring guest.

Every night I do some Rosetta Stone for Mandarin and this reassures me that I can say "hello man" or "hello girl child" as well as the useful "yellow car" and "black cat" I am sure with this amount of language I can meet impresarios and very important persons connected with Jim's musical writing career and make my silence golden. Chances are, many of the people I meet will have at least 100 useful phrases in English and I am ashamed to say I have, as yet, none to offer back in Mandarin. But I am working on "where is the bathroom?" and "I write and draw" so they know I'm not just Jim's middle-aged arm candy on this trip.

Some friends sent me dire warnings about:

1. air pollution
Hey, I survived Los Angeles in the 60s in a neighborhood that was perfumed by a plastic doll factory. The fact that I came out of the miasma of smog without asthma proves I can survive Beijing.

2. the great firewall of China
I lived decades without Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. A month without, think of it as an analogue artistic retreat. I will draw on...paper. I will write with a...fountain pen.

3. squishing in subways
Really? And the NYC rush hour is so roomy, so spacious, I have never had body parts pressed into my flesh in anonymous sweaty cleaving. Hint, I won't take trains during rush hour.

4. cultural gaffs
You bet, I will record my every shameful mistake for humor future forward.

5. cultural recoil
I am sure the differences in how people do things will occasionally make me uncomfortable. Like spitting. Like taking cell phone calls no matter where or what you are doing. The trick is to stop thinking like an American and realize they have their own house rules. Takes practice, I'm sure. Note to self, do not pat children on their heads...

Remains of the day

2010-08-01T22:38:00.002-04:00

I just watched The Watchmen. Didn't catch it at the movies. Wow, dark dark dark dystopia. With a glowing blue god-like man and deeply ruthless disenfranchised super heroes.

The blue guy, John, gets zen about things while he hangs out on Mars making big glass timepices, and mentions that at an atomic level, a dead body and a living body are equally complex. He has a point.

This got me thinking about all the many ways people weigh the significance of both living and dead bodies. Religions and governments make efforts to shape the choices people make about their bodies when alive. And in death, the government has its set of rules about how the corpse must be disposed and religions enact their rituals. Both offer comfort, or at least hygiene, to the living and religion offers hopes for an afterlife. Religions embrace the soul, something that has no atomic weight but is earnestly believed in.

When my grandmother Florence died, all these choices about atoms, about souls and bodies, came into play in the pleasant, flower and photo filled parlor of the midwestern funeral home. A cousin looked around and saw no coffin. He was perplexed. He wanted to know where grandma was. My Unitarian parents brought him over to an urn sitting next to candles and framed photos of what Florence had looked like a few years ago, before cremation. A look of horror tightened his jaw and he turned pale with rage. I realized he was of the belief that the body was still needed, that at some future date Grandma, or rather Jesus, would reanimate her corpse with her soul. Converting some of her atoms to energy and removing the H2O from the rest was not his idea of appropriate. I inevitably think of zombies with this scenario but I said nothing, he said nothing. Because even when beliefs clash, good manners still rule, if you are lucky.

I, too, am used to the convention of a coffin. Something approximately the size of a single bed. It is big. It says I am full of someone you loved. An urn, it is so tiny, it is hard to think of someone fitting into something smaller than a shoebox. But over time, the long long time of eons, our remains disappear. Or rather, the atoms go back into general use. Cremation just speeds it up.

We buried the urn. And even then, there was plenty of space in that small plot. We wrote our memories on pieces of paper and buried them with her too. Memories and love can be said to have weight, as much as a brain or heart has weight, but feelings are like ghosts in the clockwork, even the blue man on Mars decided that messy life held more value than pristine mechanical lifelessness. As for the cousin, only the second coming will prove him right. But his is only one belief system.

Shameless plug for Divorce Bard's Blog

2010-07-29T11:04:00.003-04:00

A friend of mine, who must remain nameless, has started a blog where he writes one rhymed poem a day. His self-inflicted rules: must be iambic, must be true rhyme. Like Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray Love, he is writing through the pain of his life post-divorce. Add to that he is also a father with a very touchy ex... He is becoming a more accomplished writer from the daily practice. Today's offering is particularly fine:
Genesis I:1-3. Tuesday July 27, 2010

Now Listen. The Beginning knew no dark,
No light, and so no difference in the two.
No notion of contrasting things, no stark,
No sharply. Impulse, verbs, to make, to do,

Could not exist. There was no mind to know them,
The void held none, where absence could not be.
Then somehow a potential formed, to show them
To one potential Word, this only: See.

And then, a flickering. A just potential
Of particles, where none had been before,
And time would soon begin, in exponential
Increase of things that may. And this Word: More.

One flickering had sparked Imagination.
And More begat Desire. And Coalesce.
Potential matter took on gravitation,
And space that would be, started to compress,

Collapsing on itself, to gather force.
Potential metamorphosed into Power,
Collecting in a single point -- the source
Of time itself. And soon, a day, an hour,

Would come to be. But first, Desire must peak.
That flick'ring. Now with all the gathered matter.
Desire, now infinite, began to speak:
Let There Be Light. And Space began to scatter.

And Time began to be. Creation sang.
Some fourteen billion years before us.

Bang.

Chinese poetry

2010-07-27T01:08:00.001-04:00

I am reading from one of my thick anthologies of world poetry and flitting online as well. I do love the succinctness of the great classical Chinese poets. But...what is not coming through? I know so little of daily life a thousand or so years ago. And then, when something does touch me, I am sitting near the poet and time is the question not the barrier...

The Ching-Ting Mountain
by: Li Bai (701-762)
translated by Shigeyoshi Obata

Flocks of birds have flown high and away;
A solitary drift of cloud, too, has gone, wandering on.
And I sit alone with the Ching-ting Peak, towering beyond.
We never grow tired of each other, the mountain and I.

Bumble & bumble and hair tumbles...

2010-07-24T13:52:00.008-04:00

My friend Flash has treated me to a new concept of self through a haircut at the trendy, delightful, multi-floor loft/salon of Bumble & bumble on far west 13th street in Manhattan. Before meeting Andrew, Flash and I drank gratis fizzy bottled water while overlooking the Hudson River and most of Manhattan's skyline in their airy boutique/cafe. I had grown out my hair and it was a fuzzy topiary. Having had no time to get home and change into my (one) chic casual outfit, I arrived in salt stained tee shirt and jeans, straight from the beach. I also had my recent self inflicted dye job, which I'd left on a tad too long, turning my brown with gray to black. This I regretted, but c'est la vie.

Pre-haircut portrait by Flash Rosenberg

Andrew's Bumble & bumble haircut, photo by Flash Rosenberg.

"Andrew, Claudia is a cool, mischievous, fun artist--poet, please give her a haircut to match. Right now she has a Long Island matron helmet do, this must change." Flash placed some images she had pulled from the web on the counter. Andrew glanced and nodded. Short, asymmetric, wispy bangs, but with some loft to the top in a spiky way.

"Yes, that's what I had in mind as soon as I saw her!" he said to Flash. His own short curly hair gave me confidence, it was natural, appealing. Not to mention Flash's own fantastic look: dramatic, feminine, quirky and in harmony with her features.

He cut my damp curls with a razor and half moons of black fell to the polished concrete floor. My head felt lighter and lighter, a balloon on a string.

Then I put on my glasses saw it was very short and different than any cut I've ever had. Andrew showed me how to tousle it with their magic cream and pull up artful bedroom hair tufts. I now had an Annette Benning style short do. And the hair fit my funky French glasses. Now all I need to do is find some fun, off-kilter, artsy used clothing! I think I will go with daughters to the nearby thrift stores, for the same price as shopping at Target, I can find things that feel in harmony with me, not just with my budget.

Next we celebrated with a half carafe of wine and a plate of sardines at nearby Pastis (self-described as a French bistro located in Manhattan's meatpacking district). We sat outdoors in the shade of the building and watched most of trendy young New York wobble by on the cobblestones. Best people watching spot in the city!

How wonderful. Here's to kind and kindred spirits, here's to my friend Flash. With love and thanks for this new do. And the thing to do with generosity is...pass it on.

Ocean Grove in summer

2010-07-21T16:02:00.003-04:00

My Aunt Sonya has invited us out for a couple of days to her lovely home on the Jersey Shore. The entire town of Ocean Grove has a quaintness code that is enforced seriously. It is a shock of Victorianna. The wooden houses stand cheek to cheek, displaying their lacy fretwork and fancy porch rails, chintz curtains like drooping eyelids, and exteriors tarted up in the 15 approved colors. I could also draw them as a flock of creaking wedding cakes admiring their reflections in a briny mirror.

Did you know that "chintz" is a word adapted from Hindi meaning “spotted”? Calico cloth was stained or painted in India sold to Europeans, starting in 1600s, and became the general name of floral patterned fabric. The word chintz seems to call forth the word cosy and that immediately suggests this town would make a great background for a whodunit mystery.

As we walked in the almost warm surf, I noticed how white everyone is. The town's summer population is swelled by visiting church folk who fill the giant tabernacle and eat lots of ice cream. They are friendly and say hello as we stroll past their tent cabins. There is a 10 year waiting list to rent one of these tents. They are passed down through families... I feel like an anthropologist in a unique cultural niche. There are also locals who have the look of year round hardscrabble lives. Older men and woman with tans, tats--their bodies and smiles noticeably unsymmetrical, and attitudes that suggest, however dry the town is, they are not.

So what am I to the Methodists or locals here? How do they see us? With no doubt we look like Methodists (white, middle aged, wearing fresh tee shirts and displaying no body art) but if one were to listen, we talk a load of writer's nonsense peppered with pungent unchurchy phrases. Of course, there is the third population in the town, people like my aunt. Comfortably funded types who buy or rent homes here, some of them Jewish, others gay, all artsy, smart, and in love with decor... and then there are the shopkeepers, craftspeople, and people that fix and restore wood and pipes.

If I were giving a writing prompt I'd ask for a description of a herring seagull by each of the four groups: tent camp Methodist child, one armed pony tailed man who does small jobs, the elderly homeowner who is determined to recreate her house into a prize worthy magazine feature, and the waitress on break from a lunch spot that uses bad puns to name its specials.

I noticed the young gulls with tan and gray spots eyeing me intelligently from small dunes. They molt into birds with white heads, gray wings, and a bright red spot on their lower bill. Some of the young ones were exactly in between, as if I had merged two photos. All of them waddle on sand and hover in the air. Where, exactly, is the poetry in that? I guess as a tourist, the poet in me has gone on vacation.

Unexpected Waterfalls

2010-07-20T00:51:00.002-04:00

Today I met a new friend, Valeria, in a cafe I've never been to before, Society Coffee Lounge at 2104 Frederick Douglass Blvd. at 114th St. We had a lovely talk about writing and how to reshape pieces of life into fiction. We enjoyed the coffee, crab cakes, grits, and each others company. She has had a fascinating life growing up in Russia!

As I walked back, I decided to try a new route on 113th through Morningside Park. The view was lovely, cathedral and trees forming a scrim behind Harlem's rooftops. Now as odd as this sounds, I have never ever walked this particular path before. Not in all the years I've lived in this neighborhood. I've walked north along the top of the hill on the Columbia University side (looking down into the valley of the park), walked the south side on my way to the much larger Central Park, but simply never entered it going west at 113th street. Following a man leading two large dogs onto a green lawn near a baseball field, I discovered a tall (for a city) waterfall rippling into a pond near a flight of stone steps. I walked up 18 flights of stairs through dappled leaf and earth scented shade. Soon there was no view behind or above me, just green and green and I felt like I'd reached the heart of summer. I was magically alone in this huge city. Butterflies bobbed, a few wildflowers shook their heads, and even the occasional dented cola can seemed like a glint of treasure.

I thought about friendships new and old. Today is my friend Deborah Atherton's birthday. The days feel lighter with friends, the heart fuller. Happy birthday Deborah. And to Valeria too, who had a birthday last month before we had gotten to know each other. Known paths and new ones, all welcome.

The Monkey King visits our apartment

2010-07-18T10:30:00.002-04:00

Since Jim and I will be visiting China in the somewhat near future, I decided a spot of education would be advisable. Since I have mastered "good day" and "thank you," or at least say them in a way that suggests I am trying, I decided to tackle culture next. Off to the library! I am now reading a condensed version, told for children, of The Monkey King. What a great series of trickster tales! Here is where Curious George is just a weak imitation. King Kong a humorless expansion. And George W. Bush an unwitting example. Naturally, I am aware that I have a bit more to learn about China's uber-mega-vast history and culture, but there is no better place to start than where a child starts.

Next, poetry... suggestions wanted for which poets to read in translation!

Marilyn Stimac, producer and wife of Tony Stimac, told me the spouses, of people on work visa's in China, need to make a life for themselves while they are there. You can't be a tourist forever. Some of them play cards, others visit for afternoon teas--very 1950s diplomatic wife stuff--but there is much more than that if you look for it. Even though you can't work there, join groups with interests that fit well with yours. And keep meeting new people, the visas run out...everyone moves on. Except, of course, for the 1.3 billion Chinese whom I look forward to meeting as well.

Poets House reading

2010-07-16T13:34:00.002-04:00

I am lucky to have poet friends who write delightfully well. Maybe, and I admit this is a prejudice, I cannot be a supportive fan of dreck. For instance, when Jim and I met for a first date we both brought examples of our writing, no point in pursing a kiss if the prose was a miss. Or in our cases, poetry and lyrics...

Last night I attended one of the readings held in honor of the annual show of poetry books published in the previous year and, er, donated to the library at Poets House. Included in the line-up of readers was my friend Estha Weiner, who is finally having multiple books and chapbooks published after too long a wait. She is a delight as a teacher, writer and reader (her other life was as an actress). Baron Wormser said of her book, Transfiguration Begins at Home, "a blend of Beckett and Dorothy Parker." Most true. You can buy it here.

I looked around the somewhat too small room for readings and enjoyed the array of 2009 books on the shelves. Happily several of my cover designs were presented face out. I designed many of the Marsh Hawk Press books as well as the cover for Gardner McFall's Russian Tortoise. Missing was Benu Press because they are new and most likely just didn't know about contributing to this annual show. I will make sure next year's poetry books are submitted.

Spoke with Martin Mitchell, Sarah White, Rachel Hadas (told her I'd just finished my first kid's novel!), Jeanne Marie Beaumont, and other friends of poetry and Estha at the reception.

The new lower Manhattan space for Poets House is lovely, despite the too smallness of the performance room on the ground floor. I adore the long reading gallery upstairs with its ample chairs, tables, and couches, and above all the astounding glass wall views of the harbor with light that bounces off the Hudson River and the ribbon of comforting green public space that now frames so much of this island. But...change is hard. I miss the cosy lived-in feel of the SoHo loft. Maybe I miss the location, it was easier to drop in after work, free lectures (at Noble Desktop), Alimentum readings at the Housing Works cafe, and museums such as MoCCA which were so close by...

But in time, the new becomes lived in, gains a personality that comes from being occupied by the passions of it's tenants and tenents.

A Happy Birthday to Elof Carlson

2010-07-15T11:47:00.002-04:00

We should all wish my father a very happy birthday. Since he measures his time in chapters, let us wish him a shelf/hard drive full of books before his next birthday. Which he will write without breaking a sweat. You think I exaggerate? His prodigious talent and copious productivity with sentences and ideas makes Pepys look like a mealy mouthed jotter and Dickens only a half-hearted wordsmith. No, really. He writes a chapter a day, with footnotes, and a book a month. Half the books are hard science history, the other half delve into the messy intersection of society, ethics, and science and then just because he can, he writes the occasional novel, libretto, poem, limerick, or play. Oh, I forgot the reviews and essays, blog, and articles. Ah, also his lengthy daily journaling. Apparently he sleeps a hearty 3-4 hours a night and pauses to eat, read, write letters, watch the news, nod happily at his wife, and read this blog.

This lucky man has a press that adores him and publishes nearly a book a year. And this third career came after two most successful careers: first as a research scientist (genetics, drosophila) and then as an award-winning teacher at universities both on land and sea. He also attends conferences and gives talks.

I will admit that his productivity can be a bit daunting...I am sure my siblings would agree. Here we struggle to complete a project that can take us months or years and Dad will be nicely encouraging and then ruin it by saying "oh well, they didn't want that last book I wrote on agent orange, that's sad...but...I'll just write another book this month." Are you secretly thinking, how good could this spewing font of words be? A veritable Vesuvius of vapid patter? Can a man that makes the spouting oil leak look like a thin drizzle of spit actually write well? Sadly, yes, he gets good reviews and has been nominated for things like the pulitzer...

So happy birthday Dr. Elof Axel Carlson, Ph.D. as the man who ought to have his photo in the dictionary next to both productivity and professor, absent-minded! To all the books of you! And also, for being my dad, with all my love.

(And for all the former students...say hi to him on facebook!)

When the comics go to the museum

2010-07-14T10:35:00.006-04:00

Last night Caitlin and I joined Flash Rosenberg at an opening of the NeoIntegrity show at MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) at 594 Broadway. From Hogarth to video, it filled every wall, column, and baseboard and left nary an inch between each item. While this made the show feel somewhat like walking into a manic double page spread of a superhero smack down, for this particular viewer it lead to dizziness and the occasional padded chair helped me recover.

I loved seeing original art, complete with pencil ghost lines and the crunch of pen over paper for Maurice Sendak and Edward Koren, "Seuss" drawings in pencil, Roz Chast water coloring photocopies of the original drawings (as Flash does), Allison Bechdel's ink line, and so so much more... Also a fun show of R. Sikoryak's process for adapting classics into comics.

I met lovely staff, curators, a fascinating woman who studies graphic novels and medieval manuscripts, and a man who paints covers for The New Yorker.

I do hope the "museum" gets to grow from a suite to a building with abundant galleries. Imagine the rooms devoted to Batman, Will Eisner, Posy Simmonds, William Blake, Charles Addams, Disney, 8-page "bibles"(of which I could contribute a few of my uncle's collection), Jules Feiffer, our own Flash Rosenberg... but please with more space, a bit more room around each piece of art.

Great show, go!

(Inspires me to think of how I'm going to create my graphic novel...hmmm...)

A very busy day

2010-07-13T00:46:00.008-04:00

While it was delightful to visit the worlds of musical theatre, I came home to find a great many jobs needed to be finished or started.

I finished a new teaser chapter (to lead into the next book) for the novel for the toy manufacturer. Plus a synopsis. This means I am done! There will hopefully only be small corrections. Off it goes...

I finished designing a book for Norman Finkelstein, The Ghost Factory. It is a satisfying read, full of the machines people devise both with hands and heads.

I made much needed updates to Jeanne Marie Beaumont's website. She has a new book coming out, The Burning of the Three Fires, and I highly recommend reading ANYTHING she writes. Seriously, she is one of the most brilliant poets I know.

I billed two jobs.

I looked over the manuscript for my next poetry book and concluded it is not ready for print, it needs a LOT of work and must be stewed accordingly in my brain. So I let my editor know it won't be part of next year's line up...

I listened to a CD Jeffrey Stock gave to me and Jim of his work (musical director for Jim's staged reading) and I smiled, sighed, and tapped my feet and wrote to tell him he is an absolutely wonderful composer, really really good, but that I am an idiot when it comes to opera and could not comment on those pieces. (I keep seeing Bugs Bunny singing, I know, I know, I'm a cretin. Ignorant, that's it, I'm iggggggorant.) One of these days I plan to learn to speak opera.

I've been invited to write something for my favorite magazine.

I need to write explanatory notes (in the back of an anthology) about a poem of mine.

All my other clients had left small notes indicating some attention on my part, for their projects, would be much appreciated. A few applied spurs. I concur. Tomorrow I will finish designing another book for Benu Press.

I ate dinner with my family and enjoyed each of their flavors including the food Jim made. I hugged Natalie for a long good hug. I thought about the lovely long walk and Guggenheim museum trip with Caitlin yesterday and the work of two artists (Julie Mehretu and Sarah Anne Johnson's Tree Planting) I loved who I had never seen before. Then we watched part of The Music Man on an old VCR with drifting attention... And now...I'll...yawn...sleep...

The last chair folded and the magic leaves the stage

2010-07-11T12:10:00.003-04:00

Unlike Jim, I didn't suffer preshow nerves...in Jim it manifested as a sudden inability to figure out where he was. His mind was so full of lyrics and scene changes that when he transferred trains, in Times Square, he was momentarily lost despite this being a route he ordinarily follows unthinkingly. He spun like a human top. I walked by his side and he looked around for me...we could call this Absent-minded Situational Syndrome (A.S.S.) but my preshow (poetry reading) nerves involve urgent needs to pee even when I don't need to go, so let's not name mine.

Once there, I placed the playbills on the seats, and listened to the final rehearsals. All too soon the doors opened and the audience of family and friends took their seats.

As I watched all the actors, who gave so generously of their time and talents, I was reminded of why people do live theatre. It is exciting to develop something new and work as a team. When I was a girl I used to make up plays and games with neighborhood kids, we had fun, and every one of our efforts ended in us laughing in a huge pile on my lawn or bedroom carpet. Play is the right word for all of it.

The staged reading was rough, with so little rehearsal, but the flavor of the play came through. People laughed and applauded, asked good questions at the end, and the script's wants and excesses were made clearer to the creative team. We folded up the folding chairs and stacked the plastic ones and the theatre cleared of actors and audience.

Then some of us joined my daughters and ate Indian food on East 6th Street. I got to know Kemin's mother and sister and Jim got to talk to Jeffrey and I met a film maker friend of Kemin's that has a documentary on fashion models coming out in the Fall. Jeffrey described learning how to carve wooden masks in Bali, using hands and feet.

What a week it has been. I loved it.

Who knew a lyricist could be called upon to fix a music stand with gaffer's tape?

Creative team post reading.

Kemin's sister, Jim, Kemin, Jeffrey, Kemin's mom.

How is a rehearsal like a shaggy dog story?

2010-07-10T12:29:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, the last day of rehearsals of The Joker's Game, was a classic "stumble through" with frequent stops for cuts, changes, and new cues. It reminded me of a shaggy dog story, the actors being the narrative, and the creative crew frequently stopping them for edits, comments, and deletions; with the goal of turning it into something faster and sharper. Ba-da-bing!

Fun was watching most of the cast hear the "Hot Hot Girls" numbers for the first time, they, like me, enjoyed it with nods and grins. Big number songs sent good little chills up my spine. The ballads are also sounding great... I really appreciate how much work it is to learn a musical in 4 days! The staged reading will only be an approximation of what the final show will be like, but with such professionals involved, they sound like they have worked together for far longer. The actors ask smart questions too.

Tony had only three hours to get through the whole script. He knew that the concerns of the music people and the word people all had to take second place to the time constraints and the reality that the rehearsals must end in a few hours. Equity rules. This is what a director does, sees the big picture. "Let this or that go," he would say, "we haven't time, let's do it more simply for the reading..." And then he would suggest ways the actors could make their moments more powerful.

I finished the playbill and sketched the creative crew (got autographs) and photographed the non-equity folks. I was exhausted when I got home. All that creative energy is both addicting and tiring. In a good way.

Best of all, both daughters are home and will be able to come to the reading.

Program notes

2010-07-09T11:09:00.001-04:00

At rehearsal yesterday I didn't get a chance to sketch...I created the program for the staged reading. But instead of Jeffrey Stock's calm back (music director) I had bouncy Mark Allen (composer) leading the "Hot Hot Girls" in their series of show-stopping, toe-tapping numbers. Mark would play, then leap up, jump back, watch them, chime in with a few notes on the piano to maintain key and sometimes our eyes would meet and he could see that I couldn't stop grinning, just as he was.

When the show goes to Beijing, I am sure this hip-hop quartet will be played by a well-matched young cute girl band Chinese dancer/singers, but for this staged reading there is an utterly delicious mix of women of all colors. Some of the actors had never imagined they would be singing hip-hop style songs for a Broadway style show. They're really getting into it! Hooray! When Jim and Tony came to listen they were happy. Jim has that cowboy habit of minimal facial expression but even he looked gobsmacked.

I have never designed a playbill before. Jim loaned me an Into the Woods (older) playbill and I still had my Shakespeare in the Park Merchant of Venice (Pachino! Yes he was great!!) in my purse. I couldn't identify the blocky thick-thin font used for the heads but it was close to Poster Bodoni, so I used that. I eyeballed the thick and thin line that goes on top of heads and figured that Times Roman for the text would be just fine. I added a hint of playing cards to the title page... And, la voila, it was done. I know volunteering to do something I am good at is always better than trying to help where I am helpless. The director's wife, Marilyn Stimac (also a producer) gave me the copy and I used Jim's script to fill in the scene and musical number list. Marilyn said it would have taken her far far longer to do it. But of course, I'm a book designer using professional layout programs (inDesign) so yes, goes faster than adding endless spaces and paragraph returns to place things in a simpler text program. Here is the unproofed title page...

Why I am the audience and the Director is both

2010-07-08T11:35:00.004-04:00

Yesterday at rehearsal I sat and wrote a synopsis of a book I have written about a toy. This is my top secret hush hush but very exciting job I'm doing for a toy manufacturer... the rehearsal became a lovely hum of voices and pianos in two rooms as I was writing.

When I was finished, I put away my notepad and took out my watercolors. I painted and sketched as I listened and watched the actors master the music and expression in their songs as the music director pointed out places to adjust their rhythms.

I was so delighted. Loved the way the two singers acted the lyrics in a song about love of brand merchandise. Perfect, I thought, Jim's words much better sung than read on a flat page.

Then Tony Stimac, the director, came in. He is a tall, energetic silver haired man with sharp blue eyes. He listened. Then he urged the actors to throw themselves into the lust and get breathless with desire for the goods they are coveting. Slow down here, close your eyes, give it more emphasis here, then let it soar orgasmically... think of the scene in When Harry Met Sally... when the performers sang it again, the song was much better. Funnier, stronger, and the meaning crisp. I understood that Jim's words were like a blueprint and held more than I'd realized. This is directing.

Jeffrey Stock, music director and (not painted ) two of the leads Lannyl Stephens (looking on) and Matthew Schatz. Tomorrow I may go to the other rehearsal room and paint the composer at work with the "Hot Hot Girls" and their hip-hop songs.

The Life

2010-07-06T23:18:00.005-04:00

I have the best seat in the house: in the corner, half hidden by the piano, a simple metal folding chair on which I sit and smile for about 3 hours straight. "Huh?" you ask.

I'm observing the rehearsals for a staged reading of Jim's new musical, The Joker's Game. Unlike Jim, I didn't have to find the space and the actors for the reading, photocopy the scripts and score, and deliver (bottled water too) in less than a week. Not to mention write the lyrics and co write the plot in less than 2 months. I got to relax and enjoy the energy of professionals coming together to help the authors (Jim Racheff, Tony Stimac and Kemin Zhang), director (Tony Stimac), musical director (Jeffrey Stock) and composer (Mark Allen) understand what they have created when it comes alive.

Up until today the four authors had worked via Skype and had never all been in the same room!

Jim had created a 40 pound box filled with collated scripts, scores, pencils, markers and clips. On this 100 degree day he was planning to lug the box from home to subway to the rehearsal studio at 440 Studios (near the Cooper Union) but I convinced him to take a cab. There is only so much lifting a playwright of nearly venerable years should do on a hot hot day.

While they read through the script, I did freelance work on my laptop. But then, at the end, I did a watercolor sketch of the music director working with the singers. It is amazing how quickly musical actors figure out how to sing together.

This play has been translated into Chinese (Mandarin) and will be performed in Beijing. Then it may get an American production. China is in the beginning of developing their own musical theater tradition. This collaboration between Broadway and Beijing is just the start.

I love being in a room full of creative people. My only responsibility is to enjoy myself. Especially with an air-conditioned seat.

Music Director Jeffrey Stock working at rehearsal of staged reading of The Joker's Game.

The Writers: Kemin Zhang, Tony Stimic, Mark Allen, Jim Racheff, photo & sketch by Claudia Carlson

Self-promotion for the business-impaired

2010-07-02T17:31:00.002-04:00

The life of a poet and sketcher needs funding. Luckily I can do this by designing and mapping, cartooning and writing for hire.

But I am not, perhaps, my own best press agent. My current site is now looking fttttttpt. I need to redesign and update claudiagraphics.com Does having a site that lists all the things I do for pay make the message confused or murky? Many debates exist, wear all your hats proudly vs only one hat! Then I hit on a solution, do both.

I just created a very simple site to promote one of the things I do, cartography. I picked blogger because I am used to it. When I first showed it to my friend Joe Hayes (playwright and webdesigner) he told me "don't be so modest, put a big map right on the home page, shout!" So here it is, let me know what you think: claudiamaps.blogspot.com If this gets me work, I will create one for book design and another for illustration. Then I will redo my multi-hat parade.

My muse is not ethereal

2010-06-27T22:11:00.003-04:00

I have realized my muse is not the Grecian gowned demi-goddess who frequently stands me up. No, my more constant muse takes a seat on my shoulder as I begin typing. He is a rather solidly built old man with a mustache and bifocals. Once comfortable, he pulls out a golden pen and starts his crossword puzzle. He occasionally looks at what I'm doing and says in a kindly rumble, "er, might want to reword that" or "have you looked that up? No use making up the facts." When I am having a particularly bad day he can't resist saying "I could have written three chapters in the time it took you to do that one paragraph." And then, when I want to flick him off my shoulder he says "you can do it, I believe in you! Keep writing."

Joining The Artist Class

2010-06-26T14:14:00.001-04:00

This recession is hitting a lot of people hard. I'm luckier than many, at least I'm getting work. But I have to count dollars and spend drastically less on vacations, new clothing, haircuts, theater, movies, meals out, and home decor. My daughters have more spending money than I do...and it feels weird to not be able to treat them to things. Worse than that, I can't afford health care, haven't been to a dentist in two years, and really worry about stray bricks, buses, or diseases bopping me. We are having to live on less than half the income we made two years ago.

I was reviewing the sad math of income vs. expenses and it suddenly hit me: why am I paying so much to stay in my very nice upper middle class apartment? I am no Edith Wharton heroine. I don't need to convince you that I am from a family of social note.

I called my friend Deborah. She said, "why not just accept that you are part of the Artist Class, and live accordingly?" Indeed. Why am I paying 68% of my gross income in rent (mortgage & maintenance)? When you look at income after taxes...I am paying a crazy amount of income to live here. What's left over isn't enough to survive in Manhattan, one of the most expensive places to live.

This made me sad for awhile, I love this place...but do I love these walls more than I love living a full life? No. I am looking at how friends live the Artist Class. They have apartments with diy shelving, an overflow of books, quirky but not expensive decor, funky art, furniture of no special value decorated with throws and pillows that you might buy at a street fair...hey wait, that describes me! The only difference is that they are not living in a ritzy building that has been designated a landmark and houses lawyers, doctors, real estate tycoons, TV stars, and top level academic bigwigs.

Unless our combined talents suddenly earn us gold, we will be moving within a year...

The Artist Class. Hmmmm. Maybe I'll find a place to live that has a better view, some light, and more space for my light box and easel. And I have always wanted to visit Italy, all it takes is a change of address.

Fruity-G Octo-leaf

2010-06-23T11:15:00.004-04:00

The G meister is reaching out to his fans with 8 loving palms. Watch out octo-moms, guard your sprigs!
He's growing so fast on solstice sun he's gonna need a new mod pot pod to thrive!

His new video, "Eatin' the Sun Juice," features Fruity dancing the photosynthesis with the Purple Clovers. Some bad fusion with this Irish band of bulb cloggers and the pit stompin' fruitster. Fans awaiting tour!

Order your Grapefruit Power Tee here once we get the resident designer to make one.

Reading, Chocolates, Reading

2010-06-22T22:47:00.000-04:00

I have my addictions, you have yours.

I start out in withdrawal. Irate, jumpy, focusing on negative probable futures fueled by negative actual bank balance... Then I take the object of compulsion--a book--and semi-recline on a pile of pillows. Water and some fruit or chocolates are in easy grazing distance, and after looking at the title page I begin to read. If I am lucky the first paragraph or poem is so good I stop thinking something like this:

"Hmmm, Garamond the usual choice, but here it is handled nicely with the subtle caps and small caps of titles, great white space, and that interesting dingbat next to the folio--is that one of the ornaments from Jenson?"

If I'm no longer thinking like a designer, I'm reading, and actively shaping the author's world in my mind.
An hour later, the plate of strawberries is gone, the water cup empty, and I resurface. I'm calm, relaxed, excited by the story or craft, and most importantly, not snarling.

I didn't have time to read today. Hear my roar. Snort.

Mermaids and Other Living Things, or the 2010 Coney Island Mermaid parade

2010-06-21T12:25:00.007-04:00

This year I was armed with not one but two cameras. A tiny point and shoot Canon and my trusty old Nikon D70 with a cheap telephoto lens. This lens is persnickety and occasionally growls, stutters, and refuses to focus for reasons I can't fathom. No matter, I got plenty of good shots anyway. And what wouldn't fit in the telephoto, got shot with the Canon. The elephant, for instance.

Last year I analyzed why my snaps were not as good as the photos by pros. I mean apart from the obvious about vocation and skill. I decided it is about getting right into someones face, something I feel shy about, but with a telephoto you can be close and far at once. Sort of like Skype.

This is a point-of-view exercise. I could take general shots of the whole scene, but that is akin to writing a dull poem about parades and neither the viewer or any particular parader is brought into focus. So my best photos showed a strong contrast between systems (ie: signage at odds with costumes) or narrative moments that both reveal my fascinations and the subjects expressions. So many of my poems need to be rewritten because the "I" is not clear.

As expected, BP was given plenty of coverage with oil-slicked dead mermaids and angry signs carried by tiny children.

My daughters Natalie and Caitlin, with friends Krysia and Bianca, wore their spandex and marched despite the very hot day. What a bizarre mash up of visions passed by. Creativity and crassness--ah, Coney Island.

Natalie (green), Krysia (blue), Caitlin (blue/purple), Bianca (pirate)

On Creativity Manuals

2010-06-18T22:30:00.003-04:00

Lately I am designing and laying out a book about creativity. It is a paying job. It is a well meant book, full of examples and research. And I can understand why people want, and need, books that give them permission to express themselves through the arts. If I have any religion, it a feeling that the muse sometimes shows up, takes possession of me, and skews space and time while doing so.

But... so many books on creativity use too much paper validating their approaches in science. Or offer such detailed step-by-step recipes that I sometimes feel the message gets lost. Cheerleaders don't have footnotes. Muses don't fly on wings of statistics. My favorite books inspire me to create by example. Give me Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town, and Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. There are more. Brenda Ueland, Ray Bradbury... But what makes each of them effective is the author's ability to take me on the journey with them, and to be there when the muse strikes their prose into unexpected and exhilarating swoops.

And when the less inspiring manuals tell me to contact my inner child or accept that I'm so Special because I'm so Very Sensitive, I shrug. The truth is I write and draw because it feels good. I like wrestling with words. I like making lines and smudges. Something happens when I allow myself to play. It could happen to you.

The Trouble With Mermaids

2010-06-17T22:10:00.000-04:00

I am planning to go see the Coney Island Mermaid parade on Saturday. My daughter Natalie and several friends are already turning yards of green and blue glittery spandex into tails, fins, and artfully placed seaweed.

Yes, it is a totally campy event. The interpretation of sea life is incredibly broad. Some go burlesque, others literal, some whimsical, sweet, many funny, there are dedicated groups performing street theatre, bands, and inventive use of used subway cards and plastic bottles. This year I expect to see some oil-glopped birds and spewing BP rigs marching as well.

I mentioned I was going to the parade to an intellectual friend.

"You like, uh... mermaids?" Said in the voice of someone who just doesn't get it. That ellipses of disappointment. Somehow it is assumed that writing poetry makes me prefer reading literary criticism over attending a parade. Give me the parades.

Even in Provincetown, the Fairy Parade, with all it's tawdry winks and nudges, was pure magic to the little kids waiting to be noticed by the entrancing beings who glided by aglitter. I am sure small kids and big will be awed at the mermaid parade. I may even get a poem out of it.

Voices from 1976

2010-06-16T21:06:00.000-04:00

My second cousin Mark Forman likes to restore tapes and convert them to the digital age. Music...and spoken word. I had no idea what his hobbies were until this week when he sent me an 18 minute tape of an interview he had with my grandmother 35 years ago.

I burst into tears listening to her voice. It all comes back. I forwarded the digital mp3 file to my daughters with this note:

In 1976 I flew back to New York from Minneapolis because I could tell my grandmother, Rose Bernstein Zuckerman, was starting to get a little forgetful, a little lost. I was 20. She was 80. My mother had died two years earlier and going Far Away had seemed like a good way to cope. It wasn't. I hadn't liked the twin cities much at all. Too damn cold. And the weather was worse. I was happy to get back to Stony Brook and Brooklyn.

My 2nd cousin Mark Forman taped an interview with Rose, he was 21. He wanted to know about her father (his and my great-grandfather Joe Bernstein) who sold booze during prohibition. He was writing a screenplay about rum runners. As you can tell, Mark was eager to hear that Joe was a tough and wild gangster (on the prowl with guys whose nick-names ended in "the horse"), but my grandmother said that wasn't quite so. She had a point. He was a liquor salesman who had been thrown into the black market.

Rose tended to see her father in the glow of her own tastes, her version of him was far more elegant, refined, and uh, white-washed, then the versions her sisters told. But even so, here are some family stories. In my grandmother's cultured voice. Now you can hear what she sounded like too.

Imagine her serving Mark with the delicate spode china I now have. She would be wearing her Chanel No. 5 perfume. Just a bit. The round table in her living room would have a starched and elegant tablecloth embroidered with something seasonal, fall leaves or spring buds. The view through her apartment window would be of Brooklyn single family houses with tiny lawns, she lived on the tenement side of Newkirk Avenue. Her dentures don't quite fit properly. Her voice gets more Brooklyn when she gets excited. But she pronounces my name, Claauuuuuudia, just as I have told you she did. Very grandly.

Here, meet your great-grandmother.

John Waters on a purple chaise longue examined in the bookish park

2010-06-08T16:12:00.002-04:00

When I was a Long Island high school girl, the druggie kids, that wilted in back of the gym, enthused about Frank Zappa, The Stones, Hendrix, John Waters and Pink Flamingos. They whispered about Water's gross-out cult film that was traveling across campuses faster than streaking and beer-fueled free love. I wasn't doing sex, drugs or rock 'n roll so I didn't hear, see, or know what they were talking about. I was taking my PSATs. What did I know about the weirder side? I read Jane Austen and drew medieval style manuscript pages. Men in dresses? Queer men? Put it this way, I had a crush on a gay kid and hadn't yet figured out why he didn't want to kiss me.

A little time goes by. And there I am sitting in Bryant Park, ready for John Waters to totally SHOCK me. What I didn't expect was for him to utterly charm me. He was hawking his new book, Role Models, just out from Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. Paul Holdengräber posed as Water's shrink and conducted the interview with musical asides and witty sparring. John Waters was brilliant about his creative process, the choices he has made in life and friendships, and his pandering of his quirks, from sartorial punk elegance to truly odd sections of his 8,000 volume personal library. The book is an exploration of people who inspire him. I drew and wrote... and waited on line (thanks to Flash Rosenberg and Len Steinbach urging me to go ahead) to get his autograph on book and my sketch. He actually put on his glasses to see my drawing. I did draw the mic with a bit of creative license. My friends just sort of sighed when they saw what I'd done. Even Waters gave a thin dyspeptic smile. Why is it when I try to get a bit shocking all it elicits is eye-rolling? Ah well, maybe society gives only a few permission to be outrageous and the rest of us--we only achieve a whimper of outré.

You've Been DeMugged

2010-05-19T09:27:00.001-04:00

People de-friend on facebook and de-tweet on twitter, so my recent decision to throw out a work mug was my non-electronic delete to an unsatisfactory year of my life.

Every time I sipped scalding fluids from the logo stamped cup, I tasted failure. Especially my failure to leave sooner. But it also reminded me of how I thrive when I do work that I love. The mug of failure and success. Think Janus in 8 fluid ounces.

As I was cleaning house for my father's visit yesterday, I held the mug. It had a tiny crack right through the ghastly cheery branding. I HURLED it into the garbage. Goodbye to all that! I don't need you anymore. You have been de-mugged. Thud!

The Pumpkin Shorts Dilemma

2010-05-16T17:29:00.006-04:00

I own a cloth canary with six pockets. It is the color of overcooked pumpkin pie. Why, you ask, are these shorts likened to a caged bird in cave? They are an early warning signal for explosive adipose activity. Or rather inactivity. Months of sitting and working have led to weird leg cramps, puffy ankles, and er, gains in the areas of my body that fit into the pumpkin shorts. The shorts are tight. My ass is a pumpkin.

This has lead to a revolutionary new approach to fitness in Carlcheff Studios. For the first time this CENTURY Jim and I decide to go jogging. But Jim has no sneakers.

"I thought we got you sneakers ten years ago," I say, rummaging in the dusty underside of the bed. "They were blue."

"I don't remember owning any sneakers, I had volley ball shoes, but they wore out." A moment of silence for the departed shoes and volley ball season.

"But I do remember one of the girls throwing out sneakers a couple of years ago that none of us could figure out who they belonged to, those must have been yours," I crawl out from the closet.

So we set out on a journey to find a Foot Locker. An iPhone shopping app suggested one was right on 117th Street and Morningside Drive. I never walk on that avenue. It climbs a cliff that overlooks a small park and as we walked up the hill from 110th street we saw worrisome amounts of shattered windshield glass in the grass. "Not a good place to park a car," Jim notes. Since this borders the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, I have to conclude that the church has no armed deacons patrolling the grounds at night. Soon the church gives way to lovely apartments with trailing roses and views of Harlem. No doubt filled with professors. At the top of the hill, no Footlocker, only a statue of some dude. We are too lazy to walk over and find out who was cast in effigy. Where is this Foot Locker? Apparently it is somewhere INSIDE the portals of Columbia University and we cannot get in without ID. Although we could probably fake being parents looking for a graduating offspring because young men and women in long pale blue gowns and flat square caps are milling about today with parents who often look as if they should join us on a jog.

We decide to walk up Amsterdam Avenue, and look for a shoe store. WOW has Amsterdam changed! It is lined with yummy looking bookstores and restaurants: tapas, sushi, pastry, bars, bistros, and more...but no shoes. Then at 125th, a shoe store and Jim walks home in bouncy black New Balance sneakers.

I researched my knees before we take to the promenade. For years I've winced through sharp pains and heard loud crunching noises when I climb stairs...I think the three years we lived in a 5 floor walk-up I suffered from meniscus tears in the cartilage that didn't heal until we moved to an elevator building. My knees are still aware of the stairs and do complain in rainy weather, but I may be able to run again. Web experts told me to take it easy, build slowly and run forwards and backwards to build muscles evenly. Strong muscles make for happier joints. Evenly developed muscles hold the knees in place better.

We jogged in Riverside park. I will admit I walked more than jogged. Gasping was my signal to walk for a bit. But I can proudly say I engaged in exercise that kept my heart beating fast for half an hour. The dog outran both of us, she weighs 1/10th as much and has twice as many feet. Jim is in better shape than me, cardio-wise. I suspect he has the body type that puts on muscle easily. I clearly have the pumpkin shorts type that turns thin mint girl scout cookies to width easily. Maybe in a few months I will have lowered my cholesterol and weight and put aside enough $ to join a gym with a POOL because honestly, I'd rather swim than run.

Day one: feel the running in shins and rear. Resolve to wear hat next run. Run past doormen who make cutsie noises at the dog "Sooooooophiiiiiiii, heh heh," and are no doubt amused by my red faced efforts. Listen to Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. Good mood after run.
Day two: now feeling muscles ache in inner thighs, shins just fine. Run past cheerful volunteers cleaning up garbage from the AIDS walk. Enjoy chewing gum as I listen to Sara Bareilles' Little Voice. Good mood after run. Shorts still too tight.

A great reading: Terrance Hayes & Natasha Trethewey at 92nd St. Y

2010-04-28T18:56:00.000-04:00

My friend, prize-winning poet Sharon Dolin, teaches poetry at the 92nd Street Y and is in a position to take folks like me to great poetry readings as her guest.

We hailed a cab in a cool April drizzle and were soon catching up on our lives as we splashed through Central Park.

I was moved and transported by both their works. Terrance Hayes is tall! He speaks to the audience as if you were sitting comfortably at a table with him. I started to draw and soon was so absorbed by his narratives, his moves, his cadences, that my pencil stopped and time went into that alternate reality that too rarely happens. I loved his bubbling excitement with language even as the subject matter pierced me. He's good. Really really good. I ran to the library and took out Wind in a Box, and the voice is there. Best read aloud, I can almost hear him whispering behind my flat midwestern vowels.

Natasha Trethewey is assured and polished, I had the impression she prepares every word she says. Her invocation of Gulfport reminded me of the social fractures across my childhood years in Baton Rouge. Her poems are lyrical and wrenching. Of course, I was on the white side of town. Being the child of a white and a black parent, and having an appearance that can "pass," Trethewey had an uneasy position in the deep South. She has the most expressive eyes. I loved drawing her. She draws on history and myth. I took out Native Guard (won a Pulitzer in '07), which also has a series of poems about civil war black troops on Ship Island.

Read them. If you haven't already.
And yes, more autographs.

When book design gives you bragging rights

2010-04-27T13:41:00.004-04:00

So how cool is it to have Dick Cavett and Sandy Marshall lean on me? That is DICK CAVETT's head on my shoulder! Very cool. Made we want to whistle the overture to Candide.

Cavett interviewed Marshall, in the performance space at the Drama Bookstore near Times Square, about the biography he wrote, BEATING A DEAD HORSE, on the life and times of his father, Jay Marshall, a highly respected master magician and big personality. I designed the book, including photoshop adjusting & repairing the 700 or so photos and ephemera for print. All 69 chapters plus illustrated front and back sections. A lotta work on a very tight schedule. Of course, the biggest amount of work was writing the tome. And it is truly a great read, I kept getting distracted as I built the book in InDesign. I worked closely with Sandy and his wife Susan getting the images selected and placed. Susan and I worked on the cover design. She had the idea of featuring old and young Jay, showing his career span.

While at the event, I also sketched JC the camera guy on my left and the two guys talking in front of me. And collected my autographs, natch.

Jim and I were treated to a dinner with Sandy and Susan, along with several magicians that kept making cards, cups and preconceptions appear and disappear across the table. I was in open jawed wonder at the tricks. Could not see how any of it was done and I was THIS close. I did ask the quieter half of a magician couple if her husband was like this at home. "He never stops, never," she said, with a hint of a sigh. Hmmmm. I think I will stick to my lyricist. He occasionally taps beats and syllables on a table or thigh, but never pulls honking red noses out of his pockets.

Fruity-G Featured in National Zine! (click image to see all of it)

2010-04-18T21:28:00.003-04:00

Fruity-G, Second Interview "Snow Day"

2010-04-18T21:24:00.001-04:00

Our roving reporter caught up with F-G this Sunday as he was sun bathing on his penthouse ledge.
---------------

Q: I hate to ask, what's with the white stuff, are you getting a bit of Christmas this April?
A: I'm not chillin' this is powdered egg shell. My personal trainer says it'll give me strong roots. And my personal parole officer can tell you it ain't that kinda snow.

Q: I hear your hit single "Growin' Into My Pot" has swept campuses across America. What is your secret Fruity-G?
A: Yo yo, I got one word for you: Green. I spread the leafy mojo power.
Plant a seed,
grow a weed,
plant a pit,
get my wit!

Q: Any truth to the rumor that you have been seen with Miss Tangerine?
A: We just friends, I got no main squeeze.

Q: Well listeners there you have it, America's most eligible citrus is still up for grabs.

Fruity-G, small Grapefruit Tree, The first interview

2010-04-18T21:16:00.002-04:00

My daughter Caitlin handed me a germinating citrus seed on her last visit home. I planted it. In more ways than one. The story of this intrepid tree will be recorded in this blog.

------------------

Q: Well it's great to have you in the big apple but how does this compare to your birth state?
A: I'll always love Flo bro, but this city ledge gives me edge.

Q: Some say grapefruits are too sour to love, what do you say to that F-G?
A: Yo Yo, I'm sharp and sour, big and bad, sweet to eat when you call me daddy, honey.

Q: I understand you can grow up to 30 feet (10 meters) high?
A: I'm high right now man.

Q: And your trunk will sprout thorns?
A: I'm Fruity-G, I'm already thorny!

Q: So...Ah...F-G, I hear you have a new single out this fine Spring day?
A: Yeah I do it's "Three Leaf Love" and it be hot!

Q: Well, Fruity-G, it has been a real pleasure having you grow on us, any last words for your fans?
A: I'll just sing the refrain from my platinum hit:
Take the sun with the rain
Take the sun with the rain
Take the night with the day
Take the night with the day
I'm growing your way baby
I'm coming to stay!

The big "It's me" ah-hah moment

2010-04-11T00:56:00.001-04:00

You know the friend who spends years complaining that the kids/job/parents/mortgage/spouse/bad knee/ADD/PMS are the reason they were never a writer/painter/composer/athlete/actor/messiah? I have news for all the excuses. It's you. It has always been you.

Or more correctly, "It's me."

I used to think that if I only had time and opportunity I'd finally figure out how to write prose and paint in oils. Not to mention develop good work habits, amaze the critics, and work off that bit of a tire around my hips. Now that I have more time, have I used it wisely? Lovingly vesting my finite hoard of hours on every long frustrated yearning? Nope. And the only person I have to blame, utterly and irrefutably, is me.

I'm the one who read books instead of doing push-ups. 'Twas moi who wrote a hundred first chapters to various novels and nary a last. I'm the one who felt transformed by the William Kentridge show at the MoMA (here's to pressed and vine charcoal and really dirty fingernails!) but didn't actually dig out my charcoals and do a self portrait. It's me. It has always been me. Call it nature, nurture, or proof that free will is slave to hidden sloth. It's me.

Consider the other friend who sets out to do things and virtually nothing stops them. They open art institutes, businesses, travel the world, perform, become philanthropists, and earn PhDs; they do this by not getting in their own way. Instead of excuses, they have puzzles to solve.

So how do I go from dreaming to doing? Bypass yearning. Yearning is a mix of regret and daydreams; past and future. Yearning takes me out of today. Today is the blank page, the hands on a pen or keyboard. Every day, practice craft, be it writing, designing, or drawing and forgive myself when the results aren't great. Give the muse room to show up. Pay attention to how it feels to learn. Celebrate the small achievements. Keep going. Part of saying "it's me" is finding out what I really love, and honoring my choices. A day at a time. In the time of a day. It is me. My choice. That's liberation.

When everyday is Tuesday, the freelance life, part 1.

2010-04-03T15:48:00.000-04:00

I get a call, a friend asks "can you join us at this great [fill in the blank] tonight?" I ask, "is this Tuesday?" "No," they reply with withering scorn, "today is Saturday!"

I understand their annoyance, really, I do. I too used to work in an office and the weekend release program was what I lived for.

But honestly, every day is Tuesday in my freelanceland. I work every day. The sun comes up, the computer goes on, some coffee and eats go in, and my fingers keep busy until the sun goes down, I take the dog on a walk, food gets made, news, prose, or flicks are consumed, and suddenly it is time to go to bed and do it all again. Add in the occasional hours in the laundry room and a monthly meeting of my writing group and there you have it, my life.

I brought up this Tuesdayness to the writing group yesterday, was that Tuesday? No, no, it was Friday. The office jobbers looked at me in a kind of horror. The other freelancers nodded knowingly. "You need to make the weekend different, make one day you don't work at all, really, it is important to do this," said Andrew Kaplan, sagely. This advice has its precedent in genesis, so I suppose it is a universally acknowledged mandate to the freelancer.

Maybe I will make Tuesday my new Sunday, a day of non-work, when museums are open and I am free to contemplate this human condition, on walls and on walks far far away from my keyboard and deadlines.

Red Letter Day!

2010-04-01T19:29:00.001-04:00

No, this "A" is not borrowed from Hawthorne; it is for Alimentum. As you may know, I co-design this literary magazine and lay out all the issues. Last issue (number 9), Paulette Licitria, the publisher, invited me to illustrate the interior. So I did the spot drawings. And I agonized over them. I don't wear the artist's smock as often as I do the writer's overalls. Paulette sent me a lovely review of the current issue in New Pages and there were really nice things said about my art!!!! CLICK HERE!

I will excerpt the best bits:

"Like a still life painting, the fiction pieces, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, interviews, and illustrations gathered in this issue are artfully placed to bring each piece into the best light....One of my favorite poems is “The Origin of Fruitcakes” by F.J. Bergmann. This is partially due to the illustration (one of many) by Claudia Carlson, of two jitterbugging fruitcakes with strawberry eyes. The poem itself is equally animated in its attempt to understand the genesis of such an unusual food."

So thank you newpages.com and reviewer Melinda Rich!

Now here is the second red letter. The "B" is for Benu Press. I was invited to submit a poem for a new anthology forthcoming from Benu celebrating social justice, many months ago. I sent in some work that was gently rejected by Steve Fellner who asked me to please, try, try again.

I tried. For months I wrote ponderous or flippant verse. I can't come at it directly.

Then today, to the sound of jack hammers and crews pouring new sidewalks I had the angle I needed. I thought about the street artist Hani Shihada who arrives every spring and paints chalk portraits of both saints and his heroes, from Obama to Michael Jackson... I wrote the poem in half an hour. Sent it to Steve who accepted it right away, and now I have a contract to sign. WOW.

(back to) Shaped Poems

2010-03-27T12:08:00.006-04:00

OK, I know it is sort of silly to write poems in shapes, like angel wings or diamond rings. I get that it has the tang of the effete, as in a goose quill humanist script penned by a hand encased in an ink-flecked flocked-velvet cuff. The words locked in the vise of a vase or crammed in a crate... but... I digress...

I can't stop.

Calligrams. Word warps. Shape shifters. Visual poems. What would you call them?

And like anything I take time with, the obvious is fading and I'm considering my rules of play with this enterprise. I won't call it "form" since the form is the shape. So what are my rules?

HOW TO WRITE A SHAPED POEM

1. Like a joke, move beyond the obvious punchlines and tame set-ups. Go ahead, write the first ideas that come to you and agree they are lame and write more. And more after that. Riff on a shape. Aim for exploring the unexpected.
2. Use meter, rhyme (both internal and slant), and pauses to make the poem read aloud as if it existed full and complete outside it's assigned shape.
3. Accept that line breaks are more arbitrary once the poem is packaged, so build suspense in other ways.
4. The "thingness" of the shape must be used to flavor the poem but not direct it.
5. After many a rewrite, give up when the foot won't naturally fit the shoe, it just won't be worth the blister.
6. Accept that only 1 in 25 shaped efforts will be worthy to move on for consideration for publication or inclusion in my as yet unnamed chapbook (soliciting title ideas from friends).
7. Consider the folly of assigning cookie cutter shapes to ideas; shrug, write more.

Get a grip and Flash on the Whoopi

2010-03-25T17:40:00.010-04:00

Yesterday Flash needed an assistant to operate a mic at a live event. I am, of course, not world renowned for my skills in audio capture, but game, I am. So imagine me, dressed in black, in the elegant glass-domed Bartos auditorium, pre-show, trying to look like the grip of the century. I occasionally gave a thumbs up to the professional dude filming the event on my left. I suspect he could tell my skills weren't up to his when the mic demonically spun upside down several times and I tripped over the feet of our tripod.

This from the official press release after the event : "Live from the NYPL presented an evening to honor the publication of George Carlin's posthumous “sortabiography” Last Words (written with Tony Hendra)... an evening of warm and lively remembrances of late comedian George Carlin on Wednesday, March 24 in the Celeste Bartos Forum. Hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, the tribute featured special appearances by Carlin's family, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Ben Stiller, Amy Stiller, Kevin Smith, Lewis C.K., Dylan Brody, Floyd Abrams, and Lewis Lapham." Not to mention an impressive list of performers playing the role of audience in the front rows, including Steve Martin.

Flash is Artist-in-Residence for LIVE from the New York Public Library and she draws responses to the spoken events they host, which are projected onto a screen as she does them. Later, she creates videos, a.k.a. Conversation Portraits. Last night she tried adding a new approach, by inviting audience members to step up to the mic, tell a joke, and she'd illustrate it for them and the entire audience would see the joke drawn and written in real time and projected over their heads.

Sadly only a few stepped forward to tell their jokes. But given that George Carlin was one of the funniest guys ever, and the main event, who would feel equal to adding their brand of humor as a warm up? Precious few. For those that came forward, I managed to walk them to the mic, press the record button and laugh at their jokes, usually in that order. Luckily Flash had brought a slew of Carlin jokes and illustrated them.

Dressed in her usual black and white patterns, she sat and drew madly, using pens, watercolors, and expressive moves of hand, zoom and paper to make the art of her response the main show for me. Until they ran the Carlin films. Then I was laughing so loudly the video guys will have to edit out my hoots and wheezing snorts. Flash and I laughed until we cried during a live recitation of Carlin one-liners looking at each other the way you do when it is that funny. After, we agreed Carlin was a master of language, a poet of humor, with inner rhyme and rhythm.

Great to see all the Stiller family on stage, not one of them demure. Whoopi is totally natural. Lots of cussing all around. But hey, this is for George Carlin after all. They played his 7 words bit. The lawyer who protected his right to use those words spoke, and everyone said how much he had helped them and other comedians.

Flash and assistant (me) were invited to the after party! Of course we had to pack up the pens, pencils, duct tape, brushes, cables, earphones, and papers first. When we got there, we didn't see Whoopi. I was so hoping to hear someone introduce Whoopi to Flash. "Flash meets Whoopi!" or "Whoopi meets Flash," Sounds like a vaudeville act. I may need to change my name to a verb soon. Although "Enjamb" (or would that be "N-Jam") doesn't have the same ring, does it?

As I walked in I reminded myself to respond to celebrities like real people and avoid the empty fannish things that can blurt out of my mouth and kill conversation. So over the chopped veggies I recognized performer Caroline Rhea and instead of blathering about Sabrina or The Biggest Loser, I said what I would to someone I didn't know, "Hi, I'm Claudia, what's your name?" because actually, I really didn't remember her name, just her face. We talked about the food, she loaded my plate with carrots and cucumber saying after all the years of catering it was hard for her not to serve. She introduced me to someone I didn't know, Scott Blakeman, saying his classes in improv helped launch her and Jon Stewart's careers. He was both modest and self-assured and has the ability to listen in a way that makes you feel interesting. The three of us had a lovely conversation punctuated with flashes from cameras, which I am guessing, weren't focused on me. I told them about Natalie, just finishing up at Actors Theatre of Louisville and most likely coming to NYC to pursue improv instead of Shakespeare. It is always great the way people who know, give a little start, when you tell them your daughter is in the best acting apprentice program in the country. Like saying junior got into Harvard. We talked about political humor and Scott's role as the liberal minority on Fox. I likened it to my year working at Lehman Brothers with very conservative folks that were smart, often sweethearts, even though their politics were so different than my own. I told them I was a poet and reading my poems was as close to performing as I wanted to get!

I met several editors of the Latham journal (love talking literary press talk), Ben Stiller's good-looking sister Amy, library important persons, and then I met a very very tall woman who told me she is in a tall person's club. I mentioned I was the shrimp of my family, with my 6'4" brothers and daughters of Amazon heights. You aren't short she exclaimed, you must be 5'8" or so. No, really I'm average, just under 5'6". Nooooo, no way, you must have heels on. No, no heels I assured her, I just stand tall. She peered at my sneakers with disbelief. Apparently they serve very tall cakes and record their adventures on very tall newsletters. I felt a bit like Alice in Longerland.

The whole evening was dreamlike actually. I walked Flash back to her studio and we couldn't stop laughing. She has an ability to respin the world and words, I have never heard her use a cliche, ever. We passed the windows of Lord & Taylors featuring spring frocks. "That one, only the skirt is worth wearing," she said, then to the next window "that one, only the color is good," and finally, "in that one only the window is good!"

And then I took the subway home, happy my career as a grip passed without a gripe.

Echoes and eclairs...

2010-03-09T01:43:00.006-05:00

When I was a girl and visited my grandparents in their third floor walk-up apartment at 1908 Newkirk Avenue, I had several great things to look forward to. Well, besides being made to feel I was the most original, wonderful, grandchild to ever eat an eclair or learn to read Dr. Seuss. But in addition to my doting grandparents, the adjacent apartments had welcoming neighbors, each living utterly different lives.

To the right, in apartment 3B, was a Brazilian (or was it Colombian?), family where I would visit, soon affect a Spanish accent and play with a girl about my age who had, I think, my name too! This girl arrived in Brooklyn periodically. I am left with the taste of their food, so unlike what white folk were eating in West Hartford in the 60s, with fragrant meats, rice and beans. Their apartment filled with family members, all talking at once. The colors were sharp—definitive reds, starched white lace racing around skirt hems, waving black hair, snappy pink dresses. I remember getting letters, with flamboyant postage stamps, from her for several years, and when I opened them I could smell the lemon furniture polish, perfume, and hot pepper that suffused their living room.

To the left, in apartment 3D, a refined elderly woman had a very well dressed child named Cordelia come visit. We would sit on the carpet attempting to fill our grandmothers with the joy of watching us play together. And while I admired Cordelia's carefully waving hair and pale blue wool coat, I don't actually remember talking or laughing very loudly. And yet I looked forward to seeing her. I did my best to hold the teacup very properly and eat the tea biscuits without getting too many crumbs on my favorite pilled orange sweater. The colors in this apartment were as if a faint blue gray fog had rolled out of the seascapes on the walls. They told me that they were related to the very Hudson who gave the river its name. I couldn't believe The Hudson had been a Mr. Hudson once. It was clear that no rivers had been named after members of my family, who being Jews, had needed to move often throughout history and took their names with them.

If I were to write and illustrate a picture book based on this memeory, I'd like to revisit the wonder of being an ambassador of cultural exchange in Flatbush. And how I'd patterned myself, like human silly putty, on the lives they projected. Given my penchant for fantasy and science fiction, perhaps the neighbors would live further away than South Hampton or South America? You never know.

Of course, the best part was the welcome in 3C, where the rituals of mutual delight still make smile. Here's to the mushroom barley soup, the scrabble games, and the well-told stories. It is wonderful to have grandparents who adore you, I don't need to remember any of the details exactly to know that one thing completely, with all my heart.

How to recover from too much new technology

2010-03-07T14:36:00.006-05:00

After my mighty swearing learning curve with ePub, I had to recharge with the stuff that is fueled by imagination and requires nothing more complex than ink, pencil and paper.

I simply had to eat visuals.

I absorbed some of my favorite illustrators of all time,William Blake, John Tenniel, Gustave Doré, Arthur Rackham, Frank C. Papé, Maurice Sendak, Pauline Baynes, and more currently Posy Simmonds (who does terrific social satire in graphic novels that make adroit reuse of 19th century plots) and Shaun Tan.

I discovered Tan is working (as director, artist and author with a team) on an animated version of his picture book The Lost Thing. See this, and this. He too is adapting work into a new technology. He is turning the drawn by hand into its CGI incarnation. Paper to moving image. A picture book is a series of moments stilled on a page and it must be tricky making it merge into one moving picture. Plus when I read or look at illustrations, I can slow down as much as I want, the pacing is controlled by reader vs pacing by film maker. But it is even more than the transformation of full animation, the technology itself shapes the artistry. And with every aspect having to be created, the suggestively fuzzy must be harder to hold onto.

I can see the advent of technology in photoshop, illustrator, and indesign. Each new release of the software offers new "tricks" and graphics reflect their use. You can date design and artwork created on computers by how most people have used the available technology. Of course, having a strong vision will keep the tricks from taking over. Tan speaks so thoughtfully about the differences between the two mediums. How the possibilities of animation can easily overwhelm what is at heart a simple story.

I am sure Tan's adaptation will be terrific, and stay true to his vision, looking at the video and images in the article. But I am willing to guess it has had its technical frustrations and negotiations. Of course, spill your coffee on your drawing in progress to meet the technical oops of "by hand."

There is also this, a pencil sketch is subject to areas of smudge or faintness or all scribbled-in-ness that means it is not fully explicated in those areas. And this is good, the mind likes to fill in or ignore, just as we do when walking down the sidewalk. And about those walks, I come back refreshed from every one I take. It is as if the mind finds the increased oxygen, the rythm of walking, and the unfolding perspectives of urban and natural under the sun, the mist, or the night, all trigger something deep. Or at least burn off the calories from my chocolate habit.

To illustration! To walks! To the muse of the streets!

the perils of (e)publishing

2010-02-26T17:07:00.006-05:00

Good thing you weren't around my work area the last few days.
I have been learning how to turn perfectly nice poetry books and publications into hideous ePub files.

Helpful white papers and how-to-guides have led me into a dark dark place.
I have been saying things like "goferkiketyblanging-son-of-a-varmish!!" The cat backs away from my vincinity and even the husband spins on his heels and exits the blue static.

"Why won't the grab-dang-fickle images show up?" I ask the computer as once again all artwork but one disappear when I convert.

"Where the fluke did the table column heads go? Where is my table?" I scream at the monitor. "Give me back my table cells you dastard!"

It reminds me of the mid-90s when I was working as the lone graphic designer in the IT department for MTVN/Showtime. I didn't know how to program, let alone how to do the simple boo-boo mark-up language of html. But as the Indian and Russian programmers kept telling me it was not possible to do the visual improvements I asked for, I started going on the web and finding examples of what I wanted. They shrugged (for some reason programmers don't see the value of graphic design when their code is working fine). So I then began to learn how to do it myself so I could say to the guys, "oh yes, you CAN! Because I (artsy-fartsy English major type) just did, look at THIS!" Of course, back then designing for the web was all about fakes and work-arounds because the browsers weren't set up for graphic design. I found the whole process frustrating and then after awhile, I knew how to do it. For about 5 minutes. The web kept expanding, the browsers improved and the plethora of new software to learn soon made me yearn to return to print design where the pace of technology was glacial.

So I worked at Oxford University Press for seven years mostly ignoring the web. Hah. It caught up with me.

And now I have to learn how to do it again. The electronic world is gobbling up the printed page and regurgitating it in pixels. And not so strangely, e-Pub is like the web was in the mid 90s. Books for Kindles or iPhones just can't do a lot by way of layout, there are work-arounds today, then it will get more functional amazingly fast and ePub books will get much better looking. Like a kid going from 13 to 16.

I may even have to buy an iPad if this becomes the place poetry books are co-published. And at some point, how many publishers will keep issuing paper editions? The horseless carriage becomes the car and the horse goes to the knackers.

I went to a lecture sponsored by the InDesign Users Group. The informative and perky Gabriel Powell spoke about eBooks and how to make them. Yes, I said to myself walking home with the confidence only fools can get from a well-organized demonstration, I just know I can do it... and here I sit in a mist of ire. How I wish Gabriel could do my work for me, he made it sound so easy,

Beijing Calling

2010-02-09T13:19:00.002-05:00

My husband Jim is in Beijing getting work writing for musical theatre. I am getting mouth-watering reports of great food, culture, and calligraphy. How hard would it be to learn enough Mandarin to be able to travel to the correct destination in a cab, order the food I want to eat, and say culturally appropriate things to the people I meet?

For me, very very hard. I had many years of French, from middle school to college and I can't do much more than "parlay-vooooo" which just proves my brain is only good at writing poems in English and even then I wonder if my grasp of language is enough. But if I love reading poems in translation, how much better would it be to be able to read them as written?

I think I could learn to read it better than speak it. Years of graphic design and differentiating type faces have made me sensitive to the slightest curl or straight in a letter shape. I have painted watercolors for decades, I know how a brush moves, the slick and stick to paper, the thick flow to scumble finish as the pigment goes from bristle to pulp. I've taken a lot of calligraphy classes... I know this. I also like the idea that the written language is independent of the sounds--pitch can't change the meaning of a written word-- I could learn to read and paint some word shapes. I think I shall try. When Jim gets back with ink and brush and a book for little kids to learn their letters.

CBIG

2010-02-09T10:10:00.002-05:00

I went to the Childrens' Book Illustrator Group meeting on Sunday wondering if it could be at all useful to my errant freelance fancy, as in, earn a buck. While Regina Griffin of Egmont did a most informative overview of her new (start up) American branch of a large European publishing company I looked around the packed living room of our host and saw the eager, hungry, talented, and skilled hoards of illustrators, I asked myself the key question.

What sets me apart?

I haven't actually illustrated many books or magazines for kids. I certainly am not a name in the business. My style is not cutting edge or going to change the way an entire generation thinks about the way we see the world (Sendak). But...

I combine skills in a way that does make me a bit unusual. I've studied calligraphy, cartography, poetry, life drawing, book design, cartooning, painting, adobe illustrator and photoshop, color theory, perspective, anatomy, and I know how to develop a narrative and tell a story in words as well as images. One of the ways all this combines is in creating decorative/illustrated maps. Maps always have a narrative implied.

So during the Q. & A. I asked if she had need of such maps. She does. (I have done many--for fantasy books, kids' books, YA, historical, travel and whimsical.) I hope that she gets back to me, I left her my card and sent an invitation to view my website. Sometimes it helps to know what I can offer to a client, something I am uniquely qualified to do, that nobody else in the room is mentioning.

After that I leaned back and enjoyed the wonderful work my fellow members were presenting in the portfolio review. Here's to all of us.

Tasters' Choice

2010-02-09T09:48:00.001-05:00

You know how some friends send things back to the kitchen, "I wanted my coffee in a proper mug with a handle, not a glass cup, please" and others would drink dish water from a dirty can without saying a word? The world divides into two camps, the resenders and the takers. So too in my house.

I woke up to a clear message that the cat (resender) had objected to both her wet and dry food by resending it onto the floor near my bed, by the human toilet, and finally in strongly worded contempt, the interior of my loafers. The dog (taker), on the other paw, had not only eaten hers, but had not objected to eating what the cat didn't want. Which isn't so bad but the high calorie cat food gives the dog a colonic cleanse which resulted in the dog turning solids into liquids in areas where my foot landed first stumbling from sleep to day.

Ah, the joys of pets.

The Tim Burton MoMA Show: brain afire

2010-01-29T18:00:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Modern Art with my friend Jeannie. Thanks to her membership, I got in for $5.00. Thanks to her company, I had a wonderful time. It was a good thing we went at the relatively unfashionable time of one-ish on a Thursday. It was pretty full, from school trips to tourists, to fans from everywhere. I can't even imagine how packed it is on a Saturday.

I learned I am only two years older than Mr. Burton. Made it fun to walk through and check off the influences. In his early years: Disney, Dr. Seuss, Grimm's fairy tales, Mad Magazine, horror movies and Houdini! Then Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel, George Herriman's Krazy Kat, Gahan Wilson, Charles Addams, Van Gogh, Al Hirschfeld, Ralph Steadman, and on and on. But really, anything I was devouring visually, he was too. The show had several walls and cases showing his development as a kid with some (not remarkable) talent into someone who would --with drive and obsession-- develop his themes and vision into a fully realized creative institution.

When I was a girl and teenager I could not keep my hands quiet. Along with a strong pull to my own daydreams in the classroom, I doodled. I drew on any piece of paper in front of me, on the desk, in my school books, on my skin. And if I couldn't draw, my hands couldn't stay still. I tapped my pencil, chewed my nails, rubbed the student inflicted initial scars on the desktop. At home I filled notebook after notebook with drawings in pencil, magic marker, watercolor, and gloppy poster paints. But here my path begins to diverge from Burton's. He never stopped. And in that time after high school he kept drawing. The themes are all there in the early work but they become distinctive, creepier, deeper, more wild as he goes through his 20s. His show made me wish that I had not let myself be diverted, that I had kept pursuing the drawing... but it is never that simple. I had good reasons to quiet down my hands and start paying attention in the classroom. The real story is not why people stop, but what makes them keep going. I don't think talent is the engine really. Artists like Burton have a compulsive need to keep doing the things they do and the will to make it viable to themselves and others. And then there is that mysterious extra ingredient that an artist can't control, call it talent or communication, that makes the effort compelling and marketable. I had art teachers tell me I had great gifts and would end up a successful or famous artist. I also had college professors who informed me my work was listless with precision and no vision. Who was right? Doesn't matter, if I had kept going I might have gotten somewhere as an artist, you can't get there by stopping. And Burton didn't stop.

The best thing was watching his themes devour the influences and grow into his unique vision. He is smart, funny, and able to tap the creepiest fears that rise up from nightmares and shame. I love his approach, a sky is not a color but a radiating energy of lines. Fears become fantastical recognizable monsters. I was laughing out loud through much of the show. Then in the final room, the movie props, wonderful proof that he has been able to make teams of other artists see what he sees.

I am now getting out a sketchpad. I remember how much FUN it was to doodle! Don't worry, I won't give up my poetry and graphic design, but the best thing about seeing a show like this is how it inspires. Like a virus, I've caught the Burton bug.

IMAGININGS poetry/prose contest

2010-01-23T13:13:00.004-05:00

Here is the flyer for this contest, write up to 500 (probably won't need more than 200) words to go with a slow motion video. 4 videos, 4 chances to win. Winners get $500.00 Poets welcome! Go to: http://vimeo.com/channels/69858. I entered. Deadline extended to January 31st. And since you ask, yes, I designed the flyer, careful to use web safe fonts...

Crafty moments

2010-01-22T14:05:00.002-05:00

Getting good comments on my design work for both the Madeleine L'Engle and Jay Marshall biography projects. Yay. Mostly reviewers don't comment much on design, so when they do, I am delighted:

"Although I expected a wealth of detail from the page count, I was unprepared for how bountifully the book is illustrated and how exquisitely it's laid out, not only with rare photos of Jay but with all sorts of posters, letters, and personal memorabilia." --Steve Bryant

Since I spent months laying out this 69 chapter book and color correcting and repairing (mildew, rips) the 700 old photos and memorabilia, great to have the work noticed.

And in the evenings, been having fun making beaded gifts for family, friends, and my very own self.

My Avatar after party, not

2010-01-18T15:59:00.004-05:00

Jim and I went to see the wonderful 3-D Avatar and I deeply wished I was blue, ten feet tall, and able to leap onto the back of pterodactyl-ish transportation. I recommend the film, who needs the plot to be more than it is? It was pure fun.

You would think after all that visual excitement I'd have dreams of the imaginary world, Pandora, and continue the adventure using my own high maintenance avatar unit--my sleeping brain. And I did, but not exactly. Instead of finding myself in the body of a superhuman with a neural telecommunication device growing in my hair and romping through a rain forest (amped on helium and steroids), I was a balding middle aged, middle management MAN going to work and feeling as sluggish and gray as the office park I entered. I had to sit through meetings, sort out the departmental internecine squabbles, and think about my mortgage and depleted investments. Yes, it was startling to go to the men's room and experience the different plumbing, in both senses, but I felt terribly cheated. This is the true avatar experience, I thought as I rubbed a patch of beard stubble under my right jaw I'd missed in the rushed morning shave, this is how it feels to walk in another man's shoes, literally. And I didn't like the shoes. Dang-it, I shouted at the dream, let me be George Clooney or Viggo Mortensen at least. Although, who knows what's truly fun in an actors life (boring waiting around sets, for instance)...let me be president Obama...oh, wait, talk about a tough job...Never mind.

The cool thing was, I didn't walk or talk like a woman when I was a man. So whoever you are, in whatever world, thanks for letting me borrow your body for eight hours, I have just proved to myself I'd rather be me, thanks.