The Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

Fruity-G, Second Interview "Snow Day"

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

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

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.

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!

A

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!

B

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

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

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...

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

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!