Buying a stamp

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:

“I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “OK, I’ll send you the pages.”

Then I’m going down the steps, and my wife calls up, “Where are you going?” I say, “Well, I’m going to go buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home.

And I’ve had a hell of a good time.

And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

Peace that passeth understanding.

In an article called "The Joy of Quiet" in today's New York Times, author Pico Iyer quotes David Steindl-Rast's definition of joy.  Which I just love.  And posted here so that I can have access to it forever.  Here's the whole sentence:  "It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”


Nice.  So, I guess posting here counts as joy.  Happy New Year.

Shadows so real.

I saw this scene this morning.  The shadow looked so real that it reminded me of the most beautiful piece of magic I've ever seen.

Penn & Teller did a show on Broadway and the piece below was one of the bits.  It was amazing.  And very very moving.  Here it is, with a little background and commentary:

"Shadows"

l

So good. Soooo good.

In 1976, 1977 & 1978, my big sister was off to college and for the first time ever, I was an only child around our house. I don't recall anything particularly personally amazing happening during that period; I had a job at the golf course, played on the golf team, did school plays, played trumpet in the band, yearbook and school newspaper editor -- basically filled the days with typical high school stuff.

The amazing shit that happened was being exposed to some music that turned out to really shape my musical taste for my life. Lots of it, I remember exactly where I was when I heard it. Like this song, "Compared to what". (thanks to Chuck for posting this on his FB wall this morning and causing this e-reverie)

One weekend, I'm not sure why or how, I went down to visit my big sister at the University of Kentucky. (I think I may have actually done this twice.) Prior to college, she hadn't brought too much new music into my world, but after she got to UK, the hits just kept on coming. First, she dated some dude who was a bluegrass fiddler. That's where my love of bluegrass music comes from. Then she dated some other dude, I forget his name or details, but I was in his apartment one evening and heard this song. On the record player. The record cover was this:

It blew my mind. So good. So much swing, so much teeth. I later bought my own copy of the album as well as a coupla albums by the sax player Eddie Harris Jr., including "Eddie sings the blues", which I found in the dollar rack of my local Peaches Records in Dallas, TX, USA, when I was in college, and which had one of the coolest back of the album pics ever. Here it is, with Eddie front and center in his shark skin suit and the mysteriously casual pipe smoker behind him in a mauve wife beater:

Mauve wife-beater! Anyway, I digress (and oh, what a fun digression its been) -- without further ado, (actually, here's a link to some info on the song, from Les McCann's wikipedia page) here are Les McCann (piano and vocals) and Eddie Harris, Jr. (tenor sax), Benny Bailey (trumpet) LeRoy Vinegar (bass) and Donal Dean (drums) doing the kick ass, anti-war song "Compared to what":

Magic on Fire Island/safety in numbers

A rainy day at the beach finds us all painting rocks and leaves and, best of all, monsters on postcards:

And here they are in my work in progress book "Monstrous aphorisms". Enjoy.

mowing the lawn

Cutting the grass, I saw these weeds growing just on the other side of the fence. Freakin' gorgeous. They made me think of the phrase "up so floating many bells down" from the following e.e. cummings poem. They made me think that he wrote that line about this very flower. So many bells facing downward as the plant shoots up.

Here's the poem:

anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did Women and men(both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn't they reaped their same sun moon stars rain children guessed(but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer) that noone loved him more by more when by now and tree by leaf she laughed his joy she cried his grief bird by snow and stir by still anyone's any was all to her someones married their everyones laughed their cryings and did their dance (sleep wake hope and then)they said their nevers they slept their dream stars rain sun moon (and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up so floating many bells down) one day anyone died i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face) busy folk buried them side by side little by little and was by was all by all and deep by deep and more by more they dream their sleep noone and anyone earth by april wish by spirit and if by yes. Women and men(both dong and ding) summer autumn winter spring reaped their sowing and went their came sun moon stars rain

A lovely sentiment.

Always brings a smile to my face. What a classic movie. Most men my age know just about every line. What other movies can say that?

RIP Joe Morello

I was already playing the trumpet and making music of my own by the time one of my dad's old albums called out to me from the depths of my parent's awesome stereo console.

The album was "Time Out" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The cover artwork by S. Neil Fujita caught my eye and I took the vinyl out for a spin.

Side one has three songs on it, each one cooler than the next:

"Blue Rondo à la Turk" – 6:44 "Strange Meadow Lark" – 7:22 "Take Five" – 5:24

I quickly played the album a hundred times. It opened up my ears. Oh sure, I'd heard lots of music before, but this stuff blew my mind. It swung, it kicked ass. Paul Desmond's sax was like velvet, Brubeck's piano was unlike any piano playing I'd ever heard. Eugene Wright on bass kept it all from floating away and Joe Morello on drums kept it all on the right path while concurrently kicking it in a new direction.

Well, Joe Morello died this week and all this came rushing back. I saw him once in concert, in the early 80's. At Carnegie Hall. With my dad. Brubeck had one of his sons there too. It was a real treat to be there with my pop. My pop, who passed away a week before Joe. (You can read more about my dad here.)

Here's Joe playing "Take five", the big hit off of that album. Enjoy.

ribbon type vs. snowboarding

Instead of going snowboarding yesterday on a gorgeous winter day, my fun-loving, type-loving son was laid up with a hyper-extended knee. So I made him his name is ribbon. There's something about it I really love and so here it is:

big "T" little "urkey"

Friend and one-time co-worker Anna O'C is taking time off from the path of righteousness to visit Istanbul. Put me in mind of this little Turkish delight from years gone by. Oh, how I loved these guys:

They Might Be Giants - Istanbul (Not Constantinople) from They Might Be Giants on Vimeo.

Kohler

Just found this sweet Kohler vid on YouTube starring me! Don't pay any attention to the misspelled subtitle. It's really me. Check it out:

Drawing for dummies

Saw this somewhere online, I forget where, found it on Google the next day. Still making me chuckle. Make sure you follow the directions perfectly.

Making a tiny difference in the world.

That's what it's all about. Via Wine and Bowties, which also recently featured the really groovy music of The Stepkids, here's Ben Wilson, who is definitely making a tiny difference making paintings on the tiny pieces of discarded chewing gum that people spit out onto the sidewalks of London. Check out the article on Wine and Bowties here.

Plant alphabet!

Don't know what reminded me of this old series this morning, but here it is, all in one place for the first time ever. The plant letters were a part of the bigger "plant a day" project, some of which can be seen here.

50 paces

This has been the most colorful autumn I remember.

I went for a walk in the woods this morning and brought my camera. I'd been painting leaves on leaves (click here.) but wanted to actually photograph some leaves on leaves. I set myself one rule: I wouldn't take any leaf more than 50 paces from where I picked it up. I wanted to make this project reflect a very specific locality. Here are this morning's pics, unedited. (ha. I came back and edited them later.) The first one I took was the fern and the big red leaf. It's my favorite.

See ya later kids. Goodbye wife, goodbye house.

I'm moving to the mouth of this river in Australia and surfing trawler wakes all day every day and drinking one too many of the local beers every night. Please do not forward the mortgage bills. Thank you. xonorm

Creative Destruction: Chapter 3 part 2 from CREATIVE DESTRUCTION on Vimeo.

Cage the elephant

Someone blogged this video the other day and I've played it a dozen times since then, bought the song, built a mix tape around it and recommended it to everyone. The only thing left to do is to blog about it. So here it is. I hope you're happy now.

After the aforementioned dozens of plays, I looked on YouTube for more songs by Cage the Elephant (love the name by the way; it's really grown on me.) and found another video of the same song. Funny. One of them (above) looks like the big budget major studio version, the other looks like the indie version. Interesting. Enjoy them both and if you want a copy of the mix tape, leave a comment saying so.

Sign off

These things have been bouncing around the blogosphere for months now and every time I see one of them, I love it so much. So here is my very own post about the work of German artist Josef Schulz. Spend a little time on his website, there's a lot more super awesome stuff there.

Fresh commission

A collector approached me a couple of weeks ago to do a portrait of her girlfriend as a birthday gift. I explained that portraiture was not my strong suit and suggested that perhaps I could do a painting of her surrounded by the objects she holds dear. The concept was approved but as soon as I began, it morphed into a combination of short story and little watercolors. I am so proud of how it turned out. Here it is, click on it to see it bigger. (A statue of Guan Yin was one of her prized possessions.)

I don't like Mondays

I heard this song the other day in the car on a mix tape my buddy Pete made for me. I thought, "oh, that's a nice song, catchy, nice hook, etc." and so I played it the next time I was in the car and whaddaya know, the missus started singing along. "You know this song?!" I asked, no doubt with the surprised attitude of the one in the relationship who thinks they're much more musically hip than the other. "Yeah," she patiently explained, "it was huge. A huge hit." Here's the song. (assuming it hasn't been removed again for some reason)

Now here's the crazy part. The missus told me that the song was about a young girl who killed a bunch of people and said she did it 'cause she didn't like Mondays. No freakin' way! NO WAY! Yes. It turns out that it's true. (Here's the snopes.com story.) Brenda Spencer was 16. On Monday morning, Jan 29, 1979, she started shooting at students at the elementary school across the street from her house. (Here are more facts from Songfacts.com about the song) She killed 2 people and wounded more. A reporter got her on the phone and asked her why she did it. She said: "I just did it for the fun of it. I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." Incredible. Just incredible.

All of a sudden, what had been a typical happy superficial pop song had a terribly, tragically macabre interior. All of a sudden a piece of popular art that solely existed in the sheltered ivory tower world of small consequences (sadly, that's where art lives for me) had horrible roots in the harsh and real world of profound consequences. I love it.

Is it good? Bad? Disrespectful of those whose friends and relatives were killed or injured? Does the song glorify the murder? Honor the memory of those who died? Help us as a society to know more about the horrors that are all around us? Is that really helpful?

Here's one thing for sure: here's a piece of art that raised all kinds of interesting questions. And that's awesome. Here's a piece of art that used its superficial appeal (nice melody, catch hook, etc.) to draw people in to deeper questions. Bravo.

Bravo.