Just before Christmas I did an index-card portrait of my co-worker Michael. He liked it a lot, and so did his Mom. Since then I’ve tried two more, but I’m not too happy with them, and so I consider them “preliminary sketches.” That’s Garyspeak for “I didn’t go yet.”
This is a quick sketch/study done in preparation for a portrait. It belongs in a notebook and not in a frame. But 21st-Century technology enables us to “enhance” our visuals via cropping, distortive photography, and other manipulations, and this makes some of our images suitable for the screen as well as the notebook. I deemed this image one such.
I’ve just read Al Kooper’s jaw-dropping memoir BACKSTAGE PASSES AND BACKSTABBING BASTARDS. The man who crashed a Bob Dylan recording session and ended up with the organ lead in “Like a Rolling Stone;” the man who not only played for, but named, Blood, Sweat & Tears; the man who produced Lynyrd Skynyrd–all that just turns out to be the tip of the iceberg. Read this amazing book and you’ll learn why Norman Rockwell hugged Al, then painted a portrait of him and Mike Bloomfield of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
The words:
A & R spread like an oak
And bad finger defunct a loco
A gig a friend a deal a zoo
Lo! Super Session–quite a coup
Lynyrd Skynyrd paid the fare
Let a legend climb the stair
Today was a day off from work, and a belated Christmas for the fact that I worked on Christmas and the two days after. I’m still living on a shoestring, so the gifts I had for my daughter, my ex-wife, my mother and my younger brother came mostly from the Family Dollar. I felt bad about, so I did something I almost never do: I gave, not printed copies, but original journal pages, as gifts. The pages I chose for them, all from early 2009, had a particular connection to each of them.
This one was for Brian. He and I had marathon sessions playing Risk, a game of global conquest. Whenever I rolled the dice as the attacker, he’d exclaim, “LOSE one!”
This was for Joni. It was done when our beloved dog Bill was still alive and well, and the poem concerns the healing power of human-animal companionship.
This one was for Kate. One of Kate’s favorite songs is Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
Three fewer journal pages for me turns out to be a gain, not a loss. The pages are more valuable as connective tissue than as artifacts.
Friends, it is three years to the day since I began this picaresque blog. I have published somewhere north of 800 posts. Anyone caring to start at December 3, 2012 and go post by consecutive post to the present day would have a good idea of who I am, what I like to do, and what triumphs and tragedies have occurred in my recent life. But who has the time and inclination to do so? Here’s a quick way to go down your own private memory lane with these: Look at the posts that were written on your birthday. There will be at least one, but four at the very most. If your itch still isn’t scratched, go for other important anniversary dates in your life. If you get to a dozen posts without losing interest, please declare victory for both of us.
I have some loyal followers. I’m especially grateful to “The crazy bag lady” and Marlyn Exconde, who both live halfway round the world and are extraordinarily talented. But I am also quite grateful to the thousands of other readers, international and domestic, who’ve given irreplaceable time from their lives to view my blog. Many thanks!!
O it may say DO NOT DISTURB
Or warn of kicking to the curb
Perhaps you’ll get a Just Say No
Portending Death — but on you go
Enduring tides & time & tax
Expose the Daemon — then relax
The name of the post is “opened box.” The eponymous acrostic looks like “OPE NED BOX” but the multi-acrostic conventions employed on this blog allow for word-spread across columns. If it makes you feel better, we’ll name the box-opener Ned.
Curiosity has gotten humanity into and out of trouble since before we the human race can remember.
Finally, an analogy intended to pique curiosity: “Pandora’s Box” is to this page what Ray Bradbury’s “Fever Dream” is to Greg Bear’s “Blood Music.”
I’ve owned a banjo for many years. I have never learned to play it, which is a shame I hope to remedy during my retirement; but, meanwhile, it is just plain lovely to look at:
Faithful followers of my blog know what a thing for Spoons I have. That may be why the banjo I drew below has a spoonlike quality to it:
Shoutout to my friend and classmate Clint Diffie, owner of Boogie Music, for keeping my banjo in recent repair.
“pick n grin” words:
pirouette n pyrotech n background for to sing
indolent idolatry n squeezns in a wringer
corn a-shuckin true n blue a pair of virtuosi
kettle jug n moonshine n the picker plays to win
“banjo” words:
best served with wine or gumbo
adds zest to home or zoo
n. friday, d. mutombo
jurassic classic too
NOTE: n, is for Nancy, d. is for Dikembe. Like the banjo, they made their splash in another time, as did the Jurassic era, but wear well on review.
If/Then/Else is a phrase familiar to logicians and code warriors. Actions have consequences. There’s a song imagining that Marilyn Monroe got with HENRY Miller instead of ARTHUR Miller. Similarly, I imagine Faisal interacting, not with T. E. Lawrence, but D. H. Lawrence. Who’ll prove us wrong?
At long, long last my Residential Drawing Station is operational, and I have many to thank. The fluorescent drawing-table lamp was a gift from my parents more than forty years ago. The pencil was part of a package of pencils given me by my then-wife, Joni, about eight years back. The light tablet, a marvelous surface to draw on, came on a Christmas from my then-sweetheart, Denise. The Captain America shield/eraser was a freebie acquired at the Jack Kirby Birthday Celebration, courtesy of my friend Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. The Bookmans goodie bag is from my fabulous Steady Girlfriend, Joy. And the coffee? The coffee was, is, and always will be a Gift From The Gods.
The work in progress is signed and dated today, and therefore must be finished by midnight tonight. Got to get cracking. Thanks so much, everyone!!
Some months ago I was at a thrift store and found Barack Obama’s DREAMS FROM MY FATHER for a dollar. I bought it but didn’t give it a serious look until this week. Now I’m at the point in the book where he is attending Occidental College in California. He has been through a lot, including life in Indonesia.
Some months ago I began a drawing. It was a good start, but demanded time-chunks I was reluctant to give to it. It lay fallow.
Some days ago I stumbled upon a website of the former Nina Rogers, classmate at Glendale High School and wedding guest at Joni’s and my wedding. She is now a wildly successful photographer and scenemaker in Vancouver. We have traded emails, and when I described a book of mine that is “finished” but just lying around waiting for me to prepare it for printing, she gave me the secret to her success in four short words:
“Finish what you start.”
So I have begun to take her advice. Here is the now-finished sketch, “some day,” flavored a bit with my recent reading of young Barack’s journey.
One with Clay, Image and Text 