By an unknown artist

"Portrait d’un homme et de ses enfants" circa 1810.  Musée de Tessé.

This is a painting I absolutely love.  Formerly titled "Le Conventionnel Michel Gérard et sa famille" or "La Famille de Michel Gérard", and residing at the Musée de Tessé since the end of the nineteenth century, it is now just referred to as a portrait of a man and his children.  This expertly made work was formerly attributed to David but, though various experts have tried to fit it into the oeuvres of other likely artists, the painter remains unknown.

I like to imagine that it was painted by the missing wife and mother of this family.  First, because then - and, to a degree, still - female artists, no matter how accomplished they might be, weren't taken as seriously as male artists.  Also, "propriety" would lessen the likelihood that a woman painter would actually become a professional, with her work publicly exhibited.  So it isn't hard to imagine that the author of this work would be little recognized in her own time and then quickly forgotten.

But I think what really shapes my hopeful hypothesis is how understood all the figures in this portrait are.  Each person is so particular.  Their expressions, their gestures.  And even more than that, how they relate to each other.  The direction of their gaze, the way they touch each other, crowded together in the picture plane.  The rough-hewn father, jacket-less with his sleeves rolled up, smiling gently and holding his youngest son, his large hand lovingly at the boy's waist.  The boy, looking over at his sister at the clavier, with maybe a hint of jealousy or resentment in his dreamy gaze.  The girl looks up from playing, and so much can be read into her expression.  Is she just a little proud of her accomplishment?  Or is that the timeless "oh, mother...!" look in her eyes?  Behind, the eldest boy looks self-assured - or at least the self-assurance assumed by a young man just coming of age - his left hand tucked into his jacket.  He has his right arm protectively draped over the shoulder of the middle brother, a boy who seems so shy - almost completely in shadow, his head tilted downward - that he nearly disappears from the painting.

I've never been able to find a larger image of this painting - or seen it in person, of course - so I can't comment on the finesse of the actual painted surface or all the described details.  (I'd love to know what is written on the card or slip of paper that is tucked into the mirror frame.)  There are certainly many, many portraits that are more graceful or grand or technically adept.  But I can think of very few that come close to this in the way it portrays the real connection and love of a simple family.

Trying harder

I'm afraid I've gotten very lax in keeping up with this blog.  I used to post rather frequently.  But now there never seems to be enough time.  I'm very - blessedly - busy with art projects.  And I'm sure I'm often put off posting by my understanding of my own nature, that I'm such a perfectionist, so pedantic and driven to tell "the whole story", that I know I'll spend far too much time on any given post, once I'm inspired by something, something that I want to share.  And I just do not have enough time for that right now.

So I thought I'd try and do what a lot of other bloggers do: post images that I think are interesting and/or merely beautiful, with very little in the way of explanatory text; I'll try my damnedest to keep it brief.  I am a visual artist, après tout, and there are always wonderful images that I stumble upon, things that fascinate me.  These images exemplify my aesthetic, are examples of what feeds my imagination as an artist, so why shouldn't I share them?

Et voilà, I know nothing about this photograph; the file title only says, "For Whit".

Stumble and grace

When hiking up in Forest Park, I'm continually astounded that many, if not most, of those whose path I cross are runners.  The Wildwood Trail is beautiful, but with all the tree roots and rocks popping out all over the place, it can be more than a little dangerous unless you're paying very close attention to where you land your feet.  The photos above give some idea, but even more dangerous are the little root-y hazards that aren't at all so obvious; I've tripped so many times on the subtlest bits of root that, with the fallen leaves and dappled light, I could barely make out against the same-colored surface of the path.  

And yet all these people keep flying by me, their heads thrown back, seemingly unconcerned with any potential leg-breaking or tooth-scattering disaster.  Maybe when they really get going properly, there's a bit of elevation, and their toes don't catch on things so much.  Or maybe their feet have a sort of sixth sense for all the roots and rocks and are able to avoid them without much effort.  Kind of like the happy relationship I had with dog poop in Paris; I seemed to have the most excellent radar and never put a foot wrong.

But up on the trail I'm so prone to stumbling that I can't but gaze down at the ground in front of me the whole way; if I want to revel at the glory of nature - or take a necessary swig of water - I pretty much have to come to a complete stop.  I think maybe I don't lift my feet very much when I walk.  Perhaps I've got a bit of a "Versailles glide", that peculiar gait used by the ladies of the French court, moving across the parquet without lifting their feet, seeming to float rather than walk.

Yes, that must be it.

 (I don't think Norma has quite got the "glide", here, but I believe you get my point....)

With a Song in My Heart - alternate casting

When I was a kid, there were quite a few films that I saw multiple times on television.  Those were the days, in the 60s and 70s, when they played old movies in the afternoon and late at night, times when I was very likely to be watching.  There were certain of them that influenced me greatly, that helped shape - or warp - my young, impressionable mind.  The King and I, Wuthering Heights, Astaire and Rogers' films, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy films were some of them.  Later, films like The Leopard and The Go-Between.  One of the big ones for me was With a Song in My Heart, starring Susan Hayward, the "biopic" of singer Jane Froman, filled with glamorous musical numbers and a whole lot of suffering:  the struggles she endured after being severely injured in a plane crash during WWII, the worry over whether they'd be able to save her crushed leg, and whether she'd ever walk again.  Great stuff.  The always wonderful Thelma Ritter is in much of the film, too, playing Froman's fictional nurse and confidant, Clancy.

During the recovery from my recent - not really severe, at all - injuries, mostly to my knee, my dear G has been a sort of real-life Clancy, doing everything for me, keeping us going.  As hard-working and good-tempered as she's been, through all of this, I couldn't help but think of that other plucky nurse.  Also, when the situation really started getting me down, and I felt like abandoning myself to full-throttle whining, I would think about the real suffering of Froman and compare it with my own situation, then compare both with the beautiful Hollywood suffering of the film version, and it'd be enough to tamp down some of my drama queen tendencies and make me laugh at myself.  Yes, all my pain will be redeemed and - some day - my leg brace will come off and... I'll walk!

Not surprisingly, for G's birthday, yesterday, I'd planned on a nurse theme for her card.  Something pretty simple.  But then I imagined a Photoshop sequence based on one of my favorite scenes from the movie.  Then I realized that I didn't have enough time to finish and still be able to give it to her on her birthday morning, so I reverted to the original plan.  Luckily, I then had enough time during the day to finish this second one, as well.  I gave it to her last night at dinner.

If you've never seen the movie... well, hmm... maybe what follows will make no sense at all.  Sorry if that's the case.  You should rent it; highly recommended.

***

(This scene comes when Jane is in the hospital again, at her lowest ebb, when it looks like they might have to amputate.  I've used some of the actual dialogue from the scene.)

And then this is my little craft project for putting the images together into some sort of a card-like format.  All very last minute - and totally unplanned - but it came out OK in the end, I think; kinda cute!

Nurse G has a birthday

It was G's birthday yesterday.  Her birthday is one of several days in the year that brings about frenzied Photoshopping.  We both indulge in this activity.  (As I've often shared here.)  The yearly events thus honored are her birthday, my birthday, our anniversary, Christmas, and Valentine's Day.  We both have such fun trying to impress the other with our quite fantastic cleverness.  And, frankly, it's a lot easier and a lot less stressful than trying to come up with the perfect present or presents for each other.  (That's really hard; I don't know how people do that successfully.)  Need I add that it's also quite economical?

Because of G's great good care of me during the last month and a half of my recovery from my fall, it seemed only logical that this year's card should have a nursing theme.  This one is pretty simple, really.  I just Photoshopped G's face onto an old picture postcard of a WWII era Red Cross nurse.  The text was based on the sort of things you'd find on many postcards of that time, celebrating famous figures and/or exemplary wartime service.  I thought that since she needed a decoration, I'd use the Order of St. Nicholas, a fictitious award - named after our dear little dog, Nicholas - whose medal I designed for a recent painting.  (Because, in the painting, the medal and its ribbon are partly obscured, I needed to switch out the ribbon and Photoshop in the rest of the medal.)

Le Monocle - acrylic on panel - 16x12 - 2012

The "Order of St. Nicholas", inscribed with the faux Latin "Nicola Canis", is on the far right.

Oh, how G earned this medal!

A gray day in the north of France

I haven't blogged in a very long time.  The delay was made even longer as, on the last day of April, I fell while out walking.  The various, though still relatively minor, injuries I sustained made it impossible to do much of anything for the entirety of May; no going to work and no painting, much less writing blog posts.  Only two days ago was I able to sit down and begin to paint again.

This is a post I began more than a year ago.  I don't know why I never finished it.  I really shouldn't be posting it today, on this lovely early summer day; it best belongs to a dark and wet autumn afternoon.  But I wanted to put something out, today, to get things started again.  And here I am.

***

On a rainy, blustery, dark gray day in November of 1994, I took the train north from Paris to Compiègne. On arrival, and without any further study of my map, I found my way through the wet streets and quite directly to the chateau, the wind knocking me this way and that and blowing out my umbrella.

I had come mainly to see the Musée du Second Empire. The chateau has several different museums allotted to its immense expanse, and is probably best known for a few elegant rooms designed and decorated for Marie Antoinette and for the rich and beautifully preserved décor installed by Napoléon I. But I most wanted to see the large collection of memorabilia from the reign of his nephew, the Emperor Napoléon III. Of particular interest were all things relating to my childhood idol, his wife, the Empress Eugénie. Especially, the famous Winterhalter group portrait of 1855: l'Impératrice Eugénie entourée de ses dames d'honneur.

The small and rather dingy ticket office was dark and almost empty of visitors. Even the few palace employees stood about, looking like they were waiting for something to happen. My French was non-existent at the time and, unexpectedly for such a large, important museum, no one spoke English. Too far from Paris and foreign tourists, I expect. Eventually I was made to understand that the guide would do only one tour, and we - the small group of visitors - had to vote which part of the huge building we would see. The vote went for the Grands Appartements. I was very disappointed, of course, but tagged along with the group, peering at all the vast, beautiful rooms, the gray autumn light dulling more than a little of their glamour. It didn't matter to me that the tour was all narrated in French - I knew most of what I saw, having seen it all in books - but the tour guide kept looking over at me. She seemed to be disconcerted, somehow, that I was there, thinking I didn't know what it was that I was seeing.  Perhaps she felt sorry for me or maybe I just made her nervous.

After we wound our way back to the starting point, the few other visitors quickly dispersed.  Not knowing what to do, stubborn in my desire to see what I'd come all that way to see, I just stood there, waiting.  I can't recall how it came about but, somehow - maybe they thought there was no other way to get rid of me - a good-looking, middle-aged woman appeared and, a little grudgingly, made me to understand that she'd show me what I'd come for.  It appeared she spoke little or no English.

She was the perfect example of the well-off Frenchwoman of a certain age:  trim, perfectly fitting dark shoes and slacks; pastel twin set; a patterned silk scarf artfully arranged about her shoulders and held by a simple gold brooch; discrete pearl earrings.  She had a petite, well-proportioned figure and ash-blond hair, simply but flawlessly arranged.  She was perhaps fifty.

As we made our way to the other side of the chateau, we were at first accompanied by a guard but, soon enough, it was just the two of us walking through a long string of rooms. This part of the palace appears to be much refurbished now, colorful and well-arranged.  But at that time, almost twenty years ago, the aspect of those rooms was that of something carefully preserved but abandoned.  One wondered if, even in the tourist-y summer, these rooms were much visited.  Many if not most of the high, paneled walls were painted the infamous gris Trianon - the misnamed "Trianon gray" that one used to see in so many unrestored palace rooms - and made all the more austere by the cold November light coming in through the tall windows. 

All the doors were locked, and my guide held a large ring heavy with old keys, long and attenuated.  At each set of gray-painted, immensely tall (perhaps fifteen feet?) paired doors, we'd pause while she searched for the right key.  Eventually the correct key would turn narrowly in the old lock and she would let us through into the next room, before leaving which, the doors would be locked behind us.

At each new room, she would begin - in French - to give a vague overview of the objects before us.  And I would smile and continue her descriptions - in English - because I knew exactly what I was seeing.  We continued this fragmentary shared monologue as we passed from room to room, pausing before paintings and display cases, locking and unlocking those great, tall pairs of doors.  And she seemed less and less annoyed to be leading a silly hulk of an American through this still, forgotten pool of French history.  And she really looked at me now, and something warmed and softened in her eyes as she realized how much I knew, and how precious it all was to me.  How I honored it all.

Truthfully, in most of the rooms the displays were not terribly impressive.  The expected rather vulgar Second Empire furniture, dull paintings and drily academic sculpture.  And then, in smaller rooms, large and tall glass cases full of heaped arrangements of books and bits of lace, tinted lithographs and desk ornaments, baby shoes and green silk parasols.  All together, it had about it a feeling very like an old arrangement of dried and faded flowers.

It wasn't until we arrived at the last few rooms that I saw the Winterhalter portraits that had most drawn me to the place.  They have several more in the collection now, but at that time, I believe they only had four, perhaps five.  I recall the wonderfully backlit oval portrait of the comtesse de Morny, née Princess Trubetskaya, wife of the emperor's illegitimate half-brother; the small, rather wooden portrait of the Empress Eugénie that was apparently done for her son, the Prince Imperial; an oval portrait of the ringletted marquise de las Marismas, dame du palais to the empress, that I'd never seen reproduced before; the oval portrait of the emperor that is a pendant to the famous chapeau de paille portrait of his wife (this unsigned painting was formerly - perversely - attributed to Winterhalter but, thankfully, that is no longer considered valid); and finally, of course, the vast, leafy painting of the empress with her ladies.  This last work, in its grand frame, took the space of a whole wall to hang, and the paint looked as bright and fresh as if it had just been finished.  I'd dreamed about this painting since my childhood, and it was thrilling to see it.

When we'd finished, she did me the courtesy of walking me outside, and we stood under the colonnade that forms a screen between the two projecting wings at the front of the chateau.  With limited shared language we said our thank yous and goodbyes.  It was all very sweet until I made the extremely gauche gesture of trying to tip her; I really thought I was supposed to.  She looked offended and we ended our meeting on that awkward note.

But in remembering that day, I don't dwell on that embarrassing moment.  And I don't think very much about the poor, mummified remains of the everyday life of an idolized empress.  I honestly don't even linger long over those gorgeous paintings I loved, and still love, so much.  When I think of that cold, rainy day spent in a palace in the north of France, I think about a long, thin key tuning in an old lock, and my eyes scanning up and up to the top edge of a tall gray-painted door as it gently opens from its frame.  And I think about the warm and knowing look in the eyes of a proper Frenchwoman - a total stranger - who, more than anyone in the world, right at that moment, comprehends who I am.

Le Palais impérial de Compiègne, by Simeon Fort, 1843.

Dogs can't eat chocolate

Recently, I was sent a lovely email by one of my collectors.  He and his wife live in California, but over the years they've purchased four of my pieces.  We've never met.  His email was just to tell me how much he admired my work, and how much he and his family enjoyed living with it.  I was very touched.

At the end of the email he asked if we might like a gift of his art.  By which he meant chocolate.  I said, yes, we would most definitely like.  Then I proceeded to get the bug that's going around - G got it first - and rather forgot about the possibility of chocolates winging their way to our doorstep.  A few days ago this arrived:

Six pounds of gorgeously packaged Woodhouse chocolates.  My collector and his family are Woodhouse Chocolate.  A family business in St. Helena, Napa County.  In my email to thank them for their rather magnificent generosity, I mentioned that G and I were still getting over being sick, and that we would commence tasting once we'd gotten to the point where we felt we could do the gift justice.  Last night was the night.

***

José

Every March 1st - or leap day, if there is one; it really should be leap day - G and I celebrate "José Day", the day on which, in 2008, our very aged little Chihuahua passed away.  Since we have Nicholas now - Chihuahua redux? - he's included in the evening's entertainments, which include a dog-related film and treats, for us and for Nicholas.  Last night we got started too late to watch a whole movie.  (It's always rather a scramble to find something apt, anyway; our collection of dog-related films is quite meagre.  And when you're mourning the loss/celebrating the life of a dog, just how comforting is "Umberto D."?)  So we decided to watch a few episodes of "I love Lucy", instead. 

As part of our Christmas gifts to each other this past year, we bought a huge, garishly packaged complete set of "I Love Lucy" and, when we don't have time to watch a movie, we'll often watch an episode or two.  Or three or four.  This first time through, we've been watching them in the order they aired.  Last night, as I put the next disc in, the one that was the beginning of the second season, I thought, you know, we're going to have some of that chocolate tonight, what if...?  And as fate would have it - it usually does, you know - the first episode on the disc was the one where Lucy and Ethel go to work in the candy factory.  Perfect.

***

By the way, our chocolates were amazing.  Subtle and complex and sure to play major havoc with my diet.  Nicholas got his treats as well.  A miniscule amount of good cheese, a miniscule amount of roast chicken.  Nicholas did not get any chocolate.

Right and wrong

So, it's like this:

I ride the streetcar home from work on Mondays and Thursdays, both ways on Saturdays.  I never sit on the streetcar.  I have a very much preferred place to stand, where I can lean against the wall, be out of everyone's way, and not have to hold on to anything.  I'd rather not touch anything in that sort of public setting.

I was coming home today, leaning into my discrete corner.  We came to a stop and an older woman with a walker activated the ramp and got on.  I often see this same woman on the streetcar, always the same rather ratty hooded sweatshirt, baseball cap worn over the hood, sweatpants, puffy white athletic shoes.  She usually gets off at the same stop I do.  She's a round little thing, very chatty, with a chirpy voice.  She's often sitting with a similarly shaped and walker-ed friend.

Even though there are very clearly posted instructions to reserve seating for disabled passengers, no one got up or offered her a seat.  Sitting nearest her was a woman, probably in her twenties, dressed in what I'd call the Northwest Princess look: shiny, metallic parka; jeans; brightly polished clog-ish things on her feet; a little knit cap that looked like it might have been fabricated by the indigenous peoples of some "Third World" country.  Everything was perfectly pristine, studiously casual, and obviously expensive.  She had a hard, cold look on her face.  I watched her manicured fingers flick along her cellphone, and then she'd put her head back and close her eyes for a few seconds, as though she was very, very tired.  An older man - sixty-five-ish? - with gray hair and a cap with an airline insignia on it was sitting next to her.  They didn't speak to each other at all, so I didn't know if they were together.

I stared at the seated woman, made eye contact, then looked over to the woman with the walker, but the young woman didn't follow my gaze.  I stared at her again, but she didn't look back.  I stared at her.

And then....  Low blood sugar?  Some faulty switch related to my PTSD?  Or maybe just some inherent oversensitivity, some lack of ability to process and not be overwhelmed by all the awful things in the world, things that we all hear about and see constantly these days?  There's so much wrong.  And I want to make it better.  And I can't.  And it makes me so mad.  I don't know what any of that might have added up to in that moment.  Whatever it was, I didn't see it coming.  I didn't know I was about to make an ass of myself.

"Hey, why doesn't someone get up so this woman can sit down!"

As everyone turned and stared at me, the woman with the walker said, "I don't need to sit down".  Which put an immediate dent in my crusade, of course.  Actually, I'd probably scared her.

I turned to the young woman who was sitting closest to her.  "Why don't you get up so she can sit down?"

"She said she didn't need to sit down", she said flatly, coldly, her legs crossed, her arms folded.

"You should have offered her the seat.  Those are the rules.  You're supposed to get up when someone needs a seat."

There's a moment of blank, at this point.  It was all so quick.  I can't remember if anything more was said by either of us.  And then I reached out to pull off her hat.

***

When G and I went to see Tosca a few weeks ago, we had two very silly young women sitting behind us, whispering to each other, playing with one of their phones, constantly giggling.  Before Act III began, we were able to move and get away from them.  But during the intermissions I'd told G how I'd fantasized about dealing with them.  The first fantasy was to snatch the cellphone, jog over to the Men's room, and toss it in the garbage.  The second was to snatch off the shoe of the closer one - she was wearing a short dress, but for some reason she had her legs crossed like a guy, ankle to knee; it would be easy to reach that shoe - and jog over to the Men's room and lob it into a toilet.  The beauty of either of these schemes would be that my point would be dramatically made, and that they'd be kept very busy with search and rescue and, therefore, far away from us.  Some scruples and the realization that those sorts of wacky-movie moments almost never go as planned was more than enough to keep either scenario from getting beyond the fantasy stage.  That and the thought of what would certainly be G's horrified reaction.

***

And those things almost never go as planned.  See, I thought I'd just grab that cute little hat off her head and toss it out the doors of the streetcar - we were stopped at a streetcar stop, the doors were open - and she'd have to go after it.  I'd already played this out in my head; I'd been fantasizing again, like at the opera.  So maybe I was "cocked and loaded" and when, in the already alarming tension of the moment, I somehow managed to lose the distinction between fantasy and reality, it was just my next move.  Like, at that point, I couldn't stop the next domino.  So I reached out toward the top of her head.

"Don't touch me", she said flatly, putting her hands up but otherwise barely moving.  Waved off, I came in again, reaching for the hat.  The same defensive but strangely calm and economical movement from her.  The man next to her half rose in his seat.

"You better stop it.  That's my daughter," he said, then sat down.

"Oh, great job you did with her.  Is that how you taught her?  To think about other people?  You must be really proud.  You both ought to be ashamed...."  Etcetera.

The streetcar had left the stop.  I said to I don't know who, "I wasn't going to attack her, I was just going to throw her hat out the door so she'd have to get up."  Like somehow that made sense, would somehow rally everyone to my cause.  Like everyone would go, "Oh, yeah, what a clever idea - bravo!"  I wasn't really able to focus - mentally or visually - but I think I was sort of being ignored at this point.  Which, in retrospect, is probably preferable to other possible reactions; I'm glad no one took me for a more serious threat and intervened.  Someone had taken my place in the corner, so I just stood there in front of the father and daughter, the adrenalin starting to drain away, mortification flooding in.

They sat, looking straight ahead, not talking to each other.  It was like nothing strange had happened at all, like this situation was normal for them somehow.  But people react differently to shock, I know.  Maybe they were just afraid, and it was fear that made them seem so expressionless, so unaffected.  But I can see now that my self-righteousness, my assumptions and judgements about them, my lack of compassion for them - their lives, their humanity - pretty much precluded any understanding of their actions or reactions.

I made one last reflexive, "you ought to be ashamed," and moved over to the other side of the streetcar, my knees rattling in my pant legs.  I stood near the woman with the walker, who had turned completely around to face the window, looking out.  

I gave her a light pat on the arm.  "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to make such a scene.  I see you on here all the time.  I know you always sit down."

"Oh, I didn't need to sit down."  She didn't look at me.  Probably still afraid.

"OK, but she was supposed to ask...." 

The young woman and her father got off soon after.  No parting words, still no signs from them that anything odd or disturbing had happened.  I looked around the streetcar, seeing if anyone was looking at me, wondering what they would be thinking.  Was I just some crazy, scary guy?  Someone who'd made a fool out of himself in public?  You don't look at people like that.  No one was looking at me.  I stared out the window.

As we got close to our stop, the woman with the walker pushed the button to cue the ramp, moved her walker closer to the door.  Still without looking at me, she told me to, "Have a nice day."  I told her I was getting off, too.  The streetcar stopped and we waited together for the ramp to extend.  She got off, then I got off.  And when I passed her on the sidewalk, I apologized again.

"I'm really sorry for blowing up like that."

"That's alright. Have a good day"

"It's just that people are so unkind these days...."

"Oh, I know, dear."

*** 

When I got to the apartment, first thing I did, after putting down my things, before I woke up the dog to take him out, I walked into the bathroom.  I didn't know why.  I stood in front of the mirror, looking at myself.  Looking closer, trying not to look away.  Trying to see something in my eyes.  I took my glasses off and put them back on, trying to see myself.

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

There's right and there's wrong.  I think somewhere there's probably a true definition of a real, humane right.  But most of us have a very subjective understanding of what that word means.  And most of the wrong done in the world comes from those who believe they are doing right.  That kind of "right" has blinded humanity, has brought havoc and suffering all through history.

I had a perfectly fine day.  I was in a good mood.  Everything was normal.  And then I totally lost it.  In my zeal to implement "the right thing", I became something that I couldn't recognize, couldn't - at least in that moment - control.  So when I got home and felt this need to look at myself in the mirror, maybe I was trying to reassure myself, trying to make sure I knew who I was.  Because in that moment on the streetcar, in the frantically aggressive certainty of the rightness of my belief, I completely lost myself.  And it was very frightening.  As I write this, it still is.

One finger at a time

There's something about putting on and, especially, taking off a glove.  I don't know what it is, exactly, that I find so transporting about this very ordinary action.  But when I'm wearing gloves - especially nicer ones, thin leather ones - and I enter a building, walking and taking off one glove first, pulling at the finger ends, loosening, then sliding the glove off and clasping it in the other still-gloved hand, I feel like I'm on stage or, more so, in a movie.  Every single time I do this little movement, no matter where I am or how otherwise shabbily I'm dressed, I feel quite elegant, glamorous even.  I always feel delightfully cinematic.

***

 

Burning patterns and burnt language

This past Saturday, I co-emceed at a literary event.  Gigi and several other fantastic writers - some real heavy-hitters among them - read at the second of an ongoing, quarterly series, Burnt Tongue.  "Burnt" refers to writer and teacher Tom Spanbauer's workshop challenge to "burn" language, deconstructing/reconstructing language in the service of defining character, as a way to discover literary "voice".*  A central figure in Portland literary life - most of the writers who read are, or have been, students of his - Tom read last, a beautiful/awful passage from his current novel.

And everyone's work was really wonderful - funny, smart, touching, challenging - and the audience was rapt and appreciative.  But being as incredibly self-absorbed as I am - I'm an artist; I'm supposed to be that way, right? - I still found time to be overly critical of my emceeing performance.  Because it wasn't what I had imagined it would be; I certainly got the job done, but I wasn't the brimming font of charm I'd hoped to be.  That, combined with the dislocating effects of only-on-Facebook friendships - and more than half the crowd were FB friends of mine - got me snuggled up against old, negative behavioral patterns, the kinds of social (non)interaction I thought I'd gotten past, grown out of.  And then, finding myself down that rabbit hole, turning and wondering, "hey, I remember this unpleasant locale; how the hell did I wind up here again?"  Sunday - on Facebook, bien sûr - I mused a bit on my experience of the previous night.

*** 

First thought about last night's Burnt Tongue reading:

 
Married to a writer, I go to a lot of readings and hear a lot of great writing. But last night was something very special. And one of the incidental delights of the evening was watching Lidia Yuknavitch** across the room - she was in my direct line of sight - just beaming as she listened to the other writers read, her love for what her fellow writers do and who they are was so obvious. And I keep thinking that it was just the perfect expression of the amazing, loving camaraderie that is what Portland's writer's community is all about.

Second thought about last night's Burnt Tongue reading:

I got a good smacking from that weird FB condition. You know, that thing where you know SO much about your FB friends - their politics, their love life, their kids, their family, their job, their vacations, their health, on and on - and you have great, smart FB interactions, but in person, you don't know them AT ALL. I often find that gulf very hard to bridge, makes me paralytically shy. And when that FB friend is someone whose work I tremendously respect, or even if I just think them very cool, it gets that much harder. So, trying to break the cycle, I'm outing myself to my top three from last night: Dear Monica Drake, who is a good egg to be sure, in the future I will try to do more than just bid goodnight as you and Kass exit the building. Mr. Mingo I will attempt more than a handshake or a wave; we might speak of large vegetables and France, even. And Miss Lidia - great, lustrous, vibrating soul of a woman - I will try to make it past just telling you that I'm kinda scared of you. Oy!

Third thought about last night's Burnt Tongue reading:
 
When I was younger, whenever anyone complemented me on anything, especially on my art, I - always - felt compelled to tell them what was wrong with the thing at hand, to tell them where I had failed in whatever way. Somehow, I guess I felt my over-critical self-honesty would be a service to us both; no one should be fooled. But at some point, someone pointed out that that was actually a pretty ungracious thing to do, that it denied, even disrespected the experience of the other; it spurned the gift of their complement. And really, it was very selfish, saying that my experience was more valid than theirs. And at some point, I stopped doing that.

We all try and grow up and come to an acceptance of the muck of our experience, remold ourselves into a shape that better suits who we really are on the inside. And then, there you go. In an unplanned dive, you find yourself back in an almost forgotten, but still awfully comfortable, uncomfortable place. Which sounds - terribly - important but, really, I'm just trying to say that people were so nice to me last night about my co-emceeing stint. And because - I - didn't do quite what I imagined I'd do, I proceeded to bat away their kindness. Well, basta! Thank you, sweet people. I do appreciate it. xo 

Fourth (and final) thought about last night's Burnt Tongue reading: 

It was really all about the WRITING! (Beautiful, beautiful writing....)

***

*  Tom Spanbauer, giving a fuller explanation of the concept of "burning" language: 

[from a workshop description]  "... the first thing we will encounter is voice. How to create it. Saying it wrong, saying it spoken rather than written, saying it raw. By challenging old creative writing workshop language, we will investigate what my teacher [Gordon Lish] called Burnt Tongue. The New York Times, in its review of  The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon [Tom's best known book], called it Poisoned Lyricism. Character lies in the destruction of the sentence. How a character thinks is how she speaks..." 

[from another workshop description]  "Participants should expect a close look at their writing. Sentence by sentence. What we’re really doing is deconstructing language down to the fundamentals, in search of voice. Character lies in the destruction of the sentence. By analyzing parts of speech – adverbs, abstract nouns, received text, clichés, “proper” grammar – each student will get to scrutinize his or her language as it goes onto the page, and in that scrutiny, come up with some new and exciting ways to get rid of that creative writing sound, or that weird way one’s writing sounds formal, distant, boring, drab."

[from an interview]  "Lish’s workshop met once a week, and there were maybe 120 people in his class. Instead of being theoretical, it was all, What does this sentence sound like? How to create a voice, and to get authority of voice by “saying it wrong”—what he called “burnt tongue.” It’s a way of writing as if you were speaking, of making your prose sound raw or strange or off or wrong or weird. Basically of fucking up your syntax."

And a quote from Chuck Palahniuk, Tom's best-known student:

"The next aspect, Spanbauer calls "burnt tongue." A way of saying something, but saying it wrong, twisting it to slow down the reader. Forcing the reader to read close, maybe read twice, not just skim along a surface of abstract images, short-cut adverbs, and clichés." 

**  In case you're not familiar with the names, Lidia Yuknavitch and Monica Drake are two of the best known and respected writers who happen to live in Portland.  (They're also part of the same writing group that includes the above-quoted Chuck Palahniuk and Cheryl Strayed - rare air!)  And their respective - and also very talented - spouses are Andy Mingo, a filmmaker, and Kass Alonso, a writer.