Totally Obsessed, Thank You Very Much

From the calendar, Miss August 2008

A secret inspiration of mine is fashion--although if you met me, you'd be like, HUH? I am not very fashionable--I HATE shopping and practically break into a cold sweat when I think about it. But I LOVE looking at what people wear here in New York, and I love certain designers like Betsey Johnson. She is SO CREATIVE and colorful. She does CARTWHEELS on the catwalk! She wears pink jellied platform shoes! Her daughter is named Coco! In an industry that seems to take itself SO SERIOUSLY, she seems to breathe creativity and fun. You have got to like that in a gal.

Graham and I are currently in the deep THROES of obsession over Project Runway Season 3. We don't have a TV and rarely get into renting TV shows, but this has got to be one of the best "reality" shows ever created. Graham is usually more (ahem) reluctant to watch such "entertainment." Prop him up with a good documentary about Iraq and he's happy, but once bitten by The Project Runway bug and he HAD NO CHOICE. No one can resist! We had already watched the previous two seasons and had been waiting with BATED BREATH for a year for season 3. Finally, the time came. Graham literally called me on Tuesday and said,"So, we got the discs today, when are you coming home?"

I LOVE to watch what these people create in 1-2 days. I love the challenges. I love the egotistical bantering! I love Michael Kors saucy honesty! I love watching Nina Garcia's look of utter disbelief! I adore Tim Gunn's robotic voice! I can't stop watching! It's HEAVEN.

The Artist In The Office Link Special!

To all of you creative types out there, who still appreciate a certain arty distraction to get them through the usual work day, I offer you, Jeffrey Yamaguchi's excellent Working for The Man. Jeffrey is the godfather of artists in the office everywhere. I kiss his pinky ring! I am just going to warn you that this is a funny as hell, creative, and timely book, but like a pair of jeans, don't get caught with it at the office! I think everyone can get something out of it. Except maybe your boss. Well, secretly, your boss would get it too. In fact, it might just be a great WHITE ELEPHANT gift at the next Holiday Party. Just an idea!

FYI--Jeffrey's not really as alt-rock looking as I depicted him here, nor is his ear physically THAT close to his face--but what can you do, when you're pretending to write a very DETAILED note to someone on a post-it note?

Other things you might very much get a kick from:
Ladies and Gentleman, I give you The Office Sign Project. I so wish I had known about it when I was working at my last job, because the drama of the unwashed cup was always playing out in "anonymous" signs.

Thanks to Jeffrey's blog, I discovered Save The Assistants. This is something so close to my heart I almost LOST IT when I read about it. I could write an entire BOOK about the relationship between assistants and their bosses--both from personal experience and from years of working with other assistants. Why there isn't more support for assistants is BEYOND ME. I thank the sweet stars for this effort.

Now, back to work!

What We Actually Live

Yesterday I found myself completely alone on a rainy day in New York, without anything immediately pressing on me to get done. I decided to live out MY FANTASY ARTIST LIFE that I used to dream about when I wasn't doing much art work and was working full time. I remember coming to see Graham here oh so long ago, and walking the rainy streets and dreaming of possibly living a life where there was no office to go to and I could go to places like the Film Forum in the middle of the day or get a cup of coffee anywhere and live this high flying arty life I liked to call LIVING IN NEW YORK. (Do you ever notice how your fantasy art life never actually includes DOING any art work?)

So I decided to LIVE THE DREAM so to speak. I went out into the wet, dark streets and walked everywhere. Because of the climate, the city felt relatively empty. It was kind of spooky and comforting at the same time. I walked to the river and I combed the pretty Greenwich Village streets, discovering landmarks and thinking about what it would be like to actually LIVE in such an area. I noticed that my favorite coffee place, one of my favorite bookstores, and a bookstore I want to find open one day all were on the same street. Oh, to be on such a street!

Then I went to Film Forum on a weekday afternoon and saw the much buzzed about film I'm Not There, which is kind of, but not really about Bob Dylan. What a strange, indescribable film. Six people playing "Dylan." I think I liked it, but I'm not sure what to make of it. It's been getting a lot of great reviews, but after seeing it I am very surprised so many critics are embracing it. It's so creative, unusual, and perplexing--three things usually frowned upon by critics. In any case, it was art--and you can't always say that about a movie.

Afterwards I felt oddly sad. Matinees are so disorienting. You get used to the darkness and then suddenly you're out in the blaring world. I stumbled out into the neighborhood, and clutched my coat. I like that I can see a movie that features the exact neighborhood I was now walking towards. I walked for a long time afterwards, pushing by NYU students, thinking about how every person is actually made up of many people. I thought about myself three years ago, dreaming a version of who I am now. Who will I be in another 3 years? Sometimes I think the dream and the person are two entities that never really meet. The dream is what we create to live towards, but it isn't what we actually LIVE. We live something deeper and stranger and more perplexing. I think I like it, but I'm often not sure what to make of it.

What did you have for breakfast?

It Ain't No Sin To Be Glad You're Alive

I just got back from 13 hours in Boston--3 of those hours spent watching Bruce Springsteen from 100 feet away. Longtime readers of this blog may have gathered that I am a fan of the Bruce, the Springsteen, The Boss. While I feel slightly embarrassed at pontificating why I adore this artist and how seeing him perform is for me akin to what people must feel when they go to church, I will tell you this: After stumbling to bed at midnight, and getting SOME sleep, I got up this morning at 5:45am to catch a 6:30am bus back to New York so that I could go to work. A four hour trip turned into a 6 hour trip, where I was deprived of food and coffee (two things that are a big deal for me to miss), and now I have climbing migraine because I got these things too late. Was it worth it?

ABSOLUTELY.

He played "10th Avenue Freeze Out." He played "Born to Run" and "Badlands" and "Living in the Future" and "Sandy" and "DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN," for pete's sake! It was non stop mayhem! He spoke out against the war and the current policies and against the improsonment of hundreds of people without due process and he got some cheers, but he also got BOOED, but like the man said behind me, "PREACH IT!" And that's all Springsteen does anyway--he preaches and we, as his audience, stand up with our fists in the air and sing. If that isn't a beautiful thing I don't know what is.

Quick! Correction on Pie Recipe!

Double the amount of molasses & honey to 1/4 c. each. MUCH deeper flavor.

Sorry about that, folks. The perils of doing something by memory!

Happy pie making!

Just in time for Thanksgiving!

My pie crust recipe is here. It's award-winning!

Alternative recipe is relatively the same, but substitute 1/4 c. of honey instead of the molasses and honey and substitute 1/4 maple syrup for the brown sugar. I did this in a pinch one year and someone said WRITE THAT DOWN. Good thing I did. It's SO GOOD.

Happiness

Goodness gracious! You all are ordering in droves and man, I cannot thank you enough! This is the SIXTH year I have made this calendar of inspiration and the thing I forget every single year is how much I love sending them out to people. It makes me feel so connected to the world and it makes me HAPPY to address envelopes and see them all go out. I also love it when people e-mail me and say HEY! I share a birthday with Liz Phair and Isak Denisen! I had no idea! I like to hear the HAPPINESS of people who find out they share a birthday with Marie Osmond or Tori Amos. I gotta say, it makes it all worth it.

So thank you thank you thank you! In order to get them before Christmas and the New Year, orders need to be placed by December 15th.

You are GREAT.

It's HERE! It's TIME!

For the SIXTH YEAR the All NEW Great Gals Calendar is IN THE HOUSE! For those of you who don't know, The Great Gals Calendar is 12 bios and portraits and 366 days (2008 is leap year y'all) of birthdays all illustrated by me!

It is a PERFECT gift for any Great Gal in your life--you know you owe your mom a call, why not pave the way with this TOTALLY UNIQUE gift? She will forgive you instantly! I know from experience! Or what about your best friend, sister, girlfriend, or how about YOUR SWEET SELF? Don't you deserve it? HECK YES!

This year has everyone from the remarkable comedienne Phyllis Diller, (who, by the way, still holds the world's record for delivering the MOST punchlines a minute--8!), to Joan Jett to Emily Dickinson--and so many many more.

I make these calendars with so much love--they have been a great source of inspiration to me for the last 6 years--won't you buy one?

$18.00 plus s/h--you can order them here.

Relics

This is what I've been up to lately. Fighting the Aimless Bummer, I go to places and draw trivial items. I went to the Natural History Museum and ignored the animals and drew the hats that are displayed for the very small Teddy Roosevelt memorial on the first floor. What a complicated, strange man. He almost died on the River of Doubt, but managed to file stories of his travel with magazines. He is responsible for the U.S. having National Parks, yet he was an avid hunter and loved the thrill of "collecting" creatures for both museums and his own trophies. He was a writer and a warmonger. He created the Panama Canal without asking ANYBODY, including, um, PANAMA. He was a My-Way-or-The-Highway kind of guy. He also drew pictures in his letters to his children.

I've also gone to the New York Historical Society and drew Franklin D. Roosevelt's leg brace and a statesman's wooden leg from the 1700's. If I could draw Jackie Onassis' toothbrush, I would be beside myself.

I once sat in a library in Northampton, Massachusetts holding original, typewritten pages by the writer Sylvia Plath. This was exciting enough, but what got me REALLY excited was the coffee ring on the first page. She had left a coffee ring, and it was more intimate proof that she had existed and moved and breathed than all the typewritten sheaths of paper housed in two libraries.

Sometimes I think about how in the huge and immense basement of the Smithsonian Museum, in a metal box, is the last existing vile of radium studied by Marie Curie. If I went to the Smithsonian Museum I might pass out from so many ideas.

These things are just relics and are strangely exciting to me. They don't tell me to keep going, they just keep me going. After I drew these hats, I walked out into the world and felt like I must look like a vile of radium--glowing green in the dark box. It just goes to show, it doesn't take much to get me excited. I must try harder to remember that.

The Aimless Bummer

Lynda Barry has a very wise and funny friend named Julie Wilson. Once, when Julie called up and asked Lynda how she was doing, Lynda was having a bad day of depression with no real specific reason. Upon hearing this, Julie said (in a thick Brooklyn accent) "Oh, yeah, the Aimless Bummer."

I have been having an Aimless Bummer for over a month now. It's driving me a little crazy. I'll work on it--do exercise, yoga, draw, write, call people, write people, try new things, try things that I like to do, and maybe it will pass for a day or two and then I wake up and I am SUNK again.

Last night I had a good night. I finally figured out how to transfer my info from my old mac to the new one and as a result, I re-discovered my music collections and had a BLAST uploading and listening to music. I was HAPPY. I couldn't remember the last time I just spent an evening listening to music and making mixes. Then I went to bed and the aimless bummer crept into my chest and I couldn't sleep feeling morose and lost and totally BUMMED and AIMLESS.

I can't figure it out. Maybe I am going through a change of some sort and I just need to see what's on the other side. Maybe it's post wedding bummer. Maybe it's a chemical imbalance. Maybe I need to get over my bad self. But there it is. There it is until it isn't.

Links that help lift the bummer:
A Frida Kahlo dollhouse (link from Mackville)
A place to get the socks of your dreams!
Ariel always helps lift the bummer, but these posts in particular.
A Blog of Smells.
Going to see a play always helps.
From my friend Kathryn, a link that is hard to explain, but SO charming!
And Jeffrey's new book. SO after MY OWN heart.