A New Use for Magnetic Poetry Kits Everywhere

I offer this as an alternative to graffiti in...

...bathroom stalls everywhere.

I have wanted to do this for at least 10 years. I may not be able to stop.

Halloween Costumes

As we all know Halloween is upon us this friday. I don't usually dress up unless there is a party to go to. On Saturday I went to a wedding reception where the dress code was "Horns and/or tails." Graham and I got gussied up and wore horns. I have to tell you, the red horns jutting out of my husband's head oddly suited him. They matched his red and blue tie. Unfortunately, the elastic holding the horns on was so tight it started to give him a headache, so he was forced to remove them. My favorite "accessories" included a peacock tail and a woman wearing big horned ram horns. Hey, when they said horns, they SAID HORNS.

If I had children, I think these may be my first choices for costumes. Ladies and gentleman, I give you:

• A one year old dressed up like the 1970's/80's comedian, Gallagher.
  
• Where the Wild Things Are
• And the bygone era of my friend Kirstin dressing her son as a Garden Gnome. It made me want to dress like Amelie and take photographs of him all over the world.

One that is not pictured, is my friend Andromeda who dressed herself up ag a giant banana and her son Zephyr as a monkey (his nickname is Monkey). It was pretty dang cute.

I started compiling all my costumes through my childhood and here they all are:

Nursery School: cat
Nursery School: Princess Leia
Kindergarten: Criss from the band Kiss (this was an ode my beloved baby sitter's favorite band--I wore tinfoil on my boots!)
First Grade: A Marshmallow (More on that later)
Second Grade: A Black Cat
Third Grade: Laura Ingalls Wilder (see above)
Fourth Grade: An "Old Fashioned Lady" (no comment)
Fifth Grade: no idea.
Sixth Grade: Nightfall from Elfquest
Seventh Grade: A girl from the 60's
Eighth Grade: Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
Ninth Grade: Olive Oyl
10th Grade: A cowgirl
11th Grade: no idea.
12th Grade: a lady from the Renaissance (costume bought at--yep, you guessed it, a REN FAIR! Strike the harpsichords!)

I feel like this list is a wonderful abreviated biography. Nothing need more be said! Except one more time, just for old time's sake: STRIKE the harpsichords!

Hitting the Nail on the Head

I can't believe that someone actually wrote something I think about a lot and talk about a lot and am currently living. I say preach it Matt Haughey (from Electrolicious of course):

Everyone I know that freelances or works a day job and wishes they could quit and follow their dreams of launching a company complains about the lack of healthcare. Whenever I used to talk about freelancing at tech conferences, the first question was always about healthcare coverage. I've heard that in places like Berlin where you don't have to worry about where your healthcare is coming from or how much it costs, up to 35% of working age adults are freelancers. It may sound crazy and anti-capitalist to consider healthcare for all, but if we flipped a switch tomorrow and everyone had health coverage I swear a million small businesses would launch overnight. I know lots of people that keep a job just to get healthcare that are wasting their creative talents because they had a cancer scare or were born with a defect or otherwise are deemed uninsurable on their own.

Go see the whole piece.

The Phone call

Thank you to everybody that has been celebrating with me through e-mails, comments, phone calls, and general good wishes. I cannot express just how much all of it means to me. I guess I'll just have to put it all in the book.

There's so much happening and a lot of stuff I want to tell you, but it'll just have to wait. What I can tell you is that when I first moved to New York one of my first temp assignments was working in the massive copier room at Penguin Books (where Perigee is located). When I reported for the assignment, I sat in the lobby viewing all their gorgeous books lining the walls and I had such pangs of longing. When I got the call that my book was going through, I felt that same woman who sat in the lobby longing leap up and say YES! I guess that's what I want The Artist in the Office book to be. I want it to be like a phone call that makes people leap up and say yes to the whole of their experience--the temp part, the longing part, and the artist part.

Right now I feel like the kid who has been eating too much cake at the party, happy, but hung over. I've been walking around with THRILLED THRILLED flashing in my eye sockets for days now. It IS thrilling, but I am starting to feel a bit nuts from it all. I think I need to get back to work.

Thank you all again for being here to see it all emerge. I can't wait for you to read the book!

Announcement!

Announcement from Summer Pierre on Vimeo.

The Book I Wish I Wrote Award This Year Goes To...

Last week I treated myself to my friend Keri's new book How To Be an Explorer of the World. I am nominating it for the Book I Wish I Wrote Award for the year. If I was into qualifying it somehow, and I am not saying I am, but if I was, I might just MIGHT call it a masterpiece. I say MIGHT, because as all of you probably know ALL her books are beautiful, useful, and inspired. To nail it down to ONE masterpiece is hard, but I'll just say this is my F-A-V-O-R-I-T-E. It is not only visually INCREDIBLE, it is something that makes you stand in the center of your world, be it a forest or a parking lot, and turn it UPSIDE DOWN (literally) or at least make it interesting. Since this is a subject that I feel passionately about, I can't help but want to tell everyone about it.

As it turns out, I don't have to. All I have to do is read it in a public place and the book speaks for itself. I was sitting on the subway reading it at rush hour and the three women who were either sitting next to me on either side or standing above me asked me about the book. "What IS that book you are reading?" One of them said and another piped up: "I know--I've been gawking at it over your shoulder--it looks amazing." When I told them one lady asked for the author's last name and I said "Smith" she said, "Oh." I suggested she write down the book and she did.

Inspired by this book I have been on collecting missions. I have been collecting shadows (pictured above), red things, blue things, green things, yellow things. I have always wanted to go grocery shopping with John Cage, and now I can. What I love most about this book is that it does what the best of inspiration and/or creativity books can do: It propels you not into a new world, but into the world you already live in, but haven't yet discovered. Think of this book as a passport. Trust me, it's a great trip.

Inside the Rooms of Children's Books

We have been blessed with glorious days here in New York. 72 degrees and no clouds at all this weekend. I headed for the park, of course, and proceeded to do something I've always wanted to do: go rowing on the pond. Turns out, it was not only affordable, but BLISSFUL. I went with my pal Michael who rowed the entire time. We were both so inspired by this that we decided on a whim to do something else neither of us had done: Go to Bemelmans' Bar at the Carlyle Hotel.

I think I have found a new way to be happy.


For those of you who know the beautiful children's books of Ludwig Bemelmans, like Madeline, you would appreciate this room covered in murals painted by Bemelmans in 1947. The entire circle of the room is Central Park in all its seasons animated with all Bemelmans' characters, including Madeline. The ceiling is painted in a gold leaf and all the lamps are also hand painted by Bemelmans. I could feel every cell of my body gather and hum as I sat in this gold storybook room. I think I have spent my entire life wanting to inhabit the rooms of the children's books I loved as a kid and this is the closest I have come.

Apparently, Jackie Onassis was a regular here and when she found out that they were going to remodel it into just another Upper East Side Bar, she raised a fuss and saved it from certain death. She also was crucial in saving Grand Central Station too, and THANK GOODNESS. Both these places are beautiful and timeless and like no place else in my opinion. Jackie O had phenomenal taste--who KNEW right? (Just kidding folks.)

I know I will return there to write. I just have to. The existence of such a place is to remind me that magic isn't far away in this town. If I need any inspiration, all I have to do is get on a subway and head up town.

I Made This For You

Nine Things I Know For Sure from Summer Pierre on Vimeo.

I saw Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist so you don't have to

I went to see Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by myself on Friday. I knew the movie had potential to, um, SUCK, but sometimes going to a matinee by yourself isn’t always for the film that will change your life. It’s for the film that no one will go see with you and/or the film that you want to go and see guilt-free. So I went for the reasons that it was a romantic vehicle for Michael Cera, whom I will admit to a teensy old lady crush on, and a film by the director of Raising Victor Vargas (a movie I absolutely loved).

It was exactly as I suspected it to be: a weakly strewn together story, glued together by a heavily pronounced soundtrack of bands you either know or will lie and say you’ve been listening to them for years. It reminded me so much of the 80’s teen movies of my youth, where the combination of meaningful moments, acted by a cast you felt IN with, amongst a soundtrack that kicked ass created an instant autobiographical reference. There’s a scene in Nick & Norah when the band Bishop Allen comes on the stage and it was so directly an echo of a scene in Valley Girl, where the band The Plimsouls that plays “A Million Miles Away,” while Julie and Randy fall madly in love, that it made me laugh out loud. However, Michael Cera, at times a brilliant comedic actor, ain’t no John Cusack and that’s a hard pill to swallow, when you are wishing throughout the movie to fall in love and root for his Nick. Many of you, like me, will go see this movie for Michael Cera, but you will STAY because of Kat Dennings. She is the heart and soul of this movie and may be the answer to smart, sarcastic, unseen, but beautiful girls everywhere. There is something about her the reaches toward The Every Girl and you believe her, despite her incredible (did I say INCREDIBLE?) beauty. It isn’t an alienating, perfection, Barbie/Gossip Girl kind of beauty, but an honest and natural glamour mixed with a toughness and a kind of smarts that make me not only relate to her, but feel like I’ve known her.

On the way home, I kept thinking about what did and didn’t work with the movie. Frankly, I am SO HAPPY there is finally a teen movie where gay boys hang with straight boys and there isn’t one utterance of the word ‘fag’ between them. If only Dennings’ Norah didn’t live the high hipster New York club life or have a famous dad, she could be the center of my dream movie directed by Jane Apatow and Nick would not be at the center of it, but a peripheral guy that gets it and somehow gets her in the end. But alas, it is what it is, but I definitely have a new crush. Move over Michael Cera, there is a new girl in town.

Take a Staycation

The pleasure continues. I made my home into a retreat last night, complete with new flannel sheets and a new reading lamp. One of my absolute favorite things to do is to read in bed, but I haven't had a reading lamp since we moved here. I found a cheap one, and I can't believe I've waited this long!

More substance tomorrow, I promise.

Pleasure Tour: Handstands in Central Park

photos by Graham

Pleasure Power!

I have been looking forward to October for some months--even through my birth month of August. In New York, August isn't that fun, but October--oh, OCTOBER--is so much fun. Yesterday I was getting SUCH a kick out of it finally being October I've decided to dedicate the entire month of October to pleasure. Why not take FULL advantage of a time BRIMMING with pleasure?

So far, it hasn't taken much. Last night I made home made cookie dough ice cream and added extra cookie dough. Today, I wore argyle knee socks AS knee socks for the first time ever. I LOVE IT.

I also stopped on the way to work and took a picture of some blue bricks that have been catching my eye for over a year now. What will the next 29 days hold? Tomorrow maybe a movie ALL BY MYSELF in the early afternoon on a beautiful day! Maybe a morning walk in Central Park with coffee and lots and lots of moments to SNIFF the air. Maybe a massage! Maybe sleeping in or laying in bed and reading. Whatever the act, I am hoping for LOTS OF PLEASURE.

Who's with me?

Ben's Lunches

I am kind of obsessed with my pal Ben's lunches. In the near year we have been eating lunch together I slowly came to appreciate what seems like an epic and COMPLETE lunch, with main course, snack, side, and two kinds of beverages. I knew that we somehow had crossed the line from work buddy to all out conspirators when I asked if we were at the point that I could start photographing his lunch and he responded, "Oh, I think so."

I think they are a thing of beauty. They remind me of the kind of lunches I'd see in commercials as a kid, when advertising things like lunch meat or cereal. Remember how the cereal ads, they'd say, "Part of this nutritious breakfast?" The complete breakfast would be two kinds of beverage, a piece of fruit, toast, and the bowl of cereal. I'd always look at that and think, "Who could eat all that---or even have all that in their kitchen?" I think it's safe to say, Ben would. Notice he is an apple-a-day kind of guy. So far, I have yet to see any doctors in his vicinity, so maybe he is on to something. I love that he eats yogurt almost every day too. We share a passion for the chocolate chip cookies they serve up here at the work cafeteria. Ben and I are convinced they have hired a secret grandma who bakes these things to perfection. Yesterday's (pictured directly above) were particularly good and we said, "Grandma put a little extra somethin' in there today." Man, it was good.