This Is Not Me

Okay, IT IS ME!  SHHHH!  Don't tell!  I am wearing a seasonal disguise designed by Keri Smith in order to make Graham think I am not wrapping a present for him, but a strange, RED HEADED BEARDED MAN is wrapping a present for him.  

I plan to take this with me to Canada for Christmas too, you know, just in case I need to be INCOGNITO during family time.  

Go get your own.  I highly RECOMMEND IT.  

Grand Central Station The Night Before Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from Summer Pierre on Vimeo.

One of the many reasons why I still love her...

People may think that comics that contain personal narratives are something like therapy, but I think it’s the other way around. Therapy is something like comics that contain personal narratives.

-Lynda Barry in answer to the question: How do you feel about the trend in comics to do personal narratives, basically resulting in illustrated therapy...?

Read the whole interview.

Happy Birthday to my late Nana Jean Pierre.  She was probably the best cook I'll ever have known.  My favorite was her chocolate mousse.  She smoked Moore cigarettes and drank gin & tonics.  She had a giddy laugh.  A few years before she died, I sat with her talking and suddenly she snapped up and said, "What time is it, honey?"  She apologized, but nothing was going to stop her from watching The Golden Girls at 1:00.   She dated men named Stew and Mac.  Her first name was Betty, but she had it legally changed to Bette, after you know who, but everybody knew her as Jean.   She might have been a gangster's moll, a movie star, or a great entertainer, but instead she was a lady--and my Nana.  Thank the sweet stars.

Match Point, Mama Kitty

Friends, I give you my latest torment:

The cat upon my desk.  Here at household Parsons-Pierre we do not let cats get on any tabletop surface, counter, or shelf.  The bed, okay.  The chairs and couch, okay.  The desk?  Totally not okay.  But here's the thing:  It has SO MANY enticing things about it for Mama Kitty.  One, it is covered in paper--oh the REVERIE!  Two, it also has two lamps that emit a wonderful spotlight of heat that she can use as her personal sun lamp.  Three, it's mine.  Four, when she does this I get VERY EXCITED and while it's negative attention--it's ATTENTION.

When she came to us on a chilly March day a two and a half years ago, meowing at our door, little did I know I was letting in what might be considered THE MOST STUBBORN CREATURE ON THE PLANET.  I knew she was a spaz, but how could I have predicted a steely determination in her?  She seemed to tuck that away with her like the five kitten stowaways that she carried inside her.  When  I caught her and approached her this morning, for maybe the first of 50 times I will catch her today (mark my words) she seemed slightly ashamed. She looked away, as if to say, "I know, I know.  It embarrasses us both, but I couldn't help it.  Please.  Don't look at me that way."


But then I remembered that cats FEEL NO SHAME and in an instant she stared up at me with such a BRAZEN look of TRIUMPH that said, "Whatcha gonna do, punk?"

So help me, Mama Kitty, you will NOT BREAK ME.  I vow this day, you will STAY OFF MY FRICKN' DESK.  That is not an observation, that is an ORDER.  Otherwise, how will I explain the many cat hairs amongst my manuscript to the publisher?  How will I explain the paw prints?  This is your gravy train speaking.  Are you listening?  Dang.

City & Country

Ladies and gentleman...(drum roll please)...I give you City & Country a new daily blog project by my friend Diane and yours truly.  Diane lives in Vermont (the country) and I live here in Brooklyn (the city) and we thought it might be cool to have images that reflected that.  As Diane's post suggests, we are still working out the KINKS (and I'm not talking about "Lola"), so hang in there with us while we get it going AWN.

Tough Love

Yesterday I sat with a friend who is a gifted writer, but isn't writing and has been sharing with me for months and months all his PLANS and IDEAS and THOUGHTS about his writing, other people's writing, and writing in general.  I won't say all the things--the BIG LIFE things--he has gone through in order to save him from his writing.  Finally, after spending another lunch listening to his MACHINE OF THOUGHT, I stopped him and said more or less: BUT WHAT ABOUT SITTING DOWN AND ACTUALLY WRITING?

What?

For those of us who have been seriously blocked at times--and man, I have been there and can still be there--sometimes the hardest thing to do is to just DO the work ANYWAY (see the first two years of this blog).  I can tell you that when I was blocked I was NOT short on ideas, inspiration, or plans, what I was short on was patience, humility, and action.  I loved the IDEA of creating in a concrete way, but for the longest time I was not willing to be bad or a beginner again.  I was in love with my own history as an artist--the times I was flowing with work or living what I perceived looking back as an idyllic time.  I combed over my songs, my poems, my art that I had completed like precious, frozen love affairs that I could not leave behind.  The truth was I just needed to sit down and DO.  What this required was willing to feel like a complete loser, to be boring, to be really BAD, and to live with the shame and pain of leaving behind my perfect, frozen past, and admit to where I really was--as imperfect and unromantic as it was.

I am living one of those flowing periods, but I know--like any long term relationship--there is the potential for it to stall again, to be feel a sense of emptiness and without magic.  I have learned that a certain kind of amnesia can come over me at the oddest times, and I will forget the easiest solutions over and over again.  My brain is so CRAFTY this way, and then I will remember and think *EUREKA!* only to forget all over again.  

I kept thinking that if I mastered something, it wouldn't happen again, but that's just part of the reuse.  I know of some people--famous people--who have created what some might consider THE GREATEST art and are now struggling to get back on the horse.  I mean, where do you go when you've reached the HIGHEST PEAK?  You have to sit down and be a beginner, be bad, be bored, have humility and work in the dark pit of doubt--like every other slob.  Nobody escapes being the poor slob. 

  Ways in which blocks can manifest themselves:  I need to do more research, I need more inspiration, a new place to create, more coffee, chocolate, a new place to live, more time, a new job, etc.  Well, maybe you do, but when does that end?

Here's another way to tell if you are blocked:  You have to TALK about your creation A LOT.  I learned that when I am actually DOING I shut the hell up (hence the decrease in blog entries).  I've been surprised by how HARD it is to talk about my projects when I am actually doing them.  I used to listen to authors or artist say witty awesome things about their work and fantasize HUGELY about doing the same thing, but when people ask me about things right now I just feel LAME and STIFF and unable to speak adequately to what I am making.  Maybe that's for the better.  I'd be wasting my valuable resources of energy talking about it.

I believe life is magical, but sometimes the most magical things are the most ordinary and boring like cold, hard, action.  I told my friend yesterday that in order to get to the romantic magical part of it again, he needed to be willing to go through the dry, MEANINGLESS parts too.  A commitment is not a single moment, it goes on and on and on.  It may seem impossible, I know, but this is the toughest kind of love--to show up when it gets hard and say this means enough to me to try and have that be enough.   

This Is What Happens When You Wear The Same Outfits to Work

You become a dynamic FOLK DUO called Adrienne & Jose!

Graffiti as Animation

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

One of the coolest things I've seen in awhile (link via the lounge blog).  So many people are doing AMAZING ART out there.  Blu is one of them.  Even Blu's website is inspiring.  Gah!  Now if you'll excuse me, my head is about to explode.

We Are Sick

Both of us.  Graham and I are both in bed.  Me going on 3 days, Graham is going towards two.  He already had some other cold, which is what I thought I got, but it turns out it's different, because he now has what I have.  Oh the irony of germs!

So we've watched several movies (Attack of the 50 ft. Woman, Sicko, Showgirls, The Invisible Man) and have read books (Cat's Cradle, Introduction to Political Economy) and are eating our way out of soups, drinking our way out of tea, apple cider, and water.  In case you are wondering, yes, we are peeing every 5 minutes and in answer to the question you really wanted to ask, neither of us had seen Showgirls and man, it really IS that bad.

I am looking forward to my ears being unplugged and sweats and pajamas being a comfort instead of a uniform.  Sometimes it is a relief to be sick because you can give up and sleep and be in bed, but when it's 3 days, it gets a little old.  

More bed discoveries:

Fred Muram, a photographer that Camilla suggested and that I love.  Especially this work and this work and this work.

Wish us well.

Houston, We Have Ignition

Unbelievable, but true--WE HAVE INTERNET.  

HOLYSMOKES!  

I am in bed with a sore throat and typing this exciting news to you.  

It feels like a funny, new world.  

Some of my bed bound browsing has led me to these inspired things:

I made you a beard

Blonde Redhead video (that I wish I made)

Fun Chicken

Alice Walker's Open Letter to Obama

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

Read the whole letter--it's beautiful.

(thank you Michael B. Cohen who sent it to me!)

My Ex

A guy I work with went to see some friends of mine play a gig at Joe's Pub. He didn't know that I knew them, but when he mentioned he was going to the show I cheered and said, "Yay! My friends!" The next day he was very excited about the show and asked in a sort of heavy manner, "So...how well do you know them?" I said I knew them very well, because we go way back. It's been about 11 years since I met one of them at an open mic and we became instant pals and supporters.

Today this work pal said to me, "So, you ever think about doing music again? It seems like you're in pretty cool company." And I felt that old ex of mine--my career in music--haunt me for just a moment. I felt that old ego stir and take a big old yawn and lick its chops and look around to see what was up.

I wonder if I'll ever really get over the pain of my first arty love life. It feels like a messy divorce I'll always carry with me on some level. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY HAPPY. When things kind of went KABLOOEY in my musical and personal life I never in a million years imagined this content, inspired, and happy life I live now. Even when I was "making it" as a musician, I never thought I could feel this stable and this FULFILLED, but that was part of the problem.

It's hard to explain to people when you are really good at something, why it's not really good for you. I can remember when I was first starting out, I met a young musician who had just come off the road with The Lilith Fair and she said that she was on her last tour because she was going to go back to school. "Why are you doing that?" I so innocently wanted to know. "I want to get going on my real life." She said and I thought she must be the CRAZIEST lady on the planet. Why would you EVER turn your back on what I saw as the glittering horizon of Neverneverland? I would have KILLED to be in her shoes, but now I look back at that conversation and say honey, if you're out there--GOD SPEED TO YOU.

I don't know why something works for some people, while it doesn't work for others. I wasn't the only broken, confused, and (dare I say it?) talented person to ever pick up a guitar. Most of the people I knew in the music scene were totally out of their minds on some level and yet, for whatever reason some of them continued on and did great. Some people, like my friends, are THRIVING. It is good for me to remember in moments when the my heart hurts that I didn't THRIVE doing music and I am THRIVING now.

It also helps to remember that no one could explain to a twenty-something me that the world and my own life was larger than I ever could have imagined and that it really didn't all come down to NOW or NEVER or ALWAYS or NEVER or BLACK or WHITE or RIGHT or WRONG or YES or NO. Age is much more generous in this one way. It gives you the gift of resizing.

Still, that old feeling of loss and love came over me today and it comes over me now as I write this down. So I answer it, like I answered my work pal, "Yeah, I AM in good company." The best.

Out of the Wilderness

Okay, I am laying down and saying UNCLE.

UNCLE!

I'm excited to announce that I have finally BROKEN DOWN and will cease living an Internet guerilla existence as of this Friday afternoon. G. & I are leaving the wilderness at last and getting our own reliable service at home and I am so relieved by this. I liked not having it at home in any consistent way because it limited my use of it, but the volume of work both my employed kind and personal artistic kind has gone through the roof, and I haven't been able to keep up with the volume of e-mail and blogging. I might still have no Internet on weekends policy, but Monday-Friday I will be able to FINALLY stay up to speed.

Up until Thursday, I was getting up at 5:30 to work on (ahem) the book and other projects like my story for my writing group and my latest illustration for Skirt!, etc. until a bout of frantic insomnia-like nights have jack knifed my neat, but frantic speed. The 2 book deal and then Obama winning made me about as HYPER as a hypoglycemic kid on poprocks and Pepsi. I forget how (cough) sensitive I can be to stimulation and when I can't simmer down it becomes a problem. This probably sounds a bit ridiculous to many of you, but it's actually not an exaggeration. I get WIRED pretty easily. I've been over the moon for about a month now and I'd like to come down now. I've had to start making a rule that I will not work on my book in the afternoons or evenings, because I get so AMPED up. I went and saw the William Eggleston show at the Whitney on Saturday and it inspired me so much that I was STILL blooming with plans at 10:00 when it was time for bed. I like having ideas and big thoughts, but my brain can't turn off as of late and that is a problem. I'd like to get some sleep and not be awoken by something only to have a series of IDEAS and BIG THOUGHTS flash at me like billboards in Las Vegas. They are SO dazzling, but enough is enough.

So, you'll have to pardon me if it's a bit sparse around here for the next week. I am doing shit and trying to sleep. In the meantime, you should know I am reading Kurt Vonnegut and loving it. I saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno and all I can say is, yes they did. In the mornings I listen to Glenn Gould and he is what I like working to the most these days. I am thinking of Ariel on her writing retreat and wishing her well. I am wishing you well too. See you soon.

This is the sound of history.

Well, I don't know about all of you out there, but the tears have not stopped shedding out of pride, amazement and joy. THANK YOU GOD.

I had big plans to be a part in the historic day yesterday, but I was pinned to the bed with a migraine the size of the electoral vote and wasn't able to keep anything down until last night. At about 6:00pm I said to Graham that the next time I threw up we should book it to the polling place, because I had a good 20 minutes before I would need to throw up again. That's just what we did and I made it home in time to be sick one last time. I had plans to have dinner with my friend Nate, but when I called to cancel, he said, "Don't worry about voting--just get better." I said I would carry a BUCKET with me to the polling place before I stayed home and didn't vote.

As soon as I knew he had Ohio, I let myself go back to bed. It was such a warm night that I slept with the windows open. Later, I was awoken to the sound of horns honking and people cheering in the streets "Obama!" Then I knew we had clinched it.

Nate stood for 3 hours in Atlanta last week to do early voting. He said that he didn't think he would have done that in 2000. He MIGHT have done that in 2004, but it would have been about FEAR and HATE, rather than for what it was about yesterday--LOVE and HOPE. For so many of us, Obama was not a convenient vote. It wasn't about lashing out AGAINST anything, it was about reaching out TOWARDS something. It was an honor and a privilege to vote for him. I will never forget this feeling as long as I live-- a feeling of pride and a love for my country that extends beyond the barriers of the world.

This morning as I walked out into the fall day the trees were aglow with that intense fiery colors. I walked towards them with a similar feeling--a feeling that I was part of the world and filled with light.

New Web Site!

I am THRILLED to announce that I have FINALLY updated my web site! Hallelujah! A BIG thank you to Meg Frost for helping me do this! Hip Hip Hooray!