Art and Science and Penguins

Hello, readers.

It's very nearly the end of the year, and of the decade. A lot of people are making lists of things. I thought I might make lists, too, so as to not to feel left out or miss the momentousness of an arbitrary block of time passing.

Possible lists pondered included:

1) Things other people taught me to love.
2) Stories about mice and/or rats. Possibly two overlapping lists--a Venn diagram might be called for.
3) Movies in which there are surprising penguins (Fight Club, for example).
4) Random lines written while nanowrimoing. Something like, "The crow's name was Benson."

And so forth.

And I may do this, because I do love lists.

But, this past yesterday, I saw a film called Between the Folds. The Nashville Library showed it as part of the Independent Lens community series. It was about origami. It was also about art and science, creativity versus technique, odd passions, deep love, and having fun.

It was narrated by a very somber voiced lady and included very serious piano music. That didn't take away from the joy, though.

Here are origami pictures to make your mouth open and go "Ohhh."





After the movie, there was a Q&A with a mathematician, painter, physicist, and paper folder. People asked about fractals, fibonaccis, and pop-up books. I asked about whether as scientists and artists they felt like they were discovering or creating their science or art. It was a mean question that I was proud of. The mathematician said it would take all night to answer, but they did what they could in five minutes or so.

A dark haired girl with very stylish glasses made a comment after this, about my question. She began by looking at the panel and ended by looking at me and talking about scientists playing a game with light, deciding it was a point or a wave as their whims and situations demanded. "Do you see?" she said. "Yes," I nodded.

I think the lesson here is that paper is cool and we should not forget about it as we advance into the future decades.

If you're in Nashville tonight, and attending the Regina Spektor concert, I'll be in the balcony, left section, mid-way up. Wave in my general direction. I probably won't see you but it'll be a nice gesture.

Happy Monday, readers.

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Something Completely Different

Hello, readers.

It's Friday the Thirteenth.

Here's something truly terrifying to wear on your feet.


Here's what it's based on.



My sister once traumatized a small child with this scene. He got better.

Happy Horrors, readers.


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Lynda Barry Says What I Said

Mostly because I was saying what she said.

Reading What It Is got me into writing in a notebook. It's also what woke me up during a time of my life in which I needed waking. There's a whole thing in there about how to save a kingdom turned to stone. It proved helpful.

Nanowrimo has a pep talk from Lynda Barry today. It is about writing by hand and the invisible thing that is the thing we're chasing.

Go read, feel pepped.

If you need more pep, read Junot Diaz, here, talking about failing for five years, then failing less for another two years, and then sort of being okay.

Happy Wednesday, readers.


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p.s. Dollhouse is cancelled. I had, for the longest time, been slightly wary of it, as though it were a dog I loved very much but it was looking at me funny like maybe something large had hit it and now it thought it was a raccoon.

Which is to say, all of Joss Whedon's shows, have been driven by one thing. The mission. Buffy had her demons. Angel had the champion thing. Nothing that we do matters. The only thing that matters is what we do.

Mal was simpler and more complicated. He wanted freedom.

For that longest time, mentioned earlier, I did not understand the Dollhouse mission. I could not find my Whedon. He was there, hidden in very small, beautiful, sad things, like the exchange of doll and tech:

Did I fall asleep?
For a little while.

He was there in the obviousness of women being controlled. He was there in the very basic Whedon idea that good and evil are beside the point. In the end, it's about power.

But I didn't understand the mission.

And then, very recently, I did.

Some people aren't ready to wake up, the man said.

Something bad is coming, said the girl. And I want everyone to survive it.

More subtle than demons, simpler even, than freedom. Simply, and only, to wake people up so they don't fall asleep. Not again. Not ever. Not even for a little while.

And now it's cancelled. And it's not surprising. And it wasn't Whedon's best, but I was ready, readers. I was ready to wake up again.

Alas. Alas. Alas.

Thirds and Thrices

Hello, readers.

Being November 10th, we are a third of the way through the month. It's unclear how many thirds of the way I am through this possible novel possibly being written for #nanowrimo. It would help if I knew exactly what the story was or how long it was and if I wrote on a computer. Writing in a notebook began as a way to avoid RSI, and has become, for me, a lovely way to be still and focus and doodle in the margins, but it does not lend itself to word counts.

Other things happening today include Neil Gaiman being born in another universe where it is today but 49 years ago...otherwise known as the past if you believe in that sort of thing.

Also, my computer has begun acting wonky and will not let me click on things. This doesn't happen with a notebook.

Wyeths, Moondancing, and Historians

Hello there.

See, that's different. I didn't say, Hello, readers.

Another different thing I did today was walk around the neighborhood in a women's jacket from Old Navy and a spiffy hat. People said I looked like a movie star. I'll trust them to be right.

Yesterday, Andrew Wyeth's granddaughter held court at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art. This was a very ritzy place in a ritzy area called Belle Meade. There was a woman manning a gate who directed visitors where to go. Where we went was the Visitor Center.

They had a large room full of chairs which were full of people. The granddaughter, Victoria, stood at the front. Behind her were projected her grandfather's work.

Her grandfather was in love with light and belt buckles and everything. She said he loved SUVs. When he became older, in his eighties or so, he drove out in the woods, cranked the heat, and sat in the trunk, painting trees (you never met a man who could fall so in love with a tree). Another thing is he loved painting the same people over and over.

This was the true test. Looking at the same face again and again and again and finding something to be excited about. To love.


"Why do you paint people from the back," she asked her grandfather.

"Imagination," he said.

"Why did you paint that woman in the fool's cap naked?" she said.

"That's how I dreamed her," he said.

Victoria loved her grandfather very much. His death left a hole in her heart. She is still excited. She does impressions of him. She re-enacts whole conversations. She inherited his love of things. If she's coming to a town near you, check her out.

Tomorrow, I think, I may go see Doris Kearns Goodwin receive the Nashville Public Library Literary Award. Presumably, she will not be showing pictures of naked moondancing, but one can hope.

Happy Friday, readers.


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Positive things to be excited about...

Hello, readers.

It's Guy Fawkes day. So, if you haven't almost not quite blown up something lately, get to it.

This morning, I managed not to blow up anyone with meteors. It's still unclear if it's a novel, though. But it has people and not-people talking and riding subways and we'll see.

There's a new story up at the Interstitial Annex. "Quiz" by Eilis O'Neal. It ponders things about stepmothers, frogs, and promises. These are ponders worth pondering if ever a ponder bothered to ponder, wouldn't you say?

Over in England, there's a graphic novel called Salem Brownstone that Alan Moore is excited about. If he was excited about shoe polish it would be worth a read and so we should probably pay attention.

A co-founder of Comic-Con, Sheldon Dorf, passed away this week. Technically this isn't a positive thing to get excited about, but it seemed worth a mention.

Kelly Link and Gavin Grant won a World Fantasy Award for Small Beer Press. Several other people and books won awards, too.

There's a new comic book based on a concept album that is getting made into a movie. It's all due to A Life of Science and their being a very ambitious band.

A collection of Steve Ditko's more macabre early comics has been collected. Fantagraphics is offering a free pdf preview.

Happy Failed, but Immortal, Revolutions, readers.


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Various Unsurprising Things and Two Things Possibly Less Unsurprising

Hello, readers.

It's November, and I've gone and done something rather rash again, in that I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo even though I'm already at least two days late and so already hopelessly behind. Alas.

In other, unsurprising, news:

Michael Chabon loves the new Dr. Who. This get a mention in Charlie Jane Anders' review of Manhood for Amateurs.

I liked this bit from the Loser's Club essay.

"Every work of art is one half of a secret handshake, a challenge that seeks the password, a heliograph flashed from a tower window, an act of hopeless optimism in the service of bottomless longing. Every great record or novel or comic book convenes the first meeting of a fan club whose membership stands forever at one but which maintains chapters in every city — in every cranium — in the world. Art, like fandom, asserts the possibility of fellowship in a world built entirely from the materials of solitude. The novelist, the cartoonist, the songwriter, knows that the gesture is doomed from the beginning but makes it anyway, flashes his or her bit of mirror, not on the chance that the signal will be seen or understood but as if such a chance existed."

That I like something Michael Chabon wrote also qualifies as unsurprising news.

In more surprising news, if ever you thought, hey, didn't Michael Chabon one time have a website wherein he archived all his essays? You would be thinking correctly. It went away a long time ago, though.

Luckily, the past isn't dead--it isn't even past.*

There is a website called the Wayback Machine. It archives the web. Something you wrote is probably there. Many things that Michael Chabon wrote are.

Time, like so many things, is bigger on the inside.

Enjoy your time travels, readers.

Happy Tuesday.


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*This may come as a surprise, but William Faulkner was quite the zombie fighter in his day. His preferred weapon? A 2x4.