Tag: art

Plotting


Haven’t written in this journal in a while. It’s a gift from Lynne that I use as a sort of character journal when I’m trying to figure out things in the Neverending Saga. I blurred out the thoughts I wrote down, and tried to photograph it in such a way that you could see what the dragonflies look like with and without their shimmer.


I liked the quote from George Sand because the character I’m writing is making changes to her life, her home, herself. To me, she’s a person who shines, but not every character sees her the way I do. That seems true to life. When I was young, I wanted all my friends, however different they were from one another, to know and be friends, too. Experience taught me how unrealistic that is.

Today I watched a 2016 film called Maudie which came highly recommended by a dear friend of many decades. I think she realized I’d like it both as a character study and a look into the life of an artist. It’s an odd kind of…romance…and it’s quite sad. Really, it’s both sad and somehow not sad. The character Maudie is played by an English actor, Sally Hawkins, who won lots of praise and awards for the role. Interestingly, the male lead is played by Ethan Hawke. My friend didn’t know it was supposed to have been my Ethan Hawke summer, so it was a cool coincidence. Sometimes people who know and love us have an intuitive sense not only of what we’d like, but when we need it. It’s a great part of friendship.

Mushroom House

Too many days of death and disaster in the world. Wars. Politics. Hurricanes. I’m weary.

Tonight I needed to do something to wind down before bed. Despite having a shelf packed full of coloring books, I looked online for free downloadable coloring pages, knowing something would be easy and appeal to me sooner or later.


“Kawaii Mushroom House” from momlovesbest.com. When it was finished and I went to put it in my book of collected coloring pages, I realized I didn’t color at all in September. Movies. Books. Life. I’m glad I did this tonight. Sometimes a person just needs a cozy little fantasy.

Regarding my creative output, October’s the month I post every day on Instagram, which is not at all my usual practice. Every October for years, I’ve brought out the skeletons Lord Cuttlebone and his nephew Ambrose to pose them in photos. We’re two days in now. Music is my 2024 theme. Even if you clicked the Instagram link on the right and got to my feed, when I do that, I’m not hearing the music I add to the posts. I can only hear it when I access Instagram via my phone. I don’t know what’s up with that.

Sunday Sundries

Inspired by another Word Search Puzzle, I pulled books from my shelves that feature some of my favorite cartoon characters. I think for most of the early part of my life, Peanuts would have been the cartoon or comic I knew best. Since I’ve featured Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and friends many times, many ways on this website, I don’t feel at all bad that I don’t have any Peanuts books. (I do have a set of cartoons I took out of one of my mother’s books from the 1960s, but I’m not sure where those are.) My Christmas ornaments, old refrigerator magnets, and many other random items feature Peanuts characters. Even the housewarming present our realtor gave us when we closed on Houndstooth Hall was…

As an older child, I read the comics in our Sunday newspapers: Dagwood and Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Family Circus, Prince Valiant, Mary Worth, Dennis the Menace, Pogo, Heathcliff, Garfield, Boondocks, For Better or Worse–the list could go on, because I read all of them in the paper, even the ones that weren’t funny or I didn’t really like/appreciate at that age. OH, and the Love Is couple!

When I became friends with Lynne at age twelve, I was introduced to comic books, because she had so many: Archie and the full Riverdale cast, Casper and Wendy, Little Lulu, Richie Rich, Pink Panther.


Later, these became some of my favorites, which is why I have books of several: Doonesbury, The Far Side, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, and Foxtrot. Some of of these, and some from the categories listed earlier, I still read via my Instagram feed.

Below is the puzzle that started me on this topic, and from its list, I read these (not already mentioned): Cathy, Dilbert, Mutts, Hi and Lois, Marmaduke, and maybe a couple of others.

Do you still read or follow cartoons, comics, or the funny papers? Which are your favorites?

The Héctor Elizondo Effect

I found an article, “Your Cynicism Isn’t Helping Anybody,” completely by accident, and finally, I have a succinct, orderly explanation for why I often call myself a skeptic and why, for many years including right here on this website, I have denounced cynicism. (I think my earliest mention was on Christmas Eve 2007, when I quoted Carol Burnett’s interview on “Inside The Actors Studio,” wherein she said her least favorite word is “cynicism.” INDEED.)

The article I found is from Time, and I know people very often don’t click on links, but you can read it in five or fewer minutes here. I don’t dare post it in its entirety, because I don’t want to violate copyright. In the article, Zaki rebuts and questions the following MYTHS: that cynicism is clever, safe, or moral. In fact, he says, cynicism is a trap that makes us underestimate and distrust others.

Damn near everyone I know, and believe me, that group covers a range of beliefs and attitudes related to the “forbidden” topics: sex, money, politics, and religion, keeps bringing up in our conversations, and on their social media, the same questions these days: why is everyone so mean now, why is everyone so divided and disconnected, and why does no one trust anybody? I agree with the take in this article, that “cynicism,” and the way cynicism is used against us, is at the root of these problems. I’m not a cynic, but possibly I’ll end up getting Zaki’s book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, because that’s how much this article resonated with me.

The many forms of art and creativity can offer us several things. Art can confront us with what’s wrong and destructive in the world and challenge us to make things better in large and small ways. Art can remind us of our common connections and give us hope. Art can elicit our humanity by giving us the opportunity to laugh, weep, and wonder. I’m grateful that during a challenging few months, I’ve had movies to remind me of all of this. My most recent rewatches have been:


1991’s Frankie & Johnny, 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding, 1999’s Runaway Bride

Along with their humor, all three of these movies illustrate what a difference believing in oneself and others, or NOT believing in oneself and others, can make in their characters’ lives. Relationships that endure make room for apologies, forgiveness, and changes. Once again, the lead actors inhabit the lives of their characters skillfully, and Héctor Elizondo is in two of the three films, along with others I’ve already watched. If he ever plays a bad guy, I don’t want to see it. =)

Low Key Saturday

Today I didn’t color anything or reread anyone’s novels or rewatch any movies. I only reread the Book 7 manuscript of the Neverending Saga and resumed working on the chapter I’ve been stalled on for a while. There are no photos to illustrate that, or the dinner I cooked, which is noteworthy only because I cook so few meals these days. We’re eating light or picking up from restaurants (not fast food, which is even rarer than homecooked) this summer.

Maybe things are stalled at Houndstooth Hall because a few things are waiting for Mercury to go direct. I don’t mess around with Mercury. =)

I uploaded the cartoon below early in July but don’t think I ever shared it. Conventional wisdom has it that we don’t particularly enjoy hearing accounts of other people’s dreams. My own dreams have been busy, with very large casts, and I’ve kept them to myself. But imagine if you were a therapist…or went to a therapist, and… 🤣

Photo Friday, No. 923

Current Photo Friday theme: Museum


Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1996
Shot on film with Canon AE-1

This is one of the places Amy, Tom, and I visited when we volunteered at the NAMES Project’s AIDS Quilt display. Founded in 1869, the Corcoran Gallery of Art was the first institution in the United States created specifically as an art museum. The Beaux Arts building that housed it was designed by Ernest Flagg and opened in 1897.

When the museum closed in 2014, the National Gallery acquired approximately half of the Corcoran Collection, and the remaining objects were distributed to other museums in the Washington, D.C., area. The building is now home to the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, part of George Washington University. Located at 500 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Happiness…

If you like short stories, before I changed my sidebar links to various merchants, Houston-based and otherwise, I always had a link to Jeffrey Ricker’s website. ← If you visit that link and sign up for his newsletter (trust me, you won’t be inundated with e-mail from him, and what you do get will be informative, thoughtful, and often humorous, because that’s basically the man I know), you’ll get the opportunity to download a pdf file with five of his short stories.

There’s a reason why Timothy and I included Jeffrey in the anthologies we edited, and why I’ll always read him, even when he writes outside the genres I usually read. Good writing is good writing.

Yesterday, brace yourself, I didn’t watch any RomComs or any movie at all. I did other things, mainly working on my manuscript. Slowly, but progress is progress. I also took a break to glance through the pages of Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal. I followed the direction on a double page to create a nonstop line. Then I realized it looked like “The Long and Winding Road,” so I paged through my sticker books and sheets and turned it into a journey with roadsigns (the “roadsigns” come from Adam J. Kurtz’s sticker book).


Today, along with mending Eva’s favorite dog bed, I watched one romantic comedy, my beloved Notting Hill from 1999 (twenty-five years old, geez). I was reminded again of one of my favorite lines, when Anna and William discuss Russian-French artist Marc Chagall’s painting La Mariée:

“Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat,” Anna Scott, Notting Hill.


Damn right.

Speaking of violinists, in the Neverending Saga chapter in progress, I reference a character who plays violin. Seems like a nudge to get back to my manuscript. Maybe before bedtime, I’ll watch 1989’s Cousins with Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, Sean Young, and William Petersen.

Oh, yeah, bonus: In Notting Hill, Hugh Grant’s character owns a bookstore.