Monthly Archives: November 2011

Lullaby Ten Thousand

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A meditative calm is settling on me this morning as I think about the week ahead and all of the things that fill my life with thanks-worthy graces, so I shall sing you a lullaby to try to put you in a similar frame of mind. (Please make the tune as sweet and pretty as it suits you to hear!)photoLullaby Ten Thousand

Lie asleep, my languid love, with muses ’round your bed

To whisper dreaming in your ear, lay garlands on your head,

To kiss your cheek with zephyr lips, your heart fill up with peace,

And when the daybreak comes again, sing gently your release

From nighttime and its starry net, to draw you up, away

Into ten thousand leagues of joy, renewed, into the day

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The Latest Dance Craze, and I Do Mean Latest

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photoTarantella* for Arachnophobes

I’m told a lizard ought to find

small creatures of arachnid-kind

as tasty and desirable

a treat to make the tummy full

as anyone could wish to munch–

but I hate them, that horrid bunch!

Spiders, to me, are crawly, creepy

creatures; make me frightened, weepy,

send me under my bed, my couch,

in a zipping zing or a crunching crouch;

they make me itch in my lizard pants,

in my reptile rooms, until I prance

around the house in a manic dance!

I try to shake my whole belief

that they’re attacking; no relief

is found when I am faced with grief

from eight-legg’d monsters or their kin,

and then such dancing must begin!

I’m forced to writhe and wriggle madly,

spin and struggle wildly (sadly),

and last, because the fear remains,

tromp out a tarantella, badly!

O, would that I could simply snap

my jaws on that small hairy chap

the spider, show no fear of death;

instead, I lose my very breath

and shrivel, like the brink of doom

has entered in my living room!

What was my fateful youthful sinning

set my head and heart to spinning

like a dervish when one shows,

to tearing my poor lizard clothes,

sneezing out of my reptile nose

and stretching like a garden hose

to flee arachnids; why do those

bring fear into my scaly soul?

I only know my utter goal

when spiders enter into view

is: dance until they set on you.

* Just so’s you know, I do realize that this poem in no way conforms to any of the traditional Tarantella forms, nor will dancing whilst reciting it actually cure you if you should be gnawed on by a spider, but it might possibly frighten away any proximal tarantulas–as well as humans–if you dance in an appropriately bizarre fashion during your recitation.

digital photo-collageTotentanz

I shall sing you a ditty, you fine dead folk;

dance along to it if you like; no joke:

for naught’s so right in my heart and head

as to pay respect to the honored dead,

who have earned the ease of their Late condition,

but also deserve deep recognition,

and might be glad to take part, perchance,

in a little postmortem song and dance.

In limpid blue and livid red

but nary a drop of gloom or dread

I’ll dress my act for each measured measure,

creating a funerary pleasure

to honor the love, in my death-knell song,

of those dear departed, the moved-along,

and move, if I can, each girl and boy

to dance a jig of unceasing joy,

remembering all you dead-and-done

with fond frivolity, every one,

dancing our socks off, slow or fast,

as we sing and swing to the very last,

and when ghost-persons join, their haunts

bring cheer to the perfect Totentanz.

Cave Painting for Dummies

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Who was it that first looked at a rock and thought, "Now *that'd* make a great TOOL"?

I’m fascinated by pioneers, inventors and explorers. Such minds are truly alien to me; how is it possible for a person to look at the same world that every other person has been looking at for ages and see something entirely different, something new? It’s nothing short of astounding that, when presented with what might be the deeply familiar, one person’s distinctive set of synapses suddenly makes a new constellation from the assorted bits of seen-before information to create a completely new idea–and out of this there is a new object or a new skill or a newly discovered country, in that one event changing the known world into a whole different thing.

I’m quite excited but not intimidated by doing that sort of inventive stuff artistically–in imaginary terms–but it’s quite another thing to consider pulling that sort of stunt to get a practical outcome. Those people able to envision a useful and purposeful way to take advantage of existing stuff have provided innumerable advances for human culture. I’m especially amazed by the intrepid andcourageous (or foolhardy) folk that break trail, build roads, cross unknown oceans and so much more, to open up new concepts and ideas to shift our entire understanding of our universe.

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Who stacked the stones that made the very first wall? The first road between walled places? The first trek that plotted the course of the road?

What gives me courage is that not only are there stronger and braver souls than li’l ol’ me to do all of the serious exploring and adventuring and discovery, but that somewhere along the line someone had the inspiration to make melodious sounds and so, sang. Made a drum from a log. Painted with blood or powder or crushed plants on a cliff side or a cave wall. It’s a wonder and a grandly glorious gift that these superlative scientists-of-delight chose–or were compelled–to create dance and drama and song and pictorial beauty, and the more so because they decided, somewhere along the line, to pass along their newly discovered links to yet more undiscovered worlds. They taught the next generation to do the same. On the strength of this wonder, we are the long-time beneficiaries of these marvels, and as it happens, the torch-bearers by whom this will be carried into the future.

So I’m not the heroine who’ll be discovering an unknown species of beneficial insect, finding the previously unseen river, designing the DNA modification that cures Alzheimer’s, or changing the course of history in any way, shape or form. But I will be using shape and form, along with color and texture, character and text, to see what I can bring to this world as we know it, to see how a measly twerp with less sophistication than your average cave-dweller might be able to be an inventor and discoverer of my own sort of thing.

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. . . and I'll keep my eyes open for inspirations wherever they may be . . .

Brace Yourselves! Commissioned Salesman Ahead

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I am not fearless. There are so many things, situations, creatures and people capable of putting me right into a state where I quiver all over like Billie Burke‘s ‘Glinda‘ vibrato that you’d be harder pressed perhaps to find anything that doesn’t scare me. I may possibly be the biggest nervous Nelly alive.

But there are few fears that compare, in my catalog of terrors and trembling, with unwanted attention from anybody trying to sell me anything. Even, sometimes, things I might actually want. I dread confrontation of any kind, and will gladly spend the afternoon crouching uncomfortably behind a large spittoon if it means I can evade the silky admonitions of a time-share agent. I could easily be persuaded to skip bail and dodge out of the country incognito if I think I’m being pursued by an eager pamphleteer or community activist, no matter how praiseworthy I think her cause.

My ideal world is one in which, when together, we all cheerfully agree 100% on every concept and construct governing the universe and our little souls within it, and it doesn’t matter a tenth of an iota that in our hearts we know that to be a false front. We can just make nice for the nonce, skip around giving each other sweet-natured high fives, sing charming campfire songs until we begin to feel faint or peckish, and then meander off, comfortably believing whatever it is each of us needs to believe when we get back to our own happy huts. Okay, that modus operandi may be a bit of a push, and I really don’t want to force the idea on you, since that would belie my whole premise. (AWKward!) But still. Can’t we all back off on the urgency of our personal agenda sales pitches just a little?

digital photo illustrationKnow Your Audience–and Your Auditorium

When proselytizing,

You may find it surprising

That all are not moved

To be so improved

As you might hope,

Be you the Pope

Or Guru wise,

So proselytize,

Whether thinly or thickly,

With an eye on the door for exiting quickly.

digital photo illustration

Pardon My Parsnips!

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You and Your Old-World Charm

I sigh, I wrack my soul with darkest sorrows

for yesterday’s delights, not for tomorrow’s;

I’m dancing backwards all the time you’re near

in fear that all my romance only borrows

–or steals, perhaps–from something far too shining

and too refined for wasting on repining,

those salad days we ought to hold so dear

instead of wasting happiness with whining . . .

I will stop whimpering like boobs and babies,

and let go of the wherefore-nots and maybes;

instead I’ll let your elegance and charm

revive me from this case of “retro-rabies”,

reminding me time’s such a grand invention,

a Golden Age not lost to this dimension,

as long as boulevardiers remain,

like you, aptly distracting our attention

with courtly kisses and such furbelows

and petals hung on every breeze that blows,

bringing the romance back into the present:

yes, I can fall in love with all of those . . .

watercolorPardon My Parsnips

Parkinson’s particular

pet pudding’s par-cooked parkin;

his partner’s partial to parfait,

that paragon; yet hearken:

those sub-par parabolic parts

of almonds, partly parted–

not fully sliced, par excellence—

make Parkinson hard-hearted,

for those same partial nonpareils

leave his poor partner parched

for parsley tea to the degree

you’d pardon if he marched,

parade-like, past, departed hence

to parsley gardens, fast,

in search of same to quench the flame,

–apparently aghast–

and Parkinson in repartee

imparted their remorse:

“Though sparse, the parcels of our thanks

are thus par for the course.”

Then Parsons, partner to the man,

now almond-paroxysed,

creaks out a tea-tinged parable

of why he’s paralyzed;

and both the partners no parfait

or parkin now partake,

but parsnips parsimonious,

and pears, for safety’s sake.

watercolor/acrylic on canvas

Let Out the Waistband a Little, Wontcha

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photoBig as All Outdoors

Though she’s partial to the taste

Of homely things, she would not shun

A lobster tail or truffle, waste

Fine wine, or insult anyone

Who’s made the effort to provide

Her with the best the fecund earth

Produces, so she opens wide,

And so maintains her striking girth

garphite drawingMy paternal grandfather was a fabulous person, a super-grandpa. He was also a well-rounded man. He used to tell us kids he had a ‘watermelon’ stashed under his belt, and we had little reason to doubt it. Clearly a man so full of joie de vivre could have no worse burden than being shaped like the centerpiece of a summer picnic. Unfortunately in combination with an imperfectly functioning ticker this particular element of his physique probably led down a fairly direct path to his early death. But honestly, I can’t say it’s likely he’d’ve traded for more years of life if it meant giving up any serious amount of the good food he adored. He didn’t seem too distressed when laughingly relating his trip to a clothier where he’d been rather imperiously informed by the tailor that he was Portly and would require a bit of special attention to be well fitted.

Me, I can’t say I’d find it easy to choose differently than he did. Because food is a grand part of my joie de vivre as well. I’m more likely to reenact his slightly sheepish yet cheery confession when Grandma caught him almost literally with his hand in the cookie jar and he told her “I only ate fourteen.” Or I’ll quote his favorite refrain about virtually anything edible: “Wouldn’t this be great with some chocolate ice cream!”

photoWhether the menu du jour is old-school comfort food like lemony shellfish over butter-steamed beet greens, a cheeseburger-meatloaf or an egg salad sandwich, or is some fantastic concoction full of exotic ingredients (probably made by more skilled hands than mine, in that case), count on me jumping into the buffet line right away. Hey, I give myself aerobic credit for the jumping, for starters. The exercise’ll help improve my odds, right Grandpa? I’m always going to have a little Grandpa-angel on my shoulder, of course, reminding me to be moderate when I can stand to be, so I won’t follow too exactly in his genetic footsteps, but if I can keep up with the total-immersion happiness he seemed to find in sitting down to a great meal with his loved ones I’ll be glad to consistently have that aspect of my role model in mind too. Just thinking of our many fantastic times with Grandpa makes the food taste that much better, as it is. Hey, you over there, sneak another scoop of that Tillamook Mudslide ice cream into my dish while I go change into my elastic-waist stretch pants, all right?

graphite drawing

Highfalutin Company

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Otto von Münchow is a very nice man. But I don’t have to tell you that, if you’ve done any looking around the web. I’ve never even met him–in person–but it took very little time looking at his blog and ‘conversing’ with him in the process before I saw how much help he offered not only me with his photographic and creative-production insights but also shared with all of his other readers and correspondents. And then he went and shared a Versatile Blogger Award with me. I’m humbled, and I’m touched.

vba logoYes, there are those who would say I’m tetched. It’s how I got where I am today! And where I am is in truly rarefied company, as I’ve been learning over the last number of months here in Bloggerville. I am surrounded by deeply gifted and incredibly generous fellow bloggers, some of whom have taught me more in my short stint as a web denizen than I learned from many an arduous class project and long years of practice. (Okay, I’ll still say the years of practice made it possible to actually understand and make use of some of the good stuff I’m learning here, so no, my young friends, don’t skip that part!) I know I’m one seriously fortunate person, surrounded by, as my good friend Nia aptly identifies them, a glorious cloud of “angels and muses”.

mixed media painting

Sankt Synnøve, an appropriate patroness for adventurers!

The Irish/Norwegian saint Synnøve is one of a select group I chose to make mixed media portraits commemorating for a collaborative program with organist David Dahl a number of years ago. The fabulous Dr Dahl agreed to create a performance program with me, and despite his renown as a Bach expert, even agreed to plunge into French Romantic literature to please my whim–something he not only performed with superb fire and panache but taught me a lot about in the process. I loved the preparations: David would join me in the organ loft for a flurry of ‘howzat’ samples he played from a number of great composers in a wide variety of styles and moods and colors within the fantastic treasury of my dream realm. He told me about the background of the pieces, how and why and when they were written and by whom–and who that composer studied with–and so on. Gradually we winnowed down the possibilities as I began to talk, in return, about what sort of imagery these evocative pieces inspired. I fell in love with each and every song and movement, and with the genre yet again.

I also decided, as the good Doctor played, that the exquisite and potent Finale by César Franck was reminiscent of a solemn procession of saints, so I decided it was a good excuse to play around with a series of portraits, beginning with figuring out which ones it would most interest me to envision. My main criterion was simply that I was on the hunt for saints famous for more than martyrdom. While I recognize that being willing to die for your beliefs, whatever they are, my school of thought tends to be more impressed with how incredibly challenging it is to live for your beliefs. So I looked for people beatified and sanctified for their deeds rather than their being dead. The princess Synnøve certainly seemed to fit the bill, what with evading an oppressive forced marriage, adventuring off on the wild open sea to who-knows-where and landing in remote Norway, creating a community there, and then fending off pagan attackers. As well as a few other attributions that become even more mystical and magical. In all, a history that says this was one tough Celtic character who went to great lengths to shape her own destiny, and in so doing shaped others’ as well. Eventually she was joined in the recital processional by a number of other intriguing worthies–educators, hospitalers, rescuers of the poor and builders of bridges among them–and I found a large quantity of inspiration, not strictly artistic either.

That’s what I find in this new endeavor of mine too. A long parade of angels and muses that bring to me new knowledge of art, of self, and of life. And I am ever so grateful for the gifts!

We who are inducted into the Versatile Blogger community are tasked with telling you friends a little more about our selves and then sharing the gifts of the award with others whom we deem deserving as well. I’ve done this twice before (thank you, dear Cecilia and Nia!), so I’ll try to be succinct.

mixed media painting

Saints Valery and Finian, leaders, builders-of-things, and my birthday brothers (I was born on their feast day). (I'll take my inspirations wherever I find them.)

Versatile Blogger Award protocol:

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers.
2. Inform the bloggers of their nomination.
3. Share 7 random things about yourself.
4. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award pic on your blog post.

So here’s that Pack of Facts about me:

1 – I’m one of those awful excuses for a human being that doesn’t like blueberries. There are a number of fruits I’m not crazy about for texture but in the juice or coulis form I’ll slurp ’em right up. Not blueberries. Don’t like the scent or the flavor any more than the texture. Yet the blueberry bush is a plant I happily put in my garden because I think the shrub is beautiful year-round, and even the berries are very pretty to look at. Go figure.

2 – Even a complete non-athlete (there are few who can begin to compare with me for lack of skills) can have a Sports Injury. My only-ever stitches are hockey related. Too bad I wasn’t making a brilliant goal play at the time, but at least I got a little scar to show for it.

3 – The dentist is my friend! I am something of a rarity, not only enjoying visits to the dentist but also hitting the 50-year mark without ever having gotten a cavity. That’s thanks to good dental care on top of a bit of good luck: my parents both have “normal” teeth, so it was clearly not straight-up genetics that gave them four caries-free kids.

4 – Besides some costume design and construction for theatrical productions, ecclesiastical vestments, and other clothing design/construction projects over the years, I’ve had a few evening gown commissions–favorites are probably the plastic-garbage-bag (Hefty Steel-Sak) gown in silver and black for a costume party (I labored over the hand-cut lace edges) and the plastic wedding gown made for an exhibition (that one had plastic doilies for its lace).

5 – No cigarette or smoking device of any kind has ever touched my lips. Wait: I did try a couple of bubble gum “cigars” in childhood (banana was my favorite of the chewing gum flavors, I think), does that count? But thankfully (for both my lungs’ and my wallet’s sake) I never had the remotest urge to experiment with smoking.

6 – I think my husband has one of the most beautiful singing voices I’ve ever heard.

7 – Many of my art projects arise from random exposure to topics, objects and ideas I encounter whilst “on the way somewhere else”. Ah, serendipity!

I know that some of my favorite bloggers have received Versatile Blogger recognition before, and I do know that it takes a great deal of time and effort to meet the requirements of acceptance, so for the following blog-stars, I personally exempt you from any of the responsive requisites, but I want to recognize publicly how much I admire your work.

Today’s Sparks Blogroll of Honor:
The Bard on the Hill

Year-Struck

Not Quite Old

The Dassler Effect

Kreativ Kenyerek

Sweet Caroline’s Cooking

The Seven Hills Collection

Patridew’s Perfect World

Aspire. Motivate. Succeed.

cfbookchick

Nine Lives Studio

Daily Nibbles

dnobrienpoetry

The Valentine 4: Living Each Day

A Cup of Tea with this Crazy Nia

With thanks and cheers for all that you do in the blog universe, I bow to you all! Onward and upward, my friends!

The Train Passing through by Night

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What mysterious music leads me there?

I have been yearning. It’s no one’s fault. Someone casually mentions a city I’ve visited and loved. A food I associate for its first heart-stopping recognition with a particular time and place. Friends not seen in an age plus two more ages, and miss with all my heart. And off I go. Yearning, once again, to reconnect. To plug my lonely, under-appreciated passport back in to the hot socket and rev it up for travel.

Homesick! Happier than a pig in dirt where I am, loving every minute of my today-is-today life, rejoicing in the beautiful and joyful things that make my existence such a pleasure and a fulfillment–but able on top of all that sugar-frosted wonderfulness to still feel deeply homesick for places and people who make my many other homes, both slightly and exceedingly far away. From my longing distance, I throw kisses to all . . .

To our family all around the world–tied to us two by blood, or by music, by hope and serendipity and adventure. I miss you whenever we’re apart. To those magical places called cities, countries, houses, apartments, ships, fields and forests, or convent cells, that have given us shelter and, far beyond that, a sense of home wherever we may be on this big watery hunk of rock: I miss you every day that I can’t be there. To the memories and sweetness that have arisen from so many escapades and accidents and crossings of the way, I relish even those precious sensory connections that I never would or could repeat; you, I miss you too, and my mind roams your way whenever it can.

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Above stairs, below stairs and through a million passages . . .

Beautiful are the passages in life that so stamp us with their marks as to turn up the corners of our mouths in blissful grins on every recollection. That make our eyes blur hazily in that inward stare of endlessness that can take us back at a second’s wishful impulse, taking us back on the vicarious flight to relive a bit of it.

Horrible and wonderful both, these cataclysmic catalysts that make me long, no matter how content, to rise up and run off! A fugitive passage of song, that peculiar light at the end of the hall and behind a certain door; the sound of beech leaves shivering in a breezy rain–suddenly I’m transported to the land of transportation, getting yet again that nearly irresistible urge to hit the road, the air, the sea, the rails. And while I’m not really moved to love the arguably threadbare joys of air travel in these latter days, there is one sound I love above all others that might cause this sort of travel-dreaming reverie and ache in the vicinity of the ventricles, and that is the sound of a train. Rumbling, purring, chattering. Calling out its whistle code to draw me out and wake me as it passes through the sleeping dark on the other side of the ravine to slide its way out of the present night.

photo montage

. . . and every episode leads me to the next, and the romantic, mysterious next . . .

BOING! “Hi, Old People!” BOING!

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graphite drawing

Never mind keeping an eye on the little ones, who's watching out for the geezers?

The neighbor kids, that’s who. They’re the ones that always know what’s happening with the ancient people next door. I know because I’m just the pseudo-grownup version of one of those little squirts. I was the one that went over to the big tall wood fence on Ryan Street when I knew Mrs Pipkin was gardening because I could see the top of our dear neighbor’s head from my shrimpy P.O.V., and piped, “Pickens, my mommy says I can play with you!” I can’t confirm at this great remove that I’d actually received such permission, especially given that I suspect, more accurately, that I was approaching my add-on grandma of my own volition–she having proven endlessly patient in answering my blue-sky questions and letting me trail around after her like a little bit of leftover Christmas ribbon.

Let’s face it: children are insightful whether you want them to be or not, and especially adept at providing their deepest insights at the most inconvenient moment possible. Which is decidedly the most entertaining as well as the most hideously dangerous aspect of spending time with persons of the childish persuasion. Witness the uncanny gift mini-people have for repeating, verbatim but utterly out of context, horrendously revealing things that their elders have previously uttered within the hearing of said small persons. There is simply no antidote for having been indiscreet around toddlers and their ilk. Part and parcel of this talent is they are marvelously gifted at cutting through the cauliflower and getting down to gritty reality in record time.

A friend and colleague once related an excellent tale of such insightful youthful efficiency, regarding a long-ago episode one of his cohorts experienced while teaching in the deep south during the era of Civil Rights‘ supposed birth. A Concerned Parent had contacted the school board with a complaint that friend Mr Krapelski was behaving in a fashion incompatible with the intents and aims of the whole Civil Rights concept, and the board felt the complaint warranted a full inquiry. Hurray for the Board; I imagine this sort of follow-through was fairly rare at the time. The approach was simple and obvious enough. Talk to the kids. So the inspectors, amazingly, did. Somebody did recognize the power of children’s keen observation.

They approached the situation with simplicity and no pre-arranged outcomes dependent on ulterior motives, and they posed the obvious questions to the class: “Does Mr Krapelski treat any of you children differently than others? Is Mr Krapelski prejudiced?” And their answer was equally simple and untainted. A pert little fellow raised his hand immediately. “No, sir, he ain’t prejudiced. He hates us all equal!”

I, though a childless person, am well equipped with nine brilliant nephews and one equally dazzling niece, all of whom in their time have provided rich stores of intelligent interpretations of the universe and its workings, from understanding the threat of the backyard swing that ‘threw’ Grandma when she stuck her toe too firmly in the ground under it (“Mormor, det er farlig!” [“Grandma, that’s dangerous!“]) to telling wildly indecipherable stories that despite their incoherence become clear (and hilarious) by way of outsized pantomime and garbled, gagging narration (the best one was about–you won’t be surprised–a gigantic sneeze followed by an even bigger booger).

They taught me about instinctively genius juniors knowing just how to make it possible for Mormor to get back up the long steep hill from the beach if she wanted to walk down there with the family after her back had gone bad (let Tristan, the beautiful husky dog, tow her back up while she held his leash–which he did briskly and without batting a pale blue eye) to why the same grandma should act as Home Base in a closely contested game of Hide-and-Seek (“because she’s the oldest thing in the house!”).

This latter is precisely the appeal of childlike clarity and bluntness, in my book: they recognize that all of us over about the age of twenty are unspeakably, unreachably, unimaginably distant in the mists of antiquity–yet this has a certain cachet with young kids: unlike, say, their teenage counterparts, they admire and respect this very strange quality of Oldness. It’s really weird, and thus somehow kind of piquant and beguiling.

My husband and I thought of ourselves as only moderately advanced in age when we were in the early fifties and just moseying into the forties, respectively. The neighboring kids put that right into perspective. They lived in the house across the fence from our apartment garage, and the young sprats spent a great deal of their spare time and energy bounding around on the trampoline next to that back fence. We could hear them flouncing and giggling almost ceaselessly–enough, perhaps, on its own to make us feel our age a little more keenly–and then one day we paused for a moment when we’d gone out to get in the car.

BOING! The neighbor kids heard our talking, through the fence. They jumped a little harder so they could clear the top of the fence and get a better look over our way. We heard them cackling and turned around. BOINGGG! We grinned. BOINGBOINGBOING!!! The biggest of the kids waved madly and yelled, “Hi, Old People!” And they collapsed on the trampoline, laughing their curly heads off, while we fell about in equal hilarity as we stumbled into the car. That was all the encounter required. Acclamation and affirmation–of childhood silliness, of punctured pompous pretend-adulthood, and of the joy of being whatever age one is, as long as it’s not taken too seriously. Can’t help but rebound from such commentary a lot higher than we were leaping just a little bit before.

Hurray for unfiltered youth! Hurray for the goofiness of happy aging! Getting old, after all, surely does beat the alternative. Especially when there are some junior wildlings handy to keep everything somewhat in perspective.

graphite drawing

<BOING!>

Stage Blood and Loud Noises

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graphite drawingI’m a big fan of cheap theatrics, except when they’re being used to manipulate the innocent for nefarious purposes. Take, for example, the “rainforest” fakery of grocery stores that play a musical little mini thunderstorm soundtrack for a second before spritzing their produce bins with a fine mist of “freshening” water to impress us all with how natural and pristine their dew-flecked delectables are. Always hoping that we will be pleasantly enough diverted by this charming display to ignore the general reality: that we are being annoyingly dampened whilst attempting to retrieve our groceries in an ostensibly sheltered indoor space. That the soundtrack is remarkably similar to that White Noise one we play to put us in a somnolent state in the comfort of our own boudoirs, and could reasonably, therefore, fall under suspicion of attempted brainwashing more than vegetable-washing (no one need comment here on how much the two may be assumed to resemble each other by our grocery-vending overlords). That adding moisture to vegetation that has been removed from its growing environment speeds its decay and makes it more vulnerable to contamination of many wonderfully creepy kinds. That the ensuing waste of live produce drives up the cost of said produce almost as much as does the production and installation of the whole set-piece that put the drama in motion in the first place.

And we complain about the price of the Real Deal in the farmers’ market.

On the other hand, as a flaming fan of fantasy, I have to show my appreciation for the sincerely phony. You know: art for Fun’s sake. Silliness. Over-the-top drama on the stage and on the page, to drench the theatre or the reading room with tears and terror. Wildly, extravagantly gorgeous embroideries and carvings and photos and engravings and pastels and bronzes and encaustics that make no pretense of being journalistic but want only to transport us to their own extraordinary alternate worlds. This is the stuff that dreams are made on, and from which new dreams are made. Because it expresses our true selves in ways that no other thing can: art.

There are many lost or neglected skills and crafts in the wonderful world of art, and many yet to be discovered. The universe is awash in potential song, image, and dance, and the invitation is out: come and play! Write a play! Bring on the new opera, the marvels of a magical aquatint, a novel, a scintillating sweep of tapestry, a ballet, a symphony–or maybe it’s time to revisit some longtime form and bring a new perspective to this fabulous world of ours by opening new vistas into yet another set of worlds. Write a love letter to creativity that you’ve never written before, and all the rest of us are here waiting to share the love. After all, there is something deeply inviting about fiction and fun for their very own sakes.

graphite drawing