Esoterika

My creative output in the past three years has been woefully low, for reasons which boil down to 'chronic pain and depression suck'. However, at one point in 2013 when I wanted to play with color but didn't feel up to drawing something representational or meaningful, I started playing with my colored pencils and created a sort of dimensionally rendered knotwork. It has become my equivalent of the 'coloring books for grownups' craze that's sweeping the nation right now. It works on a nonverbal, hand-mind level that I find pleasing and soothing, and there's no expectations, so it's completely unpressured. I make the initial shapes in a very improv, unplanned way, because the whole point is not to be perfectionist about it.

It started with this page, where I was also testing out a new sketchbook, the Stillman & Birn Gamma series. They're pricey, but luckily I got a free one through work. Of all the MANY sketchbooks I've owned over the years, this has the most superb paper! It's cushy, strong, with just the right amount of texture to hold a lot of colored pencil layers but not break up the color, and handles my heavy-pressure burnishing technique like a dream. In the 'chinese amoeba' (lower right), I also tested out a new miniscule stick eraser by Tombow--truly the smallest eraser out there, and I love it! I used it to 'carve out' the outlines, then went over the lightened areas with a lighter blue.


That was fun, so I did another one with the erased-outline technique:


Later I did a bit of acanthus (lighter pressure)...


...And so on.


I just kept doing them when the occasional urge struck. The next batch is from 2014. This is one of my favorites for some reason... a more Renaissance feel.






This knot got a bit awkward... it seems like the strands are fighting rather than interlacing! I also experimented with a less uniform background, but as ever, I prefer a more evenly saturated look.


These are from 2015...


Left to my own devices, I gravitate to the same color schemes of fire colors (red/orange/yellow) or warm earth colors + intense blues, so here I tried to push myself in different directions...



...I loathe the color combo in this, and yet, in a kind of psychedelic way, it works!

Happily, this year has already been going a LOT better artistically (and in other ways), and I will post the more recent stuff as soon as I get some decent photos.

This man and his 100,000 toothpicks have now broken my brain. Because it wasn't enough to spend 35 years making a phantasmagorical symbological sculpture of the Bay Area out of toothpicks, he also had to make it interactively kinetic.

Last week I was totting up the movies I saw in 2011, and observing that while I saw several good ones, there was none that stood out as a really noteworthy best of the year.  But today I saw Hugo.  Had I seen it in 2011 when it came out, it certainly would have been the best movie I saw that year, and probably in several other years. Go see it, quick as ever you can.

I loved this movie. I don’t just mean that I liked it very much; I mean that I fell in love with it, both immediately and gradually, at first cautiously (I’ve been let down by visually beautiful stories before!) and then with the blossoming of heartfelt affection. It dazzled me with splendor and then filled me with tender warmth, and ultimately made me cry in the best way.

The eponymous Hugo is a 1930s orphan who lives among and maintains the Paris train station’s inner clockworks, and this is all you really need to know as the film immediately draws you into this masterfully rendered tale. It begins with a sweeping sequence that pursues Hugo through the bowels of the clock machinery. It’s not just a technically impressive shot; it is an exhilarating exploration that establishes the environment as a convincing dimensional reality and makes you hunger to see more, to veer off and explore this vivid world which stretches believably in every direction.

I felt a bit resigned when the next scene launches a slapstick chase sequence; it’s a vivacious but fairly stock bit that establishes the main antagonist, a tyrannical gendarme and his trusty Doberman, and it felt designed to amuse the little kids in the audience. Fortunately the movie only plays briefly with the slapstick aspect, and later manages to put more depth into the gendarme than one expects from his initial caricature.

That was my only moment of doubt. After its initial broad strokes, the story has a delicate and deft unfolding. As the first scenes unroll, I expected to hear the sort of warm fatherly narration that usually accompanies such fables, encompassing the tale in a safe retrospective way that implies there will be a future that can look back fondly at these events. But there wasn’t one, and I was glad; the movie has no need to tell us what to feel, because it can simply show us, and wait for us to see. Like its opening shots, many of the film’s best sequences are wordless, or nearly so, and some of its moments of greatest drama happen in stillness and silence. It’s a skillful storyteller indeed who can create tension without relying on music or even dialogue.

Hugo is played perfectly by Asa Butterfield, who has unsettling blue eyes a bit like Elijah Wood’s, but mostly reminds me of a younger Harold from Harold and Maude. He is a scrawny, moist, pallid wight, as befits a kid who spends his time crawling around the insides of clockworks and eats by stealing from the station vendors. He is appealing, but not cute in an obnoxious Hollywood way; his skilled performance allows us to like the kid without being manipulated into it. Isabelle, a fellow orphan with a slightly more normal homelife, manages to be intelligent and well-read yet likewise not excessively cute; she is warm and optimistic, bringing hope and companionship into Hugo’s lonely existence. Together they unlock the intersecting mysteries of their backgrounds and the wounded adults around them.

There is not much that is particularly unexpected about the plot, but that makes it no less enjoyable; just like seeing a rendition of a classic fairy tale or a well-known Shakespeare play, the point is the way the story is told, and here it is told with such love and craft and beauty that it is irresistible. The rhythms are right and satisfying. Yet the story is also layered and skillful; it unfolds multiple themes and subjects. Many have called it a love letter to early cinema, and it certainly is that, but it is also a love letter to books, to storytelling in all its forms. The love and resurrection of old films is important, but it doesn’t overtake the real point of the story, which is the redemption of several broken hearts.

A very striking aspect of the film’s visuals is its palette of warm sepias, deep reds, and dazzling blues. After noticing this color scheme in the first scenes, I watched for it, and it stays consistent throughout; I saw only one touch of (muted) green in the movie! It’s an ambitious and gorgeously successful feat of digital color grading that makes everything seem special and lively, from the watery intensity of Hugo’s blue eyes to the jagged gravel beneath the train tracks. Unlike more monochromatic sepia-toned movies such as Benjamin Button, The Illusionist, and Amelie, this movie is not trying to look like an old movie, but to evoke a richer, more textured and inviting and atmospheric world than the saturated color and slick surfaces that surround us now.

Oh, such atmosphere! Every setting is luscious and fascinating, full of details the eye longs to linger on. I’ve been in the more modern incarnation of that Paris station, and was able to feel a glimpse of recognition amid the wonder of seeing it in a wholly different way. Hugo lives in an atmosphere of constant steam and slanting light, dripping faucets and warm croissants, spinning gears and meticulous machinery, callous crowds and delicate art nouveau flourishes layered with soot. There is a toy store and a book store crammed deliciously full of untidy delights. Even Hugo’s beloved clockworks are warm and inviting in their intricate, reliable precision, not cold at all. Hugo is so tied to this place that it’s a bit surprising when he is actually able to walk out its doors. But beyond the station’s walls, there is a palatial library so luminous that it is like a transcendant cathedral of books; I wanted to go there so much it made my mouth water. I could spend hours exploring the film scholar’s room of arcane devices. Even a modest garret contains marvelous discoveries.

I love how this film gives us plenty of exciting moments, but also takes its time in the unfolding of friendship and emotion, allowing an unhurried pace for those important moments. I am so glad (though surprised) that Scorsese made this movie, not some flashy Hollywood wunderkind who would feel obliged to add more action sequences and winking sarcasm. Scorsese knows that wonder is an effect best built with care and skill. He works with confidence, verve, and utter command of both new tools (CGI wizardry) and old ones (pacing, editing, strong performances). At the end of the movie I felt artistic invigoration paired oddly with a warm relaxation and gratitude: I felt satisfied, replete; I knew I had been carried in the hands of a master storyteller, delivered with respect and care.

Note: I saw Hugo in 2-D. It certainly didn’t need 3-D to pull off its marvels, but I am a bit curious to compare the versions.  I haven't read the book, and am curious to compare that too.

8/23 Today I aimed to finish the painting so it would be ready to show in a video interview the next day. My hand was steadier than in the previous session, but still not as steady as I would wish; touching up the gas giant rings was a challenge. I painted fine dividing lines in phthalo blue, then phthalo glazes on the back side of the ring to make it recede. The yellow half was so crooked, I had to completely paint over it with indian yellow, paint it back in white and naples yellow, then glaze the shadowed part with red transparent iron oxide + burnt sienna. To clean up the planet edge, I painted a smooth edge with white, glazed it with indian yellow, then added other color touchups as needed to make it match.

( More process and pictures )

The final result: (I'm hoping to replace this with a better photo; the light in this is a bit dim)

It took me about 30 hours total to paint. If there hadn't been the deadline and requirement to produce it for someone else, there was a point when I would have given up and walked away, maybe never come back to it. Instead I had to keep pushing till I made it work, and I did. That experience was extremely valuable.

I feel I've created a compelling image, one that helps define the project. I wanted to create an image that would make viewers curious, without giving too much away. I wanted to keep a certain ambiguity and tension between these characters, because that is important in the script. What's going on with these two? Is this help or threat, rescue or murder? Is the yellow man dead or alive? I'm pleased that it provokes curiosity about what happens before and after this moment. When I showed it to people who didn't know the story, they were immediately asking questions: "Is that guy alive? Will they fix their ship? What's going to happen to them?" That is exactly what I hoped.

Now here's hoping the filmmakers can raise the money they need and actually get this movie made...

8/18 Today would normally be a writing day, but I needed to spend all day on the painting in order to have something I was willing to show T. the next day.

Continuing to paint the planet: I used titanium white, cad yellow med. & deep, titanium buff, and naples yellow to make it more yellow and give more distinct bands of striation (though I liked the striation enough that I didn't want to fully cover it!). Then I remembered Indian yellow, another transparent warm color, which gave the more golden quality it needed. I used more transparent iron oxide glazes and a little burnt umber to create a sense of depth in the surface layers, and to create the shadow to make it look like a globe not a flat disk.

As I worked, more visual logic questions assailed me: would the planet look that large in the sky, and that visible in daylight? No clue. Shouldn't it be casting a lot of yellow light on the snow also? Probably, but I really wanted to keep the ground as cold and stark as possible, and I already had a lot more color in this than T. and I had discussed. Sometimes design wins over logic.

I did some more work with cloud greys. How do you model clouds but not make them look dirty? It remains a problem. Then I tried some pale yellow on the inner ring of clouds, where the planet would cast warm light... no good. The pastel yellow was too sunset-pretty.


To make it more lurid and ominous, I added cad orange and Indian yellow. My tentative logic was that the light is on the rim of the clouds; the darker cloud system is closer to the viewer...but I suspected the dark rims should actually be light too. To quote Joni Mitchell: I really don't know clouds at all!

Avoiding the cloud problem, I put mountain shadow on the frozen lake and the snowy slopes around it, using the same blue/grey mix as in the clouds, then glazes of phthalo or white as needed to soften the edges. Adding that small amount of modelling really helped this feel more like a scene to me, a coherent receding space. Heading diagonally in the right direction?

However, I now realized the problem in painting with gesso after the initial stages: it’s flatter than the paint, so shows as matte spots on the snow. Oops. I covered that with titanium white for an even shine.

Back to the clouds: I mixed a really dark payne's grey to give more dramatic contrast. In retrospect, I can say that right about here is where I really went terribly wrong:

I soon realized that these edges are way too dark, and way too smooth: cumulus cartoons. I was modelling the edges too uniformly, as if these were smooth globs instead of loose water vapor. I kept hacking away at it, but couldn't make it right. Yet in each of my frustrated stages I can see an inkling, a little zone that did work, among an overall effect that did not. I'm really glad I took all the process photos, because thus I can extract those little bits for future reference. (The photos also helped show me that some progress actually was happening.)

It's a frustrating and scary thing about painting that there is no "save as" or "undo" command. With acrylics, especially, the ability to cover over previous layers is both a blessing and a curse: easy to fix, easy to obliterate something good, and (unlike watercolor) no built-in requirement to stop at a certain point instead of reworking it to death. In writing, you can change a draft, but as long as you saved a previous version, you can restore it exactly just by putting words back in that order: an exact correspondence of signified and signifier. In digital art, you can at least save and restore the stages or elements. Here, there is no fully going back to what was there before. Sometimes what you had before was better, sometimes it wasn't, but you won't really be able to tell until it's too late to go back...

A couple hours later, I finally concluded that this sky was too much for this picture, too dark, pulling too much attention to the background. That’s a problem with the planet too, but at least it looks convincing. There’s no reason for all these dark dramatic edges; these clouds should be light on the edge, and they’re snow clouds, not rain clouds. If this was just a sky painting, I could maybe live with it, but the figures need to be the focus of the image. Bah.

Some words of Michael Whelan kept coming back to me: "The trick is not to get your first illustration job, but to get your second job after you've blown your first..."

Casting despondently about, I turned to an Andrew Wyeth art book in the hope that he could show me how to paint clouds. Actually, it turns out he mostly paints flat overcast skies; not a distinct cloud to be seen. But I did find this trenchant Wyeth quote about his painting process: “I can’t control it. If I control it, it’s no good.”

That’s Andrew freaking Wyeth, the painter who has done some of the most meticulous, exquisitely detailed paintings of our era. A painter who often works in egg tempera, an extremely painstaking and finicky medium that does not accommodate a fast or loose approach. “I can’t control it.” Okay, then...

This is true in dance, in martial arts, in many other arts: in order to flow effectively, you have to relinquish control. But in order not to end up with an uncoordinated mess at least some of the time, your non-controlling must come from a place of deep knowing. There's the rub.

Pondering this, I took a dinner break, and went to National Geo for more photo references, which showed me how my cloud edges were much too crisp, simple, and defined, and how clouds are often dark ones against light ones or vice versa, less often a complete dark-to-light shading on one form.

Triggered by the ‘don’t control it’ concept and my extreme frustration, I returned to the painting and had a breakthrough (or a breakdown? or something). First I wanted to tone down the Dark Cloud Edges with some white glazes, but zinc white alone wasn’t covering at all. So I mixed a big pool of both titanium and zinc whites (splitting the difference of opacity) plus lots of Open gel to keep it blendable for a while. But instead of carefully glazing this in my usual manner, I slapped some paint on with a filbert brush, then rubbed it around with a rag. That seemed promising: softer, more atmospheric, no discrete brushstrokes getting in the way. I threw caution to the winds, attacked it, blobbed, blotted, smeared, wiped on, rubbed out, literally finger painted... god, it felt great! I made diagonal finger strokes for the effect of blowing snow, hazed out the edges, then brought some of the darks back by rubbing paint off, but let them stay streaked by white... A mess? Maybe. But I experimented, went out on a limb, out of desperation. I might have just created a bigger mess, I couldn't tell, but at least I tried something different. That... was really interesting.

Mind you, there were aspects of the version before that I liked better than what I had now. But sometimes you have to let go a piece of good material that doesn't fit the rest of the piece. As writers say, Kill your darlings...

I worked more on the snowy hills, creating contours and softening transitions; I finally subdued the heavy phthalo outlines with subtler grey-blue ones. The snow-trail behind the figures was coming along, rendered in various tints of blue.

Till recent years, I had never used filbert brushes (flat with a rounded tip), so I haven't really incorporated them into my repertoire. But on this piece I’m liking the filbert for rendering clouds and snow; it covers broadly, but gives more organic marks, whereas the round leaves distinct brushstrokes, often ridged, and the flat makes chunkier edges.

Given the backlighting, I realized that the foreground snow slope (where the red man is about to walk) would be in shadow. I lightly rubbed on some phthalo there, but decided that just muddled the snow effect. I ended up putting titanium white back over it (though I let hints of the blue show through to create a little dimension). I did an awful lot of back-and-forthing on this piece.

I put a tidge more shadow on the yellow man, though I still hadn't painted him in detail. At the last minute, past my work-night bedtime, I realized I hadn’t done anything about the planet's ring... I sketched it in with white just to show T. where it would be, but I knew the shape wasn’t right yet. After the next photo was taken, I added the bent antenna and broken wires to the communication device (which helped it stop looking like a TV remote). I now felt I could bear to show this to T., with the caveat that it's not done. (For instance, I still hadn't specified the shape of the spaceship at all.)


8/19 In the light of day, the clouds looked better than they had last night. Not quite there, but... not as far off as it had seemed. Overall, I feel it is an arresting image. If I saw it across a room, I’d go look at it. The question was, what would T. think of it?

8/16 Second painting session: definite progress! But man, acrylics remain the very devil. Thanks to my job and recent years' exploration, I know so much more about them than I ever did before, their properties, their pigments, and yet I sometimes still feel completely at sea in rendering with them. Definitely a love-hate relationship at this point.

This time I kept inadvertantly smudging the white surface: opened a container that spattered dark green, then got red paint on my hand and tracked it onto the snow... next time I do a mostly white image, maybe I should mask out the whole background area! Argh!

I wanted to start with the central figure, because if I couldn't make that work, the picture wouldn't work, and I might as well find out at the outset. I did another layer of naphthol red to solidify coverage, then started rendering him with alizarin and then a dark mix of alizarin, phthalo, and a touch of cadmium yellow (mixed black is generally more interesting and lively than black from a tube). Then I used glazes of alizarin to bridge between darks and lights. I made a small adjustment to his right hand position. I started to introduce the concept of backlighting from the planet (which I hadn't considered in the initial phase), but naphthol red light was too weak for highlights; I needed the intense punch of cadmium orange...a regrettably expensive color.

I felt good about the red figure, the overall sense of effort and determination. I had a lot more problems with the other body. Tried various yellows: cadmium, diarylide, indian yellow, a bit of burnt sienna for shadows... dunno, I’m not feeling it yet, either the color or the contours; it looks pallid and unsubstantial.

Pencil is definitely not the best thing for underdrawing; it shows through far too much, especially on the yellow areas...but I’m not sure what to use instead. On the left is my red smudge, which I'll have to sand out later; white paint won't eradicate it.

We'd discussed putting various details on the uniforms: reflective patches, piping, pockets, insignia, etc. But once I had painted the man in red, it seemed like that would just clutter up the vivid, graphic figure, so I left it off. Besides, since no costumes exist yet, I didn't want to specify the look in a way that might later contradict the footage too much.

I added some stark figure shadows with a thin layer of phthalo, which gave it more graphic punch. But I may need to set up some mannequins to figure out the shadows’ exact shape.

I added back a little blue outlining in the snow, but mostly I continued to glaze with white (using gesso, which covers better than titanium white paint) over the snow and clouds. I decided to make the hill lines sharper towards the lake, where the clouds open, then fuzzing out where the snow is blowing more, obscuring edges. Now I wished I hadn’t done those big phthalo lines, when the field needs to be mostly stark and plain: phthalo is somewhat ineradicable. And being more comfortable with lines than paint, I had once again made the error of outline mentality: putting the strong color on the edge of the ridges, when it should be in the depths behind the ridges, with the edge being the brightest part. It took a lot of layers of white to reverse that error.


I used a template to trace a more exact circle for the yellow planet, but was pleased to find I had free-handed it almost perfectly! I fiddled around with various yellow/white/brown blends for the planet's surface; I at last found a use for the grainer brush, a weird novelty brush that creates thin parallel stripes. The planet still looks messy, but at least I have an inkling. I think I’ll try Open (slow drying) acrylics for that, so I can get softer gaseous blending. I discarded my earlier thoughts of a pure white background; this just looked too cool to pass up.



Next step: make the snow/cloud background start to work. And buy some cadmium orange and cadmium yellow deep.

I am further astonished at how few books I read this year (I read ca. 4x as many in 2009!). One big reason is that I spent a lot more hours productively writing, thus less time seeking distraction/ inspiration/ entertainment, and also less time seeking reassurance from others' stories. Still, reading is an absolutely vital source of fuel for my creativity, so getting enough fiction fodder is important to me. Almost all of my major writing streaks have been catalyzed by something I read.

I also read more books in 2009 because I discovered some very enjoyable long series (Robin Hobb’s 6 Farseer and 3 Ship of Magic books, Patrick O’Brian’s many Aubrey-Maturin novels), whereas in 2010 I didn’t encounter anything so compelling. Another factor is that in the last two years I’ve discovered a lot of great webcomics (which I’ll review in another post), so apparently I’m getting more of my entertainment from those sources.

********************
*=best; bold = recommended

*Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. Again*, astonishing. Who is this guy, and how can I be more like him? How has he remained so deeply and directly in touch with his inner child in all its aspects, both charming and unsettling? Magnificently original art and writing, by turns eerie and touching. Very highly recommended. (*cf. The Arrival)

*Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Dickensian Gothic erotic suspense with Rashomon-style twists of perspective. Good stuff; dark, twisted, and fascinating. Waters truly nails the voice of the period, and pulls off an impressive series of four surprise reversals of the plot. Thanks to ceruleanfleur for recommending; I want to read more by this author, and see the BBC adaptation.

The Ionian Mission by Patrick O’Brian. In 2009 I hugely enjoyed the first several books of the Aubrey-Maturin Napoleonic Wars series, but this one did not seem at all unified, and did not draw me as much.

Strangers in Paradise: Love and Lies (graphic novel). Good stuff, a section of the story I had missed.  Part of an outstanding series.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. I ambivalently recommend this. The prose is brilliant, the premise is intriguingly bizarre (a detective noir set in an alternate universe where a post-WW II Jewish homeland was founded in Alaska), so one can’t help being curious about it, but the story is damned slow, unappealingly gloomy, and annoyingly inconclusive. It reminds me of Dirk Gently, but not as funny—a shambling absurdist screwup aimlessly pursuing a murder case that remains bizarre to the last. I adore Chabon’s masterpiece, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but none of his other novels have ever done it for me.

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters. Completely disappointing, the only Peabody book I can recall being bored by. I hope that is a fluke, not a trend.

Re-read:
Port Eternity by C. J. Cherryh. I last read it in High School, so gave it another try. My recollection stands: not one of her better novels. Arthurian archetypes in space; repetitive and thinly characterized.

(part of) *Terrier by Tamora Pierce. I returned to this as narrative reassurance, at a point of insecurity with my own writing. A solid chewy gritty engaging fantasy; I think it’s one of her best.

Nonfiction
*Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon (essays). Given my lack of interest in reading nonfiction lately (other than instruction/ research), I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this—far more than his recent novels, to be sure. A hugely enjoyable read; fun, hilarious, profound, poignant, sarcastic, insightful, fearlessly revealing, and, as ever, brilliantly phrased with an acuity and originality that makes me feel hackneyed and unoriginal... Simply excellent stuff. If you’ve ever had the feeling that you’re only masquerading as an adult, or as a parent, then read this.

Sometimes the Magic Works - writing technique /autobio essays by fantasy author Terry Brooks. (I’ve never read any of his fiction.) An accurate portrayal of the writing brain, though it doesn’t offer any deep insights, to my perspective; I think it would be more revelatory for beginning writers. Mostly it’s just interesting to find kernels of recognition between my brain/ process and that of a successful author: not new information, just a sense of confirmation: yes, it is that way; yes, that can work professionally. For a fantasy superstar, Brooks is humble and down to earth, as I remember from seeing him at a con. He openly acknowledges the huge role that luck played in his success.

(parts of) *Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Warm, funny, reassuring, useful. This book taught me to successfully knit socks, and is lots of fun to read.  Recommended to me by elfie_chan.

Started to read, gave up on:

Treason’s Harbor by Patrick O’Brian - I’ll come back to this, I just kept getting distracted before I got fully into it.

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb - 150 pages in, I still didn’t care where it was going or what happened to the characters. It’s competently constructed, it’s just not any fun to read, freighted with endless dreary internal monologues. Very disappointing, given how much I enjoyed her stellar Farseer series.

Deerskin by Robin McKinley. She certainly captures fairy tale high style, but that doesn’t work so well at novel length. I’ve never seen so much telling (vs. showing) in my life... pages and pages that read like a character outline, not a novel.

The Bonesetters’ Daughter by Amy Tan. I found the historical Chinese part interesting but depressingly tragic, and the modern American part tediously mundane. I’m just not into modern realism!

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (short stories). I tried five, found them all pointless and unappealing. None of them really give you access to a character, a personality. I loved Sandman, but so far, I have not liked Gaiman’s prose fiction, which I realize makes me a pariah in fantasy geekdom. (I don’t like A Song of Ice and Fire, either. I know, heresy!)

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon.  I was hugely excited by the idea of Chabon tackling this period. Someday, I devoutly hope someone will write an epic historical novel about medieval Khazaria. But sadly, this ain’t it.

Instead, this seems to be Chabon kicking back from his usual Weighty Themes and goofing off with a purplescent evocation of Robert E. Howard, H. Rider Haggard, and other Golden Age overwrought pulp. Only a writer as skilled as Chabon could get away with such outrageous, audacious sentences ... kids, don’t try this at home.  But here, the bold magnificence of his sentences distracts from what he is actually saying. When you get to descriptions like ‘an archipelago of turds’, it’s clear that he’s playing around, taking the literary equivalent of a romp at the beach. It’s a gleeful indulgence, but perhaps not a story that sticks with you.

I’ll probably still give this one more try, but the endless baroque embellishment of every single phrase started getting on my nerves. He has distinctly drawn characters, but they’re cartoonish, with no sense of what makes them tick.  It was all very exuberant, but it didn't make me care.

Amazing glass sculptures, including a functional glass spinning wheel...

http://andypaikoglass.com/sculpture/

This is the piece I did for my mom. The metallic ink and the fine silver sparkles in the paper don't scan that well, but you can sorta see it. I mounted it on a matte silver board that tied in well.

This painter is really really odd.

Noam Chomsky's van