The yard, however, would brook no such negligence.  A very wet spring (yes, even for Portland) meant we’d avoided being outside much at all, but once the heat & sun did arrive, our plants seemed to think it might be their only chance to grow — ever.  So they did.  Luckily, “the mum” (as jmags calls her) came up for a visit and provided the guidance and confidence we needed to really tear some things out. As you can see.

All this brute labor convinced us we deserved some sitting-around-in-bars time. When I managed to look away from this suave fella I found some captivating color palettes.

tomato red, pale warmish grey, milky chartreuse, black

goldenrod, slate grey, caramel brown, more tomato red

caramel smoky brown, shadowed orange, black and brick

And I’ve been holding on to colors from an image that I couldn’t catch on film because I happened to be driving when I saw it: stormy slate grey (sky), emerald green (painted side of brick building), ivory and black (striped power cable overhead crossing them both).  I wonder if I’m being drawn to color groups just because of the really marvelous light we’ve had in Portland lately, or if it’s because my own work is so achromatic that I’m working with a vitamin deficiency?

Take note, film makers, any movie whose trailer kicks off with a Tintin reference is pretty much guaranteed to take in some of my hard-earned Yankee dollars.

So a cool thing that some hipsters did last weekend (and will be doing again next weekend, if you live here in town) was perform the Star Trek classic “Amok Time” in a park in Northeast Portland. I went with some degree of incredulity, but left totally floored. I looked around around for web presence, but they don’t seem to have any, and all the press is too busy pretending not to be nerds to convey how great it is. Instead, here are a couple of clips from my tiny camera that will hopefully give you some inkling of the greatness.

“It looks so nice outside,” they said.  “Let’s go play.”

“Oh, that’s so much better, ya.”

]]> http://futilitynow.com/2009/04/06/throwing-my-life-away/feed/ 0 http://futilitynow.com/2009/03/27/birds-blossoms-but-look-at-that-sky/ http://futilitynow.com/2009/03/27/birds-blossoms-but-look-at-that-sky/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:23:20 +0000 hazel http://futilitynow.com/?p=227

Spring is not so very promising as it is the thing
that looking back was fire, promising:
ignition, aspiration; it was not under my thumb.  --Rachel Zucker, from "Diary [Surface]"

Spring in Portland is a thing to behold.  Some days the changes in sky come by the minute, certainly too quick to attune one’s mood to (unless your mood is equally changeable, I guess, in which case you should really consider migrating here).  Before everyone had their personal soundtracks white-budding in their ears as they wandered through the city, we had to rely on things like the sky to invest our otherwise mundane moments with scope and gravitas.  That, at least, is what I was mulling over while I sat in The Half and Half, enjoying a piece of pie and coffee with cinnamon & (obviously) half and half.

Spring break started off strongly — Ch., a friend of jmags & co., came for a second visit, this one filled with drizzly walks, roller skating (more, I know), and speed scrabble. Last Sunday, after Ch. — possibly the most accommodating house guest ever — slipped out quietly to head back to NYC, I found myself in the most inexplicably cranky mood.  Although we’d planned to stay in for the day, jmags suggested we go out and about, and it ended up being just the thing.

Well, I should back up.  “Inexplicably” is not quite right — I can pin it down, a little, to a phenomenon I’ve experienced at the beginning of open stretches of time, like the beginning of Summer Break last year: I get so excited by the many possible way I might spend my time that I end up paralyzed and manic.  It’s so dumb.  And, in my defense, after that first day, I have been both productive and fairly relaxed.

But back to last Sunday: books always help, and jmags knows this, so we went to Powell’s.  I selected another Murakami & a replacement copy of Rebecca, one of the first grown-up books I read — I think I was about 9 or 10.  But! I also picked up several books about clay, the best of which you can see taking up precious real estate on the table next to the pie.  (I would also like to take this moment to note that my hands continue to  be my most photogenic part.)  These books have been enchanting and inspiring me all week, both at home and at the studio, where I’ve been working on my throwing skills.  I’ll have photos quite soon.

And that brings us to Polaroids.  Although jmags and I were gifted a cache of the precious film, we’ve been tentative in using it.  But the sometimes-bright skies of spring were an inspiration, and look at the progress we’ve made on the wall:

On Monday I start a yoga class (the first one for me… we’ll see).  I feel like I’m entering a period of productivity, both physical and creative (and, I hope, professional), and the accompanying exhiliration is a nice place to be at the end of this break.  I’ve always felt my time of year was fall, not spring, but evidence suggests otherwise.  Promising.

(disclosure: jmags took the top two photos — that’s why they look so nice)

FWIW: “Spoiler warning,” as the kids say. If you’re the type for whom the plot is central to your appreciation of a work, you may want to go back to the 19th. Century. Furthermore, if this is true of you and you haven’t read or seen Let the Right One In you may want to avoid this post.

It should not surprise anybody that many details of the novel Let the Right One In were dropped for the film version. In fact, there are many reasons to be glad that they were. In an age where people feel like we need 2+ hours to understand the finer points of fucking Iron Man, a film that tells a complete story while letting itself in at under that 2 hour mark is a feat in itself.

Snideness aside, the trimming was well done and, I think, fairly symmetrical. Also, you will note that while all flashbacks were omitted, there were a couple of brief flashes, confusing if you haven’t read the book (which I hadn’t when I saw the movie), that acknowledge the events from those flashbacks.

In contrast to this, none of the episodes from Hakan’s (sorry, not going to go looking for the right escape code) past get any reference at all. In the absence of further information, it is easy to get the impression that Hakan started his life as a guy just like Oskar, and, by extension, that Oskar will one day be just like Hakan. Hazel and I both left the theater with this impression, and even if it were not the original intention of the film maker, it must have been accepted at some point.

I’m pretty sure that this makes the movie superior to the book. While the book is full of gruesome details, and many of the characters are substantially less likable, it still ends with a restoration of moral order. By contrast, the end of the film is incredibly bleak in a way that I found very moving. I think that it showed a little more courage (although it really took a dive on adhering to the fat-people-can’t-be-protagonists rule.)

The weather, just so you know, is exquisite today.  It poured rain and hail overnight and through the morning.  jmags was up all night (as is oft the case) and was able to enjoy it then (except for the time he spent with his headphones on, during which I am just guessing he continued to lament the death of rock and roll by watching youtube videos of ye good olde days), but I crashed early and so woke early. I stayed in bed reading and listening to the storminess of things and feeling very smug at how nice it was to be bundled in feathers and down next to 6’4″ of warmth.

After the storm came the rest of today — alternately slightly drizzly and grey and then very very bright with fluffy clouds, and lots of wind regardless.

When jmags did wake, and we’d finished doing all of the things that one does on a Sunday morning before getting up, we decided to go to Broder for breakfast.  (jmags will tell you more about that soon, I’m sure.) Even better than the meal we shared — and that’s saying quite a lot — was the walk afterward.  It was full of skittish cats, phosphorescent moss, and stunning old cars in various states of disrepair.  These are most certainly a few of my favorite things.

So, then, that takes care of today.  I don’t think it will behoove either of us if I go into the same detail about each of the days since my last post, but I will give some of the highlights:

1) I found another house to covet, a house that strongly conjures Villa Villekulla.  Then it sold.  The important thing is that I’ve discovered Villa Villekulla is the model for what I do, in fact, want in a house, and really has been for awhile, I just somehow hadn’t figured it out.  Rangy, quirky, old, tall, somewhat ramshackle.

2) I finished out another trimester of classes this week.  Tomorrow I begin with just Drawing and Ceramics — no English — so my grading between now and the end of the year is roughly nil.  I will miss my Senior Honors goslings, it’s true.  But not so much that I think I’d change things.  Upon request, as a parting gift, I recited a bit of Beowulf in Old English to them: beowulf1

3) I’ve started a class in wheel-throwing, and it’s going very well, thank you for asking. Photos eventually.

4) I’ve also been doing a fair amount of handbuilding with clay at home. Think hedgehogs and eyeballs:

5) Read & saw Let the Right One In. Loved film, liked book very much.  Also read some bad fantasy w/ jmags, and we’ve started reading Robinson Jeffers’s “Cawdor” aloud.  I love & admire this poem; I found it on accident over the summer, as it was paired with his rendering of “Medea” (also a knockout). I teach “Medea” & was looking for alternate tellings at the time.  In fact, I think “Cawdor” deserves a post of its own.  We’ll see about that.

6) Last weekend, sang karaoke and went roller skating for my sister’s birthday.  Whoa.

7) Did some fairly marvelous cooking — chocolate hazelnut brownies, & bread pudding.

This week looks to be quieter, at least until Thursday.  I hope to read and to do some drawing, since I haven’t done any at all since the fall.  If I do stay in as planned, I also hope to find you here to consider some of the finer points of “Cawdor.”  I recommend you pick up a copy in the meantime.

]]> http://futilitynow.com/2009/03/15/sprung/feed/ 0 http://futilitynow.com/2009/03/11/some-books-are-dumber-than-others/ http://futilitynow.com/2009/03/11/some-books-are-dumber-than-others/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:14:32 +0000 jmags http://futilitynow.com/?p=159 So I finally gave up on The Captive. I couldn’t take any more and gave the last 30 pages or so only the most cursory skimming. Even that was exhausting and, frankly, kind of degrading. I would say that of the many books that I’ve read that are counted amongst literature’s shining lights, this is the worst. By a wide margin.

Presumably The Fugitive will be an improvement if for no other reason that there needs to be something new for Marcel to complain about without Albertine. Still, I think I’m going to take a little break to avoid accidentally counting my lingering resentments against the new volume.

I’m cutting my own hair these days.  It’s going alright, I spose.  A one-two punch of thrift and whimsy, two of my favorite things.  I’m certainly happier about it than this photo implies.

This weekend I made a dutch pancake that turned out especially nice.  I’ve taken to grating a generous amount of nutmeg into the butter before the pan goes into the oven, and adding sea salt and vanilla to the batter.

In a moment of excess, I sauteed blueberries in a bit of butter and cinnamon, and then threw whipped cream over the works.  Here is jmags’ helping:

It’s not pretty, I know, but it started the day out right.

Small comforts (whipped cream, for instance) seem extra important in the face of frightening cuts in my particular field, education.  It does appear that my position is secure, but the ramifications of being under funded this year and potentially for the forseeable future are disheartening.  Yes, the stimulus may end up temporarily rescuing us.  But that is not an adequate permanent solution.  I’m telling all of my little goslings to go to college — any college they can.  Now is not a good time to be fresh out of high school and entering the job market.

The best way to keep my mind off of these things is to keep my hands busy, and I’ve been doing that, too (beyond my efforts as a barber).  Another little vessel in the series:

The degree of asymmetry isn’t apparent here, otherwise it’s a good likeness.  I like the direction they are headed — I think there is a small but important refining process happening that will hopefully end with a set of coherent visual principles, principles that can then be carried out over a true series of works.

If I’m really lucky, that’s how it will go with the haircuts, too.

This became painfully obvious when our plans were monkeywrenched by the ghost of NYU.  Now that it appears we have at the very least several months left in what is by all rights a very nice apartment, I have a lot of apologetic vaccuuming to do.  It’s important to keep busy, too, because I have fallen pretty hard for a house that we almost certainly won’t be able to buy.  I’ll say this much: 1908, two stories plus an attic garret & basement, pocket doors, porch swing, & leaded glass.  And just the right amount of disrepair.  Sigh.

Lest you think that house-lust is all I’ve been up to, I have photos to prove otherwise.

Hedgehog or pot?  Dunno.

Steamboat or pot?  Dunno.

And, last, Zia’s Christmas present.  The firing had to be postponed because of the Blizzard of Aught-Eight, so she only received it last week.

The impetus for this project, technically the most complex that I’ve done, is Objects: USA, a book I found on a cart in front of an antique store in Sellwood.  As jmags would say, its school is very old.  One of the featured artists within is Michele Oka Doner, who has gone on to do all sorts of impressive things.  I knew as soon as I saw these creature/babies that I had to make one for Zia.

Mine is made of a very different clay body, and I think the face is actually a little less freaky, unfortunately, but the spirit I think is right.  I loved doing this level of detailing.  It was very satisfying.  Almost as satisfying as winning the Miller Teaching Award.

Wait, what was that, you say? Mmhmm, I won a prize. A $5,000 prize — the best kind.  Too bad I can’t use it to buy up that luscious crown molding-ed (and box-beamed!) house, right?  Sometime this spring I’ll be going to a banquet to receive a big check.  The grant I wrote as part of my application was for taking ceramics classes, esp. in wheel throwing, and for developing an online portfolio.

So some dreams really do come true.  Consolation in the face of so much vaccuuming.