PaperGirl Celebrity Sighting: Simon Doonan!

Dashing.
His tie matches his shirt. His tie matches his shirt!

I wish my interaction with Simon Doonan had taken place today. If it had, I might still be able to pick up a whiff of whatever orchid-root-stem-cell-shea-butter lotion he had on his hands the day I did meet him. But this story is not from my trip to Arizona this week, sadly. When I met Simon Doonan in Scottsdale it was this past June. My story is day-old — but it’s half-price!

Simon Doonan is creative director of Barneys New York. Barneys is a luxury department store with flagship locations in the usual places: Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Omaha, etc. (Okay, not Omaha.) Barneys was founded in 1923 and naturally the high-end retailer has been through all the ups, downs, and way-downs any store would experience over the course of nearly 100 years in business. Through it all, Barneys has remained fabulous.

You know how everyone freaks out about the Macy’s Christmas window displays? Child’s play! Amateurs! As part of his job, Simon Doonan directs the window displays year-round at Barneys (take that, Santa) and they are resplendent n’ transcendent. They shimmer, they shock, they make you look. The scale is enormous or the scale is tiny. The displays poke fun and provoke and they are frequently quite funny. Beyond the windows — literally — Mr. Doonan is in charge of making Barneys Barneys, with its chrome and leather, its glass cases and $3,000 hat racks. When you see a Jimmy Choo delicately perched on a buttery-soft, buff-colored shoe tuffet, think Simon Doonan. He is responsible for the tuffet.

Mr. Doonan an excellent writer on top of all that; look up his work and you won’t be disappointed. He’s also married to designer Jonathan Adler, so if he needs advice when sketching something out, he can just holler from the den.

Okay, okay. So I’m in Arizona last June. I’m in Fashion Square Mall, walking toward Barneys. I’m killing time in the mall, schlepping around, marveling at how a fancy-pants shopping center like Fashion Square in Scottsdale for crying out loud could have such a dismal food court when there, straight ahead, was a man walking toward me who I recognized to be Simon Doonan.

He is a very handsome fellow. Diminutive. Impeccably dressed, naturally, in a velvet jacket — purple, I seem to remember. His hair was coiffed and jaunty. I made a little squeak — I don’t think he heard me — and I smiled a friendly smile. I was genuinely happy to see him. Simon Doonan of all things! He saw me smile and smiled back at me like, “Hm. I know you. Do I know you?”

“Hello,” I said, surprising myself that I was approaching a celebrity. But I had put the ball into play and so I instantly committed to making the interaction not lame. “Gosh, you’re Simon Doonan.”

“Yes, hi,” Simon Doonan said. “Do I know you?”

He really asked me, like he honestly thought he had met me before. Can you imagine how many people this person must meet in a week? Good heavens. I also felt exceptionally happy that I like fashion and tend to dress up “for no reason.” I think there’s always a good reason for fashion. Case in point: you might meet Simon Doonan in the mall. This is one of the many reasons sweatpants will never do. I looked chic and I was glad.

“No, you don’t know me,” I said, “But I know who you are. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you for all that you do to make the world a more beautiful place.”

We both raised our eyebrows. He was surprised to hear that. I was surprised to hear it, too — it was like I had rehearsed my whole life for my 20 seconds with Simon Doonan. It just came out like that, perfectly — and perfectly sincere.

“Well… Well thank you,” he stammered. “That’s… Well, lovely. Are you..?”

He asked what I was doing there, if I was with Barneys, etc., etc., and we chatted briefly. I told him that I was a quilter, a magazine editor, and that I host a show on PBS. He approved of all of this. And I even got a business card into his hand, though I have no doubt he tossed it into a dish of other business cards along with his South African dominoes, solid gold bricks, etc. The junk drawers and catch-all dishes of the fabulously wealthy and stylish contain items we do not posses. I’m resting at the bottom of one of those dishes, I’m afraid: Simon Doonan has not yet asked me to lunch. Still, I consider my moment with him to be a total win. I was not a nerd. I was not weird. I was chill. He invited me to a trunk show or some sort of reception at the store, but I was leaving the next morning.

Mr. Doonan, there’s still time. I’ll be in New York City for six weeks starting at the end of the month. I can tell you all about quilts, we can discuss the food court at Fashion Square Mall, or we could sort business cards and stack your gold bricks while we watch what’s happening on the Paris runways. I’m dying to see, aren’t you?

I’m also very good at drinking Champagne. I also would like to gauge your interest in me doing a capsule collection of quilts for Barneys. That is all.

The PaperGirl 10-Point Pledge.

posted in: Art, Work 18
I promise this, on an airplane, so you know I'm serious.
I promise this, on an airplane, so you know I’m serious.

This blog has a purpose. It’s had the same purpose since 2006, though there was a year I didn’t write at all, though all the entries from the old site are lost on a dusty server someplace. (If I didn’t have a hard copy of every last one of those entries I might not stop crying till I drowned — it’s not that they’re that great, it’s that they are a record of my life and what else do I have?)

John Dewey, the 20th century American philosopher, once said, “If you are deeply moved by some experience, write a letter to your grandmother. It will help you to better understand the experience, and it will bring great pleasure to your grandmother.”

That’s why I make this. Dewey nailed the best reason to write anything. PaperGirl is me, deeply moved by the experience of life, writing to you, my hypothetical grandmother. You look fabulous, gramma!

But how to do it right? How to balance my privacy and your interest? How to wisely navigate my public job (decorum = critical) with my desire to tell the truth about absolutely everything? (Good writing must tell the truth, but the whole truth? I refuse to speak of my lingerie preferences, much as I’d like to.) How to make sure you stay? Images? Guest posts? Advertisements? All these questions are valid and because they are innumerable, the best way to form the form of the blog is to make a pledge.

And so.

The PaperGirl 10-Point Pledge:

1. I pledge to deliver a fresh paper at least six times a week.

2. I pledge no clickable links, save for references to previous PaperGirl posts. When you’re here, you’re safe from outside tugs. We’ll have a moment, you and I. There is one exception: should I reference an artist, a piece of art, or the work of a writer that ethically must be attached to the post, I will do so — judiciously.

3. I pledge one image per post.

4. I pledge honesty. See No. 5.

5. I pledge class. Details including (but not limited to) my menstrual cycle, my sexual exploits, business matters, or other people’s matters will not be published. Oblique references can and will be made to the above.

6. I pledge to ask anyone mentioned in the blog if I may use their name. If they do not give permission, I will change their name. Direct quotes published in print or online are, by journalistic standards, fair game. See this post about mean people on the Internet. Suckas!

7. I pledge to give you a nice mix of heartfelt, funny, and weird. I will vary the posts so that you will never say, “Geez, that blog is a real drag” or — perhaps worse — “That blog used to be honest and like, sincere, and now it’s just goofy.”

8. I pledge to share what I learn. Poetry, sage words I come across, recommendations for places, people, art, and life choices, etc. — if I learn it, you’ll know it.

9. I pledge to value my readers. Every last one. Even if they don’t ever comment or say hi on Facebook.

10. I pledge to love writing today as much as I did when I was six.

Love,
Your PaperGirl

On Tori Amos.

posted in: Art, Paean, Poetry 8
Tori, from a series of photographs taken for the 1998 album "From the Choirgirl Hotel." The art was created by artist Katarina Webb, who puts her subjects on huge photocopiers.
From a series of photographs taken for Tori’s 1998 album, “From the Choirgirl Hotel.” The art was created by artist Katarina Webb; she places her subjects on photocopiers.

I need to talk about Tori Amos.

Those who were listening to music coined as “alternative” in the 1990s are likely familiar with Tori Amos. I was in high school when her first album, Little Earthquakes, was released. With the first notes of “Silent All These Years,” I fell deeply in love with her piano-based music: a blend of superb melodies and straight-up rock n’ roll. Her cryptic lyrics allowed for endless interpretation, which meant I could insert my angsty high-school self into every song and claim them all as unique expressions of my complex and yearning soul. (Oh, how complex and yearning I was!) Most Tori Amos fans do this, which is a testament to Tori’s music: good writers make you feel like they’re speaking directly to you and no one else. Perhaps this is why Tori fans call her by her first name. We really do feel close enough to be on a first-name basis.

If that sounds a little creepy, buckle up.

My Tori fandom wasn’t a mild case. I amassed mountains of Tori memorabilia in high school, spending the majority of the money I made as a waitress at the local Pizza Hut (help) on such merchandise as 7” UK vinyl pressings of singles not released in the states. Note: I did not own a record player. Terrible bootleg CDs of her concerts fetched $30 bucks at the record store in Des Moines but I happily forked it over to hear the same songs I had already; but as Tori is a master improvisor, you never knew what she’d do within the songs, so you had to have it all. It was a treasure hunt and a pastime I lived for. I clipped articles. I bought t-shirts, and in what was perhaps the geekiest, most cringe-inducing moment of my adolescence, I created a Tori Amos board game for me and my friends, who were as nuts about her as I was.

A board game. With pieces and question cards.

For years, my pie-in-the-sky dream was to open for Tori as a poet. I thought a 20-minute set of killer spoken word would be a perfect compliment to her show, and I’d be happy just being the opener to the opener. I never sent my materials to her management company, which is lame but understandable. I was broke. The prospect of creating a dazzling media/audition kit that would get past the garbage can of her management company was beyond my abilities. I was 22, barely making ends meet, and too busy drinking vodka cranberries with my poet friends. But maybe I’ll do it now becauseI still think it’s a good idea. Tori, if this post should come over the transom, do think about it. You will like my poems. Your audience will, too. It could be perfect. And fear not: the board game is long, long gone.

I made an extensive playlist for a friend who was going on a long drive in California. Halfway through putting it together, I got caught on my collection of Tori. For several hours, while sewing patchwork, I sank into each track, remembering my old interpretation and forging a new one.

Good music should grow with you.

 

Freddy n’ Me.

posted in: Art, Tips 1
Frederich Nietzsche, lost in thought, AS USUAL.
Frederich Nietzsche, lost in thought, AS USUAL.

I ain’t no philosopher.

But I like reading about the nature of existence and being, as long as the concepts are simplified for me by someone other than the philosopher him/herself. (Sorry, Kant, but I can’t.) Several years ago I caught an existential crisis which I have yet to kick. It’s like having chronic hiccups, except that we’re all gonna die. So I read philosophy stuff sometimes to try and sort all of this out.

Like so many before me (and countless souls to come), I found Nietzsche awhile back, my own private Nietzsche, a Nietzsche that ceased being a quip-machine or a bumper sticker punchline and became something like a friend from beyond the grave. It’s so odd to me now that the prevailing concept of Nietzsche (and I held this view once) is that of a dark, brooding fellow with a large mustachioed lip and a death obsession. The large mustache is correct, and he did brood about death, but only insofar as it was the end of life and life was his main concern.

Nietzsche could hardly be described as happy-go-lucky, but he was all about life-affirmation, in fact. This was a guy who said, “Without music, life would be a mistake” and whose concept of a person profoundly in love with life despite the constant suffering and struggle that attends it (the “overman” or Ubermensch) was arguably the tenderloin of his life’s work. It’s critical to note also that Nietzsche would’ve been horrified at how Hitler twisted his philosophy on the overman to suit his wicked Nazi ideology. Nietzsche spoke fearlessly of freedom and truth; he railed against racism, destruction, and dogma. He couldn’t stand politicians — he couldn’t even stand his home country (Germany) so anything you heard about Nietzsche being a Nazi, you can put that to bed.

Something terribly sad happened to Nietzsche in 1889. He was in Turin and not doing very well, suffering from nerves and dyspepsia and all those maladies that seemed to strike everyone in the late 1800s, usually in a parlor. Out his window, presumably while reclining on a fainting couch, Nietzsche saw a coachman on the street brutally beating an old mare. Overcome with grief at the sight, horrified at the cruelty he was seeing, Nietzsche ran out to the street and threw his body in front of the coachman. He gripped the horse around the neck and sobbed in the street at the inhumanity of it all.

After that, he wasn’t the same guy. He lived twelve more years, but he wasn’t well. Some say he had had syphilis for many years and that’s what melted his brain, in the end. Some say he was just fooling people about being nuts, that he was just eccentric and that was that. He died of pneumonia in 1900. And, because the truth is that the man really was a quip-machine, a few juicy aphorisms* from our pal Fred:

“Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil.”

“A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.”

“Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.”

“Half-knowledge is more victorious than whole knowledge: it understands things as being more simple than they are and this renders its opinions more easily intelligible and more convincing.”

*Aphorism: a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

 

The Proust Questionnaire: Your Year In Review

posted in: Art, Tips, Word Nerd 0
Marcel Proust, presumably watching the ball drop in Times Square.
Marcel Proust, presumably watching the ball drop in Times Square.

A couple weeks ago, I felt like doing a year-end questionnaire. It seemed like a practical way to assess the close of 2013 and I have a thing for questionnaires; I get to tick little boxes or fill in blanks regarding my preferences and this is endlessly fascinating to me.

I knew my online search for a quality questionnaire would yield plenty of corporate team-building versions and “life-coach” exercises, and I was right. But I figured there had to be at least one questionnaire out there comprising twenty-odd intelligent, non-saccharine questions to asses one’s year. I was incorrect.

And so I went for the classics. Marcel Proust’s questionnaire is something you may have come across if you’ve ever read Vanity Fair magazine. The back page of the magazine offers readers the answers to Proust’s edited questionnaire given by (often annoying) famous people. But Vanity Fair annexed the questionnaire; it was the world’s long before it was Conde Nast’s. Here now is the questionnaire. It’s not a “year-end” anything, just a very good list of questions for a human being. I encourage you to fill it out for yourself. If you have no favorite heroine, if you can’t come up with your favorite poet, perhaps 2014 is the year to find these people for yourself. We all need heroines, we all need a favorite poet or two.

Happy New Year to all; may 2013 be a fond memory, even so.

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2. What is your greatest fear?
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
5. Which living person do you most admire?
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
7. What is your current state of mind?
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9. On what occasion do you lie?
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11. Which living person do you most despise?
12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16. When and where were you happiest?
17. Which talent would you most like to have?
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21. Where would you most like to live?
22. What is your most treasured possession?
23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24. What is your favorite occupation?
25. What is your most marked characteristic?
26. What do you most value in your friends?
27. Who are your favorite writers?
28. Who is your hero of fiction?
29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30. Who are your heroes in real life?
31. What are your favorite names?
32. What is it that you most dislike?
33. What is your greatest regret?
34. How would you like to die?
35. What is your motto?

Swinger.

Notice happy chap, downstage left.
The Swing,”  by John-Honore Fragonard, 1767. Notice happy fellow downstage left. He’s there for the view, I’m guessing.

Yesterday I swung on a swing. I swang. I love to swang almost as much as I love to ice skate. “Swang” is not a word according to my spellcheck, which is going nuts. But I think it should be a word, so take that, spellcheck.

In the afternoon, I went with my friend Sonja and her little boy to see Redmoon Theater’s Winter Pageant, an annual show heavy on glowy tableaus, light on coherence. No matter; the kids love it. As is customary for Redmoon, when the show is over, the audience is invited to hang out, touch the actors (!) and explore the set. It’s cool. They had rigged up several swings on loooong chains in the huge warehouse that serves as their performance space. My 5-year-old comrade took to them at once. The middle swing was a two-seater so at his request, Aunt May-May hopped on with him. He calls me “Aunt May-May.” I call him lots of loving things, e.g., “Squirt,” “Captain Bunker,” etc.

Sonja gave us a push. We kicked our legs. We sailed over the theater seats, whooshing back, then plunging headlong into space. I looked over at his tow-head and said, “Hold on tight, Babycakes.”

The last time I was on a swing I was home in Iowa. My mother and I had had words and this happens so rarely, I was quite upset. When our conversation had reached a fevered pitch, I tersely excused myself, put on my sneakers, and literally took off running. I ran to the city park, trying to calm down and expend (destroy) my unpleasant energy. Halfway through the park loop I spied the swings up on the hill. I turned on my heel and jogged up to them. Man, did I ever swing. I went so high on the swingset that the chains went slack at the top; this harshed my mellow a bit — I like my skull and would like to keep it from splashing onto park district gravel. I pulled back and settled into a blissful rhythm. I probably swang for a half hour, letting the wind rush past my ears on the back push, feeling my heart in my chest when I cut through the air to go forward.

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. A kid on a swing tends to want to stay there all night. A fight with a parent is usually over something important. Dusk in Iowa in June is heartbreakingly beautiful. Theater is relevant, but only to some people.

These are things we know.

 

Make + Love Quilts: Scrap Quilts for the 21st Century

posted in: Art, Quilting, Work 5
Dat dere's muh book!
I, libros.

I don’t have any children. But I have written a book. Because of this book, I feel I understand a thing or two about parentage and stewardship, about hard work and real fear.

(Before we get too far along, if you don’t have time to read the rest of this, I completely understand and you can just jump to pre-ordering my book right here and thank you, darling, you look exceptionally handsome/gorgeous today!)

Let’s break down the [MOTHER] is to [AUTHOR] as [CHILD] is to [BOOK] analogy:

CHILD: A moment of conception must occur (i.e., orgasm.)
BOOK: A moment of conception must occur (i.e., great idea.)

CHILD: Blastocyst = cluster of cells formed early in mammal development
BOOK: Outline = cluster of ideas formed early in manuscript development

CHILD: The expectant mother may experience extreme tiredness, mood swings, carpal tunnel syndrome, nipple tenderness.
BOOK: Expectant author may also experience all of the above. WELL SHE CAN, OKAY??

CHILD: Needs a name.
BOOK: Needs a name that will sell.

CHILD: Though each woman’s labor varies, nearly all experience degrees of severe pain in labor and delivery.
BOOK: Author labor varies, but nearly all experience degrees of severe pain throughout the editing process and delivery of manuscript.

CHILD: May arrive diseased and malformed through no direct fault of the mother.
BOOK: Totally on you.

Let us leave the analogy, then, and let me tell you about the book coming out this spring from C&T Publishing. This is not the official book blurb, this is just me, PaperGirl, talking to you.

I wrote Make + Love Quilts: Scrap Quilts for the 21st Century is my book to delight readers, artists, and quilters. There are patterns for twelve original bed-sized scrap quilts, designed by me. There is instruction that takes you through the quiltmaking process, start to finish. There are tips and advice for creating good patchwork and a good life. There are quotes on love from all kinds of folks from Nietzsche to Montaigne to Marilyn Monroe. There is stunning photography of the quilts (gorgeous style shots as well as front and back flat shots of each), the fabric used, and the Quilt Charms I had engraved and stitched on the back.

The art direction is killer. When I was on a phone meeting with the book team in California, I reached for the sky: I told them to “make this book the most beautiful book you have ever made. Ever.” I promised them I’d do my part — and they held up their end of the bargain, I assure you. The book is more beautiful than I even imagined it would be. I’ve cried several times and I haven’t even seen a bound galley copy, yet.

The book costs $22.95 and you can get it right here.

I’ll share more soon. I’m so excited. I think I made a good baby.

 

“Why’s It Called ‘PaperGirl,’ Grandma?”

WWII propaganda poster by Fougasse; ironic appropriation by me.
WWII propaganda poster by Fougasse; ironic appropriation by me.

“Why’s it called ‘PaperGirl,’ grandma?”

“Sit on my knee, child, and I’ll tell you.”

“Can I have a another cooky first? You tell long stories.”

“Here. Anything else?”

“No.”

“Good. Okay, then, PaperGirl. Well, once upon a time, long ago, I wrote a poem.”

“What was it called?”

“I’m getting to it. It was called ‘The Paper Poem,’ and it was an extended metaphor about the nature of existence being fragile like paper, but beautiful, too, like paper is beautiful.”

“What’s paper?”

“Before your time.”

“Oh. Your poem sounds cool, grandma.”

“I liked it. Other people liked it, too, and I performed it in many places all over the country.”

“Like in Bismark?”

“No, never actually in Bismark, I don’t think. Maybe. It was a long time ago. Anyway, there’s a verse where I say ‘I will be your paper girl,’ and that’s where ‘PaperGirl’ comes from.”

“What’s the verse?”

“You want to hear the whole verse?”

“Is it long?”

“No, it’s not long. It’s the second-to-last verse of the poem and it goes like this:

But if you are a paper doll, too, then I shall know you on sight,
And if you are with me, come with me tonight; I will match up our bodies
by the tears in our arms —
We will form paper barricades against matchstick harm;
I will make paper love to you for as long as I can in this shreddable world;
I will be your paper girl.

“That’s nice, grandma.”

“Thanks.”

“And you named your blog that because of that poem?”

“Yes. And PaperGirl is the name of my LLC, too. And that small island I bought. And the Beaux Arts building you like so much in Paris. And my foundation in Dubai and all the vineyards in Spain. Everything in my empire, it’s all under the PaperGirl umbrella.”

“I wanna go to the zoo and see a rhinoceros.”

“Get your coat.”

The Pendennis Observer: Dispatch!

It’s time for a dispatch from everyone’s favorite fake, one-topic photo journal, The Pendennis Observer. If you missed the mission of The Pendennis Observer or would like a refresher before you see pictures of my sock monkey, please visit the first post here.

Of course, if your clicker is tired, you don’t have to go anywhere. All you need to know is that Pendennis is my monkey, I’m too old to still have him “in play” in my home/bed, I love him, and I never, ever pose him. I leave the monkey where he lay and I frequently take his picture because he is exquisite. A little funny, a little tragic, Pendennis and his gestures are life itself.

A few recent discoveries:

IMG_2311
“Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark/That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”
IMG_2086
High kick.
Existential crisis.
Another Tuesday morning, another existential crisis.

 

Word Nerd: Quotation Expose!!! (SFW)

posted in: Art, Word Nerd 4
Watershed House is a 100-square-foot writer’s retreat located in Wren, Oregon designed by architect, Erin Moore of FLOAT Architectural Research and Design. Erin built this small studio for her mother who is a noted nature writer.
Watershed House is a 100-square-foot writer’s retreat located in Wren, Oregon designed by architect, Erin Moore of FLOAT Architectural Research and Design. Erin built this small studio for her mother who is a noted nature writer.

I read Virginia Woolf for the first time a few months ago. Can you believe I never read any Virginia Woolf until a few months ago? If you’ve never read any, it’s time. She’s pretty good.

I selected two pieces: a short essay entitled On Being Sick and the surprisingly slender A Room of One’s Own. Did you know that A Room of One’s Own is a speech? Well, it’s an essay she wrote with material from lectures she gave at Cambridge back in the 1920s, but to me, that makes it kind of a speech and therefore awesomely immediate. Both texts were packed with stunning, thought-provoking, clever, frequently charming prose. Virginia had the gift, man. In On Being Ill, she describes people who fall sick for long stretches thusly:

“We raise our feet even an inch above the ground on another, we cease to be soldiers in the army of  the upright; we become deserters. They march to battle. We float with the sticks on the stream; helter-skelter with the dead leaves on the lawn…”

“The armies of the upright”?! Just head-slappingly good. But when I read Room, I learned something that truly blew my mind.

The phrase “a room of one’s own” is deployed with enough regularity that few native-born English speakers would go, “Whuh?” if someone dropped it into conversation. Your friend Stu might say, for example, “You know, I just need a couple weeks to chill. Do some journaling, cook, rest. Like, in a little cabin in the woods or something. A room of one’s own, you know?” And you would know what Stu is saying. He craves privacy and meditation time. He needs space and time, to turn off the cell phone and the email. A room of Stu’s own.

Some of us will know that Woolf’s concept of “a room of one’s own” was shared within the context of speaking about women — specifically, women writers. Her point is that women who want to write need space, few distractions; they need their independence.

Well.

That’s not the whole quote, folks. Virginia Woolf didn’t say that a woman who wants to write needs “a room of one’s own,” no she did not. This is what she said:

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Money and a room! Money and a room of her own. Do you realize how freaking important that is to what she’s saying? It changes everything! Having a dumb room is going to work for about two seconds unless you’ve got some scratch. Where is this room? Floating in space? No! It’s in a building! With heat and water to pay for, I’d wager! And how ‘ya gonna eat, child?? You need bread! Butter! Chocolate eclairs! How can you write anything of consequence if you’re starving and how can you write anything of consequence with pizzaz if you can’t buy yourself a damned eclair every once in awhile? Good grief! Virginia got it — she knew where the bakery was.

So re-learn the Woolf quote. It’s not just that a woman writer must have space. She has to have means, as well, and that idea raises curtains in the brain to let in magnificent, dazzling light. Money and a room of one’s own. Zowie.

Bonus quote expose: I recently came across this famous piece from Thomas Jefferson, which you will surely recognize: “What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? …The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” 

You know that one. But there’s another line. That’s not the whole quote. Check it:

“What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? …The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Word Nerd, over and out. You’re welcome!

A Broadway Actress Tells You How To Get Your Lost Voice Back

posted in: Art, Day In The Life, Tips, Work 3
'4′33″' is a three-movement composition by experimental composer John Cage. Composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, the score instructs the performer(s) not to play their instrument(s) during the entire duration of the piece.
In 1952, experimental composer John Cage composed this three-movement piece called 4’33”. Written for any instrument or combination of instruments, the score instructs the performer(s) not to play their instrument(s). At all. It’s just silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Nice.

My voice has skipped town. Three days, now. No word from her. Very concerned.

In her stead, this bizarre, rather spooky sound is coming from my throat and it alternates between a barely audible squeak and an alarming baritone. The baritone only happens when I decide I absolutely must be heard and the only way that will happen is if I drop my voice down to my chest, furrow my brow a bit, and push sound out with a full-on bark. I was in the airport yesterday and did this while on a phone meeting and I visibly frightened three grown men who were reading newspapers at Gate A9. They all jumped a foot and looked at me like, “What in God’s name is wrong with that woman?!

It’s a cold, brother.

Which I don’t get very often! I’ve been smote by far worse maladies in life and thus I like to think I’ve been given a pass on the other stuff, the little stuff, like colds and the flu. But that’s silly, and the proof is in the mucus. The real problem is that I am in Oklahoma today and a whole lot of people are coming to hear me speak. I know, right? THE IRONY. I’m speaking alongside my mom on this trip and she can help translate any interpretive dances I need to do to communicate with the people, but seriously: I need to be able to talk. Really need that talking thing. So I sent a high-priority email to my friend Kristina The Actress. She’s been onstage her whole life and she’s done Broadway and all that, so she knows a thing or two about losing one’s, er, moneymaker.

“Kristina,” I feverishly typed. “I’m [REDACTED]. My voice. Gone. Totally. Lecture tomorrow. HELP ME.”

This morning, my voice is a 1,000 better and it has 90% to do with her sage wisdom. (The other 10% of improvement can be attributed to time and rest.) So mark the following practical advice in your mind, fair reader, and when you lose your voice at a bad time — isn’t it always? — you can say, “Well, a Broadway actress told me once…”

“Sweets: able to help…speaking to missing voice (which I totally thought was a metaphor at first): If there is mucus, Broadway agrees you must take Mucinex. Then chew/suck raw ginger and also put it in your tea. Then there’s a brand of cough drops called “Fisherman’s Friend.” Sucrets for pain. And then some doctor comes and injects steroids in your throat…I love you.”

See what I mean? That’s a serious assault from all corners and it worked for me, folks. I didn’t have the steroids in my throat (ew) but it’s good to know about the big guns. Thank you, Kristina. You are beautiful in many ways and lots of people love you, but now large crowds of quilters in Oklahoma will love you and when you woke up yesterday morning I bet you didn’t see that comin’.

“Trashy Is The Lime”: An Anatomy of Poetic Inspiration

posted in: Art, Food, Poetry, Word Nerd 7
Do I have to?
Riveting!

I wrote a poem yesterday morning and I’d like to share how that happened. The generation of “Trashy Is The Lime” is proof that as a writer, I must read writers who are better than I am every day. (The good news is that there are many, many writers better than I am, so I shall never be done reading. A good problem to have.)

It’s like wrestling. You wanna be a better wrestler, you gotta wrestle bigger dogs. You gotta hustle your way into the next weight class and get mopped up by Brutus a few times until you get strong enough to give him hell. You might not win, but look at your triceps! Writing is the same. Read the classics, read the best of the best. Your brain has to run pell mell to catch up and you will trip, son, but in the running you get faster and in the running you are running, which is far better than sitting.

Yesterday morning I closed the latest big dog (Dr. Faustus, for class) and took from my coffee table one of my favorite books ever: the latest (18th) edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. I flipped to a random page and discovered a stunning entry about my favorite place on earth, Chicago, USA. Check it:

“Gigantic, willful, young.
Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates.”

The quote was ascribed to writer William Vaughn Moody from a poem he wrote in 1901 called “An Ode In Time of Hesitation.” I snatched my iPad off the couch and tippity-tapped my way into the life of Mr. Moody (no relation to Dwight L. Moody, the famous Chicago preacher, FYI.) Moody’s poem is crazy good, inspired by the statue of a black soldier who served at the head of the first enlisted negro regiment in Massachusetts in 1863. It’s long, it’s intricate, and that line on Chicago is dope. As I read the full piece, I tried to figure out the rhyme scheme; before long, I had to get out paper and pencil to suss it out. It’s wild:

A-B-A-A-C-D-D-B-E-C-C-B-E **

“That’s bananas!” I cried, to no one at all because I was sitting in my living room alone. Saying “bananas” made me think of my collection of fruit poems. It’s an ongoing project; I’ve shared The Cantaloupe Poem here and the first half of The Preposterously True Tale of Pru Huntington’s Pineapple. Well, Mr. Moody’s crazy rhyme scheme was too tempting to ignore, so I set about writing a new fruit poem in the style of “Ode to Hesitation.” First, we must take a look at Moody’s opening verse, so you can see how the man did it.

                                I.
Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
To thrill the heedless passer’s heart with awe,
And set here in the city’s talk and trade
To the good memory of Robert Shaw,
This bright March morn I stand,
And hear the distant spring come up the land;
Knowing that what I hear is not unheard
Of this boy soldier and his negro band,
For all their gaze is fixed so stern ahead,
For all the fatal rhythm of their tread.
The land they died to save from death and shame
Trembles and waits, hearing the spring’s great name,
And by her pangs these resolute ghosts are stirred.

Awesome, right? Yeah. So, rather than do the 9,000 other things that I desperately need to do, I wrote a fruit poem. The poem is entitled “Trashy Is The Lime” and it’s about how limes are kinda gross, definitely ubiquitous, and, yes, trashy. It’s a rude thing to go from Moody’s gorgeous verse about the noble soldier to my attack on defenseless limes, but this is what I consider fun. This is my entertainment, what I do in my time off. And I would like to thank W.V. Moody, Bartlett’s, the Academy, and the editor of Love of Quilting, who is about to kill me because I’m late on an assignment. This is partly why. Enjoy!

Trashy Is The Lime
by Mary Fons

Limes! limes! It must always be. The drinks we pour
Are sticky, and our garnishes are green
And sour, and this is what they’re for:
Lick, drink, suck; the lime be the cocktail’s whore.
The manner-est born in the family dwell
In Florida, armpit of our nation;
“Key” limes prized from this location,
But the compliment is mean.
Acrid, useless without supporting cast,
A wince on the tongue, a straight-up hard sell —
The lime behind the bar at the Hilton hotel,
Crushed with the coconut and everywhere seen,
Like roaches, limes shall humans outlast.

** If anyone knows what this poetical form is called, please, please tell me. I do not have a degree in English and I’ll be 70 before I will have the time/talent to get into the Iowa Writer’s Workshop MFA program in poetry where you might actually learn stuff like this. 

Step Into My Office.

My office today.
My office today.

There are fires to put out.

There are fires to put out and people to give things to. There are tasks need done and a clock that’s ticking in the halls of my brain. There’s a hard stop for it all on Wednesday morning, when I leave for Oklahoma for a several day-long lecture series — but that’s a hard stop no harder than a day all-too-soon when we sign off on the latest issue of the magazine.

My kingdom for a kingdom. Then I’d have help.

And all of this while the sawing and the buzzing and tour de force takes place in my home and the men shout, “‘Ey, Ryan! Bring me that pipe?” from the other side of the house and I can’t write. So I leave and find the best place to be homeless today. The coffee shop on Tuesday was good, but a weirdo was staring at me so I couldn’t edit. The common room in my building yesterday was okay, but there was a chill and I felt sad.

Today, I’m here at the Hilton. It’s just around the corner from the cavity they’re drilling in my bathroom. There’s fresh coffee to scam off the buffet and there’s a convention going on with free wi-fi to be had. And I found this hall-slash-ballroom upstairs from the lobby where the sun is streaming in and the chandeliers have been dusted recently. It’s vast and paneled and there’s not a soul in sight.

When you work from home and you can’t be home, you can work in a ballroom. And that makes all the difference.

Ten Reasons To Visit The Chicago Symphony Orchestra

DUDE!!!!
DUDE!!!! This photograph was taken by one Mauricio Mejia. My compliments to you, sir.

My friend Yuri had a birthday this weekend. I told him I’d take him out. Sometimes, you need to do something nice for someone and really take it to the moon. Everything was a surprise, and we started at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a concert.

I now present Ten Reasons To Visit The Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a concert the next time you’re in town. If you already live within a 25 mile radius of the CSO and have never been or haven’t been in a long time, for heaven’s sake, what is wrong with you?? Pardon me, but down that sandwich, finish reading this, and then click over. You will thank me — not that that’s why I’m doing this.

Let’s do this!

1. Tuxedos. Not on you, necessarily. But on the dudes. Hot.

2. Concessions for sale before the show and during intermission include sparkling wine, good chocolate, and cheese doodles.

3. There’s a big floating thing above the symphony stage that looks like a UFO made of lace, light, air, and wire. It’s my favorite thing in the whole theater. Research reveals that it’s referred to as “the artwork” and its job is to bounce and distribute sound from the stage out to the audience. Fact: the crispy white wires and pale green glass “artwork” weight seven tons. Seven tons!

4. My friend Charlie plays the trombone! Hi, Charlie! You killed it the other night! Way to go, buddy! I waved to you and got in trouble!

5. Hey, man. Take a nap.

6. It’s freaking hilarious to listen to all the coughing in between the movements. People wait…wait…wait to hack up a lung until the sonata is done or whatever and then its just “COUGH! COUGH! HACK! HACK! BRAAHHH! HORK! HORKHORKHORK!” and then the music starts again and everyone falls silent. Very entertaining.

7. There’s always someone who is clearly either a musician or wannabe musician who wants everyone to know they know the music backward and forward, so they make these funny faces and roll their eyes back in their head and wiggle their finger in time and shake their head like they’re in exquisite pain at moments in the score. You can make them feel good by giving them a nod and a smile when they catch your eye. They will try because they want to feel like an expert. It’s okay, we all do that kind of thing in some way.

8. Fancy.

9. You can go to a crappy bar afterward and balance out. It’s a big world. You can do the symphony and a crappy bar in one night. That’s not just something people do only in the movies.

10. Your symphony is the same symphony everyone else gets, if you want it. Cheap balcony seats? Same symphony as the season ticket holders. Half those people are asleep anyway or thinking about their condo in Sarasota. You go get your experience and you put it in your heart and keep it, you hear me?

You hear that?

Listen.

Boo Who?

posted in: Art 4
But the pumpkin looks so nice!
But the pumpkin looks so nice!

Until tonight, I had not seen a scary movie in fourteen years. Fact!

The last one I saw was The Blair Witch Project in 1999. I was with my friend Sarah in this huge, crumbling old theater in Minneapolis in the middle of the summer. Halfway through the movie the air conditioning broke, which meant you had a packed auditorium of terrified, sweaty people watching a movie that takes place in the freezing cold. It was surreal. It was also scary, because that movie is hella scary — or it was, before the whole controversy about the movie being [REDACTED] went viral, which in case you didn’t know, children, was before anyone really called that “going viral.” Back then, it was just memes and land lines for most of us. Word still got around.

But see, I don’t like scary movies. Life is horrifying enough on its own. It’s incredible to me that perfectly sane, healthy people pay money to see scenes of fake murder and mayhem. However, my younger sister loves scary movies and she’s got a good reason for everything she does, so when she asked me if I wanted to go to a showing of the original Halloween tonight, I said no but then I said yes. She almost fell over.

“Scary movies are so goooood!” she texted me. “Not gross ones like Hostel or Saw, but like, truly classic scary movies are the best and this one is tops.”

Not knowing the ins and outs of the genre and with only a perspire-y viewing of Blair Witch* under my belt, you don’t have to take my word for it, but man Halloween is good. The movie came out in freaking 1978 which makes it older than me: there’s a reason we’re still able to watch it on the big screen once a year. The only person on earth affected by a Halloween spoiler would have been me until last night, so I’ll go ahead and say it: the fact the first death doesn’t happen until there’s a half-hour left in the film is crazy awesome! It’s good filmmaking.

After the movie, I walked home in the rain. I looked behind me a couple times, but mostly I just felt glad to be alive.

Roses On Noses.

Go ahead. Try it sometime.
Go ahead. Try it sometime.

I dated a vaudevillian magician. Talk about confessions!

This was an astonishing eight years ago, before I got sick, before I got married and divorced, before all of that.

The Magician and I met at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a legendary jazz club here in Chicago. If you are good at jazz, you work a long, long time to get to play at the Mill — all the known greats have done so, all the future greats will. But every Sunday night for the past twenty-five years, the Uptown Poetry Slam takes over the club and it’s “See ya later, jazz, hello, poetry.”

The show’s format includes a half-hour set from a feature performer. The night I met The Magician, he was that act. Usually it’s a poet in the slot, or on rare occasions it’s a music group, but because The Magician was/is a bit of a lyricist and, as he would tell you, a sesquipedalian, (lover of big words) he fit right in and his act was quite popular with the slam crowd. He wore a three-piece suit and he was in his thirties and he had this broad smile and a head of thick black hair and I was smitten. He saw me be a bloodsport poet onstage that night. I saw him pull a Queen of Spades from his shoe. We met and were laughing with each other in under twelve seconds. Et voila: le boyfriend.

One morning months later, I was lounging in his spacious apartment in Logan Square, beaming at him as I watched him rehearse. He was always rehearsing because being good at magic was his profession (it still is.) Magic is all that he does, work-wise, and he’s made his living doing it for over twenty years. I was admiring his dedication and also his jacket and tie; he always wore a jacket and a tie, always. He didn’t own bluejeans. I thought that was so cool.

“Would you like to see something special, Mary?” he asked me. I nodded and clapped and bounced in my seat. Watching magic tricks makes you seven.

He took a rose from his magic case. He kind of shook himself once to loosen up and focus. Then, talking to me sweetly while he moved, he tilted his head back and brought the stem of the rose up to the tip of his nose. That is where he placed it, the tip of the long-stemmed rose, right there on the end of his nose. And then…he let go.

He was balancing it. I couldn’t believe it. He made microscopic movements to the right, back, left, left, backforward, backright to keep the rose upright, right there on his nose! He had definitely stopped talking. I didn’t even breathe. This was not a fake rose, a trick rose. This was a rose rose, and he was magnificent, like a seal or a cartoon come to life. My boyfriend kept it there for fifteen seconds or so until “ah!” it tipped over and he caught it and bowed deeply.

“Wow,” I said, mouth hanging open. “That was so cool! Do it again! Do it again!” And he did do it again for me and many times after that. But I’ll never forget what he said when I asked him how long it took to be able to do it.

He said it took him about ten years.

“Ten years??” I pictured him practicing tilting his head back every day for ten years. All those roses!

“That’s right. Ten years of daily practice for ten seconds of your enjoyment,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He turned back to his case and began to put away his tools. I sat and thought about the time it takes to really learn something, the years that we spend to get good at what we do, and how there are no overnight successes. Roses fall off noses for years and years and then, with a pinch of luck, we keep them up there. And someone sees.

Who Can Say What Is Good and What Is Bad?

posted in: Art, Tips, Word Nerd 4
It's a baby bunny who is seems to be clapping? This is inarguably good. Keep reading.
It’s a baby bunny who is seems to be clapping? This is inarguably good. Keep reading.

There’s a Chinese parable I like. It basically goes like this:

“There once was a farmer whose only son grew up to be a great horse rider. ‘How good it is that my son is masterful with horses!’ the man said, and the villagers exclaimed, ‘Yes, it is wonderful that he is so good with horses,’ and no one could disagree.

One day, the boy was thrown from his best horse and injured badly. Both his legs were broken and his back was broken also. ‘A tragedy!’ cried his father, and the villagers lamented the crippled boy, agreeing that it was a terrible tragedy that the boy was thrown from his horse. The farmer cursed the day he taught his son to ride.

Not a week later, soldiers came to the village to take the young men away to war. When they stopped at the farmer’s house, they saw his crippled son and did not take him to fight because he was injured. ‘What luck!’ cried the farmer. ‘How good that my son was thrown from his horse!'”

The point is a question: what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’? I was diagnosed with a terrible disease several years ago; that felt pretty bad. But through my illness I found a sweetness to life that was until then unknown to me. Was it good, then, to be ill? Debatable, but…well, solidly debatable. Getting invited to my first cool kid party in high school was so very, very good for a nerd like me — but then I drank mass quantities of rum and apple juice, the room began to spin, and I wanted to die. That was, um, bad. (Rum and apple juice?? Oy. Youth is wasted on the young.)

But isn’t there a hard stop on this? Aren’t there some experiences or ideas or situations that are unequivocally good or unequivocally bad? Coming up with examples is not an easy exercise, but neither are squat thrusts and we all know how good those are for you. Just for fun, here are two straight-up “good” situations to be in and two clearly “bad” ones, at least according to me, at press time:

GOOD
– kissing the boy (or girl) you have a crush on for the first time
– getting a paycheck

BAD
– having to hide in a broom closet, quickly
– gum in your hair

Right? I mean come on, now.

Comic Relief: The Cantaloupe Poem

posted in: Art, Food, Poetry, Word Nerd 1
Well played! Courtesy DailyDoseOfCute.net -- no artist name was given.
Well played! Courtesy DailyDoseOfCute.net — no artist name was given.

Man! All the empathy and the bummed out fourth graders around here are starting to get to me. Today, a diversion. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you The Cantaloupe Poem, a little ditty I wrote awhile back and the first in my series of fruit poems.

Enjoy, and read aloud if you’re able. The meter is entertaining and you can do voices if you want.

The Cantaloupe Poem
by Mary Fons

Say, friend! Could you spare some time,
For the timid cantaloupe?
That humble fruit whose name don’t rhyme,
‘Cept with “antelope.”

Not fit for tarts, no good for pie,
Pale melon sits, dejected.
“I’m tasty!” you can hear it cry —
But to whom’s the call directed?

The lady ne’er looks its way,
While enjoying her fruit salad,
“I’m sure the flavor’s swell,” she’ll say,
“But the color’s rather pallid.”

The men all pass it up and shout,
Cantaloupe’s for fairies!”
(Yet they’re always ready to flip out,
For oranges and strawberries.)

The fruit tends to befuddle
Those coarse and less refined,
The pastel melon’s flavor’s subtle —
Not counting, ‘course, the rind.

 Do enjoy some, like with ham!
Wrapped ‘round a slender slice!
You’ll quickly say, “Well, damn!”
“Now that tastes really nice!”

Or smooth it in a blender
On a hot midsummer’s day,
Then sit back and surrender
To a cantaloupe sorbet.

Oh, friends! Do reassess
Any anti-melon feeling;
Say not “no” but “Yes, yes, yes!”
And soon I’ll hear you squealing:

“Cantaloupe, I love you!
How firm and how delicious!
There’s now no fruit above you!
You’re yummy and nutritious!”

Saintly Germain

posted in: Art, Day In The Life 6
I didn't do it! Blame it on France!
I didn’t do it! Blame it on Napoleon!

I recently bought a bottle of St. Germain, a sweet liqueur produced in France. It was recommended to me for use in fancy cocktails and in the sly, delicious fortification of white wine. The bottle came in a gift box with a carafe and a 1′ x 2′ poster featuring scantily clad young girls, presumably photographed in France, presumably around 1920, presumably drinking St. Germain. I direct your attention to the scanned-in portion of the poster I’ve included above, in case you missed it. (You didn’t.)

When I opened up the poster that day, I hooted with glee. “What??!” I cried, and showed my friend Ben in town from Portland. He snatched it from me at once. He grinned. “Now that’s good marketing.” There were instructions on the backside (!) of the “pamphlet,” as Ben called it, on how to mix various drinks using St. Germain.

“If that’s a pamphlet, I’m a Freedom Fry,” I said, taking it back. Oh, the French. So obnoxious, so brilliant. Getting a maid’s nearly bare bottom smack in the middle of a poster when all I wanted was an aperitif is a little presumptuous and…well, plain sumptuous. The poster works beautifully. It’s a genius move on the manufacturer’s part. My friend and I poured a touch of the liqueur into our Chardonnay, sipping and staring, transfixed by the image of these two girls. He was fantasizing about happening upon the pair by accident; I was fantasizing about being one of them.

Look again. Wouldn’t you want to be there?

Two pretty, stockinged French girls in their early twenties are reading a book together. It’s summer, around four or five o’clock in the afternoon. Cicadas buzz in the trees and lazy bees dip and wobble over field flowers. Just out of sight is a picnic basket and the Peugeot bicycles they used to get to the clearing. The girls stole a tube of lipstick from a sister earlier and a bottle of — wait for it — St. Germain. They’ve been at leisure for several hours, dozing, drinking, laughing, telling secrets, taking long, deep breaths. It’s bright and hot but there’s a gorgeous breeze; the air feels so marvelous on the skin that they’ve allowed their skirts to get rumpled, their knickers to show without a single care in the world. They are floating in private, languid, countryside. Friends, kindreds, girls, girls, girls.

What I love most about this photo is what isn’t there: There is no man. If you’re a girl who has ever had a best girlfriend, you know the sweetness that comes from a perfect, sensual afternoon that involves zero dudes. It’s not sexual. But it’s sensual, best believe that. Indulgence of the feminine kind is one of my favorites. These days, I am mostly busy with my career, with dating the male sex, with stitching patchwork and setting (more) goals. But when my longtime friend Kristina comes over, she always spends the night. We talk till midnight, we sometimes have wine, we talk about love and books and the past and when it’s time to get into our jammies, we never care if the other sees us change. She sleeps on the couch, I go to my bed.

But oh, for a glade, St. Germain. Oh, for those lazy bees.

You Can’t Wrap a Baby In an iPad: Why Quilts (Still) Matter

posted in: Art, Quilting 9
My Little Churn Dash. Designed and pieced by Mary Fons, quilted by LuAnn Downs.
My Little Churn Dash. Made by Mary Fons, quilted by LuAnn Downs.

Unless I’m at a cocktail party hosted by quilters, I am usually the only quilter at a cocktail party.

When I talk about what I do for work, someone will invariably say, “Sorry — did you say you’re a…quilter?” I nod and say yes and then two things happen: first, the person cocks their head and goes “Huh!” and then, “My auntie used to knit, too.” Sometimes I gently explain the difference between quilting and knitting, sometimes I just ask about the auntie.

If you’re not a quilter, you probably don’t think about quilts very often. You know what they are. You maybe had one in your house as a kid. You don’t know that we take umbrage when you to refer to a quilt as a blanket (please!) and you have no idea that the business of quilting kicks up $3.6 billion dollars annually — that’s just in the States. But that’s all perfectly okay. I don’t know about programming in Ruby, nothing about the Blue-Footed Booby (okay, that rhymed), or how to fix the sink. We all have our work and stuff we geek out on. Quilts, for me, are both. I traffic in them; you don’t.

But then…

Then a quilt comes into your field of vision and I can tell you exactly when it happens: when there’s a baby coming. When there’s a marriage. When someone is real, real sick. Unlike the Blue-Footed Booby, quilts arrive when they are needed and what I insist upon, what I know is true, what I make sure to say at any cocktail party, be-quilted or otherwise, is that quilts are still needed, still relevant by virtue of what they are. Quilts are love, manifested. Put another way:

You can’t wrap a baby in an iPad.

Technology is galloping away with us all and I’m riding bareback with all my quilter friends who, you could argue, are more digitally connected than other hobbyists — we have pictures of quilts to share, online bees; the entire Modern Quilt Guild “movement” was born online. But all the binary code on the planet can’t comfort a baby like wrapping it up in a quilt. Another example? Give a newlywed couple a handmade quilt and watch death rays emit from the eyes of everyone else at the shower — the crystal fruit bowl from Tiffany’s and the Kitchen-Aid mixer might as well be crap from the Dollar Store. You can’t beat a quilt with a stick. They’re magic. They’re irreplaceable. They’re also positively American, at least when we speak specifically of patchwork quilts (as opposed to whole cloth or fancy boutis stuff from Europe, and they can keep all that.)

Hey, I want my own MakerBot. My smartphone, myself.  In the Venn diagram of “Nerdy,” “Creative,” and “Friendly,” “Quilter” is smack in the middle. Besides, we like buttons and stuff. But what gadget — and while we’re at it, what work of art — can you wrap up in, sit on, barf on, wash, cry under, make a tent out of, mop up stuff with, hug, throw, wad, rip, repair, and then give as an heirloom? I’d guess there’s probably just one answer to that question.

And so we still make quilts. We still do. And we will for a long time because try as we might to wriggle out of it, we’re still human. Humans need comfort and joy and to me and my fellow grieving, joyous, aging, newborn, and just plain chilly humans, a quilt is just the thing.

Hi-Low, No.

posted in: Art, Tips 0
Hi, low, or otherwise, it's just awful.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.

We’ve all made sartorial mistakes.

In case I should forget mine, there are plenty of pictures and videos of me that prove I’ve made misdirected fashion choices. I’m thinking of the belted baby doll dress in the second season of Quilty, the “are-those-cornrows?” hairstyle in the third season, the yellow nail polish on the first Love of Quilting series I un-officially co-hosted. These were all mistakes.

But we learn — not in spite of these misfires, but because of them — to internalize the truth: just because something is trendy does not mean you should wear it. Ballet flats give me piano legs. Cap sleeves cut me across the widest part of my arm. Most bluejeans add ten pounds to my frame. (Until very recently, when I actually found a great pair by accident, I had not owned a pair of bluejeans in over six years. There are other things one can put on one’s bottom half, you know.)

If you are sixteen, you can pretty much wear whatever you please as long as you can get out of the house before your mother throws her body against the door to keep you inside. But I have spotted the “hi-low” skirt trend and it is so bad, I don’t believe even a nymphy, achingly pretty sixteen-year-old could pull it off.

The hi-low skirt is a short skirt with a long, sheer skirt over it. What can the designers be thinking? It doesn’t make sense. It is not aesthetically harmonious. The short skirt is not cut in a remarkable way to begin with and then there’s this long, gauzy afterthought, this sheer mistake wafting all over the place. I think it makes a gal look like she’s fallen from a great height and has hit tree after tree on her way down, leaving ripped bits of her real skirt on the craggy branches. Now she’s just got one bit of dress left — a bit of dress and a slip underneath.

Sub-optimal.

Oh, but I see it! I see the “hi-low” on the streets of Chicago. Not all over town, but some. And I look with wonder and I put on a black turtleneck. Turtleneck loves me, hi-low loves me not.

Your List, Please, Part I.

posted in: Art 0
I do not expect to be a Mother, Tracy Emin. 2002. Private collection, courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia © the artist
I do not expect to be a Mother, Tracy Emin. 2002. Private collection, courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia
© the artist

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club was founded in 1961 in New York City by Ellen Stewart. The website says: La MaMa is a world renowned cultural institution recognized as the seed bed of new work by artists of all nations and cultures, and that it true, I have seen it with my own eyes.

Each year, La MaMa takes a handful of folks to a renovated convent in central Italy for a playwright’s retreat. The retreat is ten days, you must apply and be admitted, and the facilitator changes from year to year but is always a decorated, critically-acclaimed, commercially successful writer. The year that I was accepted into the program (yo, 2010!) I had the good fortune to study with Lynn Nottage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose play Intimate Apparel is currently being adapted into an opera at the Met. I know.

Of all the provocative, creative moments Nottage encouraged and fostered in our group that year, I think back again and again to her List.

“Write down your five favorite authors of fiction who are no longer living,” she said. Sure, I thought, and breezily put down Woolf, Maugham, etc. “Now list your five favorite living fiction writers.” Everyone was scribbling on their legal pads. We did the same for non-fiction. Though this was fun, I was surprised at how many numbers there are in the number five. Maybe I didn’t have enough espresso at breakfast.

“Okay, favorite dead poets,” said Lynn. I know poetry better than the average bear, so I wasn’t daunted by this so much, except… Did I have five favorite dead poets? The world is spilling over with devastatingly beautiful poetry and choosing my five favorite poets should be extremely hard: hard because one could not possibly winnow it down to five. I got stuck at four. I was starting to dislike this exercise.

“Now, list your five favorite living poets.”

Full stop. Me no likey. The truth was, I didn’t know current poetry well enough to have one or two favorite living poets, let alone five. I was ashamed to admit that aside from a slam friend who I genuinely admire, only Billy Collins came to mind. Billy Collins!? I don’t even like Billy Collins, but I froze. I had one space out of four filled in and all my blathering about being an artist, being culturally hip was dissolving before my eyes. I was embarrassed.

“Now,” said Nottage, “Five favorite dead painters.” We were all fidgety at this point — we knew what was coming. “Now list your five favorite painters painting today.”

I had one: Chuck Close. But he’s just one of the few living painters I know of.

There were a few other prompts. When we were done, Nottage said, “Look at this list. Where are there holes? Those holes are your homework. And not just while you’re here, but from now on. Read what poets are doing today — how are they writing? How are painters painting today? Where is art going? These are your fellow artists. Explore their work, too, not exclusively the work of dead people. Living artists are important to us and to the world we live in. You should know them, find your favorites, and follow their work.”

And you? Do you know poetry? Who is painting today? It’s a big world out there and the ancient work, the vetted classics, they are classic for a reason; they stand the test of time. But this is our time.

Look around, investigate. Google. Visit new museums. Find the artists next door, not just the ones on the shelf.

 

How The Mighty Amish Quilts Have Fallen

posted in: Art 3
The Quilting Bee, Grandma Moses, 1950.
The Quilting Bee, Grandma Moses, 1950.

If you want to feel like you’ve accidentally taken expired cold medicine, I recommend the Discovery Channel’s Amish Mafia. 

When I’m home in Iowa, I watch a bit of television. I refuse to be a no-TV snob, but the truth is, I don’t have a television in Chicago and I haven’t owned a TV since I left home for college. I’ve just never wanted one very much, mostly because I am an enormous nerd who would rather read a book than do just about anything. And besides, commercials are tiny rapes.

Last night, I was clicking channels and found this Amish Mafia show. Have you heard of it? Seen it? Been as dumbfounded as I was by it? For the most part, a person can watch 30-seconds of any show on television and get the gist of it. “Oh, this is a cop drama,” you think, or “Oh, this is a sitcom where the guy is a lump and the smart wife loves the knucklehead anyway,” or, at the very least, “This is a reality show vs. a show with actors playing parts.” The producers of any show want you to do this. They want their shows to be instantly recognizable so you don’t have to think terribly hard and you can just be entertained. There’s nothing wrong with that; and the best shows actually mess with the formulas and create great, dynamic television. Consider The Sopranos; violent and humane, dramatic but often hilarious, too. Good stuff.

I watched Amish Mafia for a full 30 minutes last night and I still had no idea what was happening to me. The show follows…Amish people. Mostly men. Who have…guns. These Amish men with guns…collect money from other Amish men? With guns? Everyone is very…angry. These angry Amish men with guns talk to the camera like it’s a reality show, but I’ll bet you two bonnets and a straw boater that THERE IS NO AMISH MAFIA so it simply could not be real. Amish people don’t allow girls to play with any doll that has a face! That’s considered a “graven image” and creates idolatry; how does an HD camera filming Amish in their kitchens avoid the whole “graven image” thing? Even for a Mennonite, this seems as plausible as a fish saying, “I prefer living out of the water.”

The whole show was so confusing and lame and slightly disturbing that I had to look it up. It’s not real. It’s scripted. They’re all actors. It’s fake, fake, fake, and the reality show “feel” is calculated, calculated, calculated. The actual Amish are horrified. The actual Mafia is probably horrified, come to think of it. But Amish Mafia just got picked up for a second season, so we’ll all be horrified together for at least another 6 months or so.

The thing that makes me mad is that I even believed for one second that it was real. I did! I thought, “Gee whiz, the Amish community has heavies that break kneecaps for community funding?? That’s nuts!” And then I realized I had been suckered. I don’t like being suckered by an inanimate object, which brings us full-circle as to why I don’t have a television.

The thing that steams me the most? There are quilts all over that show and I can’t decide if this is good or bad. Should I be happy a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt is shown five different times on a major cable television show? Or should I cringe because the guy sitting on it has a gold tooth and bad attitude?

Let’s Cry: “Surrey With The Fringe On Top” from “Oklahoma!”

posted in: Art 4
They considered "Delaware!" but it just didn't... It didn't go.
Rogers & Hammerstein considered “Rhode Island!” initially. Little known fact that I just made up.

I saw Oklahoma! a few months ago. First time. The Lyric Opera in Chicago had put up a critically-acclaimed production of it, so one rainy night in May I slapped on a raincoat and braved the downpour in the name of art. I was quite wet when I arrived. Could I have possibly cared less about my wet feet when the lights went down and the story began?

The critics were right to be acclaiming all over themselves. The Lyric’s production was lush and bright; it clipped right along but allowed space for the moments that needed it. Aside from one actor that I remember not caring for particularly (one I cannot even recall now, so it must not’ve been that bad) the casting was pitch perfect — for a musical, obviously, this is especially important. But what delighted me the most was the musical itself — the melodies, the lyrics, the heart of the thing. Indeed, that is the highest compliment one can pay a production: that the presentation allowed the work to be seen at its most honest, in its purest state. The show got out of the way of the show, if that makes sense.

Have you heard “Surrey With The Fringe On Top” lately? Allow me, please, to share a few lyrics. A surrey, by the way, is a horse-drawn two-seater carriage, and the circumstances here are simple: Curly is trying to woo Laurey into going to a dance with him, so he’s boasting about his tricked-out ride. Now, you tell me if this don’t melt your heart:

“All the world’ll fly in a flurry
When I take you out in the surrey,
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top!
When we hit that road, hell fer leather,
Cats and dogs’ll dance in the heather,
Birds and frogs’ll sing all together and the toads will hop!
The wind’ll whistle as we rattle along,
The cows’ll moo in the clover,
The river will ripple out a whispered song,
And whisper it over and over:”

You gotta be kiddin’ me. Cats and dogs dancing in the heather? Have you ever heard anything more darling in your entire life? Oh, right, you have. In the next line of the song when the birds and frogs start singing together and toads are hopping everywhere. And then the cows in the clover are mooing and lowing and everyone’s in love and good heavens! I was a goner, crying about the damned cats and dogs in the heather and then Rodgers & Hammerstein go and hit me with the last verse, all ritardando and legato and sotto voce :

“I can feel the day gettin’ older,
Feel a sleepy head near my shoulder,
Noddin’, droopin’ close to my shoulder, till it falls — kerplop!
The sun is swimmin’ on the rim of a hill;
The moon is takin’ a header,
And jist as I’m thinkin’ all the earth is still,
A lark’ll wake up in the medder.
Hush, you bird, my baby’s a-sleepin’!
Maybe got a dream worth a-keepin’
Whoa! you team, and jist keep a-creepin’ at a slow clip-clop.
Don’t you hurry…with the surrey…with the fringe on the top!

I’ll tell ya this much: if I ever find myself riding through a meadow, resting my head on my man’s shoulder and he starts telling birds to “hush” ’cause his baby might be having a nice dream, well, that man will get a big, fat, blue ribbon from me. He’ll get a big ol’ kiss, too. Why, he’ll get all kinds of nice things.

Thank you, Lyric Opera of Chicago. Thank you Messieurs Rodgers and Hammerstein. If you have a moment, I beseech you:

Oklahoma! “The Surrey With The Fringe On the Top” — Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae

Save As… “Lolita”

posted in: Art 4

 

(c) Sally Mann.
(c) Sally Mann.

Lolita.

Lo-lee-ta.

I am reading Lo. Lee. Ta.

I read it my sophomore year in college, not for a class, but for —  I was going to say “for fun,” but “fun” is not a word a person employs to describe a Lolita-ing. I read it because someone told me, not incorrectly, that Nabokov’s novel is the greatest of those written in the English language (usually in a dead heat with Ulysses) and undertaking it is non-negotiable for anyone wanting true human race citizenship. I cut through my foolishness (beer, flirting) long enough to get a copy, sit down, and be destroyed.

What is a masterpiece? For my money, I’d say a masterpiece happens because whomever we are and whenever we are, that masterwork of art affects us anew each time it presents itself. (Really, though, don’t we present ourselves to it?)

An example outside of literature: You see Water Lillies*  when you are ten. You love Monet’s painting because it’s looks like so many pink dresses. You see Waterlilies at twenty-five and you hate it, because you’d much rather check out the Duchamp and the Dali, this being a dada and surreal time of life — your rejection is a choice; you have still been moved by the haunting painting. You see Waterlilies on a bad day after a hard rain in your thirties and you marvel at what those paintings did, how they were made, what it took, what it gave, etc. You buy a print when you are sixty. Your granddaughter loves it when you are long gone. She is eight, and it calms her down to look at it when she’s sad.

Two-bit, goofy cartoon characters don’t do this to people. Pulp romances don’t, either. This is the difference between art and everything else.

In the St. Louis airport yesterday, reading Lolita, I had a dim awareness of being an advertisement for the power of a great story. My surroundings disintegrated, washed out into the ether as the Haze house built up around me. Dolores ran past me on her colt legs and even I was in love with her, even I wanted to smell her “biscuity” smell. I physically shuddered when Humbert described himself as a spider; I audibly groaned twice, once when he unfurled a silky strand, again when he unfurled something else. I was in St. Louis, but I might have been in Kuala Lumpur for all the difference it made. The book is a spell.

I debated selecting a few sentences to share with you, a few rubies, but I can’t. Imagine sitting at a five-star restaurant and being placed with the best dish the house can make, some buttered, silky, foie-crunch-braised-foam fresh tower of artistry and then taking out a penknife to strip mine “a good part” for your dining companion.

Hell to the no. You’re just gonna have to read it, folks. You’re going to have to read Lolita, maybe again, maybe for the first time.

It’s been nice knowing you.

*Astonishingly, I selected this example at random, only to find when fact-checking that the series in Monet’s native French is entitled Nymphéas. The only truly Nabokovian stroke here and it was an accident. Great.

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