Wednesday, September 24, 2008

the cover of the book

The book is in the can so to speak. It is in the hands of the copyright office and now I am just making the many outfits required by the main characters - harder than you might imagine. Anyway that is not what I want to talk about. I feel, and have for a very long time, that the constant intravenous drip we get of hopeless negativity is apt to get one down. I had to quit watching nature because there was not one whale or orangutan I could save. I couldn't save Diane Fossey or Joy Adamson or Timothy Treadwell. I have carried my ineffectual leanings into the current global warming/stock market/housing market crises. I hope they are not counting on me to save the world because it has been driven home to me that me and my wittle ol' self can't do a damn thing about anything. I'm seriously considering not voting. To think that my country is in so much trouble - not of my doing, mind - but, as in the case of the narwhale and its demise - there is not a thing I can do to help. Can't think that either of the men running can do much either. The old silverback with his cagey pol ways - hmm- or the gormless youngster with nothing really to show me but an overweaning love of the limelight. Likened to Kennedy - Camelot (ha) - Adkinson disease -Viet Nam - bay of pigs - Judith Exnor - Sam Giancanna - sadly it was not all the breast beaters would have us think. I used to believe that these leaders were motivatd by a higher ideal of service - After watching congress and the senate these past several decades, I have come to the conclusion that politics attracts, in the main, meglomaniacs with the gift of gab who arrive with a scruple or two then shed them as quickly as possible. I've never heard of one who has left poor. And as to leaving - they hang on to power
as fiecely as barnacles on a sperm whale. Such a great country and so sullied by the glib hucksters who run Washington. It is all so wearying.

Monday, September 22, 2008

the artist in kansas

I lived in wichita fo r 11 years, Never saw so much dust and wind - never saw so much sky - never saw so much smugness. Take it back - lived in New England too and never saw so much provincial thinking. kansas looked like the bloody age of enlightenment. Anyway, i raise cairns, I live with Burmese cats and at the time i made this print, i lived in good old Wichita. Nice folks - reliably vanilla ice cream eaters. I'll pass on - sent my book to sister and friend and art venue in wichita - art venue has responded - sister and friend hain't. One can hardly call and say did you like it, did you like it, huh huh, did you like it. Obvioulsy not. Boo hoo - lots of work = I liked it - what do I know.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

The book is in the mail. i am sending an electronic copy to the copyright office. don't know to what end, but it is like carrying a rabbit's foot, I reckon. Or the crow's feather in Dumbo. I think you have to have the money to hire a lawyer to sue the offending thief of artistic imagination. it is what all residents of gated communities come to. I once lived in one of those because i was of the mind that my children would be exposed to educated peers. Yes and no. They were exposed, in the main, to people who had a recent progenitor living in a double wide. Consequently, these folk thought their McMansion of 3,500 sq ft- 2 1/2 baths - granite kitchen surfaces - was the ultimate mankind could achieve. Nevermind it was on a postage size lot and if they passed a fart the next door mansion owners would hear. The children in these communities were sadly lacking in any moral compass. The sum total of their education was an avowed and universal sneer at any manor of conveyance other than a BMW. But, and here is where it all unraveled, though they paid an ever increasing "neighborhood" fee to live in valhala, it "twarnt" actually enough to hire a lawyer and evict the guy who left his car out all night - or the lady who actually erected a clothes line (so offenive to the sensitivities of the truly refined) because she likes the smell of sunshine on her sheets - no, no. The sum they were paying - it turns out, was mainly that of maintenance of the grounds - all that mowing and pruning - yes valhala looked great when you drove home from a 10 hour day (just to make the mortgage) but it really looked good for the sales office in charge of selling your little slice of heaven. As to the eyesores - car outside garage, fence 3" above rules, clothes line (fresh sheets be damned)= well it turns out the homeowners have to go outside to a law office to enforce the rules. In the end, one is left with officious shrub nazis, leaving little poison pen letters in the offender's mailbox that their garage door was open all night or they were supposed to have two trees and twelve shrubs. So revealing as to personal character. In short, I am jaded as to the real "teeth" the copyright office has but will do it anyhoo.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

enter mother


I am close to the end.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

part of the story

All is not gaiety as one would presume in my story. There is drama, intrigue and as much push and shove as in the 2008 elections. God save us all.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

one of the many hair raising adventures

another in the exciting life of one of my characters

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

another chapter

My apologies to the two people that read this blog. The book is growing like mad. It is surprising how many memories are stored in the old brain - pleasant and un. I have been so busy writing and collecting and creating drawings for the little situations the characters find themselves in, that i have neglected the blog. But I content myself that you will still check in now and again. I just copyrighted one of my images - so expensive to do and really so futile in the end I fear - but i do have a little certificate from the copyright office and i think I can do the whole book and all the illustrations (because if you don't have them - well what do you have!!) for one price. Yesterday, i compromised and gussied up a three ring binder with cloth - then i appliqued the title and the spine title. I must say after three attempts it still looks like crapola. But nil desperandum as Bertie would inquire of Jeeves, if the phrase fits.