Artist Manifesto: Carrie Ann Baade

Q. Do you have any words of wisdom, or bits of advice for our readers thinking about pursuing art full time?

A. DO NOT BECOME AN ARTIST.

If you can do something else, do it. However, if this is what you are, god love you, it will never be an easy path. Our eyes, our hands, our minds are committed to service. It is a calling. It will demand every sacrifice of you as you serve. If this is what you are, it was never a choice to do anything else. I am not talking to those of you who create merely out moods or in seasons or way back when. I am speaking to you give blood on a regular basis. Every battle you fight, every sacrifice made to insure your survival proves your conviction that no one and nothing can tear you from your station. This is an honor. To create HERE and NOW. To be the eyes the soul of your time. We are so very privileged to have all our opportunities; this exquisite FREEDOM to express, to adorn, and to synthesize the world we live in. Humble yourself to this calling, serve with passion. Suck the marrow out life! Transform another mind, bring beauty down from the mountain to the cities of men, challenge values, and raise awareness of what it is, to be a part of this human condition. Your reward will be the singing of the stars, the humming of the spheres. To toil in the duty of tribute to culture. To live an extraordinary existence!

I challenge you TO FAIL. Fail magnificently! For it is the only way to succeed. When you finally find success it is a shock to find that this is the first in a long line proving yourself…success is a process that pushes you to out do yourself without limit or end. As you succeed, I challenge you do so with humility and help those that who are climbing with you or behind you. If you can mentor, give someone the advice or confidence no one maybe ever gave you. Succeed so that you may be a shining example of the possible glory of being human, of being a creator. It is so much richer an existence to find yourself among friends than to find yourself alone. We are on this path together.

PS: To those who do not create art, I challenge you to support a living artist and become a collector. Artists are nothing without the belief of another person who values what they are putting into this world. You make a difference. Patronage keeps art alive. There are those amazing few who have come forward for me, they sustain me and fuel my ability to continue. If no one ever came forward for me, I would not be where I am now. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein in the Moveable Feast: - do not buy nice things, do not buy clothes, or expensive food, buy art. This is what is meaningful in this world. Invest in your culture. The artist does not need their creation. They made it for one person, the one to whom it belongs. The one person who resonates with the piece and cannot imagine their life without it.

Rocket Man

2 Grand Slams (calendar). 11 major singles titles (even though banned from playing Grand Slam tournaments from age 24 to age 29 due to his status as a professional). 20 major championships in all (including doubles and mixed doubles). 47 total professional singles titles.

How can anyone deny that Rod Laver was the greatest?

5 feet 8 inches, and a wrist as big as heavyweight champion Sonny Liston.

Today's Writer's Almanac: Billy Collins

The Effort--Billy Collins (from Ballistics)

Would anyone care to join me
in flicking a few pebbles in the direction
of teachers who are fond of asking the question:
"What is the poet trying to say?"

as if Thomas Hardy and Emily Dickinson
had struggled but ultimately failed in their efforts—
inarticulate wretches that they were,
biting their pens and staring out the window for a clue.

Yes, it seems that Whitman, Amy Lowell
and the rest could only try and fail
but we in Mrs. Parker's third-period English class
here at Springfield High will succeed

with the help of these study questions
in saying what the poor poet could not,
and we will get all this done before
that orgy of egg salad and tuna fish known as lunch.

Tonight, however, I am the one trying
to say what it is this absence means,
the two of us sleeping and waking under different roofs.
The image of this vase of cut flowers,

not from our garden, is no help.
And the same goes for the single plate,
the solitary lamp, and the weather that presses its face
against these new windows--the drizzle and the morning frost.

So I will leave it up to Mrs. Parker,
who is tapping a piece of chalk against the blackboard,
and her students—a few with their hands up,
others slouching with their caps on backwards—

to figure out what it is I am trying to say
about this place where I find myself
and to do it before the noon bell rings
and that whirlwind of meatloaf is unleashed.

Resolutions:
(1) Don't be the Mrs. Parker who says this in third-period English.

(2) Remember Yoda: Do or do not...there is no try.

"Never Land"--Yusef Kumunyakaa

I don't wish you were one
of The Jackson Five
tonight, only you were

still inside yourself
unchanged by the vampire
moonlight. So eager to

play The Other,
did you forget
Dracula was singled out

because of his dark hair
& olive skin? After
you became your cover,

tabloid headlines
grafted your name
to a blond boy's.

The personals bled
through newsprint,
across your face. Victor

Frankenstein knew we must
love our inventions. Now,
maybe skin will start to grow

over the lies & subtract
everything that under-
mines nose & cheekbone.

You could tell us if
loneliness is what
makes the sparrow sing.

Michael, don't care
what the makeup
artist says, you know

your sperm will never
reproduce that face
in the oval mirror.

Reading Weldon Kees, Photo of Weldon Kees Reading

1926--Weldon Kees

The porchlight coming on again,
Early November, the dead leaves
Raked in piles, the wicker swing
Creaking. Across the lots
A phonograph is playing Ja-Da.

An orange moon. I see the lives
Of neighbors, mapped and marred
Like all the wars ahead, and R.
Insane, B. with his throat cut,
Fifteen years from now, in Omaha.

I did not know them then.
My airedale scratches at the door.
And I am back from seeing Milton Sills
And Doris Kenyon. Twelve years old.
The porchlight coming on again.
_____________

The photograph above is of Weldon Kees reading from the work of poet Henry Reed. It's haunting--Kees in a World War I uniform, and his shadow pendant.

More and More: Words of Advice from DRJ

Here are the comments of my son, Daniel, when he was three and saw Alice in Wonderland for the first time: "So...don't eat nothing, don't drink nothing, and don't go through any little doors..."

Words to live by!

Pushing Yourr Buttons

It was on this day in 1868 that the typewriter was patented, by Christopher Sholes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1873, he sold the patent to the Remington Arms Co., a famous gun maker, for $12,000. There had been typewriters before, but they weren't very practical — it took longer to type a letter than to write it by hand. The first commercial typewriter based on Sholes' design, a Remington Model 1, went on the market in 1874. (information from today's Writer's Almanac)




The Writer
by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

Curious and Curiouser

“Soon I’ll go berry-picking, and when I go I’ll take my language with me.”

@ Yahoo! Video

Watch this fascinating video on the loss of the world's languages and its effects on culture, science, and ecosystems. It's a fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking video.

Only in America: Happy Father's Day

* More collect calls are placed on Father's Day than any other day of the year.

* The Stevie Wonder song "Isn't She Lovely" isn't about a woman he's lusting for; it's about his newborn daughter Aisha! If you listen closely, you can hear Aisha crying during the song.

* Kurt Vonnegut was (for a short time) Geraldo Rivera's father-in-law. Rivera's marriage to Edith Vonnegut ended in 1974 because of his womanizing. Her ever-protective father was quoted as saying, "If I see Gerry again, I'll spit in his face." He also included an unflattering character named Jerry Rivers (a chauffeur) in a few of his books.

(facts from Mental Floss--link above)

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

This is among my favorite books: I cannot wait to see what Tim Burton does with this cast and set design. Alice looks beautiful in Alice blue (which is named after A. Roosevelt, not A. in W.)! Click on the link above for more photographs from the movie.

06/20/1975: Jaws (This Day in History)

June 20: General Interest
1975 : Jaws release

On this day in 1975, Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977's Star Wars. Jaws was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category and took home three Oscars, for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound. The film, a breakthrough for director Spielberg, then 27 years old, spawned three sequels.

The film starred Roy Scheider as principled police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as a marine biologist named Matt Hooper and Robert Shaw as a grizzled fisherman called Quint. It was set in the fictional beach town of Amity, and based on a best-selling novel, released in 1973, by Peter Benchley. Subsequent water-themed Benchley bestsellers also made it to the big screen, including The Deep (1977).

With a budget of $12 million, Jaws was produced by the team of Richard Zanuck and David Brown, whose later credits include The Verdict (1982), Cocoon (1985) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Filming, which took place on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, was plagued by delays and technical difficulties, including malfunctioning mechanical sharks.

Jaws put now-famed director Steven Spielberg on the Hollywood map. Spielberg, largely self-taught in filmmaking, made his feature-length directorial debut with The Sugarland Express in 1974. The film was critically well-received but a box-office flop. Following the success of Jaws, Spielberg went on to become one of the most influential, iconic people in the film world, with such epics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), ET: the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). E.T., Jaws and Jurassic Park rank among the 10 highest-grossing movies of all time. In 1994, Spielberg formed DreamWorks SKG, with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. The company has produced such hits as American Beauty (1999), Gladiator (2001) and Shrek (2001).

_______
Click on the link above to see the REENACTED BY BUNNIES version of this classic movie. (There are others available, too. I'm quite fond of the Bunnies' remake of of The Rocky Horror Picture Show).

Happy Juneteenth!

This is from Dr. Goodword, another great site for all you word junkies:

• Juneteenth •

Pronunciation: jun-teenth

Part of Speech: Noun, proper

Meaning: Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. This African-American celebration remembers the day, June 19, 1865, when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached slaves in Galveston, Texas—two and a half years after it was issued.

Notes: Early celebrations evolved into political rallies and later into formal celebrations planned far in advance by Juneteenth committees. June 19, 1865 was a Monday but now Juneteenth is often celebrated on the weekend nearest June 19th. In early years these celebrations were commonly relegated by law to the outskirts of towns. However, many Juneteenth organizations eventually purchased tracts of land inside towns for the express purpose of holding the celebration. Many of them were named 'Emancipation Park' and some remain today.

In Play: In 2007 celebrations were held in more cities across the US than ever before, marking the 140th anniversary of this special day. For details of celebrations in your area, visit the Juneteenth website at www.juneteenth.com.

Word History: Today's Good Word is a blend of June and nineteenth that sounds rather odd, since -teen-th are suffixes that usually attach to numbers (teen is a variant of ten). June was taken from the calendar of the Romans, who named the month after their goddess, Juno, the wife of Jupiter and the goddess of the moon, marriage, and childbirth. Juno's name comes from the same root as the Latinate words, junior, juvenile, and our own Germanic versions, English young, German and Dutch jung "young", and Swedish ung "young". (Let us all join with Larry Brady, who originally suggested today's Good Word, in celebrating this unique US holiday and the freedom from repression it symbolizes.)

Characteristics of Romanticism: Via Harriet

Rothenberg's Poetry for the Millennium presents this as a checklist for Romanticism (19th century and beyond):

1. A challenge to closure.
2. A conscious emphasis on defamiliarization.
3. A foregrounding of emotions, feelings, and perceptions…as process and experiment.
4. The poet as visionary/seer.
5. The poet as a conduit for other voices.
6. An erasure of the boundaries between poetry and other forms of composition and speculation.
7. At its finest, a poetry that allows for the guiding principle of uncertainty.
8. Alongside the celebration of beauty (both “intellectual” and physical), a recurring exploration of the ugly and the grotesque.
9. A calling into question of traditional religious forms.
10. Alongside Romantic ideas of fancy and fantasy, an emergence of a new realism. . .an attention to the details of the everyday world.
11. A heightened sense of the transgressive set against an officially sanctioned ethos of gentility and conformity.
12. A widespread experience of exile.
13. Changes in form, including irregular forms, prose poetry, the fragment as a conscious poetic form, improvisation and performance poetry, sound poetry, dialect experiments, and verbal/visual interaction.

The Two Harveys: We Were First Married

Red Lilies by Richard Speakes

For Joan Didion

We tame with explanations any red, provide
meanings into which we dive, the human
foxhole where the mind finds protection.
It’s fabulous out there, and one clump
of red lilies beside the house could be
the bullet that rips through the body of
all those connotations, our symbols,
the stories that make sense of our world.
Red Riding Hood and Christ’s wounds, mother’s
blood,and the color the sun must be as one’s death
gives sunset its purpose, its passion at closure.
And then, rising, the moon punctuates the sentence
one’s life made, its last word that somehow rhymes
with all the words preceding, love and work
and sex. One’s death is by nature that moment,
all the meanings folded into the bundle
one carries, tied to a stick of bone,
as one goes forth into eternity.
That exquisite nonsense is the world
the mind makes from the world it didn’t,
with words that are themselves blossoms
of the invisible, the world as we see it.

(Poetry, 1994)