My end of 2015 homework

This end of the year assessment is an interesting one for me. I started doing this six years ago, at Jamey’s prompting and now it’s one of my favorite ways to wrap up each year.

In the past, I often haven’t wanted the year to end and I’ve been anxious about the coming year.  The last few years have been really tricky and challenging, so I’ve been eager to start fresh. I feel really calm about 2016, even though my upcoming birthday is almost simultaneous with the beginning of both a month of Mercury Retrograde and a Jupiter Retrograde (which is going to be interesting, I understand from reading my horoscope).

All that is to say that while I haven’t achieved everything I’d hoped to achieve this year (see: the last item on the list), I’m still satisfied with my year. A friend asked me tonight what my resolutions are for 2016 and I realized that my only resolution is to continue doing what I’m doing and, in some cases, more of it.

1) I learned a lot about blogging and even met a lot of amazing bloggers. I just didn’t blog. If you count *this* post, I only updated three times this year, which is the total number of posts I published in December 2014. It wasn’t intentional and I felt really bad about it at first. And then I just stopped, posting and feeling bad. I decided to do it again when it felt right, when I had a better sense of what I wanted the blog to be in the future. And, in the meantime, I Tweeted a ton. It started to feel like poetry to me, the opportunity to quickly be creative within a rigid structure (limited characters). I hope to use Goodreads more regularly in 2016, because I would like to continue writing my fun, crazy subjective book reviews. I read a lot of great books this year.

2) My once-temporary apartment became permanent. At the beginning of 2015, I thought I’d be moving for the 3rd time since 2013 and I was pretty miserable about it. I’d fallen in love with my place and my neighborhood.

I’ve made a cozy, impermanent, perfect little home here for myself and while I’ll probably have to move again soon, I know now that I absolutely love Mid City…

I went so far as to look at a ton of apartments and while none of them was right, I thought I’d have to pick one. And then, on my birthday, a reprieve. It was pretty amazing timing. Since then, I’ve finally settled in completely, hanging mirrors, hooks and cork boards, buying a bookcase and filling it up with books that had been in storage for a year. I downsized to a smaller storage unit and while the majority of my books are still there, I’m now “all in” on my place.

3) My mission to cook more and eat healthier continued. If you need proof, my Twitter feed is evidence. It’s filled with food photos, love letters to cast iron skillets, longing notes about breadboxes. I became ravenous for avocados and beets, two foods almost unknown to my diet previously. Cooking and preparing meals became my main form of entertainment as well as a resolution for better health. A good friend moved last year and gave me a bunch of her kitchen stuff and I endeavored to use it. When the sweet amazing couple who I bought bread from every week at the market left town, the baker taught me how to make bread. Suddenly, I was baking my own bread every week, bringing a loaf (pic below) to every gathering of friends and taking serious pleasure from feeding the people I care about. There’s nothing like it.

Another friend visited early in the year, scoped the contents of my fridge and said, kinda judgey and suspicious, “What’s up with all the green stuff in your fridge?” I was thrilled. And so here you go, a pic of my fridge from a few days ago, way more green than earlier in the year. To round out the photos, a  “skinny cheesecake parfait” (mine is made with minced cranberries instead of strawberries) I just made with the mixer I got for Christmas.

Latest loaf

A green fridge

4) I jettisoned broken things or any experience or relationship that didn’t work for me anymore. Including a job that was making me miserable. A grudge that kept me from walking into a place I’d once loved. I lovingly laid to rest painful “what-ifs” about past relationships. And the real biggie – I worked on giving up habits that weren’t serving me or were actively hurting me.

5) I challenged myself to do things that made me anxious or uncomfortable. Liiike, a friend gave me a VIP pass for Jazz Fest and I used it to go see Lenny Kravitz by myself – which is terrifying because I have trouble with crowds. Gotta say, the VIP access was huge in making it possible, but it was definitely still a challenge.

When life gives you scary crowds…

…enjoy the happy hearts in the sky.

An editor of an amazing publication expressed interest in my writing and I sent work not once, but twice. I talked myself through a mid-flight panic attack. I binged the first 5 seasons of The Walking Dead and then read the comics and started watching every week, even though I’m a total wuss and almost never watch scary stuff. After years of being intrigued by this show, I just dove in and became a huge fan. Instead of letting panic or anxiety control my decisions, I let the things I loved, or wanted to love, guide me.

6) I focused on the people I was with and/or what I was doing at any given time. Meaning, my cell phone was in my bag or turned screen-down when I was hanging out or taking a meeting. I left the phone in the other room a lot. I gave myself permission not to answer if I was writing or decompressing. But I also returned calls more regularly and enjoyed Skype sessions with folks I love who are far away. I was thoughtful about how I spent my time, and with whom. And I was lucky enough to witness so many of my friends and colleagues achieve wonderful success this year, to be fully present when it happened.

7) I traveled even more this year. A 36-hour whirlwind of a trip to Portland for ValenTango (where I also got to visit with my brother). Atlanta for work and for dancing. Then, New York kept coming up (Anne and Hiro’s joint gallery show, their NYC debut!, a new tango friend who offered to host me). I haven’t been for years and in the past, I would’ve been practical and skipped it, but this year, I gave myself a trip to NYC as a present. I had an amazing time dancing and catching up with Anne and basically living at Google’s offices for the first day and a half (the cafeteria exceeds every legend you might’ve heard). I made new friends while I was there and had a random adventure going to see Karl Ove Knausgard at The Strand with one of them. I longed to go to NYC, so I made it happen. And it was fantastic.

With my brother outside the Portland airport.

NYC tango friends at Anne and Hiro’s show (between 2 of Anne’s paintings).

New New York friend and Karl Ove Knausgard (they’re both really tall).

With Anne at the gallery (+ a painting inspired by Soaring Gardens).

8) (cont’d) Travel Pt II. I made a pilgrimage to a Tennessee mountaintop with Peauxdunque and on the way, stopped by Memphis to catch up with Jamey.

Cassie, Jamey, Maurice and I at Otherlands in Memphis.

2nd Night Dinner Crew (led by moi).

Climbing the ridge to the house.

Peauxdunque Retreat 2016

And then another whirlwind tango trip – this one 23 hours in Dallas to dance, catch up with great friends and celebrate the holidays.

9) Speaking of tango. For the second year, I assisted with the New Orleans Tango Festival, which has become, for me personally, a tango family reunion every year. More and more, I appreciate catching up with friends I might not get to see but once a year (if that) and to measure my growth against the last time we danced together. Check out this recap video (you can even see me about 27 seconds in):

And this year was even more special because of the time I got to spend with the ladies of La Bailonga Tango (+ Giovanni Parra), a Colombian tango band that came to Nola for the Festival. We had so much behind-the-scenes fun: getting them to their radio and tv appearances and trying to communicate in both English and Spanish (and oddly, French, which kept popping out when I tried to speak Spanish). I will treasure the experience!

We started working on 2016 very soon after this year’s festival was finished and I’m excited to do it again.

10) I threw myself into a new job, a new career. One that I really, really love. No matter how exhausting and challenging the day is, I end each one entirely satisfied by the opportunity to use my exceptionally diverse job history and my creativity while learning new things, every day. This job is bringing me balance and stability, but even so it’s also forcing me to face my struggle with change head-on. What is this job, you ask? I work at the library. It kinda seems like the obvious path for me, in hindsight.

11) (cont’d – this is worth 2 spots) So obvious that I was probably running from it. I realized that I was afraid of at least two things: a stable 9-5 career and also doing something I loved for a living. What if working at the library ruined what has always been my safe haven, my happy place? (This is the “don’t work at your favorite restaurant” theory). And, the biggie, what if career satisfaction removed all of my motivation to write? Luckily…

12) I wrote with more dedication and playfulness than ever before. For most of the year, I woke up a few hours early in order to write before work! I’d estimate that 2/3rds of the year, I went out of my way and made time for writing. Thanks to several months playing around with a novel about zombies (during the miserable job) and once again to NaNoWriMo in November, I looked forward to my writing sessions. I was light-hearted in a way I haven’t been in a long, long time.

13) I published. A short short story in Like a Girl pre-show supplement. A short piece of advice. More author profiles and book pieces for 225 Magazine. Several small business profiles for Gambit Weekly. An essay in the Scars Anthology. This last one is closely tied to #14 below…

14) I “appeared” more times this year than in the previous three years combined. I hadn’t read my work publicly for about 5 years before that, so this was huge.

A lot of the opportunities I had this year were because Maurice and I were promoting Scars locally. I’ve been so thrilled to share the experience with him and to be included in such a fabulous anthology. It was inspiring to get a tiny taste of what it’s like to publish and promote your work.

I got to have a book release at Garden District Bookshop, where I used to work, to share a stage with authors Jami Attenberg and MO Walsh at the Louisiana Book Festival and then to “work” at Octavia Books alongside authors Claudia Gray and Wayne Curtis for Small Business Saturday

Photo by Tad Bartlett

Photo by Tad Bartlett

Photo by Melinda Palacio

Photo by Octavia Books

After these experiences – I’m even more determined now.

15) I didn’t finish the novel by the end of the year, like I hoped I would. But I will finish it. After years of working on this novel and trying to put it aside and move on, I finally *know* that I will finish it, soon.

The best analogy I’ve ever heard about writing a novel is that it’s like building a boat in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight. I’ve spent more than 10 years with mirages of land or no hope of ever seeing it again. And now, there, not too far away, I see land ahead. I know where I’m going and that the journey is almost over.

A friend posted today about “done lists,” vs. “to-do lists.” I like that idea a lot. It immediately resonated. I think that’s what I’ve been doing these last few years. A list to remind myself of everything I’ve done, since it can be so easy to forget the sea of never-ending to-dos.

Can you see why I’m satisfied with 2015? It’s been pretty amazing. 2016 is gonna be even more so, I can feel it. Happy New Year, y’all.

The Residency Road Trip: Soaring Gardens Week One

The last post was a bit of a cliff-hanger, wasn’t it? I left y’all right at the moment when Anne and I arrived at Soaring Gardens. And now, here it is, the first day of our second week here, so I thought I’d share a bit about the first week.

Day 1 

We arrived in the late afternoon and spent a bit of time unloading the cars. I picked a corner bedroom upstairs, which has two windows, so lots of light. I later found three Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey programs from 1980-82 on the bookshelves, as well as books of Russian fairy tales, so it felt like a sign that this was the perfect room for me. As we were unpacking and settling in, I checked my email and learned that a short essay I wrote was accepted for an anthology, so that felt like very lucky timing.

I volunteered to cook dinner while Anne set up the studio. I plan to do a bunch of cooking while I’m here, so it was good to start right away. I made salmon and quinoa and Anne put together a salad. We sat on the back porch and ate as the sun set. Someone (we don’t know who yet) left us baked apples, so we had that for dessert. Right before it got really dark, a group of deer came out of the trees behind the house and snagged some apples off a tree that’s down the alle from the house. It was a great start to our time here.

Day 1 dinner

Day 2

Today, first thing, I put on my mud boots and went down the alle and through the land immediately behind the house, exploring. It was hot and muggy (not like I’m used to in New Orleans, of course) and the views were spectacular, as you can see for yourselves.

 

 

 

Back at the house, I worked on the edits for the essay that was accepted for the anthology and did some administrative work. I got word that I wasn’t accepted for a residency in Scotland, but I was one of 12 finalists, so that was a second bit of good news. I worked mainly in the kitchen today, which is a gorgeous space (as you can see here):

In the afternoon, Anne and I took a field trip to the farm stand and bought some fresh local produce, cheese and jam. We did a quick drive-through of Laceyville proper so I’d know how to find my way there and back.

When we got back, I volunteered to cook again, throwing together some frozen spinach and mozzarella ravioli with a cream of mushroom sauce and some fresh spinach and grated Pennsylvania jack cheese, both from the farm stand. I didn’t do a very clean job of plating it, but it was tasty. We finished off the baked apples, which I finally thought to take a picture of, right before mine was all gone.

Day 2 dinner

 

 

 

We ate on the back porch again, watching the sun set. We talked about our respective days and it was remarkable to realize how similar our different mediums are in many ways. After dinner, we each went back to our work for a few hours and then reconvened for cards in the library. I taught her Egyptian rat slap and she taught me how to play rummy. Regular rummy, not the family card game we figured is a variation.

Day 3

I fell asleep with a moth hovering around my room and when I woke up and started moving around, the moth decided to cling stubbornly to me. So, I went on a walk to get him back outside. Here’s what I saw this morning:

Today, I wasn’t feeling so great and was having trouble focusing. So, I decided to set up in the library and make it a research and reading day. I took care of a few more administrative tasks, talked to a friend who called, listened to music. But most importantly, I mused and journaled (I may already have an idea for my NaNoWriMo story this year). I found another Ringling program, this one from 1977 and spent some time looking through it, which rekindled the Novel a bit. I browsed a book on Vermeer (the library houses an enormous collection of art books), among my more on-task reading.

Anne insisted on cooking tonight and I was providing the cornbread (we’d found a cast iron cornbread pan), so I looked up a recipe and made my best stab with the ingredients we had on hand, experimenting a little. It turned out more like polenta, but was still tasty. Here’s Anne’s dinner, tofu steaks with assorted veggies and sauerkraut (plus, my “cornbread”).

Day 3 dinner

In what has already started to feel like a tradition, Anne and I ate on the back patio, talking and watching the sun set, then cleaned the kitchen together and went back to work. After a few more hours of our respective projects, we reconvened for rummy and tea, more talk about how the work had gone.

Day 4

I stayed up very late last night, writing and reading, which was great, but also a little foolish, because I was woken by the guys who work on the property, who I’d known were coming by fairly early. Despite the lack of sleep, it was a pretty productive day, in which I actually did some work on the Novel (inspired by the 1977 program, surely). No big walk for me today, but I made little trips to the mailbox and the compost pile to break up the work. I went out and lay on the front lawn for a while, watching butterflies and thinking.

Since I knew I was making spaghetti tonight, I had a very light lunch which was so pretty I had to capture it. Earlier in the day, I marinated some local ground beef in some Crystal I brought from home and I made meatballs. Then, I made added a huge, gorgeous purple tomato from the farm stand to the spaghetti sauce (wish I had a picture of that for y’all). I added some red onions and a tiny bit of fresh jalapeno peppers. A local, spicy version of my go-to spaghetti. Anne made a tasty Greek salad and we finished it off with some toasted garlic bread. Yum.

Day 4 dinner

 

 

 

 

After dinner, we talked and saw the deer again, way more than we’ve seen previously. It’s not a great picture (couldn’t get very close without spooking them), but here they are in the pond and you can see that there’s quite a few.

And then Anne made s’mores for dessert. We didn’t have a campfire, but it was dark and we got marshmallows and chocolate all over us and giggled like children, so it was absolutely perfect:

Day 5

Today, I had a mission: drive to Tunkhannock for a big shop before the rain started in the afternoon. We’d been making a shopping list of odds and ends that we still needed and I was curious about the area and the biggest nearby town. I had a plan to swing by the library, but that didn’t quite work out this trip. Anne went by the farm stand and had adventures at a nearby orchard as I drove the half hour to the Weis in Tunkhannock. It was a nice drive and I didn’t feel nearly as nervous about the twists and turns and sheer drop-offs this time around, partly because my car was lighter and partly because I was more familiar with the roads. Once I was at the Weis, I realized I’d forgotten to bring the cooler, so I had to improvise by buying a bag of ice and chilling the frozen/cold items for the drive back (the reason the library visit didn’t pan out).

And the drive back didn’t go quite as smoothly as I ended up taking the roundabout way back, instead of the more direct way. But the ice cream and I both arrived back at the house no worse for the detour (mostly).

Anne was cooking tonight, so I got busy with work, this time in the upstairs office. I’ve been a bit of a Goldilocks the past few days, moving from room to room in the house during my work each day. The office has four windows and the view from the desk is of the studio where Anne is working, as well as the front of the house. It was a good day to be upstairs, as it was rainy throughout the afternoon and started getting gradually cooler.

On one of my breaks, I went by the mailbox and my first mail had arrived! My neighbor back home had sent a packet of mail that had gotten delivered after I put in my forward request (oh Mid City postal office, how frustrating you are!). It was nice to get some mail here and even nicer to have some little daily rituals developing, like my walk to the mailbox.

Day 5 dinner

Before dinner was ready, the delicious smells were already wafting upstairs. We ate in the more formal dining room, since it was rainy and cool. I toasted some of the fresh pumpernickel I’d gotten today, and we opened up the Malbec, since I was missing my tango community a little. I don’t know why, but homesickness for them and for dancing hit me suddenly a little before dinner and I ended up wistfully watching some tango videos that friends posted. So, the Malbec was perfect with Anne’s chicken dish, as were the chocolates we had after dinner.

By the time we reconvened for rummy and tea after our second shift of work, it was so chilly we both had to put on sweaters and socks. I stayed up late reading and may have found some local-ish tango. More on that later.

Day 6

Today was a reset day, full of administrative work in the office, laundry and then reading. Here’s the station I selected for the reading, because it was a gorgeous day after the rain yesterday:

The view from my office

Today’s office space

 

 

 

 

And after an hour or so of hammock reading, Anne and I set off for Blueberry Haven. She’d stopped there yesterday and talked to one of the owners, who said that the blueberries were done for the season, but he’d leave the gate open today and we could have any blueberries we found. Challenge accepted! So, we went back and spent almost two hours wandering through the rows of blueberry bushes. On our own, it was quiet and meditative and then we met up again at the bushes near the front, still loaded with berries! Here’s some pictures from the field trip: the note left at the stand just outside the field, berries on the bush, the Blueberry Haven sign, Anne and I at the stand, the berries we picked between the two of us (turns out the berries are not, in fact, done. Not quite.).

 

 

 

 

 

The sun was blazing on our drive back, so we sat down with our feast of leftovers just as magic hour was starting. Afterwards, I made a sweet treat first made for me by a dear friend, so it was a shout out to her.

Day 6 dinner (spaghetti’s 2nd appearance), with sweet corn from Blueberry Haven

Vanilla bean ice cream with olive oil drizzle and sea salt

 

 

 

 

After some more work in the office, I transitioned to reading in the library. It was getting very chilly, so I shut all the windows and curled up with a blanket. Anne slaughtered me at our evening rummy game, but I am getting better. By the time I went to bed very late (or very early), I’d gotten deep into two nonfiction books. Three, if you count my hammock reading from the afternoon.

Day 7

I found a new office today, shady and comfy and with a stunning view:

It was a very still day. The longer I sat meditating and ruminating without moving, the more creatures visited: a few caterpillars, a daddylonglegs, even a hummingbird. After a while, I decided to walk up to the house and eat lunch.

Walking back, I noticed the flag on the mailbox was down (I’d dropped off a stack of mail earlier in the morning). Inside was this gorgeous postcard, from a great friend and writer, encouraging me. It was so lovely and timely. I propped it on the coffee cup and got back to work.

Then, it was time to make dinner. Earlier, I’d chosen a recipe for “Cajun” salmon from a great cookbook Anne brought. I’m normally skeptical of anything Cajun that’s not prepared in Louisiana (snobbish? maybe), but I decided to just go with it. Check out the 6 spice soldiers I had to draft into duty and the finished dish (with a slaw-ish salad from Anne and some white wine):

Day 7 dinner

 

 

Anne made some rice pudding for dessert and afterwards, I did some reading and walked around the pitch-black property admiring the full moon. And then, I found yet another office, doing some writing in the somehow very warm studio, where Anne works. There’s a second drafting table that I set up my computer and notebooks at, the dark windows turning into mirrors.

I can’t promise that I’ll be this thorough with future weekly updates. We’ll see how it goes. But I had a lot of fun taking food and landscape photos this week.

NaNoWriMo 2013 Days 16-18

So, back on Day 15, after I posted my update, I went to a fantastic concert at House of Blues’s Parish Room (which is also where I saw Lissie’s phenomenal show a few years ago). I was looking forward to Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes for *weeks*, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go till the day of the show. While waiting for my friends N. and M. outside, I saw a guy who looked vaguely familiar with a lady who didn’t look familiar at all. We had a pretty typical New Orleans conversation:

Me: “Hey, do you know where I know you from?”

Him: “No, but you sure do look familiar to me, too.”

Me (shrug): “Well, it’ll come up again some day, I’m sure.”

And then it took a turn for the surreal, which is still fairly typical of New Orleans conversations:

Her: “Hey, this guy just gave us two tickets to this show and we can’t stay for it. Do you want these tickets?”

Me: “Oh *hell* yeah!” (snatches tickets).

Still, no clue how I know him. Except now I know them both as concert ticket-bequeathing angels.

The Honorable South opened the show, which was exciting. I found out about them when my friends Adam Gambrel and Jax Baker directed and produced the music video for their song The Beast. Realized while grabbing links just now that more friends worked on it: Jil Szewski and Natalie Johnson. Adam’s just directed another video for their new song Saint Charles Parish.

Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes were everything I’d hope they’d be. N’s friend A. joined us and we totally danced a loopy awesome swing style dance in the midst of the packed crowd. It was probably totally obnoxious to everyone around us, but also totally awesome. It was just one of those nights. I hope you have one or two soon, yourself.

I worked on Day 16 and had another long, fantastic social evening. No words! Ditto with Day 17, except it (Sunday) included a performance of Waiting for Godot at Tulane, attending with a friend with friends in the cast. It was really funny and well-done. Afterwards, we had to sustain ourselves with steak. So, still no words.

So I broke my no-word streak today. After a long day of work, I had an hour-long word war with Sis. At first, I didn’t know what to write. I started reading the next chapter of my book, looking for sections that could use shoring up or extra scenes. And I got inspired. As I was writing the scene, I realized that I may completely discard it, but that it was telling me something about how I felt the story had to go. By the end of the scene, I was fairly sure I’d keep the scene and change the rest of the book. The magic of NaNoWriMo.

I wrote 1,215 words, which brings my total so far this year to 10,538 words. I need more than 3,000 daily in order to hit 50,000 words by the 30th, so it’s increasingly unlikely I’ll “win” this year. But what an educational adventure it’s been. And at least I creeped over the 10K hurdle. In my worst year, I only wrote 6,827 words. So, I’ve already done better than my worst. It’s all gravy after that!

Who’s got the brag?

I think this may end up being my most massive brag ever.

As usual, Tad has done a fabulous job of keeping track of Peauxdunquian achievements in real time. For instance that Cassie Pruyn is second runner up in the Faulkner-Wisdom’s poetry category, that J.Ed Marston and Tad Bartlett are both finalists, that Maurice Ruffin’s upcoming reading October 3rd, plus much, much more. So I hope you have the Peauxdunque blog bookmarked.

Jeff Roedel was one of 30 writers asked to write a story responding to a photograph by William Greiner for the book Show & Tell.

The Spring 2013 issue of The Eudora Welty Review features Alison Graham-Bertolini’s “Searching for the Garnet Pin.”

The Devil In Her Way by Bill Loehfelm was a “best new local book” on the Best of New Orleans list, picked by Gambit readers.

Ava Leavell Haymon is now Louisiana’s Poet Laureate! Her official induction will be October 24th. Also, her new book of poetry Eldest Daughter was published recently. I attended two events this week where she read from the book, including at a Women’s Week event yesterday at the Baton Rouge Art Gallery, along with Jamey Hatley and several amazing women writers.

Dispensations by Randolph Thomas won the New Rivers Press MVP Prize and will be published soon!

Jenn Nunes has three short fiction pieces at Fiction Southeast.

Blood a Cold Blue by James Claffey is now available. The official launch is this Friday! I love this blog post from his wife Maureen Foley, about being a couple who both write and both of their books being published at the same time.

Che Yeun’s story “One in Ten Fish Are Afraid of Water” has been selected as the winner of Philadelphia Stories‘ Marguerite McGlinn National Prize for Fiction.

Jewel Bush has written several articles for The Uptown Messenger, including a recent one celebrating the 30th anniversary of Community Book Center.

The Booklover’s Guide to New Orleans by Susan Larson has been published!

Cam Terwilliger will be writing an ongoing “field notes” series about his year in Montreal on a Fulbright Scholarship.

L. Kasimu Harris was featured on WDSU‘s pregame show tonight and was photographed by Daymon Gardner for the December issue of Travel + Leisure, which will be available in Nov. Check out this picture that Giancarlo Dagostaro took of the session.

NOVAC’s Web Weekend has three more days to raise the last $200 of their $5,000 Kickstarter campaign goal. Go check out what they have planned for the Weekend, next month, and see the swag they’re offering their backers. Eritria Pitts of She is Alex will be part of the Web Weekend and you can check out her short “Blind Date” to whet your appetite.

Speaking of Kickstarter campaigns… I don’t technically know JJ Tiziou, but I kinda feel like I do since his project “Everyone Is Photogenic” is changing my life. Ever since I saw the video for the campaign, I can’t tell you how many many times I’ve heard someone I care about respond badly to a photograph of themselves. Whenever they do this lately, I bring up this project and we have a great conversation about confidence and photography and beauty.

The t.v. show I spent part of last year and the first half of this year working on has released an incredible trailer. I get chills every time I watch it. The show, True Detective. will air on HBO early next year. Makes me very proud to have been part of it.

Speaking of being proud of a project, 12 Years a Slave opens on the 18th and I’m eager to see it. Hearing the Oscar talk now reminds me of the conversations we had while working on it last year – we knew it was special and we knew it was important. It’s going to be incredibly emotional to watch and I’m so glad it got made.

Since I promised that I will self-brag when appropriate, here’s some news about me and my work. Since my last brag, my reviews of Bill Loehfelm’s The Devil in Her Way and Suzanne Johnson’s Elysian Fields were published in 225. Karin C. Davidson interviewed me for Hothouse Magazine. It was a great experience and I’m honored to be a part of this series, which includes great interviews with Brad Richard and Andrew Lam, among others.

Next month, on the 26th, I will read “Tango Face” at a special event at Cafe Istanbul. Orquesta Fleur will play live tango music, there will be dancing and readings about tango and its history. Should be very cool. At the Louisiana Book Festival (Nov 2nd), I will be conducting a live interview with Josh Hanagarne, author The World’s Strongest Librarian, and presenting a panel with fellow Peauxdunque members Tad Bartlett, Susan Kagan and Maurice Ruffin, which is pretty exciting. And shortly after that, “Tango Face” will be published in the Double Dealer, coinciding with this year’s Words and Music Festival (Dec 4-8). The last quarter of 2013 is looking to be very productive.

Speaking of quarters…I owe y’all my 3rd Quarter Review soon. I hope you enjoy all of this bragging for now – these people and these projects are amazing, so go spend some time with them.

New Orleans street art

For all of my posts about street art and all my photos of graffiti from around New Orleans, I’ve never actually dedicated a post just to New Orleans images. But I always take pictures, compulsively. Most people know by now that if you’re walking with me, I’m likely to stop and start taking pictures. Even Papa Bear knows that after a visit to Elizabeth’s (and the area near Dr. Bob’s) and a walk we took to Juan’s. He was very patient with me while I fell back and snapped pictures of all the amazing street art I saw.

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I loved reading about the Swoon exhibit through NOMA over at NOLAFemmes, which is going on through September. Good news for those of us who haven’t caught it yet.

You Are Lucy and I Am Charlie Brown

“This time, you can trust me,” Lucy says to Charlie Brown, enticing him into their eternal battle of wills – kick the football and I won’t pull it away this time, I promise.

I love t.v. I love narrative in general and I get hooked into the story structures of t.v. shows over and over and over again. Even a “reality” show like Survivor has all the classic story elements that I crave and enjoy.

But I have been frustrated more and more the last few years. Here’s why:

– I have a busy schedule and like most people my age, I can’t be locked into watching a t.v. show at the same set time every week. Luckily, most shows are available online within 6-12 hours (sometimes a full day or week) later and I catch up with my “stories” when I have the time, which is often just a few hours or maybe a day or two after the original airing.

– The online viewing model seems to me an excellent one. I am still viewing advertisements, which should still be paying for the shows. In fact, I feel that I’m a more captive audience for online ads than the ones on my t.v. because I tend to walk away from the t.v. during commercials. I am watching the show at my convenience. Excellent, all around. But I’m not sure the Nielsen rating system is still in any way an accurate schematic (I don’t know how it could be) and to my knowledge, nothing else has replaced it. So how do networks know what shows I’m giving my loyalty and attention to? Theoretically, they should be able to track the downloads and online viewings, right?

– Yet, some of my favorite new shows are consistently getting canceled, sometimes mid-season or after only one season. This breeds a vicious cycle that makes me and other viewers wary of investing in new shows. Why care about characters that might suddenly disappear, give our attention to stories that will remain unfinished? But what are a studio’s “obligations” to the viewers of its shows? I feel like a full season should be a standard network-viewer “contract.” Promising shows should really get two seasons to build their audience. Yes, it’s expensive. However, as far as I’m concerned, so is my time and my attention.

You might ask what has brought about this rant. Monday, the list of canceled t.v. shows was disseminated. First, it includes 32 shows across the networks, which is quite a lot. Also, it features some great new shows that I feel weren’t given a solid chance. Last, there are many shows on this list that I thought were already canceled several months ago because of reports I’ve read in the past.

I’ll break down the list for you.

Canceled shows I didn’t invest in because I figured they’d be canceled:

Better with You, Mr. Sunshine, Off the Map (ABC); Perfect Couples (NBC)

Shows I might’ve watched, but thought were already canceled or off the air ages ago because of reports I read, so clearly their networks were not doing a whole lot to support them:

My Generation, Detroit 1-8-7, No Ordinary Family, V (ABC); The Event and Outsourced (NBC); Lone Star and Running Wilde (FOX); Life Unexpected (CW)

Canceled shows that had a really solid chance to build their audience (regardless of how you feel about the quality of the shows and their demise):

Brothers and Sisters (ABC); Friday Night Lights (NBC); Human Target and Lie to Me (FOX); $#*! My Dad Says (CBS); Smallville (CW)

Canceled shows I’d watch if they were given a second chance:

Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC); The Event (NBC)

Canceled shows I’m really pissed about because I’d invested in them:

Breaking In and Traffic Light (FOX)

FOX has long been guilty of creating pretty good shows and then scrapping them before they’ve had a solid chance, in my opinion. Keep in mind, FOX also airs two of the shows I talk about most, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, but those are reality competitions and I don’t know that FOX has worked out their dynamic for scripted dramas and sitcoms. Out of all the networks on the list, FOX is canceling the most good shows, I think. Many on the FOX list had a good chance to sink or swim, but I think Breaking In and Traffic Light should be given more time. They are both hysterical half hour ensemble sitcoms, which I think we need more of on t.v. Good ones, that is.

So what are the networks gonna do next season? Give us 50 new shows, two thirds of which they’re prepared to sacrifice if we don’t invest quickly enough? Break our hearts again? Yank the football once more before we can kick a good, solid field goal? FOX, as well as all the networks, needs to create good shows and then stand by them. Have some faith in what you create, Networks.

Now, on to the slightly related topic of the Castle finale, appropriately titled “Knockout.” How is this related to my giant rant above? Well, first of all, it’s still about t.v. Second of all, one of Castle’s stars, Nathan Fillion was in not one but two shows that fell victim to FOX’s wishy-washiness (Drive and, ahem, Firefly, anyone?). Third, the finale happened to air on the same day the canceled show list was disseminated.

Castle is a fun, gripping show, a worthy vehicle for Nathan, finally, at long last, hallelujah, on a network that will support the show and create interest with tie-ins (novels, graphic novels, etc). It’s one of my favorite shows, especially because it has such a great cast and also all the qualities I loved about Bones in the earlier seasons. I’m still watching Bones because I love the characters, but it’s lost some of its sheen.

One of the elements I like best about Castle is that it is unafraid to be cheesy and emotional and sometimes feels like a sitcom wrapped up in a drama. This feels like old-fashioned, classic t.v., even while it is cutting edge. So it shouldn’t surprise me that every part of Castle‘s Season 3 finale felt inevitable in that way that good storytelling always feels. While the storyteller in me can appreciate the Castle finale’s unflinching and yes, even cruel twists, the viewer in me feels absolutely shellshocked, almost betrayed. And pissed. Pissed that they punched me the guts like three times in an hour and then walked away for several months, leaving me nursing my wounds and dying for more.

But you know what? You better bet I’ll be tuning in next season. And for that, I must congratulate them.

For a moment at the end of “Knockout,” in light of the canceled show list, I was very afraid that this was the end, that Castle was one of the unlisted “bubble” shows and it might not be back. I had to remind myself that it’s a popular show and that ABC has just as much invested in it as I have invested (some would say more). But that fear, that paranoia, is the best example that I can give you of what the networks have done to us with their “yanking back the football” behavior.

Should I, like Charlie Brown, continue to trust all the Lucys promising me big and then yanking it all away? Despite all the times that I have been burned and lost “stories” that I loved, should I trust the networks? Like Charlie Brown, I hate looking stupid by falling for it again and again, but just like him, there’s no other choice for me. I love stories too much not to take the kick of faith every time.

This is what happens when Banksy’s nominated for an Oscar…

Apparently, Banksy has arrived just a bit early in Los Angeles and has taken the opportunity to paint the town. TMZ has images and The Week suggests this may be Banksy’s own Oscar campaign, since Exit Through the Gift Shop is up for Best Documentary. One of the pieces thought to be Banksy’s work is an enormous Mickey and Minnie inserted into a billboard. Huffington Post has video of the billboard and it’s removal.

As usual, Banksy shows that it’s not just the what of his art, but also the where and the when.

 

 

Saved by Mormons and bragging on Nick

I thought I had all time in the world, leaving work a little “early” so that I could swing by the house and spruce up for The Dirty Parts at Allways Lounge, which it seemed everybody and their mother was attending. It was a chance to catch up with a lot of folks all at once.

But when I got home, I couldn’t find a single safe and legal place to park. This is becoming more and more of an issue as they’ve extended the times people have to pay to park on Magazine, which means more people park on my street to avoid paying. A lot of people say, “You live right next to several popular bars – you had to know what you were getting into when you moved there.” But it’s not just the bar traffic during the night, it’s all the Ladies Who Lunch shopping at all the upscale boutiques during the day as well. Quite frustrating. So much so that I found myself trying to parallel park on an extremely narrow (yet still two-way) section of Camp Street. The curb had an extreme drop off, but I thought I could do it if I eased off the curb slowly. It would’ve worked if there hadn’t been a bricked-in flower box or something right there which I didn’t see. My back wheel got caught on it and I could neither drive back up the curb or reverse over the flower box. I was well and truly stuck. Meanwhile, there was extremely dangerous traffic trying to go around me in both directions with barely enough clearance for one car. No one stopped to help me, they just did their best to get around me. Ah, New Orleans. But that’s not the city I love. In my city, people generally see each other and do their very best to help each other. Not tonight.

I’ve said it several times. This is a hard city to live in, one of the hardest I’ve ever known or heard of. Luckily for me, just when you feel like the city has taken everything it possibly can and you have nothing left, something incredibly and entirely unique to New Orleans comes along and rescues you. You realize you can never live anywhere else.

This night, two young Mormon elders walked by and saw my distress. It could have been the beginning of a joke, it was so random and unlikely. And yes, funny, because they were dressed in suits and were the only ones who stopped to help me. But I was so touched that they knelt down in those suits, in the dark of narrow Camp Street and heaved me out of my jam. They were so respectful and so quietly competent. So, once I was saved, when one of them asked me if they could give me a card, I said heartily, “Yes, please!” It was the least I could do for all that they did, as I might’ve ordinarily hugged any other helper, but couldn’t, of course, hug them.

Saved by Mormons is a strange way to begin a night that ends up at a show called The Dirty Parts at the Allways Lounge. And that’s New Orleans, for you, that dichotomy. It was a reading by Tony O’Neill and included performances by Ratty Scurvics, Oops the Clown, Trixie Minx, Bella Blue and J. Lloyd Miller, as well. A few members of Peauxdunque were there, as well as my filmmaker friend Helen Krieger and Lee Ware dressed as a cigarette girl and hawking Tony’s books. And guess who was the Master of all these Ceremonies? Our own Nick Fox.

In his newest newsletter, I’d read:

…I decided that if I’m going to be an emcee, I need to look the part. So I went to Soul Train Fashions up on Chef Mentaur Highway and bought three pinstripe suits (one brown, one blue, one burgundy), two pairs of two-tone shoes, three shirts, three ties, and a pair of suspenders. I even went to Meyer the Hatter and got me a brand new hat. I’ve never spent that much on clothing in my life. But it felt good. It’s an investment in something I want to do.

He was wearing the burgundy suit and definitely looked the part. I was sitting next to Tony O’Neill while he was signing one of his books for me when Nick got up and performed a particularly profound and pleasing bit of poetry. Tony said to me, “He’s a genius.” Ain’t that something? 🙂

It’s good to see your friends shine.

Subversive meet subversive: Banksy and the Simpsons

Whoa, suddenly I see why the traffic on my site has skyrocketed in the last two days. Banksy directed the opening of The Simpsons recently and now the universe/internet is atwitter about his incredibly dark and subversive take that  pokes fun at the machine behind and beneath the now mainstream mundanity of The Simpsons, which as been around long enough to raise up a generation of twisted, hyper self-conscious youth (including myself). Kudos to The Simpsons and Matt Groening for inviting Banksy into their world and then running with what he gave them. The Simpsons is such an indelible part of pop culture at this point that they probably needed Banksy to shake them up a bit and it just goes to show that he’s not going anywhere. His forums just keep getting bigger and louder and more permanent.

Check it out, but be warned, it is a tad gruesome. Too bad it wasn’t the Halloween Treehouse episode. 🙂

Louisiana Book Festival Flash Mob

So sad thinking about the Louisiana Book Festival not happening this year. What if we all just showed up anyway? #louisianabookfestival 43 minutes ago via web

emofalltrades

What do you say?