Render

I love to draw. That's a lie. I loved to draw. That's a lie too, at least part of it, most of it is a lie. I love the idea of drawing. I draw like I do most things--not very well, but I refuse to admit that I cannot do it. I refuse to be the type of person who says, I can't draw, I can't sing, I can't, I can't, because the truth is that I can. You can. We all can do anything-- all we have to do is do it. I don't mean that in the cliche way, "You can do anything you put your mind to." I just mean, although you might not do something well, that doesn't mean that you can't simply sit down and do it.

When people say they can't draw or sing or dance or whatever, what they really mean to say is, "I can't draw to the level that most people consider good, and because I am afraid and embarrassed that you will judge and mock my lack of talent, I simply won't even try." This is attitude is harmful to our creativity and self-esteem, because most of us will never feel we are good enough to create art, the result being that most people miss out on the benefits of creating art, because they don't feel they have talent. I enjoy the feeling of creation, regardless the quality of the product.

When I was younger, I drew often. I often had a sketch book and would spend hours sketching faces, bodies, whatever I could see. I loved the time I spent chiseling a drawing trying to get it right. The thing about drawing is that it forces you to really see. Whether you are going for a realistic interpretation of a person or an object, or if you want capture the Picassoian essence of something, you have to spend time seeing it.

I haven't drawn anything in years, so I knew I had to act when I saw this poster the other night, while on the Interwebz.

 

I went to the store and bought a little blank journal, a few pens and committed myself to this thirty-day challenge. 

Not sure where to start, I grabbed a pencil and began drawing myself.  I had no intention to make it look like me, I immediately began to tense up and went down the path of realism. As soon as I committed to make it look like me, I began to criticize and guess my work--looks too fat, the face is too long, the eyes are uneven--it's not very good. For better or for worse, I spent about 30 minutes on it.

 

The irony is that all I see when I look at this portrait are the flaws, the parts I didn't get right.  I hope that I can get over this self-criticism at the end of thirty days. I want to lose myself in a few drawings and simply let the drawings escape my fingertip and ignite on the page. This project is not meant to prove whether or not I can draw. I am not concerned whether my thirty sketches are good or not. I hope to seldom attempt realism. I just want to spend a few hours a week with a pen or pencil in hand and scribble on the page. I want to see. I want to look. I want to feel and try and draw.

I will post all 30 of the pics in a set called  Daily Drawing on Flickr, if you want to stay tuned. I encourage you to join me and please add a link to where you are sharing your work in the comments below.

Do you draw? Why or why not? Why do you think so many adults doubt their artistic abilities? When do we learn that we are not good enough to even try?

Literary Shenanigans

“There is something wrong with you!”

I can’t count the number of times my wife says that to me on any given week. Day? It's usually after one of my eccentric obsessions reveals itself, before burrowing back into the depths of my...Want to use the word soul, but realize that such a word is far too trite, but I am too lazy to think of a better one, so I will leave you to do it dear reader. Please humor me...
 
I am not here to argue with her. There are indeed more than several things wrong with me, most often at the same time. The older I get, the more I realize that I have borderline OCD tendencies. I'm definitely somewhere on the spectrum. And I am okay with that. This post is but one example. You tell me-- something wrong with me or am I on my way to becoming a cuddly old man?

I take my relationships with media (books, music and film) very personally. When I read an author, listen to a band, or watch films by a director or writer I respect,  I like to swim deep. If I experience something profound and life-changing, I will often consume everything the artist has ever done. I will research their life online, make connections to their influences and hopefully tangle myself in his/her web. Because let's face it, we are little more than nodes in complicated webs of meaning and beauty. I love my media. I am my media.

Recently, I was desperate for a book at the airport, and I found a collection of essays and speeches by Jonathan Franzen, who happens to be one of my favorite writers writing today. I have read everything he has ever published and can't state more clearly how much I love his worldview and mastery of language. Not withstanding the time he stuck his foot so far down his throat with the Wharton debacle, when Franzen speaks, I listen.

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame 

In his latest collection Franzen writes on three topics: writing, birds, and David Foster Wallace. I was intrigued my the last one. Of course Infinite Jest has been a satellite in my orbit for years, but I knew (know) very little about it or Wallace. I didn't even know he was a suicide. Like most popular books, I let Infinite Jest spin ad infinitum until something or someone would shed a brighter light on it, forcing me to read it. Franzen was said beacon.

Here is where the weirdness begins-- I couldn't find Infinite Jest in Jakarta. And since I do not want to do any research or learn anything more about Wallace until I read his seminal work, I have been mired in a state of anticipation and excitement, like a racehorse all saddled up, raring to go, but trapped in the gate and forced to chew on the bit and watch the dust. I haven't read any wikipedia articles or watched any youtube clips on Wallace. I have chosen to leave him alone until I read Jest. That is not true. I saw and bought Pale King, his last novel, before leaving Jakarta. I also ordered Infinite Jest, which my in-laws will bring to me in July.

Problem is that after I bought Pale King, I discovered that it was never actually finished, furthermore after speaking with Ari, I found out that it was left in the room in which Wallace committed suicide. Can you see my dilemma?

I cannot start my Wallace experience with Pale King trumping Infinite Jest. There has to be an order right? Seminal work> research> bizarre final novel/suicide note> other works. Mairin thinks I am crazy.

"This is what you stress about?"
"Ari understands." I mumble.
"Of course he does."

To make matters worse, I was at the bookstore today, a massive Kinokuniya in Singapore, and obvisouly they had Jest, Pale King and everything else Wallace has ever written, but now I have to wait till July becuase the book has already been ordered and shipped. These events make me anxious.  I just want to get lost in Infinite Jest and Wallace and go for the ride, but alas I cannot

So what do I do? I've decided to start the work of another author, one that I've been terrified of since college. But first another short story! What? You're busy? Really? What else do you have to do?  Come on, finish this. It's not like you are reading a 15 page New Yorker essay. It is a blog post for goodness sake. Defy what they say about modern day attention spans. Back to my story...

Back in nineteen-ninety-something I was taking a Post-Modern lit class at San Fransisco State. A class in which the professor doused us in difficult, unapproachable texts and dared us to admit we were lost. I was young and often drunk and not really paying much attention. Despite my lack of attention,  I did discover Barth and Nabokov. True, I gave up on Pale Fire, but at least I was introduced to Lolita.

But Pynchon, oh Pynchon. What the hell was that? It was clear that I was not smart enough for Crying of Lot 49 at the tender age of twenty-something. Not while working and partying full time. Pynchon has haunted me for years. I am thirty-eight now. I was so much older then, I am younger than that now.  I decided today that it is time. I cavalierly scanned his shelf and randomly chose Vineland. Just like that, I will dive into Pynchon while waiting for Wallace. Bold move you say? Wildly irresponsible you say? I agree, but I am ready for some literary shenanigans. 

Sidenote: I also grabbed The Fight by Mailer, a book I have been wanting to read for years. I have been making my way through the Mailer catalog as well. Even reading his terrible Jesus book.

Do you think so much about books? Is there something wrong with me?

Too Much

Start here...hit play:

It's 1987, 88? I am in grade seven or eight. Alone in a room. A record crackles. I'm lost in its jacket-- contemplating madness. Seems so appealing. Exotic. A free exit if it ever gets to be too much.

It's my dad's record. It was, but it's mine now. I've absorbed it from him and all the baggage it carries. Not sure who I am singing it to, but it feels necessary....like a hobo in the snow. Who have I let down in so many ways? I glimpse a future. There's a mirror, some makeup, a smile, some emptiness.

My old heart is still a mess...

Are you gonna love the man, when the man gets home....

Don't Worry

Don't worry about dinner; have dessert. Yeah put more chocolate sauce on that. Sprinkles too. Don't be careful or watch where you're going, don't pay much mind to anything--go with your gut, follow your heart. Jump. Yeah, on the bed, off the couch, anywhere--just jump. Get close to the TV, open your eyes wide and let the colors dance across your brain. No need to hold my hand, turn the music up, shout as loud as you can. Yeah, I know we're inside. Color on the walls, outside the lines, and on your arms, legs and chest. Sister? Yeah color on her too. Make silly faces and voices and never act your age. Sing loudly in the car and don't worry about raising your hand. Swing higher, hang upside-down and slide on your tummy. Touch this. Touch that. Get up close and smell it, step in it, get dirty. Get in the road, under the rain, loose your balance. Splash. Take off the helmet. Get it all over your dress. You don't need a napkin. Stains mean you enjoyed it. More candy? Aches eventually pass. Take your time. Waste our time. Walk at your own pace. Get lost. Ramble on and on, chase your stories, shine your light and stay up past your bedtime. Run faster, spin, get dizzy. Teeter on the edge, climb to the top branch, don't look down. You're almost there.

Feels like 

I  always say no, 

but inside 

I'm screaming yes. 

Keep pushing. 

Keep pushing. 

We'll find a balance.

The Honeymoon Stage

When people tell me they can't (don't) blog because they don't know what to say, or because they don't know where to start, I often flippantly riposte, "Don't worry too much. Just write." How rich that I have been in Singapore a few days, and still awkwardly teetering on the brink of my first post from The Lion City. Can't seem to find a starting point.

Trouble is that I want it to be just right. I want to be in the perfect mood. I've been waiting for the words to spill forth from somewhere inside me and dance into place. The longer I wait, however, they are becoming jumbled and congealing in the parts of my brain that need to be aired out for the summer. It's time to heed my own advice and let the words go.

I am happy. Simple. Right? The days are sunsoaked and everything flashes through bokeh tinted lenses. The days are long and warm and cloudless and melt into one another. It is summertime. It is perfect. I am happy. I can see some of you shaking your heads already--yes I imagine you individually and collectively reading these words--oh here he goes again-- painting the grass on his new side of the fence as green and verdant as we allow. Your accusing tone, may be hushed and whispering, but it is pronounced nonetheless, "He is projecting his needs onto a reality he has constructed to make himself think he is happy, but really he is choosing to ignore elements of Singapore that are similar to Jakarta or Doha, or all the other place he has griped about in the past."

I hear you. You are probably right, but I am happy. Did I mention the length and temperature of the days?

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame

Perhaps Singapore is not the perfect place, but at this point in my life, it sure feels like it. I don't want this to be a Jakarta bashing post, because there is a lot about Jakarta I like. It was great for me professionally and there are always lessons to be learned living in a developing country. Perhaps if I was younger and single, I would be singing a different tune, but as a thirty-eight year old father of two, I think it is obvious where it makes sense to raise my girls.   

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame

Don't get me wrong, I don't want my girls living in an unrealistic world, where they think the world is all perfectly manicured streets and efficient city planning, but at this point in their lives, I want parks and buses and sunny summer day walks. Am I petty for wanting these things for my kids? It sometimes feels like it. Happiness has always been the most awkward emotion for me. I have a difficult time de-tangling guilt from joy. Hard to smile when you feel like the spoiled expatriate roaming the world looking out for his family. What makes it worse is that said expatriate paints himself as some kind of champion for the oppressed. I never feel I deserve to have so much, when others have so little, but then have no qualms about enjoying it all anyway. Joy and guilt are so intertwined. Ahh....and this was going to be a post about happiness and contentment.

So what the hell am I trying to say? Honestly I have no idea. Maybe I should have waited until my thoughts were better sorted, before I started blabbering online. All I know is that every night, I sit at this machine, listen to some tunes, and listen to my mind as it begs to be heard. Most nights it is cheering and singing and smiling. Tonight was no different, but as you can see, once I got started I became side-tracked with the doubting, questioning, and dealing with guilt. I wanted to document this moment of joy as it is happening, but ended up tainting it with the other stuff too. Here is what I know at this moment: It is early June, summer, 2012, I am nearing my thirty-eighth year on this planet, and with all I have seen and done and felt in my life- I am happy.

The colors feel vibrant.

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame

The water tastes clean and the sun shines.

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame

Everywhere I look this is what I see.                                            (It is all painted with a golden brush)

Am I writing from the Honeymoon Stage? Of course, but please allow me at least a few days to swallow it all up. There it is- the first report from Singapore!

How do you deal with the guilt of being happy?