Foggy days
Hey there, collections of squishy bits wrapped in skin, how’s it holding together?
I went to Boston. Saw another art museum. There were more works by Renoir, Chagall, and Picasso. It was gorgeous. The works of art spoke to me. I saw myself. I saw you. I saw humanity.
It appears that a person can be overloaded with inspiration.
If you are to be an artist, at some point you have to stop looking at the work of others and do your own creating. Picasso is particularly inspiring to me because he went through so many quite distinct phases and yet somehow all of them remain valuable — unlike many artists whose early works are criticized as “unformed” or even just “early” and/or their later works disappoint their many fans (e.g. James Taylor: I saw him live in Vegas and the poor guy was booed when he played jazz instead of You’ve got a Friend)—yet even Picasso’s worst sketches fetch a large price, and there are hundreds.
When am I going to make the time to sit down and write my own stuff? That is the question. I hope you’re not in this purgatory of creativism. I hope you are putting words on the page in glorious sequences and stopping for a hearty bagel in the middle of a productive stint.
Shoutout to the friends who took me in this weekend - it was so nice to have people around to wish me a good morning, ask about my day and say good night. You don’t realize what a lovely routine that daily courtesy is, nor how much you crave it.
The weather in Boston was melancholy and it affected my mood. I am very much looking forward to Springtime and warmth. Luckily, the days are getting longer. I saw a news report that sunset in Manhattan was finally after 5pm again.
It is important not to succumb to darkness. Or at least to find the beauty in it.
Writing News
I did a reading last Tuesday, but I was so distracted by various things this week that I completely forgot to publicize it. There was a large lineup but an even larger crowd. It was at Book Club Bar where East Village Wordsmiths holds their monthly curated reading series, (run by Leigh Ann O’Connor).
I also applied for a few writing grants, and learned that a long-forgotten Medium post called Lithuanian Curse Words has almost 500 views. I don’t know why this one gets more views than any other one. Perhaps because it is evergreen - the curse words are mostly from the 12th century, they’re not getting any less stale!
Speaking of Lithuanian, I was thrilled to be hired to record another Lithuanian voiceover session—this one was entirely Lithuanian town place names. And now I fully understand how the GPS lady gets those pronunciations entirely wrong. You can’t know if the place name is Houston or Houston (hewwwston, TX vs HOUSE_ton Street in NYC) - because you just get the single written word and no context.
We need context for everything. Context makes things matter.
Random Final Thought:
Find joy wherever and however you can. It's more than fine not to write for a while -
May the sunshine enter your life soon!