When hell freezes over
(that would be this weekend)
Hhhhiii, fffrrrrriiendddds:
Pardon my chattering teeth. It is not warm here.
Why was I briefly in the Berkshires on the coldest weekend of the decade? Something about a film major forgetting his camera in New York City.
Nevermind all that. Let’s discuss art, shall we?
One of my writing groups got into this terrific discussion about a podcast, where Malcolm Gladwell mentioned that Picasso and Cèzanne had very different methods of getting to a finished masterpiece: Picasso would focus and think for a long while: doing seemingly nothing until the masterpiece was painted in one take. Meanwhile Cèzanne spent years making iterations and modifying the same piece, changing a little bit here and there. Every step was an agony. He too, eventually created masterpieces.
There is no right way to create a masterpiece.
As a consumer, we barely think of these things. How things were made, and whether that was difficult or easy, how long it took, how many iterations there were before the finished product is something that we rarely discuss….except right NOW.
We are in a momentary blip of caring how hard it was to make a masterpiece (or really anything: novels, songs, art, stuff). This month, the general public suddenly seems to finally care about how hard it was to get something accomplished. Case in point: Pinocchio.
I didn’t really care for Guillermo del Toro’s new version of Pinocchio. I thought the backgrounds and background animation was genius, but the retold story itself and the characters (especially the much more buglike new version of Jiminy Cricket, who is no longer funny) felt very flat to me. Forced and flat at the same time. I thought the fart jokes at the expense of Mussolini were juvenile and embarrassing. Yet MoMA has a whole ticketed exhibit on the making of this film. Why?? Why is this in MoMA? I could imagine it in the Museum of TV and Film, or touring in schools, possibly even at a photography center. But MoMA? Seems that the Marketing Department for the movie (or the famous filmmaker himself) had some great connections and cleverly used them.
At some point, I’ll tell you the funny story about “Left Brain” which is one of my favorite stories in this forthcoming collection. It is a story about iterations and reveals a lot about the writing and editing process. Anyway - it’s too long to tell you right here, but it’s good. (sorry for the teaser)
Writing News:
You guys!! I forgot to tell you, I have another fun genre/literary crossover (can I call it spec-lit?) piece coming out!! It is called “All Clear” and I love it. It’s a realistic take on the personal aftermath of a kaiju overtaking your town.
The piece will appear in Tumbled Tales, a new anthology to be published by Wandering Wave Press. I spent all week working on the line edits the editor wanted (she does not, I fear, believe in long, convoluted sentences).
Random Final Thought
In case you don’t know, I frequently post photo essays on Facebook called “Walk with me” — I take photos of whatever floats my boat at the time (where did that expression come from? whatever floats your boat? throwing things overboard? making dumb changes to…ballast? I tried to look it up and got shockingly nowhere. Some websites claim it originated in the 1980s!
However, one message thread said this:
According to this source “Common Sayings and Where they Came From | Rounds” it has rather obscene origins: "This term comes from the term “man in the boat,” the boat being a woman's clitoris. Therefore, if “your boat is floating” you are very happy."
I think we can leave it an unsolved mystery for another day.)
So, the Snowy Japanese Monsters were waiting for you in Lennox? Still laughing.
I like the Cezanne method!