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Private creations
A few weeks ago in five things, Carole wrote about Dylan's "five things he hated about art." I am sure that we can all come up with such a list, but there was one idea that Dylan had that really struck me. He said straight out that creativity was a private activity. At first, I wondered if Dylan really wrote that. With some investigating, I found out that he did really think and write it. The point is that creativity is a private "thing."
All of this made sense to me about two weeks ago when the Washington Times came to the Millennium Arts Center to do an article on our building. In that article, Ms. Eagle did four "sub-articles" on artist's in the building. One of them being me, she asked if the picture we took would be of me painting. I told her "....... no." She thought the really smooth surfaces would be interesting to photograph....... no. I told her that I feel suspicious of this sort of arrangement. Artist's feel this voodoo thing when someone wants to watch them work. In a sense, learning the process of the making the object and watching it being executed demystifies the art. There is a certain mystery around art, and when that essence becomes public knowledge, the work becomes loses it's distance from reality.
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State of the art
Over the weekend I was in New York City. Running around Chelsea and Midtown, looking at art, a sub-thought of Dylan theory became more clear to me. I was crossing 10th Ave. And talking to a friend about art.... What else do you talk about in Chelsea? Anyhow, I asked her if she thought if art was upset with the situation it was currently in. A started to go off on the subject, directing the conversation to my thoughts that it wasn't happy with itself. I told her about this article I read in Contemporary Visual Arts (CVA) in January 2000. The issue was titled "What's Next?" The one article specifically was directed towards the present state of art. He brought the issue down to one sentence that think about all of the time. He said "If everything becomes art, art becomes nothing." I am sorry to have forgotten the writers name, but the quote says it all.
The work that I saw in Chelsea, for the most part was not that engaging. Most of it looks cheap, very much of it's time, and to be quite honest, not that sophisticated. I was upset that art has such a potential to expand the mind set of human behavior and instead, the work being shown just stupefies our existence. In 2,000 years, and archeologists are looking at the art that was being made during the Bush era in the United States, they are going to scratch their heads about what this is? Why it was being made and what where people thinking about it? Was this art a reflection of the level of sophistication in contemporary society?
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Frank Gehry: Architect
Until August 26th, 2001, the Guggenheim Museum is hosting a show of Frank Gehry. He is designing their new museum on the water in lower Manhattan. The show starts off with an enormous model of the purposed building to be finished in 2003. As the Guggenheim swirls upward, the story of this architect begins. Each room or section presents a model, drawings and idea generations for spaces that he did. There are two rooms to the side containing furniture and more models.
There were two things that intrigued me about the show. The first was the physicality of the actual models. When building the models, his studio uses a variety of materials to fabricate these objects. Parts of them are made from foam core, wood, plaster, a plethora of plastics and other unusual materials. At times they are crudely put together and at other moments they are finely tuned to Precision. The building of the model reflects the sensibilities of the mind who designed them. They are awkwardly organic and have this charm to them that is charming. Gehry also installs models of the surrounding buildings to imply a context for the structure. These are not normal buildings, but they converse with normal buildings like if Dali sat down for a glass of wine with George W.
A part of this installment was thinking about the model at the Corcoran. I hate to give it a grade, but compared to the others, it is about a C-. The presence given off by the Guggenheim model compared to the Corcoran is incomparable.... Night and Day.
The second aspect I thought was very interesting was the domestic homes. They looked like "normal homes" gone bad. Shapes inserted into them, parts looking "Wabi Sabi," strange interiors. They almost look like a tornado hit them or like a hip French hairdo.
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Shop Talk
At Matthew Marks Gallery, they are exhibiting paintings of Ellsworth Kelly from the mid 70's. The canvases are all gray, mostly on them are on the low end of the tonal scale. Most of them have specific shapes while two are rectangles. The paintings come off as more direct and less distracted by color.
The most interesting experience for me was that Kelly revealed a part of his thought process in one of the paintings. If you examine a Kelly painting, you can notice that he does not tape his edges for a severe line. He rather lets the specs of paint fall onto the edge. In this case, Kelly painted a green under the gray. The green looks like it fell from a putting green. There were two ideas floating in my head. Either he decided to make this a gray painting half way into the painting or he wanted the gray to have a green tint to it. Either way, Kelly let this happen. Most of the paintings of this nature from Kelly are one shot deals. A blue is applied to the surface, and maybe the same blue is applied later to completely block it in.
I was just more interested in that he allowed himself to change gears in a painting like that. His paintings are so direct and deliberate that exposing information like that is interesting.
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Artist Security Plan
About a year and a half ago, my friend Matt Myers asked me at my opening why art had to be so "strange"? He pondered the idea of why it was weird and tried to understand the aspect of pure invention. Invention for invention's sake as we might say. After thinking about it for a bit, I told him that artists don't like to be safe. It is in their nature to be on the shoreline of security. I don't mean that artists are unstable ... because they are not. Good artists though are ambitious. This is why Picasso went so far, he was not afraid to be something else, go places that were uncharted. He kept moving from idea to idea without hesitating. He was never afraid that it would be read as someone else because the paintings always contained his sensibilities.
The other example would be Soutine. He thought money was pure evil, like it brought a bad scenario to artists. So every month he took his money and paid his bills then spent the rest of it on wine. In a way, he was saying that if you have food on your plate all of the time, you won't be hungry. Artists need to be hungry, it keeps them on the edge of respectability I guess. It keeps them fighting and tells them that there is only one way and that is up, because nothing can be worse than this. Look at the studios at the Corcoran... If you can make art there, you can make art anywhere. What it boils down to is keeping it fresh and spontaneous. Once an artist gets to be in a state of comfort, the work looks more leisurely. Look at Raucshenberg at his early works... All of his innovations came from a point in his life where he was hungry. The work is raw and uninhibited. After that, the art seems to be less critical and "look what my printer can do."
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| James Huckenpahler |
| Slipping into a transit state. |
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"…This is evident in that both Hobbes and Tyler also began to function as scapegoats for their creators. For instance, consider that Calvin often blames broken lamps and other assorted household mischief on Hobbes, and that Jack is inclined to believe that Fight Club and other various anti-society mischief is brought about by Tyler, not himself. Calvin claims Hobbes pounces on him every day after school, Jack believes Tyler beats him up next to 40 kilotons of nitroglycerin in a parking garage -- the list goes on and on. The relationships between the two sets of friends are the exact same. And is this mere coincidence? I think not."
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Message from Robin Rose:
I started my first new painting today: it is Black, and must be considered, along with my red paintings, as some sort of timing device. I am sending this to fivethings so as to document the exact date and time of my revelation.
Robin did not send me a picture of this new painting so I made an artist’s rendering, sort of like the ones you see on the 11 o’clock news of a witness at a murder trial.
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Transit State
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| Tom Mandel |
| Cars and religion: |
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Red cover for phone.
This week I bought a translucent red cover for my mobile phone plus a handsfree kit to plug it into my car, and oh yes I bought a new car too.
I've owned lots of cars which for me is like saying I've had a lot of bodies, numerous organs, it's physicality and it's variety, renewal. But it's not sexuality; it's not the other. Me not another.
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Twenty-two cars.
My first car had rust up to its shoulders and was a convertible; there just wasn't much left. One day, some of it made it around a curve while most gave up the ghost - from rust unto dust. My 2nd car was a red TR3. At 110, the pavement flew by your side so close you could burn your knuckles on it. My 3rd car was a Beetle. My fourth was dark blue. It was a station wagon. My 5th car was French, no color, and oil wouldn't stay in it. My sixth car was a Dodge Dart, old at 60K miles and smelling of sweat and hound. I moved to SF in it, bearded, wearing overalls and carrying everything I owned including a dog (but excluding a thousand books left at my mom's house). My 7th car was a Rambler that came with a big rust hole on its right fender and a crazy girlfriend in the passenger seat. My 8th car was a mistake (my 7th too). My ninth car was a '63 Mercedes 220SE that blew its water pump and seized 80 miles outside Ely, Nevada at 4a.m. on my thirty-second birthday. I lived 4 days in a Nevada gas station/motel/lunch counter, while the pump traveled from Salt Lake City (I bought it a Greyhound bus seat), I r/r'd the pump, recored the radiator a half mile down the hiway, and found the new belts who knows where. When the pump went and the engine went red hot, I was wearing black chinos and boots and a gray on gray nylon cowboy shirt w/ mother of pearl snaps. I was still wearing the shirt when I pulled out of Ely later that week. Only, like me it was covered with grease and I threw it away with great sadness later in the day when I found a place to wash. 27 years later I still think of that shirt at least once a week. The car never ran right again. My tenth car was a Fiat sedan, pearl gray over lipstick-red vinyl. Forget it. My eleventh car was a sagging Ford Capri w/ a great 2.3L 4cylinder engine. My 12th car was an Alfa Romeo Berlina white when I bought it and soon after maroon. It was a beautiful car but w/ quality control done at the insane asylum. My thirteenth car was an Alfa boattail spider that blew one head gasket after another filling the exhaust with huge puffs of steam. My 14th car was a Pontiac Grand Am, dirty green and soon gone. My 15th car was a robins egg blue Peugeot 404 Station Wagon custom fitted with a sunroof from a 404 sedan. Why did I ever sell that car? My sixteenth car was an Alfa Giulia Spider, a black Normale (pronounced 'normalay') that needed lots of work (i.e. it was an Alfa) but was lots of fun, my seventeenth car was a Fiat 124 Coupe w/ a beautiful brushed aluminum dash. Didn't run much. My eighteenth car was a Mercedes 250S and was fantastic. But I got divorced and sold it to buy my nineteenth car, what the hell was my nineteenth car? Oh yes, it was a new Toyota MR2. What a cool car. I remember buying my first PC AT computer and trying to carry it home in the MR2. Eventually I wedged it in the open sunroof. My 20th car was another Peugeot 404 wagon, white with an automatic that failed. Again I wonder why I didn't fix it. The 404, a Pnin Farina design (or was it by Bertone?), is one of the beautiful cars. You still see them in Africa; Peugeots are fantastic indestructible cars; I still lust for a 404 cabriolet. Look it up on the web and you will see why. Belmondo and Karina drive away in one in Godard's Pierrot le fou. My 21st car was an Alfa Giulia TI, a lovely white sedan that was my only reliable Alfa, except it had Girling brakes (English) and didn't stop well. Those days it was easy to buy an Alfa rear axle complete with excellent ATE brakes (German) for about $300 and swap the rears that way, getting a limited slip differential in the bargain; then a day of work would swap the fronts. But I was getting busy by this time so instead I tried to sell the car to my girlfriend (I didn't like her). My twenty-second car was a '72 Alfa GTV. It was red and the motor mounts were broken when I got it. Drove it that way, w/ the drive line getting bound up then freeing itself, all the way back to SF from somewhere in Sonoma County where I'd spied it as I drove past a barn. The oil plugs had blown (typical on the 2 liter Alfa engine) and it had little pressure. The fuel injection - adapted by Alfa from a tractor system Spica had made during WWII - was entirely mechanical with fuel delivery regulated by a zillion little rods. You could absolutely not tune it at all. A beautiful but horrible car. I have no idea what I did with it. I've almost bought lots of Alfas since then. I've almost bought everyone I've ever seen actually. Alfas are just Fiats now, however, and even Fiats aren't Fiats they're just cars like all other cars.
My first twenty-two cars -- except I know I've forgotten a few. I've had at least one Jaguar, for example, but I can't fit it into the chronology. We were 18, my friend Alan Shearn and I, and we were on a used car lot on South Halsted in Chicago. It was an XK120 and very broken down and beautiful. I think maybe we didn't buy it.
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Space travel time travel
I guess I want to give you a hint. The 5 stairs down from the street were made of shale in layers. Inside everything was an artifice, but a calm artifice. Ecru, eggshell, tan, cream, under a constant breath of conditioned air. Outside, if you look up, you see the sky - are you surprised? - where cloud shapes shift to cross azure. When dinnertime comes, why not open a can of soup and finish a corncob from before. Funny how it's language to tell me I'm depressed when I'm fine by other measure. Languish. I heard the singer rhyme 'orchard' with 'torture' and wrote it down to steal for my own use, as I just have - and given it back too. In the sixties my father drove T-birds, and a few months after he died in 1990 I bought one for myself, a listing '64 in lovely aging ivory. I kept it a few months, sleeping in it most nights. The car was beautifully loose, a bucket of parts busy saying bye-bye to each other, just getting together for a minute when requested to make a turn or come to a slow stop. But otherwise in a separating state. Goodbye.
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Religion at greenwood
I've only had dinner at Carole's restaurant a couple of times, but I do love it and have a good time there. The other night I was w/ my friend Kirsten, and we couldn't finish our delicious bottle of Faubor D'aux. So I asked Colby, who was working that night, to sit with us and help us drink it up. We'd been talking about an acquaintance of Kirsten's whose new husband is Hindu. The couple is visiting his parents in London where they'll go through a Hindu marriage ceremony. I was thinking about ceremonials when Colby sat down with us; I was expressing something about being Hindu, which was really about being a Jew - i.e. about me. People imagine that being Jewish is 'having a religion' the way being Christian is. I was pointing out that 'religion' is a Latin word - 'religio' from 'religare' - 'to restrain, tie back.' To me, that implies a kind of exclusion and discipline that has nothing to do with being Jewish - or Hindu, I was argueing. Jewish just what you are, not what you tie yourself to; you are of 'a people.' You have no choice, and so to honor the ceremonials is to honor who you are. At least that's what I was saying when Colby sat down. Then I asked him whether he'd finished his 5 things for this week - knowing that I hadn't even started mine! 'I'm so busy,' he said. 'Maybe I'll just write about this discussion of religion.' I wonder whether he did?
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Meeting Robin Rose
I've been hearing Robin's name for so long, but I'd never met him. Finally last week I created a reason to meet him, go over to his house, hang out with him and look at his incredible overflowing space full of stuff. I love a man who is in his life not about it, and that's what Robin is. This Fall I want to do an informal seminar on Dante. Reading and talking about Dante through the Fall and Winter. I've lived with his work my whole life, rereading the Commedia every few years. I'm thinking I'll ask Robin to be part of that. 'Nel mezzo dell cammin di nostra vita...'
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| Sherene Offutt |
| falling in love [with an idea]…and letting go: |
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infatuation
I have always loved the air-brushed idealism of the 1940’s pin-up girls. You know, those images that were considered racy before SWANK magazine, genital piercing, Hooters, and the SPICE channel. I love everything about them… the color, the shape, the line, the gowns, the corny costumes, the awkward almost-accurate proportions, their sense of humor, but mostly I love the brand of idealism that they were born out of. I don’t know where my infatuation began. It may have something to do with being raised on Barbie Dolls and Tex Avery cartoons. Nonetheless, pin-ups have remained appealing to me for many years. What they mean to me has changed and will continue to do so I am sure.
About 12 years ago, I saw a photograph of John Wayne wearing a tiny little bathing suit and a sheer shirt, a blouse really, that was completely unbuttoned. He held a cocktail or cigarette in true starlet style. I remember him being in a tropical or beachy place, standing in a breezy cabana. This image struck me as odd and intriguing… here was America’s most macho man, a gritty cowboy, and not only was he clean, he was… well, exposed. I was used to seeing languid, leggy women lounging and posing in clingy gowns and bathing suits… but not John Wayne.
I wondered… why aren’t there pin-ups of men? So I started looking…
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the relationship
I found some beautiful vintage photographs of men, and lots of pornography, but nothing that really compared to Vargas, Elvgren, or Petty. Pierre et Gilles came the closest with their posed, hyper-real color photographs. George Petty did a few illustrations of men for Janzen bathing suit ads, but other than that everything I found was more about sex than sex appeal. Almost all of the images were clearly targeted at a male audience.
I began thinking about creating a series of male pin-ups in the spirit of the 1940's Vargas and Petty girls. The more I thought about this idea, the more I thought that they would look kind of silly. Beef-cake men laying around, talking on the phone in their underwear, looking coyly surprised as their pants fell down while carrying groceries… then I realized that the pin-ups of women really are quite silly, but they work…
So if male pin-ups would look silly, so be it. Actually, one of the appealing things to me about pin-ups is how ridiculous they are… kind of like an Ed Wood film… it’s not a joke, but it is funny.
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trying to work things out
I began searching for reference material… I’ve purchased many male fitness magazines, underwear catalogues, and gay interest magazines. What I discovered was that in the "straight" magazines the poses were very similar to the pin-up girls… there were lot’s of other interesting things like a variety of advertisements for penis enlarging paraphernalia and salves, padded underwear, mysterious sex toys, hair removal as well as hair growth ointments, but my very favorite… THE BEAST - a safe and legal formulation of 24 powerful ingredients containing actual homeopathic hormones at the highest levels permitted for over-the-counter use...
Although the magazines provide good detail reference (and a lot of entertainment) they didn’t show many full-body shots and the poses were limited. So, after failing to convince James to pose for me... I cooked-up an alternative plan... I bought some models at Toys-R-Us... Fully posable, perfectly proportioned, and they never need a break. The ideal models turned out to be the "The Ultimate Soldier Interactive Action Figures." They have the best proportions and are far more flexible than "G.I. Joe" and "Max Steel." Although the American G.I. Joes are by far the best looking of the bunch, they are a little scrawny and stiff. Max Steel was the biggest dissapointment. His outfit in the package showed-off great legs and upper-body definition, both front and back... but when you get him out of the box... he’s got feet like a little girl and... well, let’s just say there is NO action in his figure!
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it’s not you… it’s me
I love this idea, but it’s too much work… I’m not having fun anymore… I need my freedom. This is all starting to feel like an assignment… I don’t paint this way… I don’t want to paint this way… I’ll always love you, but I’m just not ready for this kind of commitment.
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my old flame
Contour drawing, lines, color, paper... Anatomy, I adore anatomy… anatomy of anything… people, plants, buildings, books, furniture, clothes… I love to take shit apart and put it back together… I can spend hours pouring over medical books, botanical illustrations… I just can’t get enough of that stuff. I want to draw and explore... I don’t want to have a plan or be true to an idea... I want to let myself go and see what happens...
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| Annie Adjchavanich |
| Stuff that people should invent: |
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Tires that don't go flat.
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BS detectors for phones.
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An antidote for a broken heart.
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Nail polish that lasts.
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Cell phones that work.
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“Authentic art has no use for proclamations . . . it accomplishes its work in silence.”
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Six Feet Under.
I have never been a big TV person, except for sports, but I have become addicted to HBO’s new series. Written by Allan Ball, (who wrote the film, American Beauty), the show has a slightly surreal everydayness that David Lynch hit with Blue Velvet, though much funnier. Much funnier. The general premise is that the patriach dies and leaves the family business to his two sons. Business happens to be funerals. While delving into the family dynamics with incisive wit and poignacy, the show follows a different death and the way families deal with it each week. Thus, we the viewers are given different windows to look into every week. The acting is superb, and contary to a recent NYTimes article, rich and complex. (The same article defamed Six Feet, and lauded the character studies of Sex and the City…….yeah, right.) All I can ask is that you watch the opening sequence and not be hooked. Oh yeah, NO COMMERCIALS.
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Joy Divison, Live at Les Bains Douches
I picked this up lately, avoiding for a while, as I know the quality of most Joy Divison live recordings…piss poor. This recording was made right after the release of Unknown Pleasures, and catches the band still struggling with it’s punk roots, and it higher leanings…it makes for a must listen. A lot has been written about all the doom and gloom of this band, but it is the excitement of knowing they were on to something different…something that pop music had not approached yet: the mingling of punk frustration with an intelligent inquiry to why the hell we are here. Stephen Morris and Peter Hook have to be the greatest rhythm section in a pop band, ever. Just listen to Transmission, Shadowplay, and Disorder…never has a bass and drum led a band to such heights and interplay between machine and man. Ok I just reread this, and I sound like a 14 year old…maybe that is why I still love the music.
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The table, same for grandfather and for grandson.
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CBS News’ decision not to cover the Condit/Levy debacle.
Some sanity amongest the vultures of network news. What saddens me most is the wonks who say that CBS is doing only for the publicity…where is our country headed? Are we that cynical? Has it really come to this?
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| Peter Ferko |
| It's Tuesday night, this must be Brooklyn |
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The word that most influenced my practice this week
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Interacting with the Fivers
I had an all-too-rare opportunity to hang out with Messieurs Gubbiotti and Caldwell this week, and also a chance to send photos for feedback to Annie and Colby. It was good to get some dialogue going via email as well as face mail. I have to remember to use email more often for this purpose as well as for gossip!
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The Star Trek movie with the whales
I was on a weekend getaway and wanted to watch some videos. Since we were passing through a town and wouldn't be back to return the films, we decided to buy. After perusing the impressive 'for sale' selection at the Video Mart in Bennington Vermont, my artsy companion and I bypassed a classic Russian flick, the first Ridley Scott movie I ever saw and have been dying to review (Legend), Ghost Dog, Muriel's Wedding, and a host of other intellectually juicy celluloid for Star Trek and Contact.
I laugh at that Star Trek movie every time:
Uhura: Captain, I am receiving whale song!
Kirk: Spock? He's harmless, he did too much LDS in the 60's . . .
Foxy Whale Scientist: Do you like Italian?
Kirk: Yes
Spock: No
Kirk: Yes
Spock: No
Kirk: I love Italian, and so does he . . .
Foxy Whale Scientist: Let me guess, you're from outer space.
Kirk: No, I told you, I'm from Iowa--I only work in outer space. |
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The way you gotta do what you gotta do
I am impressed with how art just wants to get out of you. I met a friend of a friend this weekend. This new friend was on sabbatical from her creative writing professorship. She had a baby during the year that she's been off. She said for the first chunk of the sabbatical she hated the thought of ever working again; now she's getting really excited about going back and is already working away at her own writing project. I have other friends who are struggling to find their practical creative outlet--I guess I count myself among that crowd when it comes right down to it. We spend a lot of energy and go to great lengths to make it happen. I always liked the heirarchy of needs theory of psychologist Maslow. I definitely can relate to the self-actualization needs--although the rest of the "lower" needs sure make themselves felt often enough. |
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The decay of language (1 thing on a soap box)
That everday language has lost most of its precision is obvious--and I'm sure it's been the case since time began. Most people probably never have been very inclined toward finding just the right word or the perfect turn of phrase. What little they had developed for letter writing is now rendered obsolete by the "quick jot" style of most email. Big whoop, it be cool. I'm down with mind reading.
I get upset, though, when professionals seemed to have forgotten grammar or the meaning of words--and even, apparently, how to use dictionaries. Here are some examples:
- The hair salon near my house has a sign reading, "We Specialize in All Styles." (I would hope the graphic designer, copywriter, or entrepreneur would spot the oxymoron)
- I read "The Week" magazine that Annie reviewed last week. (I loved the format, but the editorial quality was a little flip.) A review of the new Deniro/Norton/Brando movie called Brando's character, 'fey,' after earlier saying he was a homosexual. I don't think the reviewer or the editor looked up 'fey,' which means 1.) doomed; marked by a foreboding of death or 2.) able to see into the future: visionary; marked by an otherworldly air or attitude; crazy, touched. For the record, 'fey' does not mean 'gay.'
- I hear the word 'peruse' used constantly by business professionals to mean skim over something. Peruse, in fact, means just the opposite: to examine or consider in detail--to study.
- Moving to structure from vocabulary, I wince every time I hear something like, My parents met my girlfriend--they came to dinner with she and I last week. No one, from newscasters to corporate executives seems to want to use pairs of object pronouns. I haven't heard anyone say "dinner with I" or "dinner with she," yet, but perhaps that's just around the corner. Newscasters will think you're a hick, but you'll be correct if your parents go to dinner "with Wendy and me."
Now if anyone can give me an easy way to remember whether yesterday 'I lie on the bed' or 'I lay on the bed,' I'll sleep a happy man . . .
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| Carole Greenwood |
| Luck and risk: |
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I have enlisted the help of a chef-friend, david scribner, to keep an eye on things while I go on vacation and have realized that the act of bringing a colleague into your creative world is a synergistic one - better than buying a new cookbook or watching a great cooking show or having an incredible meal in another restaurant. it has also forced me to think a bit outside my usual patterns by seeing how each of us cooks so very differently - david and I came up with radically different dishes - all with the same ingredients, equipment and menu. |
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it is plum season and I have been able to bake my grandmother's plum cake. my mother's family is Austrian, and this recipe is very typical of the style of cooking I had in my grandparents house on Carroll Street - a sweet and buttery batter cradling juicy yellow plums - very straightforward and plain - no nuts or spices or sauces - yet perfect. simply eating this cake transports me to some fantasy of a summery afternoon tea in the alps. desserts in restaurants these days are so architectural - often devoid of the flavour and reminiscences that the cakes of previous generations seemed to be full of. |
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my son and I walked into ann amernick's bakery the other day. his comment was
"it smells so buttery in here."
. . . and his comment at The Bread Line, the following day to Mark Furstenberg was, "this food is perfect. This is my favorite restaurant."
(message to Beth Joselow: je ne regrette rien . . . )
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a regular customer used one of my favorite phrases to describe his dinner the other night -
"this was a memorable meal . . . "
here is what the pleasures of the table are meant for. the food should be wonderful - but it is the company, the conversations and the surroundings that impact us most - in truth - something must happen. whether we are given to reminisce about another time or place, or person or this meal becomes a time and place, the makings of a memorable meal invade all of our senses and imprint something of value on us forever. I feel so privileged.
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i have been having an internal debate of late over all of the problematic issues and commitments in my life, and although the sensible part of me knows that it is all worth it - despite the arduous tone of the daily grind - the impulsive and whining child in me is protesting loudly.
colby prompted me to dump some of the 1200 messages that were in my in-box, and so in the task i had an amazing opportunity to revisit a lot of old correspondence that allowed me to re-live the construction and opening of the restaurant, the rise and evolution of some great relationships, and an apparently not-so-silly list of resolutions sent supposedly from the dalai llama on new years day. there were two in particular that resonate in this moment -
remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck
take into account that great love and great achievments involve great risk
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