Bottle, 1999

superdus encouraged me to draw the bottles in my windowsill which I photographed yesterday morning. As it happens, I did a drawing of the second one from the left (Harvey's Bristol Cream?) in 1999, the year I drew like crazy.

My scanner's colour reproduction is abyssmal. In particular, there are some dark blue-greens in the bottle and in the grey blob on the left which get interpretted as blue. I adjusted to get the colour of the paper more or less accurate. Further adjustments sacrifice other colours.

This image is actual size. Most of my drawings are this size. Like most, this is done entirely with Prismacolor pencils. More of my drawings can be seen in my gallery at Artists' Liaison.



© Van Waffle, 1999

Spontaneous stupidity

From the NaNoWriMo website:

Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.

I'm considering registering for National Novel Writing Month, and writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. roosterbear and manhattan have done it before. Anyone else?

I keep dabbling at an old novel I started in my teens, but I don't think I'm ready to tackle it yet. I take the characters too seriously. It's too intimidating.

I need to write a different novel, any novel.

The wonderful thing about making myself write it in a month is it's doomed to fail anyway. It will be crap. It's only when I allow myself to write (or draw, or photograph) crap that anything happens. I'm already spending enough time at my desk every day to write 2,000 words. All I have to do is focus on a single project for one month.

Cabaret

Start by admitting from cradle to tomb,
It isn't that long a stay.

I can relate to Sally Bowles. She sounds like a decadent Annie Dillard, stripped down and relieved of a little religion.

These are our few live seasons.

I don't know how I managed to miss seeing Cabaret until now. Jon invited me over this evening to watch the video.

Now I know why my mother said she never warmed to this musical. It lacks the secure, family-oriented Rodgers and Hammerstein ending my family bought into, where duty and good behaviour win the day and make the children happy. Instead we have an artist asserting her individuality and independence, refusing to give up her idealistic dream for a cottage in Cambridge.

I was also amused to witness the quintessential "record scratch" epiphany. Only this afternoon, fabulist complained about this cliché in his declaration of the Seven sonic felonies. I wonder if Cabaret was the first movie to use the sound to that effect. It is a powerful moment that makes all others seem like parodies. I was titillated.

Vertigo

For D.O.

Leaving the doorway
you lead me to the brink.
On the ocean of air
swim dazzling lights.
My foot slips
but you sieze me spinning.
Your arm enfolds
from behind
fingers finding
lightly press my sternum.
I feel you waiting
in the small of my back.
Cries of seabirds
rise from the nether distance.
I yearn to drop like a peregrine
succomb to the call of space
and plunge into aquamarine,
drowning salt waves.
You restrain me
from the sweetness of pain.
Hovering on a razor stone
I rest in your enclosure,
supernal torment.