3M's Stock Poised to Skyrocket...

P032609PS-0451, originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream.

I love the juxtaposition of these simple little handwritten sticky notes "naming" all of these important people's bits of technology.

Presidential Afternoon Snack

P031009PS-0350, originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream.

Just discovered the newly-released "Official White House Photostream," and I really love this little snack!

The NYT has an interesting article about this new Flickr photostream and Creative Commons, called Why Obama's Flickr Photos Aren't in the Public Domain.

Artistic Communities

Fridge Squat, originally uploaded by ljcybergal.

I've been trying to work on more Scottie dog illustrations tonight but it's so hard to do "matching" illustrations in terms of theme and style that would be appropriate for a card series. Mostly I just want to draw things that stand alone instead.

Last night was a rare night of insomnia for me, stayed up until I could hear birds waking up with day. I almost made it to sunrise, thought about going out to the lake to watch it, but didn't make it quite that far. I ended up editing this short story I've been writing, One Hand, and it's progressing nicely (with the immense helpfulness of comments from J.B. and T.L.!) I finally added names, which was a good progression into the land of fiction. Names are so hard, though. So many connotations and weighted choices in names.

Just got off the phone with J.B., who sent me a song he's been working on. I love love love sharing creative things with friends, having there be a dialogue and a communication about something you've put time and soul into. It's so important and I wish I did it more often, with more people. I want this blog to kind of spark more things like that, a sharing of mutually interesting ideas.

Send me your ideas! Your visions! Your yearnings and fears.

React, for goodness' sake.

Last night was a rare night of insomnia for me, stayed up until I could hear birds waking up with day. I almost made it to sunrise, thought about going out to the lake to watch it, but didn't make it quite that far. I ended up editing this short story I've been writing, One Hand, and it's progressing nicely (with the immense helpfulness of comments from J.B. and T.L.!) I finally added names, which was a good progression into the land of fiction. Names are so hard, though. So many connotations and weighted choices in names.

Just got off the phone with J.B., who sent me a song he's been working on. I love love love sharing creative things with friends, having there be a dialogue and a communication about something you've put time and soul into. It's so important and I wish I did it more often, with more people. I want this blog to kind of spark more things like that, a sharing of mutually interesting ideas.

I've been trying to work on more Scottie dog illustrations tonight but it's so hard to do "matching" illustrations in terms of theme and style that would be appropriate for a card series. Mostly I just want to draw things that stand alone instead.

Happenings, this first weekend in May

May?! Really?

April felt like a cool wet breeze, punctuated by a lovely weekend cabin reunion. Other than that I'm not sure how April slipped through my fingers so. Alas, onward we go...

Art Chicago is looking like a pretty cool shindig to check out this weekend. If I can snag a student ticket I think I'll try to head over to the Merchandise Mart on Friday and take a little looksee around. Hopefully I'll see some of the Tandem Press crew there, stop by and say hi, reminisce about cutting those crazy amounts of Judy Pfaff Year of the Dog stencils, you know, the usual. The lectures and seminars that they are offering at Art Chicago look really interesting as well, so I hope that just one ticket gives you access to everything.

Also really, really want to get into The Books concert at the MCA on Sunday. It's been sold out for a while, but I may just try and go anyway, stand in line, see if I can hop in if someone doesn't show at the last minute.

Fun fact: the This American Life movie screening is happening again, as an encore performance on May 7th. Tickets are a blistering $18 so I'm not sure I want to see Ira Glass on the big screen that much, but I still am interested in the show itself. Maybe it will be a DVD adventure in a few months. Mainly I just want to see how awkward Ira Glass is in person, and the Chris Ware bit, whatever craziness he gets up to.

Thinking about The Roches' Hammond Song-- I think it's the one P.E. and I listened to in the car on the drive from Cleveland, and I'm really digging it more and more. Up until hearing this song I really never thought about The Roches having more music in the world other than their Christmas album, We Three Kings, because that is all I ever heard growing up. But I may have to investigate them a bit more thoroughly.

Here is the song (not a great recording, but it'll have to do):

Screen No. 2

, originally uploaded by JuliaVHendrickson.

Here is another example, taken through a screen with the focus in the foreground. Here the shapes are more clearly figures because they compose a larger part of the frame, but you're still forced to question how you perceive the figures, what they are doing, etc. Does the fact that this is in color make the image easier or more simplistic to read? Maybe I should try it in black and white as well...

Screen

sea screen, originally uploaded by JuliaVHendrickson.

I'm starting to really love seeing things through screens, especially the human form. There's an odd sort of pixelation about the image, except the pixels are actually part of the physical dimensions of what is in the photograph. I love how the foreground focus forces the image into abstraction, but because the color and basic shape are still there, the content is still legible. In this photograph, essentially you're reading color first (brown of the screen, the ocean), and then shape (the wooden bar, the two figures walking). The loss of depth is fascinating, too. You're forced to immediately look beyond, into the background, without completely being sure what it is you're looking at.

Oh, no, coincidence and typo.

Started reading Billy Collins' Nine Horses tonight. I bought the book from a good, small used bookstore in Wrigleyville, The Bookworks. I set the book down and when I reached for it again, I noticed a small piece of paper in the back that someone else had left inside as a bookmark. A small thrill, since I love ephemera and finding things that others have left behind. Sometimes you can get real treasures. This one, it was from one of those cheesy page-a-day calendars, telling the book's former owner to get Collins' book and read it. Except they messed up a little bit...

Nine Houses might be a harder book to find, considering Collins hasn't written that one yet.

I really like these lines, from "Aimless Love":

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

A bit of punctuation to protect me from this ending, please.

Some days are just disconcerting.

This Tate Modern Rodchenko & Popova show looks amazing. London, I want to visit you.

Been listening to some stuff by British musician Davy (Davey?) Graham. This version of Cry Me A River is completely stunning. I'm not sure about the racist balloon floating about in the picture, though...



When I got off work today I waited for the bus for what seemed like 20 minutes. The stop is close to the lake so it was especially cold and windy, but when the bus finally came my card decided not to work. I guess I must have broken it somehow today, since it was in my pocket. I had just been to deposit stuff at the bank, so no cash of course. I couldn't understand it-- the darn thing had worked this morning! The entire experience completely flustered me and disjointed my day. (I think I just made disjointed into a verb, which is not really a common usage--e.g. 15th century!, but I like it so it's staying put). I ended up taking a cab home, one of those awful big van ones. After wrenching the door open, I sat down all in a huff. There was an empty Miller Lite can in the backseat, and weird, tattered fabric covering the seats. The driver actually had to move his snacks and stuff out of the way so that I could sit in the back. Once I had a cab driver tell me that police can ticket cabs willy-nilly if the cars aren't clean (on the outside), so cab drivers hate muddy days because they're always having to go to car washes and stuff to keep from getting tickets.

I've been noticing lately just how many quirky and fascinating architectural tidbits Chicago's buildings have to offer, if only you look up once in awhile. There are so many freaking eagles and random faces carved into facades, it's insane. I need to take my little Nikon Coolpix out with me more and just collect some of this stuff. It's the modern/ deco bits that I love. I've always liked spotting ghost details on old brick walls (advertising, signs, shapes where adjacent buildings used to be), and I've been noticing a lot more storefront signs lately, too. Going to get a Polaroid soon, and maybe a Holga, because, why not? Those images could very well print wonderfully in photopolymer.

Cabooses and Chords

(Guitar lessons image found here. Via Creative Commons/ Flickr).

Finally, NPR's Song of the Day is starting to post things I actually like again. Do they switch editors or something? It's been months and months since I've been intrigued by anything, just a lot of relatively boring vaguely pop songs, but recently I've been feeling a spark of something new. Today they posted Train Song by Feist and Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab For Cutie). Click here to listen. I already knew the song from the Dark Was The Night compilation, but it's nice to see NPR promoting such a good song.

So it's a Monday, and time for new beginnings. 2009 seems to be a year for new things for me, for which I am quite happy and excited. Last night, 'round midnight, I decided to sign up for a guitar class! It's an eight-week group class at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and my first one was this morning. I was a little nervous, but it was ultimately a lot of fun! We learned the D and A7 chords, pretty basic stuff, but I'm so excited to start being able to translate all of this new found and newly recaptured creative energy into music! It's been a long time since I've wanted to sing and play (since 2006, maybe?), but I'm finally working back into it. Potentially I will have a surprise guest appearance in a certain musical octogenarian-themed group, too...

Connie Converse

(Image found here).

Wow. Maybe it's the fact that it's a dark, warm, almost-summer night, when I could fall in love with anything, but I am incredibly infatuated with this lovely lady. This album of songs written/ recorded in the 1950s and 1960s by Connie Converse was finally collected and released in March 2009.

Listen to a handful of the Connie Converse songs from the album How Sad, How Lovely on MySpace.

One By One is especially poignant, and I heard it first on NPR (here). I love that it starts off sounding like a church hymn, very traditional and full-voiced, but then the syncopation begins and you're captivated by the contradictions in the text and the music.

A KAL Cartoon in The Economist

I got quite a chuckle out of this April 2nd, 2009 KAL cartoon (seen here)... I sure do appreciate that guy.

Sunday, Noonish

The past few days have been welling up with interesting tidbits of creativity. I like that. Something about the spring has prompted me to make new things. I wrote a short story a few days ago... I haven't written fiction in years. I've been painting more. For an entire day I drew Scottish Terriers (photos to come), potentially for letterpress cards.

A.E. and I went to see Noah and the Whale last night at the Empty Bottle. They were just so adorable, and full of cheerful, good energy. There is something about good stage presence and a good rapport with your band members/ the audience that makes a performance just wonderful. You can be a good musician, but without that extra bit of a sense of humor and comfort with yourself, something is lost. I can't get enough of their music videos, either-- very quirky and silly. It seems like they're filming a movie to be released with their next album... ?

I felt the same way seeing Kate Maki on Tuesday with T.M. at Schuba's. (Kate opened for the Great Lake Swimmers, who apparently now have a song on the Honda Insight commericals now, and ALSO apparently are offering their new album on Amazon for THREE DOLLARS... cool). Kate was playing by herself (sitting on the far left corner of the stage, which I liked) because everyone else in the tour group was stuck in Indiana trying to fix a broken axle. She was funny and cute, encouraging audience participation so much that eventually some guy just got up on stage and started drumming on a guitar case to help her with a song. It could have been awkward and weird, because he wasn't very good, but instead it was awesome and the room was filled with camaraderie and good humor.

Maira Kalman has a new prose/ painting piece up on her New York Times blog called And the Pursuit of Happiness. This one's called "May It Please The Court". I love love love her fanciful script, charming portraits, and reverential yet discerning take on American democracy. I didn't know that she had illustrated a new edition of Strunk and White's Elements of Style, but it makes perfect sense. That little gem was first printed in 1959, so it's the 50th anniversary now, which kind of blows my mind. The NYT has a great bit about the anniversary, called "Happy Birthday, Strunk and White!".

I also didn't know how many New Yorker covers Maria Kalman has done! I just saw this one (March 14th, 2005) and gasped because I LOVE IT. The blue noses!!

AND AND AND she did Next Stop Grand Central?!?! That is such a good children's book! I'm so impressed.