list

holiday family & friends time:

georgia buchert made this beautiful crown for me.  i was so touched.  this pic doesn't do it justice.  i'll try to get a better one.

1) omg.  food.  out of control food.

2) prime rib & brussels sprout, nativity, very sketchy pick-up rendition (omg.  out of control melismas) of "for unto us a child is born,"  buche de noel, and christmas crackers on christmas eve.

3) matching swiss nightgowns for me and all the girls.

4) thoughtful "experience" gift certificates (dim sum, play lists, shopping expeditions, pedicures, thrifting and vintage store shopping), cool, creative gift-wrapping jobs & hand embroidered cards.

5) turkey dinner at bam's on christmas day.

6) christmas day migraine.

7) pitch perfect with my sis at the dollars.  yes!  see it.

8) boxing day locust salon featuring:  candy cane cake by ingrid, baked brie with fig and cranberry by kathryn, carrot-jicama salad AND hand made crown by georgia, cheese ball and last minute table arranging by bonnie, olives, cheese and nuts from the belnap-jensens, lots of baking and cleaning by amelia, magical drum solo by greg, stylophone virtuosity by steve, and prepared piano by christian.

el gallo giro is one of my favorite provo restaurants.  check out their molcajete.

9) over-the-top take out from el gallo giro for lunch today--handmade guacamole, molcajete, pollo with pickled pink onions, 29 handmade corn tortillas, nopales, mole rojo, sangria, and, yeah.

10) the hobbit--loved having moses' running commentary, as he sat on my lap for most of the movie, and obviously it was his favorite movie he'd ever seen since it looked exactly like a video game, but, dude, i hate cgi.  it seriously looks like a piece of crap.  sorry fans.

sonosophy

i still look & feel a tad sick.

we had a super long date night, beginning at 2 pm this afternoon.

1) reading at the utah humanities council book festival.  i heard this sort of hot poet-dude read.  i rather  like his poetry, but his reading was atrocious, and actually kind of pissed me off.  i might have to use some strong language in this section because, eight hours later, i'm still mad, and i have to say a few things to poets right now:  if you don't read well, please, for the love of all that's holy, practice!  hire a coach.  take an acting class, improve your voice and your stage presence.  if you think you write poetry "for the page" rather than for performance, get an actor to read for you.  if you get nervous, take a xanax and PRACTICE.  or hire an actor.  but please don't inflict your bad reading on us.  it's insulting.  if you want to do public speaking and reading, then respect your audience and treat it seriously.  also, we don't need a ten-minute, rambling introduction to an 8 second poem.  in which you brag-plain about how long it took you to write your book, how much grant funding you got, which shoe gazing rock band you were on "tour" with, or how random and cool you are.  hopefully we'll get all that from your 8-second poem.

am i right, people who go to poetry readings?  is there anything worse than an awkward, rushed, poet with annoying head notes at the top of each poem?  poets!  get your shit together.

life-sized dudes at ken sanders.  someone at ken sanders is super into r. crumb.

2) arbitrage at the broadway (4.30 show.  we were the only non-seniors in the audience).  i enjoyed this movie a lot. gere, sarandon, and marling were great, though sarandon had to deal with some weak lines and not enough screen time.  arbitrage, the story of a wealthy business man desperately trying to hide the fraud he had committed, as well as another major crime, was a film that almost transcended it's genre.  it almost had lady characters who were dimensional, it almost had interesting insights about race and class, it almost showed how complex structures of power, patriarchy, and society are.  & tim roth almost convinced us he was a new york city cop.

almost.

just slightly off.  sarandon's character had a few tricks up her sleeve, but, in my opinion, we never, ever have to hear the wife of a wealthy man say, "do you think i don't know about your little secretaries and assistants, and, and your little whores?" also, filmmakers, old dudes don't need to see any more footage of themselves in the sack with hot french gallerists.  maybe make her chubby?  in her thirties?  a lawyer?  i don't know.  mix it up a little!  you're artists--you can do something different this time!

but really, i did have fun watching the movie and thought it was quite well made, if not ground-breaking.

alex caldiero:  the sonosopher.

3) alex caldiero reading and dvd release party for the documentary the sonosopher: a life in sound about caldiero's life and work.  (at ken sanders' rare books, julie turley.  reminded me of you!)

k.  caldiero's a super interesting dude and a fantastic performer.  a sicilian/new yorker who came up in the cage/rauchenberg years, and knew both artists, then moved to orem, utah after converting to mormonism in 1980. and proceeded to continue doing his really riveting, gutsy, between the cracks performances.

(poets:  check out caldiero.  emulate his vocal presence!  listen to how much silence he gives us between words.  take note of how well-prepared his readings are.  we can't all be as rad as alex, but we can learn from him.)  i bought a copy of the dvd and look forward to watching it.

i'm pretty sure you've been here before, JT.  

4) burgers at the drive-up--hire's--rootbeer in a frosty mug.  i love hires. they make their own buns, grind their own meat, and bring trays to your car so you can eat and listen to john lee hooker and check out all the little dramas going on in the cars around you.  tonight there was a cop hanging out with an old lady and her older mother.  had they been robbed?  bumped into by another car in the lot?  witnessed a crime?  we never figured it out.

so, yeah, i love hires, but unfortunately, tonight our fries were not fresh and our mugs not super cold and frosty.  a little disappointing. the buns, as always, were great.

thursday night

and i'm so relaxed after such an intense week that i'm having trouble finding one last ounce of adrenaline left over to write this post.

so great having the little kids back in school.  routines at last.  everyone's happier.

just starting haywire.  soderbergh always has the best music.

here's a rundown on the day:

1) left the house at 6.30 a.m.

2) taught class #1, wearing dress julie gave me.  i always get lots of compliments in that dress, including once in nyc from a woman on the street, which is like two compliments.

3) prepped for next week's classes.

4) read in-class essays from class # 1.  for my own personal reasons, designated writers "E" for emerging (i.e. not ready for college writing yet), "P" for proficient, and "A" for advanced.  don't know why i did that.  just got the urge.

5) taught class #2.

6) went to seminar, discussed habermas, byron, abrams, and the rise of the mass reading public.

7) commuted home.

8) printed out copies of a creative non-fiction piece i've been working on for writer's group.

9) went to walden back to school picnic in southfork.

10) brought warm peach cake to writer's group.  thanks to ingrid for making it.  it was one of the best cakes i've ever eaten.  custardy and peachy.

11) new writer's group!  more on that later.  i'm excited.

12)  watching haywire with c.  so looking forward to several hours of writing time tomorrow.

continuing birthday bliss

signed copy of life on mars arrived in the mail from julie.  cake bites hand delivered by heather.  my kids were trying to sneak nibbles of them all day.

yesterday and today i received a few more birthday blisses from some friends who know me oh, so well.  so fun to have a little birthday aftermath.

thrifted calvin klein pumps arrived in the mail today from marni, who always finds my favorite shoes at value village, seattle.  can i wear them with tights this fall, julie?

now i'm off to make cold, crisp french salad for dinner, and maybe i'll tell you about french salad tomorrow.

silk oscar de la renta scarf from marni.  i feel so fancy in it.

then to moonrise kingdom with c., since both of his weekend nights are taken up with gigs this week & it's pretty much too hot to stay home tonight.

quantification & a shrine

shrine under construction:  a stem of fresia, a tiny bowl of water,  ashley mae hoiland's mormon sisters watercolor, crystal necklace from grandma eva in her glass & mirror box, hand written letter from grandma beth with her mother's sewing card.  what does one put in a shrine?  i need candles.

it's nice sometimes to put a number on things. 

1 new poem edited

12 manuscripts submitted

5 loads of laundry washed and dried, not folded

4 one-dollar tickets to the pirates (so good!  darwin a main character.  very funny & entertaining.)

1 shrine under construction/ assemblage (what's in your shrine?)

really hot day supper.  the simplicity of black beans and white rice.

1 pot of black beans, 1 pot of rice, 1 plate of cold vegetables, 6 fresh sparkling limeades (2 fingers of fresh lime juice to 8 oz. cherry 7-up)

17 emails responded to for online class

1 kitchen cleaned

4 poems from my emily dickinson-inspired manuscript edited

3 morning pages written

1 violin lesson chaperoned

1 kid dropped at lifeguarding camp

1 kid dropped at summer adventure camp

4 hours of very languid micro bursts of work through a 100 degree afternoon

2 kids dropped at yoga

1 kid's travel arrangements made for visit to cousins' house next week

1 package of peanut butter m&m's consumed

sparkling fresh limeade

week 4: instead of reading

i've been seeing movies and hanging out with my family.

tonight was magic mike with my sister.  she was an appreciative companion for this film, and we laughed a lot.  she also found it depressing.  i found it oddly uplifting and redemptive, if you're into that kind of thing.  and that other thing, the soderberghian thing, where you're totally entranced and you don't exactly know why.

actually, i do sort of know why:  he knows how to build a character and how to get a performance from an actor.  for instance, who knew that channing tatum was so much more than just eye candy with great moves?

so, if you think this is just going to be a fun night out with the ladies, hmmm.  . . . there are elements of that in the film, but there's a lot more going on.  depressing?  maybe.  i'm not the one to ask on that question.  i have a super high tolerance for depressing, twisted, and degraded as a normal and acceptable part of the human condition.




last night, c. and i saw safety not guaranteed at the broadway.  i really enjoyed every minute of this low-budget indie flick.  the dialogue was great, and so was aubrey plaza's performance and character.  it was less developed and satisfying than magic mike to me, and i thought the writer bit off more than he could chew with the plot and ultimately left a lot of potentially interesting elements unexplored.  or maybe they just ran out of money.  still, i really liked it and give it a thumbs up.

both films had rounded and complex female characters and both films played with, but transcended, the genres they purported to be.

a good & intense week, overall.  i have no idea what kind of creative break through i'm heading for, or if i'm even heading for such a break through at all, but i'm sticking with the program pretty faithfully.  if faithfulness has anything to do with it, i should experience the promised artist's way breakthrough--if faithfulness to the program is currency with which to purchase your new clarity.

i'm a little scared of what it might be.

like, what if i decide i should really run away and join the circus and become a trapeze artist?