Waiting for Albinoni

The latest piece. I asked Louise last night why some pieces are harder to create than others. She said,
"They're all hard. You just forget."

Rocking the Boat

Louise is the creative, restless one between us. We no sooner get home from vacation, and she's hunting for apartments in New York City. It's not enough to sit and smell the flowers--not for long, anyway. No sitting on our derrieres around here. One life to live, and we're damn well going to live it. Or part company. Have you heard the news? Tom and Louise are splitting.

So tonight we made a short list of things we might do to keep ourselves filled with adventure. Nothing scary, mind you. No skydiving, no cliff jumping, no acrobatics in the air. And since I can't swim, no water sports. Here's our list:
Hike to Donut Falls--not to the top, mind you, just to the bottom
Museum of Natural History
Antelope Island
Fishing on Corn Creek and in Fillmore, Chalk Creek
Cabins at Fish Lake
Camper/tent and camping
Drive to Monroe
Sit on a stream
Corn Creek camping

Pretty tame, most of it. No bucket list here. Monotone. Dullsville. But we did come up with one idea we both like. The Larry Miller Motorsports Park, where you can rent these little "go karts" that you drive like hell around an enormous track, "over three times the size of Disneyland," the online blurb says. And then, as if written for Tom and Louise, the caption, "GET YOUR HEART RACING."

That's the ticket. Get our hearts racing. More ideas tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll start my engine.

So, dear reader, what do YOU do to get your heart racing?

A Pre-Celebration of the 50th Anniversary

With our 50th anniversary looming, Louise and I decided to make a run for the beach. Here is my photographic journal of a fabulous week, with abundant thanks to our friend and host, Mary Ellen and to our new friend, Cy, for escorting us to new foods and sights. How else would we have known about olallieberry pie? Balboa Island, in Newport Beach, California, is a cornucopia of images. Most striking, maybe, are the flowers. A smattering of my favorites:

And the modern art at the Orange County Museum of Art:

And of course the boats in the Thursday afternoon sail boat race:

My favorite part, however was the people. Our friend, Mary Ellen:

Our new friend, Cy:

And, of course, Louise, who has rocked my boat for more than 50 years:

Dreaming of the Old Days and Fred Astaire

A couple of weeks ago, we got our Amazon-ordered CD of Fred Astaire singing his songs. The CD has been running next to Carly Simon in the car ever since. I love them both, but Fred takes me back to an ancient time when he sings "Cheek to Cheek," "The Way You Look Tonight," and "The Continental." And when he swings into "Night and Day," I'm right back in boy's glee at Roosevelt Junior High. And I wonder if Mrs. Baker, who was a lovely but sexless woman, even thought about the lyrics she was teaching the adolescent youth of her class:

Night and day, under the hide of me 

There's an oh such a hungry burning inside of me

And its torment won't be through

Till you let me spend my life makin' love to you

Night and day. 

And to think it didn't even make me horny. I don't know where my head was, but it wasn't where Fred's apparently was. Maybe if we had tried to imitate Fred's intonations we could have caught on.

So I dream of the old days, when Fred Astaire danced with the gorgeous Ginger Rogers and the stunning Rita Hayworth, and I was still trying to figure out my body parts. And now I've been married almost 50 years, and I'm still trying to figure out my body parts.

Anthropodermic Bibliopegy

For all you fans of anthropodermic bibliopegy (ha! my spell checker rejects the terms), Harvard has discovered a book in its collection, "Des destinées d'lame," which was bound in human skin. Today's New York Times reports, "The practice of binding books in human skin, which dates at least to the 16th century, was once somewhat common, according to the Houghton blog. Criminal confessions were occasionally bound in the skin of the convicted, and individuals might request to be memorialized for family or lovers in the form of a book covered in a piece of themselves."

So theoretically, I could have one of my books, say, "Eating Chocolates and Dancing in the Kitchen" bound with my skin after I die, and lines of people would surround the library to visit me/it. Or a discussion at family home evening, perhaps: "Hey, go get my dad's book." Such double entendre I had never imagined.

The possibilities for a creative curtain call just keep stacking up.

Checkers Anyone?

I completed this piece over a period of days. The original photo lent itself to design and angles. The model put her best foot forward, as it were.

Then came a ton of experimenting. Somewhere along the way, I thought of harlequins, and this was the result. My motto: if I'm not having fun, why bother?

Kabarett

A modernized (and slimmer) version of Marlene Dietrich in Der blaue Engel. She seduces a professor, so I tread lightly.