happy bread year

There are always new wonders to discover.

idiot with a tripod

Amazing and surprisingly moving.
Roger Ebert writes about this here.
Jamie Stuart's website is here.

We were out of town for the storm. Tried to get back ahead of it but were forced to turn around. Our second, successful, trip took 18 hours (but allowed for a movie and dinner out - ideal way to wait out congestion and become unstuck).

here again

Some of the stuff that accumulates in my head (and out onto my desk) while I am at work.

essayers

i'm here

These are some work doodles.

a cloud

Maybe found a way to track what I come across in the course of a day/week/month/year...(I got the 'players' form from David Hughes).


The rest of the page.


And the quote that I have dwelt on most this week (with a bonus quote and Kanye drawing):


That quote in full (which I got from a book that I have Andrew to thank for):

“If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: “Can I believe it all again today?” No, better still, don’t ask it till after you’ve read The New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer’s always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that’s choked with confession and tears and …great laughter.” [Frederick Buechner, The Return of Ansel Gibbs, 303]

blackout wisdom

Austin Kleon is a wise man. His book is definitely worth looking at - I love it.

thanksgiving

wow

I made the Tartine bread of a few posts ago. Amazing. I only veered from the recipe where I was not equipped to follow the directions. This meant a tray of boiling water at the base of the oven and frequent spirts of water to ensure there was enough steam. Really really pleased with this. As good a crust as I have ever made. As good and tasty as it looks. Ingredients: water, flour, salt.

Again, Wow.

what is precious

Really, one of the best 'things' I have ever read.

delights dilemmas

Some of the past week.

The Zadie Smith essay is a must read.

tartine

Tartine Bread from 4SP Films on Vimeo.

As part of a broadening in the way that I make bread, I am starting to worker my way through the Tartine Bread book. Working on my first starter. Stay tuned.

anonymous, tuol seng

I drew and then posted the page that this wee girl appeared on in my notebook to the blog a couple of weeks ago. When I opened the page of the magazine on which the book she is featured in was advertized her image immediately stood out. She looks very self-possessed, almost defiant - I immediately reached for my pen. Even though I knew the book was about photography and political violence, I imagined that she was a refugee and wondered what she might be doing now. To my gut-sickened horror, I found out this past week that her fate was much more immediate and awful.

the rest of the page

Half a week's thoughts. I want to communicate something here on the blog but don't seem to have the inclination to sit and write so it is on with my cryptic parenthetical ways. The must read article of the week is an NYRB discussion of a couple of Dylan books. Great reflections on his changes over the years - and Dylan comes out sounding like someone who continues to think and engage his art, faith, life, and the world in general in impressive ways. The article is definitely worth a read.

Big Issue: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” I don’t want to put you on the spot, but you sure deliver that song like a true believer.
Bob Dylan: Well, I am a true believer.

And Lincoln's ability to change his mind articulately is deeply impressive. He only articulated full emancipation for slaves towards the end of his life. How did he remain passionately alert to the changes in his own mind and heart as well as to what was happening in the nation? I had not thought about (or maybe even been aware of this) before reading the NYRB review.

I think this looks like John Howard Yoder - trying to get our attention in a week in which a nation shrugs off torture as no big deal once again.

revisit

Again, nothing like Guilermo del Toro.

buzzy

I'll upload this properly - but for now the tired blur matches my sleep deprived fuzziness, which is not altogether unpleasant. There is a fizziness going along with this. And I really do not look like Guillermo del Toro. Look at his great notebook.

civilians

A succinct explanation of Kamel Makhlouf's graph here.

My own take on this here.

something is happening somewhere

'somethin' is happenin' but you don't know what it is/do you..?'

cruel radiance

post it or not or post it...

I've been trying a lot of new recipes...and a work-length beard. This is the exciting life I lead.

fizzing engagement

Really like the fizzing engagement that comes across in this video. I found this through the constantly connecting, always informing Austin Kleon. His book of poems, which winged here last week, is moving, wise, and very funny.

word of god on a wall

Brooklyn, NYC

women are heroes

JR just won the TedPrize.

This, from such a simple idea, is heartbreaking and wonderful.

TRAILER " WOMEN ARE HEROES" from SOCIAL ANIMALS on Vimeo.

I posted about JR's work just over a year ago.

angels

Receiving these angels and a bus print from the absolutely lovely Si Smith made me very very very happy. Click the picture to see them more clearly.

a king

Was not at all happy with this picture - bears only a faint resemblance to King Zero - but decided to mess it up a wee bit and commit to posting. Even if my drawings are unrecognizable it is a way to keep from freezing.

Most of what I know about Burma comes from Guy DeLisle's Burma Chronicles. He has a fun mash up of his book on Pyongyang here.

Generally the news is that I am feeling very energized and up at the moment. A commute with long reading times helps. Surprisingly structured pattern to my reading ways to and fro. And I find that the transition to a new job has been helped greatly by a different perspective that developed while I was out of employment. I summed up some of that here (thanks again Pip!). I'll look for a way to express the rest.

fragments

The disciples are stolen from Si Smith's wondrous Bus Trip series of prints.

And you can see the King Creosote sing his song here:

King Creosote - Rims from Bandstand Busking on Vimeo.

'a state as much as a pursuit'

This drawing is a copy. An artist friend says copying is a legitimate way of learning. I certainly accept this for baking, exercise, friendship, conversation, writing - I mean that I copy people who do things well and from that starting point spring off into something that is my own. Maybe that's my blend of "realism and magic".

ordinary victories

I think this is the best book I have read so far this year.

A quick stream of conscious response: Some of my opinion formed out of the sheer surprise of Ordinary Victories (I did not know who Manu Larcenet was this time two weeks ago) but most of it comes from the fact that the story is just that good. It captures a person trying to heal himself - and learn what being forgiving might mean and understand what his art means - better than just about anything else I have ever read.There is a life and vividness to all of the characters that has stayed with me and wandered around with me as I go about my days since first finishing. (After a day's rest I decided to read it all again.) And it has helped me think a lot about art and relationships and energized my drawing all over again.

Wow.



"Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic... Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself."
Zadie Smith

this chap

Mixed feeling posting this chap. He is a very handsome fellow but I don't really know who he is.
Thoughts?

cryptic

Episode #23.2: James Yorkston & Adrian Crowley - "Take The Skinheads Bowling" (by Camper Van Beethoven) from Off The Beaten Tracks on Vimeo.

2 videos in a row but I think it is worth it.

I just have not been making the time I need to draw. This means I have not been taking the time to think, reflect, prayer, gin myself up around the business of living. I am working on this but not so you'd know. In the meantime there are all these grace notes - in the songs, in some stretching at and away from work, in learning what I subconsciously learned in the recesses over the past year. Most all of this is delightful and more than anything else I am dippily grateful.

happiest stumble of the year

I stumbled across this here, while learning about ukuleles.
Happiest stumble of the year.

super sad true love story

I really wanted to write more than, 'I really liked this book, which thrillingly lives up to its title' and I will, but not yet and probably not on this book. Here's the NYT instead.

time magazine

Raises more questions than it answers (and not really in a very good way).

Something more personal next.

I did not draw this...

I found it here. It is by the wonderful Sylvain Chomet and is the screensaver on my computer at work. The return to employment has brought on a flurry of emotions that I have not even yet articulated to myself - certainly not blog ready. And the evenings suddenly seem short (and the weekends full of celebration). But there will be more drawing and whatever else-ing goes on here. I miss it.

The Illusionist from Berwick Film & Media Arts Fest on Vimeo.

a page of whatever comes out

My first thought on scanning this page was, What a random set of thoughts, readings, images and viewings go into informing my days, moods, outlook, further thoughts. But I realized fairly quickly that there is really no randomness to this and that there might be a fairly narrow range of influences working on me at any given time. Actually this page has very few sources. Brueggeman and Alec McGarry come out of what I am reading at the moment. Nothing random about that - it is rare that I don't choose what I am reading next. The newspapers I check in with every day sparked just about everything else. No idea where the Australian came from - combination of my head and hand, though I am not sure what why.

No major point to this. I think of myself as open and curious (some days less so than others) and ready to read, listen to, draw, or watch whatever people throw on my path. For day to day reading/listening/watching choices I have favourite sources I go back to again and again - blogs, magazines, authors, filmmakers. I assume I am like most people this way. But am ready to be challenged if not.

this charming man

Eddie Campbell Reading - July 2008 from Jessa Crispin on Vimeo.

I am marveling my way through the Alec Book at the moment and found this very charming man on video at his own blog.

on the ethiopian restaurant wall

Copied on to the back of a receipt at the end of a good meal with good friends.

on getting a job

more bread

No pictures were taken when I was cooking for the film shoot. But a few days later I made some pizza with the leftovers. The simplicity of the whole thing makes me a bit weepy.

Then you just add a layer of cheese.

Bake it for just too long and it tastes great.

Other things which really make me smile at the moment.
I am greatly honoured to be included on this list of Pip's.

And take a look at this interactive feature based around an Arcade Fire song and your childhood - wild and wonderful.

'the loving care he gave to that bread'

Pip Wilson has a blog, which has been a helpful blessing to me in more ways than I can say. And now he has a book too (actually one of many). Opening the book at random I came across this (and it touched me):

One man, a Chef in a college community,
striving to meet the needs of young humans,
started to tell me how he baked bread.
And then he started to weep as he told me
of the loving care he gave
to that bread -
to those humans.
Beautiful

The last few weeks for me have contained a big mix of stresses (some good). On the blog, Pip had recommended acknowledging feelings but not being ruled by them. Recognize the fear, paranoia, stress, anger - acknowledge and then realize that the feeling does not have to rule your behaviour. I am sure I am not quite capturing the message but the exercise has been enormously helpful for me the past view weeks - freeing. Certainly helping me to see the world differently.

This is some of what I have been up to.

I don't always feel as clearly but here is the part of the Auden poem I was thinking of.

You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon

making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.

How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.

The rest of it is here.

this makes no sense

And you will scratch your head if you try and fathom it. It is all a learning process for me.

rendez-vous

Sylvain Chomet talks about animation from Sam Taylor on Vimeo.

I love what Sylvain Chomet has to say about the dream-like state of drawing. After a funk of a week this helped me see that things taste better again.

the week that was

In which I forgot how to draw. Why does it feel like starting from scratch after just a few days away?
There are links to Tony Judt's New York Review of Books pieces and other recommended reading here.
And the Gil Scott-Heron article is here. There was something in the tone of the piece that I really did not like. But Scott-Heron is playing Greenbelt this year and they have a nice audio interview with him here.
I do not know anything about Paloma Faith but loved this Q&A at the Guardian.