Doesn’t take much to make me happy. A few free hours with the laptop, a latte, and some kind of bran/granola/fabola/roll-a.
Gnawbone Music
My friend, Will Scott, is a full-time musician living in New York. He was doing a tour into the Midwest recently, and I was lucky enough to be able to make it to the show. He’s an amazing live performer, drawing on a number of diverse influences such as blues, gospel, country and roots rock. He kind of reminds me of a mix of Chris Whitley, Tom Waits, and Son House. I had a blast, took tons of pictures, and in general just enjoyed the hell out of myself. Sometimes it really is nice to be mixing this photography thing in with other stuff that I dig so much. If you like to check out new music, go look him up and listen to his new album at http://willscottmusic.com/home.html .
Touchstones
The Artist’s Way talks about “touchstones.” These are images or objects that kind of draw out our good feelings about creativity, kind of create a comfortable surrounding for it to let itself go, help encourage creative thought and play. I love collections of images as displayed in this magazine article on the drag racing history of ’55-’57 Chevrolets, then there’s some art that my friend and I have done, and a couple of books that I really enjoy. It’s nice to notice these sorts of things when I’m in the middle of this hectic month of novel writing. These things spark the mind, give it energy, and just kind of make a person (well, this person) go, “Man, that’s so cool. I want to make something!” and then you go off and do just that.
Bright Eyes
I don’t think I need to say anything on this one.
Mathematical Beauty
This project was gifted to me by a teenage girl whom I don’t even know. I was hanging out with my friends, and she was at a table nearby coloring. She had some colored pencils, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I went over to look. She showed me what she was doing and said, “Here, there’s a web site you can print them out from. You can have this one,” and she gave me one that she had printed out already. I’ve been working on it little by little, just kind of more practice for arranging colors. If you need something for yourself or your kids to goof around with, the web site on the paper says www.geometrip.com, and you can go there and print out stuff like this for fun. It’s kind of a cool blending of math and visual art. There are tons of designs and some of the examples are really gorgeous!
Edit: A friend of mine saw me working on this and said, “That looks like something my wife does. She calls them ‘mandalas,’ and coloring them can be a sort of meditation process.” I thought that was interesting as all get-out, so I looked them up, and, damn, if those things aren’t ever cool! There’s some really great information on mandalas here, if you’re interested.
Cloudy with a Chance of Overcast
At the time I took this I was thinking of all the construction on the belt that surrounds my fair city, but what impresses me most here is the pressing sky.
Caught ya
I would make a terrible spy. Caught by a grade-schooler!
NaNo, Day Four
This was right before I sat down at the local coffee shop to get to work for the evening. Notice I have all the necessities: laptop, coffee, biscotti, and a really big harmonica.
Mr. Lubie!
I don’t know how far the Mr. Lubie empire stretches across the country, but you see them here and there around Indiana. There used to be one down in Martinsville. I didn’t realized the franchise was so large they actually owned their own trucks! I want to drive one of these. I want to drive a big tanker full of used oil that says “Mr. Lubie” on the side of it.
I do so wish I could have been the people who came up with the entire idea for that chain, plus the graphics. It would have been the highlight of my year.
Off to School
Seen on my way to work this AM.