Things You May Notice After Returning from a Sketching Symposium in Santo Domingo

1. You might think going from 90% humidity in Santo Domingo to 55% humidity in Memphis will feel good. You will be wrong.
2. You might realize that you are comfortable trying to communicate in Spanish right when it's time to leave. 
3. The day after you get back you might go to your regular lunch place and sprawl out your sketching materials and draw with your sketchbook on top of the table instead of in your lap.
4. You will probably also be confused as to why no one else there is sketching.
5. You might feel strange and sad to not be with anywhere from five to 130 other sketchers at all times.
6. You might feel strange and good to not be covered in sunscreen and sweat at all times.
7. You will probably check Facebook, Flickr and blogs all day long for proof that you were there, and that everyone else is as sad as you are that it is over.

Things I Can Hear in My Backyard Right Now

• train
• frogs
• cicadas?
• squirrels
• birds
• car horn/door lock
• cars on Central and Barksdale
• my air conditioner
• a dog or two
• a bat?
• crickets

Things Chloe Likes Most

That's the order in which 6-year-old Chloe Chockleyblog listed what she likes most. It reflects current thinking.

• Gymnastics
• Singing
• Eating chocolate

Purchased by the Guy in Front of Me at Kroger

orange juice
beef jerky
Irish Spring soap
bag of ice

Exploring Memory

While working on a new series of paintings during this week's Studio Night, I needed a little inspirational help. I don't know where you go for inspirational help, but I go to facebook. I asked all my friends there for recommendations of art, novels, and music about memory, and here are the recommendations I received:


Art
Richter's black and white paintings of family
Clyde Connell's post and gate series of sculptures
Salvador Dali - Persistence of Memory

Novels/Books

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion - Blue Nights

Joan Didion - Where I Was From

Joan Didion - Play It As It Lays

Vladimir Nabakov - Speak, Memory

Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida

Virginia Woolf - Moments of Being

W.G. Sebold - Austerlitz

Anne West - Mapping - An Explorative Guide to Making, Thinking & Writing

Richard Cytowic - The Man Who Tasted Shapes

Proust - Remembrance of Things Past

Donald Westlake - Memory

Dave Eggers - What Is The What

Sites of Memory (essays)

anything by James Joyce

Music

Beatles - "I Forgot to Remember To Forget"

Beatles - "In My Life"

John Mayer - "83"

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (album)

Simple Minds - "Don't You Forget About Me"

PM Dawn - "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss"

311 - "Freeze Time"

Barbara Streisand - "The Way We Were"

Bonus! Movie

Memento

Feel free to comment with more recommendations...

Guestlist: We Love School

My friend Liz had a pictorial realization about loving her kids' school, and is sharing it with us here in her own words:

A couple days ago, I spent the morning with several other parents at my kids’ school, helping the Elementary II and Middle School switch rooms. The kids did a huge amount of work. I kept seeing things that made me feel so grateful to be part of that community. It started with spotting one of my all-time favorite books lying on top of a pile of science texts. Seeing Dr. Williams’s poems on the biology and chemistry books made me happy. While I scuttled to get my phone, somebody moved it to join the language arts books. But still. No one's tying him down.

1. WCW is in the room.

2. There's knitting lying around on the floor. It's no big deal.

3. There's beauty everywhere.

4. Boys mess with pretty stuff, too.

5. Instead of drab texts, they use books
a person actually wants to look at.

6. They walk the walk.

7. Kids understand the logic of their environment so
completely that they were able to set the room up
pretty much independently.

8. Crayon colors are stored with their complements,
so you can really see them.

9. There's no uniform.

10. They provide necessary instruction.

Actors Who Deserve Oscars for Performances on TV Shows

I think the Academy should make an exception to its silly rule about only awarding Oscars for movie performances in the case of these four actors:

1. Andre Braugher, Homicide
   Have you seen Homicide? Andre Braugher's character is so intense he has a stroke!
2. John Noble, Fringe
   I would watch John Noble read from the phone book.
3. David Tennant, Doctor Who
   Just thinking about David Tennant as The Doctor makes me cry.
4. Martin Freeman, Sherlock
   Specifically the last scene of the last episode of season two. You would have to be a robot to not be moved by that deliciously sad scene.