bosatsu Evolution (III)

And another...

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

bosatsu Evolution (II)

Here's a closeup from one of the most popular illustrations...

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

bosatsu Evolution (I)

Here's how bosatsu has been coming along in the last months.  As we love to say, when it comes to the arts, details matter.

And that's how bosatsu has been evolving, detail by detail...

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Illumination

Anybody But The Current Guy

What a bizarre election we're having this time around.

The GOP candidate is easily out-fundraising his opponent because...his donors love his policies so much.  Right?

Except that he doesn't have any.  (Check it out.)

• On healthcare, he'll repeal Obamacare and replace it with...what?
• On financial regulation, he'll repeal Dodd-Frank (the new laws meant to prevent Wall Street meltdowns) and replace it with...what?
• On taxes, he'll fund his tax cuts for the wealthy by ending...which?...tax credits for the middle class
• On budgeting, he'll cut our deficit by slashing spending by hundreds of billions each year on...which?...programs

He does not say.  Resolutely.

So what exactly are his extremely well-heeled donors purchasing with all their cash?

The only thing I can see is that they are buying themselves an Anybody But the Current Guy candidate.  And he's letting them.

Wow.  What a way to get a circular office.

Budweiser Girls and Blue Angels

One of those laughable moments in relations between the genders is the Budweiser Girl phenomenon.  (At least that's what we term it at home.)

This is that moment in time when...

Take your most level-headed, rational guy and place him in front of a lifesize Budweiser Girl poster.

What happens?  He goes a bit gaga.  He gets that bug-eyed, dazed look.  He begins muttering in sub-vocal grunts as he takes in the voluptuous sight of...

• her large, curvaceous (yet almost miraculously perky) breasts
• her sumptuous cloud of brunette hair adorned with so many highlights he swears she's blonde (and fertile)

Those two things in particular.

Does he notice the shape of her elbows?  Hell, no.  The color of her eyes?  Nope.  That she might even be suffering from curvature of the spine?  Nada.

At this point, all the women in the room start snickering with contempt.

Right?  

Of course, what's forgotten is that so much of this is socialization.  After all, feed a group of boys over a series of decades - prepubescent through middle age - a steady diet of large (yet, oddly perky) breasts and clouds of blonde hair representing the ideal woman, and...

Flash them just such an image and they begin salivating without realizing it.

Well, what do we expect?  (It certainly happens to me.)

Which is why I always love it when the US Navy's Blue Angels come to town.  They do every year, as they are now, practicing their aerobatic stunts in the skies above us, preparing for SeaFair weekend in Seattle.

What's wonderful, and amusing, about the Blue Angels coming to town is that the Budweiser Girl phenom plays in reverse.

After all, what does your average guy think about Blue Angel pilots?  Oh, that's easy...

• They're short - just over five feet - to fit into the cockpit (which isn't really true) 
• They're exceptional at one thing - and probably nothing else - except...
• After their show, they screw their way through half the bars of Seattle because...

Well, take the most rational, practical, conservative businesswoman, such as Manya.  Show her the Blue Angels practicing one of their dives up there in the sky and she's suddenly screaming like a cheerleader ready to hop in the backseat.

Funny that.

A Jane Austen Sex Scene?

One of the perennial jokes among Austen fans is her frequent use of the phrase making violent love.  As in, "He was making violent love to me!"

Standards change over time, of course.  As does usage.  To Jane's way of thinking, making violent love is when a man picks up a dropped handkerchief and returns it to its blushing owner.  Or, perhaps, when a would-be suitor offers a ride home in his carriage (elderly matron accompanying the two as escort, of course).

Still, as a novelist, I've often thought what a fascinating conversation it would make to ask Jane, were she still with us, whether she would choose to include a modern sex scene in one of her novels.

I mean, sure, in a modern thriller, a rousing and (hopefully) erotic sex scene is a staple.  But in the sort of thoughtful fiction that Jane wrote?

In Fighting for Eden, I found myself grappling with the same dilemma.  Here I have my main character,  quite thoughtful and often hapless Andrew, forced into the media spotlight when his best friend is killed fighting in Iraq.

Not the kind of story where one would expect a love scene.  Still...

His door quietly opened.  And, as if another one of his dreams, she floated like a spirit without stepping to the edge of his bed.  Her legs, he saw for the first time, were quite shapely in their musculature, stretching down in fine detail under the flannel nightshirt she was wearing, a musky heat shimmering around her in the night air.

Why did I include such a vignette?

I'd love to say that I was stretching myself as an artist.

No, at the time, it simply seemed like the kind of thing my fiery Jessie would do.

Happily, it still does.

Fighting for Eden is available on Kindle and from Lulu Publishing.

The Mists of Consolation

Christianity continues to decline as a consoling, and guiding, force in modern American culture.

There is little hard data to document this trend.  (I've looked.)  Not that I have any particular axe to grind.  Far from it.

No, since childhood I've genuinely been interested in all the major faith traditions that cultures (ie people) have developed throughout time and place to make sense of their suffering.

How they developed.  What particular questions they addressed.  The varying answers crafted.  And, my most compelling interest:  The unique role artists play in crafting those answers.

Still, any comprehensive reading of history shows that when one faith tradition fades, another must spring up to take its place.

And, since I cannot help but ask thoughtful people I come across what they are doing about the problem, the general consensus appears to be...

• No longer believing in organized religion because of its hypocrisy (or, phrased more gently, the untenability of its mythology)
• Yet, not willing to give up on belief in a higher power by whatever name (God, Higher Self, Divine Power, Creator, The Universe, Chi, etc.)

Nevertheless, as we move forward, and we have no choice but, it often seems to me that we are grappling with murky mists of spirituality.  Phrased more prosaically, we struggle to precisely define just what it is that each of does believe these days.

At home, as we honestly grapple with this question, I've been noticing a pattern emerging between us.  Because of all that reading, as murky as the mists may grow, I find my mind sharpened enough to articulate with words of some precision wherever we currently stand...

So, I guess we don't believe in Hell anymore.

(later)

I suppose this means we no longer believe in Heaven.

(later still)

What are we praying for, then?  I mean, we're not reducing God to some sort of Divine Vending Machine, right?

(yet later still)

Why are we even bothering to say Grace before meals, then?

(ultimately, even if some time past)

So, we don't believe in God, then?  Or, put more precisely, we believe that humankind dreamed up a God because we find it almost crushingly difficult to navigate the vagaries of life.

...Moreover, just as I am able to articulate where we currently stand, I am also able to see far enough ahead - through the mists - the contours of where we are going.

(I guess it stands to reason.  All that reading up on how the world's faith traditions have developed had to come in handy somehow.)

Still, and this is the most whimsical part:  Even if I am able to make out where we are headed, at least in theory, it is Manya who bounds ahead with glee to that new ground.  Just about every time.  

At which point, she looks back at me and shouts, "Hurry up!"

Two Artists Under One Roof (II)

I'm often asked the question of how Manya started as a jewelry designer.

There were the childhood influences of course, one of which I actually wrote into my first novel, Fighting for Eden.

Jessie looked over the sewn patterns of red, blue, yellow and white beads, and easily caught it.  Long ago, when Nora had first begun beading, she had explained that in every Yakama beadwork, no matter how beautiful and complex, there was always one bead deliberately set askew, destroying the purity of the piece because, Nora had pointed out, only Creator could make something perfect.

And there were the Asian influences, too.   How could a jewelry designer not be inspired when surrounded by so many stones and precious metals as one seemingly trips over in Asia?

Nevertheless, the true start was when she began beading her first works and taking them down to the night markets of Taipei.  The night markets of Asia are (in)famous for their noise, their heat, their vibrancy and their shadows.

It used to freak me out when she would do that every Friday night: sitting there on the sidewalk in the middle of a night market, flanked by other locals hawking their wares, happily selling her jewelry

Needless to say, she blithely ignored my concerns.

For a while, anyway.  And, looking back now, I can easily see that her night market adventures were one of the first compromises ever made in our courtship.  Should have known it would involve an artistic decision.

The point was this:  I was freaked out that the police would routinely shake down sidewalk sellers, terrified that she would be deported.

So, she finally agreed to 1) carry her jewelry in a suitcase, 2) make friends with the locals on either side of her so she'd have advance warning and 3) when word came down the line that the police were moving in for a shakedown, to close up her suitcase and blend into the crowd.

I breathed more easily after that.  And Manya?  She got valuable experience designing and selling her first works of jewelry design.

Yet, there is more to this story.

Having known Manya for well over twenty years, I suppose it was inevitable that I would come to influence how she sees her art, just as she has assuredly influenced mine.

I remember her early works being rather chunky.  Clunky.  And, I might as well admit it (she does), there was little consistency in the theme of each piece.  

Indeed, it's probably not too much to compare them to a garage sale.  Higgledy-piggledy collections of glass, stone, trade beads, metals and other whatnot, strung out at various lengths of wire, chain or thread.  

In fact, a couple of Thanksgivings ago, her Mom wore what both our mortified eyes immediately recognized as one of those early pieces.  In vain did we plead with her to put it away.

(Nothing doing.  Now realizing a sort of perverse maternal pride in wearing what her accomplished daughter is embarrassed to admit as one of her own creations, her Mom flaunted it quite happily throughout the rest of that very long day.)

Needless to say, Manya's works don't look like that at all, anymore.  These days, they are sleek, elegant, delicate, harmonious in theme and design, showcasing often surprising, sometimes breathtaking combinations of colors in gemstones and metals.

What changed?  Whence chunky to elegance?

Manya tells me it is my influence upon her.  That I got her to notice the elegance of a line.  Even if the line is a simple one, properly handled, one sees a purity there.  

She was a bit scared of committing to such a simple line.  At least, at first.  

However, gradually, she began to see that the elegance of the line, no matter how simple, becomes the frame.  The frame around which the entire beauty of a piece is constructed.

Nice thought, that.

PS.  (Fighting for Eden is available on Kindle, also in softcover from Lulu.)

Where Do Artists Go When They Hurt?

This is always a bit of a touchy subject.  Yet, it is one that touches all artists most intimately.  It is a matter of the heart, battered or broken.  Where do we go when we hurt?

Well, all kinds of places.  It depends on the artist.

For example, the greatest setback I've suffered in the last years was a coup a few months ago.

I was invited in to help a high school rebuild its broken theatre company.  After five successful shows mounted over fifteen months of hard work, and the first acting award the company has seen in years, another teacher and a group of parents decided they wanted to run things.

They charged me with precasting shows with my favorite students (thereby cheating all other students of a fair shot).  They refused to allow me to defend myself.  Then, when I called their bluff and agreed to work with the casting committee they insisted upon, they refused to answer.  In short, I was out and they took over.  That they did this two weeks before the fifth show opened only rubbed salt in the wound.

(I know that some will say it was only a high school theatre company.  Yet, those kids meant a lot to me.  They still do.)

Regardless, when hurt, where do artists go?

I went to Mu.

But that's me.  I truly think that each of us must choose our own way.  We must each choose that explanation of the unseen that makes the most sense to us.

The point, then, is not so much where you go, but that you go there.

You go there, and you stay there.  For as long as it takes to heal the battered or broken heart, no matter what anyone else has to say about the matter.

After that, you pick up your art, and get back to work.

Those Dry Spells

I was talking with a young photog the other day.

In fact, to my critical eye, he is one of the most talented photogs we have currently residing in Edmonds, regardless of his youth.

Which is ironic, for I first met him while working with a high school to rebuild their theatre company.  He found himself as a (set) dress designer.  Indeed, he quickly became our lead dress designer.

Many was the time, in the five shows I directed there, that I would ask what he planned for some aspect of the set dress.

He would throw out a remark or two which, while clearly making sense to him, I simply could not visualize.

Nevertheless, I had grown accustomed to the quality of his work.  So, I would swallow hard and wait to see what transpired.  Of course, it always met and quite often exceeded all our expectations.

Yet, as talented as he is as an artist, he ran into a dry spell this spring with his photography:  He didn't jury into a show that he had expected to.  He didn't make the cut at a local summer market.  There were other disappointments.

All artists know this awful time.  Resources get taken away.  People get ill.  Programs get canceled.  Funding dries up.  Coups happen.  Or, worse, the artist loses inspiration.  The Muse no longer speaks.

And then, worst of all, a constant drip, drip, drip of thoughts begin eroding self-confidence:  Maybe I should give this up.  Maybe I'm being ridiculous here.  Why did I ever think I could be an artist?

Yet, awful as these dry spells are, they always end.  So, knowing this, we just have to get through them.

The alternative is giving up our art.  And that, as every artist knows, is experiencing the death of a loved one.

Two Artists Under One Roof

Right around this date, twenty-two years ago, in a dark and mysterious bar in China,  I asked a woman if I could buy her a beer.

She completely dissed me, but that's another story.

Yet, I persevered long enough to gain a first date a few weeks later.  There we sat, in a seafood restaurant on Sungjian Nan Loo (ie Sungjian South Road) in Taipei, Taiwan, making awkward conversation.  

The most intriguing part was that we eventually settled on the topic of jewelry design.  (There are several sources at hand in that part of the world for breathtakingly beautiful jade of various colors, sumptuous amber, and intricately worked silver.)

Now, if someone had tapped me on the shoulder at the time to let me know that within ten years, we would own a small gallery just north of Seattle, I would have immediately asked what he was smoking.  I have to be honest here:  I wasn't talking jewelry design with her because I was interested in it.  I was saying whatever I needed to say to get to a second date.

And, I did.  Which led to a third, a fourth, followed by countless ups and down, emotional highs and lows, the Chinese wedding, the American one, a gallery and - somewhere along the way - two slowly growing artistic careers.

Which begs the question: I've known and loved this woman for over twenty years.  Just how much, if at all, has she affected my art?

Quite a lot, actually.  When we met, I had no idea whatsoever of becoming a writer, whether novelist or playwright.  In fact, I was so far from appreciating writing of quality that - typical of my upbringing - I read only spy, military, and crime thrillers.  One after another.  

To read a thoughtful novel, instead of an action one, was to my mind a sign of the effeminate.  Only a "limp-wristed guy" (as we put it back in the Midwest) would ever do it.

And that's just reading such a novel.  How about writing one?

Here's a bit from my first novel, Fighting for Eden...

It was a beautiful ride.  In fields along the way, with a hawk soaring high above for company, they could see the lazy ballet of line after line of sprinklers throwing out their offering to the parched earth, their great ten foot high wheels rusting quietly in the morning's heat.  Pausing to watch a rainbow doing its sparkling dance over a water line, a sight she never tired of no matter how often she saw it, she spotted a coyote in the distance skulking along the side of an irrigation ditch and, glancing quickly at Jake, thought a prayer of thanks that he wasn't carrying a rifle.  Whip danced a few steps herself, rousing Jessie from her reverie...

Clearly not a passage you'll find in your average thriller.

Whence the change?  As I recall, Manya's greatest influence on me as a writer came down to one question that she asked me long, long ago.  We were discussing the merits of my typical reading fare, and she asked...

"You've read so many of these thrillers.  How many of them do you remember?"

Almost none, I had to confess.  They all just tended to blur, one into another.  I thought that was the point, actually.  Read to escape for a little while.

But, now, suddenly, this whole new world opened up.  Why settle for the routine, the common, when I could reach beyond them for those who had gone one better?  After all, if you've only so much time before the big curtain descends, why not spend it on the best?

And the rest, as they say, is history.

PS.  (Fighting for Eden is available on Kindle, also in softcover from Lulu.)

If Only...

Patriarchy Boys

(The site's traffic stats show my Jig Saw Girl becoming one of the most popular pieces.  And, as if the literary gods decided I needed a followup this morning...)

Interesting how early life patterns set in - modes of thought, habits of thought, really.

A few years ago, on a whim, I bought a $17 football at Fred Meyer.  Yes, I know that I'm a novelist and playwright who owns an art gallery.  Nevertheless, I love playing football.  (Watching it, however, bores me to tears.)

I love the smell of the leather rubbing off on your hands.  I love the painful slap as the ball comes in for a hard landing.  I love the way the body feels after being stretched in all those directions after playing for a while.  I love the poetry of a graceful pass, spiraling slowly through the air, almost as if it is hanging there, like a thought too beautiful to contemplate all at once.

I also love running passing plays with Manya first thing in the morning.

Yes, I know.  It sounds odd.  However, that is what we do.  We run 5 yard, 8 yard, 10 yard, 15 yard, even 20 yard passing plays in the street out in front of our home.  Typically, Manya starts as quarterback (she has excellent placement up to 15 yards), I as running back.  After a set of four passing plays, we switch.

And the plays themselves?  Oh, 10 (or however many yards) and Outs, Breaks (left and right), Hooks, Crosses, Slides, Sweeps and whatever else we dream up.

Our neighbors, tis true, thought us a bit eccentric.  At least, at first.  Then, they began to notice how fit and trim we were growing, which inspired them to start exercising more themselves.  These days, they think we're cool, particularly in the heat of July and August when Manya is playing in her sassy short shorts and sports bra.  (Passing cars tend to slow around that time of year.  Can't imagine why.)  By that time, my winter pudginess has usually burnt off, so I play shirtless, enjoying those rare kisses of a cooling breeze on an otherwise blistering day.

All in all, such play paints the day in a whole new, happier light.

But not for everyone.

For I've long noticed that footballs tend to arouse strong emotions in others, either of squirmy discomfort or of withering contempt.  The problem?  For some reason, girls aren't supposed to play with footballs.

I know because people keep telling us that.  Yes, they will stop their cars and actually make some comment to that effect.  Typically, it's nothing more than a thumbs up or the exclamation, "You guys are great!"  But, that's just it.  People feel like they have to comment.   As if we are staging a protest or something.

Sometimes, I'm sorry to say, the comment is more of a sneer.  This morning, a Seattle Utilities worker slowly drove his massive truck all the way down the block, making us wait for him.  When he drew up near us, he actually stopped and jeered, "Pretty good pass for a girl."

From whence is such antipathy derived?

Well, also this morning, two recently arrived neighborhoods boys completed what must be their third inspection of this unsettling practice of a woman handling a football.  And from the sour expressions on their faces, it is quite clear they are not very happy about it.

They must be all of seven or eight years old, on their way to the bus stop for school.  As they draw near, I am amused to see them deliberately choose not to see Manya throw or catch.  It's as if seeing a woman handle a football with such casual command is best not acknowledged.

Then, as they continue ambling down the street and near to me, the older one especially, looks at me with a very suspicious glance as if I am betraying some fundamental order of the universe.  This morning, when I said, "Good morning!" he grunted in response.

Such ossified thinking in one so young.  I can only sigh.

But then Manya has just lofted her latest beautiful, spiraling pass, and I am running to catch it with a loopy grin on my face.

Jig Saw Girl

I'm not sure why but, for some reason this year, during Father's Day, I found myself following the advertising.  Almost as if it were a cultural statement about how we, as a people, think of our dads.

So, for example, page idly through the weekly flyers from SEARS, Target, Kmart and other large chains and you find pictures of smiling dads standing with their happy kids next to barbecues, sporting goods and tools.

I found myself thinking, "What if I don't want a barbecue?"

Okay, so perhaps my hope that advertisements featuring dads smiling next to sketching pencils, french copper sauciers, and knitting yarn is a little naive.  Nevertheless, on this day that celebrates manhood like no other, apparently, as a man I should prefer barbecues.  Why?

SEARS says so?  Maybe...

I cannot believe that large corporations with marketing budgets for polling would be pushing products that their customers do not want to buy.  What, then, does this say about us as a people?

I am reminded of something I saw last fall.  I was directing a play at a local high school, and it was set construction day.  No one had ever used a jig saw, so (typical of me) I asked boys and girls alike whether they wanted to learn.  All the boys volunteered.  None of the girls did, save one.

This girl was quite possibly the gentlest soul of the company.  Moreover, high school students tend to talk about each other.  A lot.  And while I never heard anyone describe her using the word "fragile,"  I remember  a few conversations that seemed headed that way.  Clearly not the type you would expect to pick up a noisy, scary jig saw.

As for me, this was my third show working with her, director to actor, and I had long grown used to her inner toughness.  It was always there when she needed it most.  So, I wasn't surprised in the slightest when she volunteered to learn to operate a jig saw.

Of course, she handled it quite well.  Better than quite a few of the boys, as I recall.  And where was I?  Right next to her, holding the wood down so it didn't jump as she cut it, my fingers following along with the cut, about 2 to 3 inches from the noisily rasping blade.

(Honestly, is there a better way to show how much you trust someone to do well than that?)

At any rate, there we were, cutting out the arch to an entrance when I saw it happen.  All the senior boys, then the junior boys, one by one, put down whatever they were working on and, instead, began gathering around, watching this girl handle the jig saw.

Did they say anything?  No.  Were they proud of her?  I don't think so.  If anything, they looked like they were expecting her to chop off my hand.

Now, these are some of the hardest working dramatists I've ever known.  We achieved some extraordinary theatre working together.  Yet, from their expressions, I couldn't help but wonder if these boys hadn't been trained to find a girl successfully operating a jig saw an unwelcome thing in our world.

After all, haven't we all created such gilded cages for our loved ones, at some point or other, just to make us feel better?  When will we stop?

PS.  What happened to the jig saw girl?  She finished her job of cutting out the arch and, with a nervous smile of pride in her achievement, went on her way.

Father Tribute

Here's my Father's Day tribute to one of the hardest working dads I saw this week.

(Not least because I fear I drew him so poorly the first go around.)

ô¿ô

Last Iris

Today sees the final rise, peak and (toward evening) the fall of this season's last iris.

It's been a glorious run these last weeks.  Some years we get the occasional violet flowering.  This year, they were all a lovely, buttery yellow.  I am sorry to see this last one go.

Yet, the Buddhist within has long learned to respect this.  Everything worth living for is transient: happiness, beauty, meaning.  Even irises.

So, do we make the mistake of trying to hold on too tightly to this last iris?  Of course not.  That would be silly.  Indeed, we cannot hold back the forces of life.  Instead, the inner Taoist works with them.

Lately, we've been talking at home quite a lot about living creatively.  (Which, of course, is working its way into my new novel.)  That once we realize how transient life is, the importance of each moment takes on new meaning.

Will the moments of my life take on a dreary sameness, or will I consciously apply them toward the distinctive, the fresh, the brief?

Trying to answer this profound question has had a prosaic effect on our garden, for example.  What do we plant and why?  Should our garden take on a pretty (at first) then (later) stale sameness all year round?  Some nearby neighbors have made that choice.  Whenever I look at their garden, no matter the month, it looks the same.

On the other hand, what if we consciously planted flowers, say, to bloom in different corners of the yard at different times?  Having committed ourselves artistically in this fashion, we then get to enjoy the blooms of that choice.

Today we take those quiet moments to say goodbye to the last of the irises, knowing that yesterday saw the first day lily bloom and the latest rose blooms.  And that tomorrow will bring its fresh joys, too.

Bring on the Juvies

This morning brought our first sight of a "juvie" as we call 'em.  The spring's new-born, fluffy wings and all, brought out of the nest and forth into our world.

For good or ill.

In this case, it was a father sparrow (all dads, take note) feeding his three babies from one of the backyard feeders.  He would flutter down to the feeder, grab a grain or two, flutter back up to the three balls of fluff waiting, impatiently, for him to drop the grain in one of their mouths.  Then, he'd flutter back down to the feeder, repeating the process for the second.  Then, the third.  On and on it went.

There is something really quite reassuring about this.  In the midst of this spring's struggles - and I've heard of many, this year in particular - nevertheless, life does go on.

Not callously.  Of course not.  It's just that the world keeps on rotating, life continues unfolding.  The Grand Mosaic - as one of my characters calls it - forms and reforms each day, endlessly.

And that helps.  When it comes to life's disappointments, I believe that it is precisely in the watching of the world's continuing rhythms that we are able to, initially, accept and, finally, release our pain.

So, bring on the juvies, I say.  Their excitement for life reminds us all that our lives, too, are beginning anew.

Bad Muse Day

In some alternate universe, I'm certain that I wrote well today.  (Sigh.)

Whither Novels?

Just got the question, from an unhappy theatre fan.  As she put it to me...

You write such beautiful plays , what the heck are you doing writing novels now?

Well, it's been a long process in coming, but basically my writing has grown too searching to fit into the one hundred minutes granted in stagetime.

Put another way - since I believe that all artists either accept that they are entertainers or that the only applause received will be their own - the most common remark about my last plays A Dropped Stitch, Teacup Tipsy and One Tile Short went as follows:

Um, I'm not sure I got all that.  I'm going to have to see it again.  Maybe three times.

Not a good sign.

Imagine my shock when one of the sweetest hearts in the world, an old theatre salt of decades' experience, quietly confided in me that she understood only about one third of Man In The Box's lines in Teacup Tipsy.  And that was after I felt artistically frustrated at having to take out, compress, boil down, etc., the writing.

In contrast, when I was writing Fighting for Eden, the canvas (so to speak) was so incomprehensibly huge that I felt lost in it for months at a time.  Over-shadowed, humbled, even crushed at times by the gargantuan portions.

Which is why, whenever I pick up a copy, I know that I am holding a year of my life in my hands.

At any rate, yes, I am certain that I will write for the stage again someday.  Just not soon.  At the least, I really want to finish this second big canvas, first.

Enjoy the Game!

Enjoy the Game!
That's all it was, wasn't it?
We see that now, just the same.

Your fulsome tears, shed as pricks
To those worried for you,
As planned.  Heartless bag of tricks,

A tapestry of lies and deceit
Thrown o'er trusting eyes
To blind, manipulate, to cheat,

As you sneer, daring to choose
How far to take this game.
Yet, in winning you lose.

All that breathless freedom gained,
Gone, now a master rides you
Choked, burdened beast enchained.

That delightful garden you knew
Is now a barren desert of
Distress, longing, bitter rue.

All those joyous ovations stand,
Now, embarrassed silence,
The clapping, your one hand.

Success was yours believed
In this wider world.
Now, failure, yours achieved.

But, hey!  Enjoy the Game.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Meeting That Audience

Just got the question.  (I suppose it was inevitable.)

What do I mean I'm writing a novel about special relativity?!

Okay, let's pause for a second.  All artists - whether we admit it or not - are entertainers.  If we're not entertainers who meet our audience where they are at, we will not be artists for very much longer.

That said, yes, I am most definitely studying relativity theory, both special and general.  After all, it is a lot to visualize.  How much will I use that in my new work?  We'll see.

I promise you this, though:  Only so much that it entertains.  And not one jot more.

Special Relationship

As I keep pondering special relativity to help my second novel (which is coming along well enough that I haven't been posting lately), I can't help but wonder at our seemingly insurmountable differences.

They appear, from a cosmic perspective, so insignificant.

Consider...

I'm standing in my kitchen sipping coffee and watching the neighboring squirrel play tag with a Stellar jay (ie a blue jay with a black head) for five minutes.  I appear not to be moving, right?

However, we all know that I am.  For the planet is rotating, west to east (making the sun appear to "rise" each morning).  That means that even though I haven't moved a step in the kitchen (their game of tag really is kind of fun to watch), I have moved five minutes along the direction of the earth's rotation.  As if someone had grabbed a marker and traced it out on the surface of a beach ball.

Then, too, during those same five minutes, the earth is revolving around the sun, counterclockwise.  So, it has gone its five minutes worth of travel.  That means I've been rotating as well as revolving without even realizing it.

The solar system, itself?  Yes, that, too, is slowly rotating, along with the sun, counter-clockwise.   (Why?  It's an artifact of how the solar system originally formed.  It's still going in the same direction as the earliest gases that spun off.)

And, of course, our solar system is orbiting around the entire Milky Way galaxy.  In fact, the guessing goes that the last time we were where we are now, in the galaxy, dinosaurs were roaming the planet and us, nary a twinkle in their eye.

(Begs the question, doesn't it?  Who will be roaming around the earth the next time we are at this same position in the galaxy?)

Beyond that, the entire Milky Way rotates as well.  Though, being rather flat, which direction - clockwise or counter - depends on which side you're looking at.  And, the galaxy, too, is moving...

All this said, with all this movement occurring in those same five minutes that I am sipping coffee (and most definitely not working on my novel), doesn't it make me feel small?  Sure does.

So small that I can't help but wonder at the differences that supposedly exist between us - those supposedly insurmountable ones between family, neighbors, colleagues, nations, even religions - that all too often separate us irreconcilably for a lifetime or more.

The differences seem so puny compared to all this movement.  Makes you wonder why we put so much effort into them.

But maybe that's just a matter of perspective...

A Dish Lonely

A dish lonely for its keeper
Stares up at me.  Its circle wide,
With vivid hues and facets fired
In far-off lands of old, the pride

Of the discerning feline's taste.
Adored of a fervor not known,
Each morn receiving more earnest
Kisses than any royal throne.

An object of keen scrutiny,
That dish, a gaze of fix direct
Noting any slight change at all
Day long, its keeper to inspect.

'Tis true, she haunted its corner
With a fidelity unsworn
In the strongest oaths under sky.
Never ever left it forlorn,

'Til now.  Mighty though be feline
Will, there are greater forces yet
At work, as its keeper was called
Afield.  Beyond all sunnings set.

I sigh, then, and do what I must
Each eve, heaping the dish lonely
High, for a new keeper to find
And make that hers, one and only.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Two Hearts at Seattle Poetry Slam

I've decided to put it out there and compete in the Seattle Poetry Slam tomorrow night!  (Nervous beads of sweat slide slowly down the hapless poet's brow.)

They want a performance piece, so I'll be doing my Two Hearts...

Wish me a broken leg and come along for the fun!  It's a $5 cover charge at Re-bar, starting at 8:30 pm (a block off Boren and Howell).

See you there!

Fighting For Eden Royalty

Just got news this morning that I'm about to receive my first royalty check from Amazon Kindle for sales of my novel, Fighting for Eden!

It's not a lot, and I have to wait until May 1st.  Nevertheless, it feels awfully grand!

If you don't have a Kindle (or Nook, etc), and still want to read FFE, Lulu Publishing has a nice paperback available.

ô¿ô

An Empty Space

An empty space!  In which to fill,
To dream, delight, to fancy, too!
Day's brightest dares, night's darkest mares
All given shape, breadth, vivid hue.

The Artist sets to work, creates
Through sweat, toil, blood and fire
A world ne'er seen, nor known
To tease, excite, enlarge, inspire

Our lives.  A success, free for all!
The Others, too.  Their art not known
The Created they then covet
To take, steal and own, theirs alone.

The Artist the Others pursue,
Target, smear his name to disgrace.
Fear, their banner; safety, their sign
Proclaimed, to chase him from the space.

The Artist retreats, heart-stained weeps
His love, his loss, all that he knew.
He wanders, rent, a time long spent
His agony his only due,

In search, to find, one day, anew...

An empty space!  In which to fill
To dream, delight, to fancy, too!

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

A Rare Political Moment

One of the few remarks I expect to make about Campaign 2012.  At this point, I see...

One candidate appears unwilling to act on the best ideas; the other, all too eager to act on the worst ones.

Teacup Tipsy Candids

Feeling nostalgic today after a fan raved about seeing this whimsical fable of mine...


MAN IN THE BOX
(to audience) 
Happ’ly does my tale dance its final steps
But this: St. Teresa’s Teacup Tipsy
Grew to know all Lyla’s, Lacey’s, Latia’s
Fondest dreams, with the added luster of
Reginald’s new-found strength and ideals
Spoken out, shared with a world long grown dark,
Now new-lit with new-found inspiration.
St. Teresa’s Teacup Tipsy again
Vibrant center of life and love to a
Bustling and grateful neighborhood.
Dispenser of delightful teas and talk
St. Teresa's Teacup Tipsy, shattered
Once, found life anew, bright beacon b’came to
All who have lost, to dare to dream again.
(Fade.) 

The production was mounted in April 2010 by The Driftwood Players.

Photos courtesy of Wendy Enden

My Canvas Blank

Turn, pause, turn, pause, and turn again.
Days in and daze out the wrench rules
My mind's domain.

That, my times past.  This, my new will:
Each morn, I greet a canvas blank
Begging its fill

Of my dreams, fancies, all my thoughts,
Demanding a life of their own
Free in my plots.

Yet, day in, out, all dreams defied
My canvas blank waits, stands, confronts,
Pity denied.

'Tis true, our tyrannies we choose.
And this one was freely embarked.
'Tween wrench and blank
I dare not but
Follow the muse.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Remembering Cleo

Our rambunctious and affectionate cat Cleo passed this morning.

There is something that touches us all in the passing of a loved one.  In this case, she died with me cradling her head in my hand.

In fact, nothing quite captures our relationship with Cleo as her passing.  For Cleo was the most generous of all cats I have known.  She was the most eager to meet us halfway in our differing needs.  Indeed, if humans and animals can communicate at all, Cleo taught me the most in how to go about it.

Case in point, as Manya and I both realized at pretty much the same moment that today was the day, we huddled around her on the kitchen floor trying to comfort her.

She had much to say on this subject...

Cleo:  Howl!  (Transl: Stop petting me!)
Us:  Sorry!  (Cleo then went back to purring, if with increasingly shorter and shorter breaths.)

Cleo:  Howl!  (Transl: Where did Manya go?!)
Us:  Sorry!  (Whereupon, Manya quickly returned and gently rested her hand on Cleo's back.  Cleo then went back to her labored purring.)

I, for my part, was still cupping her head in my hands.  For well over two hours.  In fact, once when I needed to ease a leg that was cramping, we had this surreal conversation...

Cleo:  Howl!
Me:  For crying out loud!  I've been sitting here for two hours.  Cut me some slack!
(After I had adjusted my leg, Cleo went back to her purring.)

At the moment she passed, there we still were, precisely where she demanded we be - in the litter she had insisted we create within our home.

My god, I will miss her.

The Artist and Mu (II)

Who knew there would be so much interest in Mu?

That serenity known through lack of fear or desire.  How do we get there?  Specifically?

Well, it's a lot like baking cookies.  Really.

Before we go there, however, it's probably best to talk about what we don't need to get to Mu...

• a special room, sound-proofed from the neighborhood
• painted in a special color
• with Om and Yin/Yang symbols 
• and burning candles and incense

Nor do we require...

• a special haircut or robe
• sitting in a special posture
• with our hands turned in just the right manner
• chanting a particular sound or prayer

Nor, either, do we need to...

• find a labyrinth or
• do so many circuits clock-wise (or non) around a stupa
• breathing in some sort of esoteric pattern

Nope.  None of these.  Getting to Mu is quite simply a matter of practice - wherever, whenever, however.  And the more you practice teaching your mind not to give way to fear or desire, the less your mind will.  

Which brings us back to baking cookies.

After all, the more you bake cookies, the better you get at it, right?  Fewer burned cookies, not so much sugar that everyone's teeth hurt, or forgetting the egg or mistaking baking soda for baking powder, etc.  Surprisingly common, isn't it?  

Which makes us wonder whether it really could be all that simple.  After all, we are talking about an ancient Asian religious belief.  And yet...

Cue the artists again.  

This is a concept every artist knows.  For our job as artists is to make sure that our brushwork (so to speak) is excellent and not embarrassing.  And there is only one way to get there: spend those hours in the studio working it, practicing.

We get to Mu in precisely the same way.  Practice.

The Artist and Mu

I'm getting a number of questions about Mu.  Not least, the overall question of... "Say, what?"

First, Mu.  To use Christian language, I would say that Mu is like Ecstasy.  (No, not that ecstasy.  And not that one, either.)  Nevertheless, they are similar.

Mu is that inner peace that comes through lack of fears or desires.  You get there through practice, disciplining the mind not to give way to fear and desire.

As a result, you know greater clarity of sight and mind (because you are no longer distracted with useless clutter).

That's the textbook answer.  There's a deeper one, too:  Mu, like Ecstasy, is a metaphor.

Which isn't too surprising.  I've long thought that all religious concepts are handy metaphors for the feelings we struggle to explain.  Mu is no different.

Take Salvation, for example.  All faith traditions that I know of focus on Salvation.  From what, though?  From either a burning Hell or the absence of God altogether (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).  From the curse of rebirth, from daily fear or desire (Buddhism).  From delusions that you exist apart from the Brahman (Hinduism).  From rigidity in thinking and, therefore, life choices (Taoism).  The list goes on...

Interesting how universal the question.  Also interesting how different the answers turn out to be.  And that's the cool part.

Cue the artists.

Throughout all time and place, it's the artists who come up with the metaphors that give us a handle on abstruse explanations to...well, you name it:  Resurrection, Detachment, Divinity, Damnation, Delusion, Creation, Redemption, Singularity, Grace, whatever.  Point to any religious concept and you'll find a bevy of artists who've crafted wildly different metaphors to help us all get a handle on it.

(They can't help being wildly different.   They're artists, after all.)

Even so, that the question is universal to all religions, inevitably leads to some similarity among the answers.  Take Mu again  - with its serenity borne from lack of fear or desire - one does not have to search very far among the mystic traditions in any of the religions to find similar metaphors.

For example, in Christian mysticism, Mu strikes me as remarkably similar to the Ecstasy one knows from union with God here and now.  (Rather than waiting until after you die.)

Funny, that.  I expect it will always be that way, so long as humans continue to dream up their own faith traditions.

Which means, I suppose, artists will be helping us grapple with our religious dreams...well...forever.

Peace Alighted Where?

Ouch!  That was humbling.

I just read my poem, Long Have I Chased Inner Peace to an old classmate.  Her reaction?

She thought I was teasing her.  Apparently, she thought it so good there is no way in the world I could have written it!

You can always rely on your friends to bring you back to earth, no?

Fun With Mu

Mu, the character at the center, is a central Zen concept.  (For Zen, think Buddhism meets Taoism.)  

Mu refers to that inner peace that arises from the absence of fears or desires.  

How do we do it?  Why, we practice our way there, of course.  ô¿ô

A Shattering Heart Matters Naught

A shattering heart matters naught
To a teeming planet's pursuits.
An orb's cares of little note to
A nebula's galactic routes.
That clusters are splintered complete
By black holes be universal.
One has to ask the question, then:
Why risk we the heart's dispersal?

Because we must.


© Jeff Stilwell 2012

(For the Meadowdale Players as they embark on their next show.  Long will they reign in my memory, numbering among the brightest talents I have worked with on the stage.)

Bosatsu

My fearless adventurer bosatsu, skateboarding his way through the universe, popped into my head last year.    But up to now, I haven't known what to do with him.

Here's the first rendering of a new concept that showed up around breakfast time this morning.  I hope he likes it!  More on this later...

(Note: bosatsu is Japanese for buddha or "the Enlightened One.")

Just A Speck (I)

Here's a background sketch from my new character Zeb... 

Zeb stared up at the dark sky.  And began shrinking.

As far as he could see, the pinpricks of stars radiated across the far-flung heavens.  Heaven.  He smiled at the thought, wondering just where God's Mansion was supposed to be - somewhere in one of the radial arms of the Milky Way?  Or maybe in the Andromeda Galaxy, our near neighbor?  He kept looking up, toying with this idea and that, finding himself growing smaller and smaller as a result.  Well, shoot, he thought.  Aren't there over fifty galaxies in our little backwater block of the universe?  At least from what we can see of the universe, anyway.

Then, a fun thought:  What if Heaven is inside Sagittarius A*, that massive black hole at the center of our galaxy?

On and on he thought, staring at that impossibly huge sky, knowing that the longer he stared, the smaller he would get.  So small, that he began to feel like no more than a jot.  A speck of dust.  Completely crowded out in significance by all the galaxies, super-clusters, planets, comets - and whatever the hell dark matter was - that combine into making up the universe as we know it.  Just a speck.  Nothing more.

And that's when Zeb had his Cosmic Moment.  He realized that he may be just a speck, but that's still something.  Which is better than nothing.  That means that in this universe with its teeming billions of components, he numbered among them.  He belonged.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Whither Cattle Ranching

I am often asked by admirers of my novel Fighting For Eden: Where did I learn so much about cattle ranching?

(an excerpt)
Leaning into Belle's ass, feeling the sudsy soap that they had washed around Belle's vulva dripping down her shirtfront, she heaved the leg up.  Belle kicked a leg out in protest, but Jessie kept tugging until, grudgingly, it moved up toward her.  Blowing out a sigh, she attached the other catch to that, too, then stepped back leaving the chains hanging out Belle's backside like some kind of an appendage.  Just like a pap smear from hell, she grinned.  She shucked the rubber gloves and pulled on the rawhide ones from a back pocket.  Angel, not needing a word, was ready for her and signaled Felipe to reach over the flanks to gently stretch the lips of Belle's vulva for the coming pull.  She grabbed the handles of the chains, braced one boot up against Belle's haunch, let Angel grab her around the waist and they pulled...

Well, as they say, writers write what they know.  In my case, I know that I've grown to love, from horseback, the Yakima Valley.  Then, too, my father-in-law, John Schilperoort custom-fed cattle for a number of years in his long, storied life as a rancher.  (In fact, go back to the family farm, and you can still stand on John's underground molasses tank, used for the custom-feeding.  Bet it still has molasses in it, too.)

Also, John's good friend Harry Kwak, raised Angus cattle, just as my characters, the Van der Vaals, do.  Long retired now, he once gave me a tour of his spread, letting me pepper him with questions about feed lots, black leg, hardware disease, "raising pounds" and a thousand other details.

The rest, as they also say about writers, is imagination.

Zeb's Brownstone

Which reminds me, we're probably going to need a pic of Zeb's brownstone apartment.  Yes, that's Snickey snoozing on the front stoop.

Ol' Mrs. Masland must be inside enjoying her afternoon cordial(s).

I'm using this to keep me focused as I write my new novel...

Girdie?

Is this the Girdie from my new novel?  Perhaps.

She's a bit of a kick.  She lives in the Eternal Now so fiercely that each moment of every day must reflect that.  Or so she believes.

Oh, one more thing:  Girdie is a total thrift store nut...

Teacup Tipsy Prologue

It was two years ago that rehearsals began for my Teacup Tipsy.  The Driftwood Players saw enough in the play to mount it on their Alternative Stages.  A salute, then, to those happy memories.  Here is the prologue...

Catherine Bailey as Lyla in
Jeff Stilwell's Teacup Tipsy.
 Photo by Wendy Enden.

MAN IN THE BOX
(to audience, adjusting hearing aid)
Come, O gentle hearts, and turn up your ears
For I've a fable to tell this fine morn.
'Twill reduce some to tears, others to cheers
On this day like all too many, save one:
The day our loveless Lyla loved anew.

(Lyla enters dancing, sadly.)

This morn she danced in as usual, wiping
Drops from her sorrow stainèd cheeks that on
Fertile ground might have blossomed forth flowers
Of any hue, scent, or wondrous beauty!
But not this ground.  Nay.  For lo! dreaded Starbucks
Cast its dark shadow on the rosy dawns
Of her younger years, dooming her mother's
Pride and joy, the most charming wee tea shop,
Vibrant center of life and love to a
Bustling and grateful neighborhood.
Dispenser of delightful teas and talk
St. Teresa's Teacup Tipsy, shattered.
No blade of lush grass, nor dew-dropped petal
To adorn this benighted vale of pain since.
Woe follows woe, then, unstemmed.  Luckless Lyla's
Mama passes from this sorry, sore place
To join her gentle Papa, far long gone,
Leaving lonely Lyla sweeping up fragments.

(Reginald enters.)

Enter the unlikely hero, a man
With much to say about a better world
If only this tim’d soul could find his voice.

Two Hearts

Two Hearts This World Have I Known

The first so parched I could weep
The second so deep I could drown
Whene'er I dare embark in each.

The first, mailed, stares out from her keep
Ne'er frail, ne'er weak, ne'er stripped is she,
Nay. Nor is she lush, nor teeming,
Nor verdant, nor dreaming to be.

To know her is to break upon
Stony walls cracked, dry, pitiless.
Your single cheer tear-smeared folly,
Anguish, ever thirsting distress.

The second's undefended shores
So bare, so rash, so little concealed
So little craft, bubblingly daft
All too often recklessly real.

To know this heart, then, is to plunge
Risking the self midst endless charms
Diving mystery fathoms deep
Bewitched, drowning, snared in her arms.

By each heart the hardy hero
Is changed utterly, forged anew.
This, the ordeal: Chancing love's font
Better the trickle or deluge?

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

The Artist, Vulnerability and The Coup

We've all read about the coup d'etat of bygone eras.  An old regime falls as the new pretenders take power.  It happens from time to time to the state.

It also happens from time to time to the artist.  Captured stylistically, I'd describe the process as...

An artist enters an empty space and creates something beautiful.  Other people show up saying, "Hey, I want to control that."  The jostling then becomes so ugly that the artist one day says, "I have to go now" and leaves.

Indeed, the artist loses every time.

Why?  Because, creating art means making yourself vulnerable.  Being vulnerable makes you a poor candidate for fighting off coups, with their attendant deceit and double-dealing.

Interestingly, those who win such coups are, by definition, poor candidates for making themselves vulnerable.  That also means they have no art.  How could they?  Which, I suppose, is why they have to take control of others' art.

Is all this too dark?  I'm honestly not sure.  I myself recently suffered just such a coup.  Yes, it was messy.  Yes, it was awful.  Yes, it was wounding to watch such lies told of me.  (After all, those who win have to justify the takeover by smearing the reputation of the departed artist:  You know those artist types - unstable, irresponsible.  We're better off now.)

Yet, as I continue to ponder the event, an odd wisdom descends upon me, like a gentle rain: Yes, they took what I once created.  Brutally, too.  But that's all they will ever have.

I?  I still have my art.  And I'm free to take my art wherever I wish.  I always will be.  And no nasty ol' coup can ever change that.

Three-fold Masks Have I Worn

Three-fold Masks Have I Worn
One, all the lands to see
Another have my lovers born(e)
The last, serves sole for me.

Ah, but what joy, one to wear!
And one alone for all times
All places, all spaces where
In all variant of climes.

Ne'er more pretend, to fib,
To ride a pompous gust of heat
Or chill. To trim my sail, my jib,
To soothe a pfuffle eased.

Begone smooth face perfected
'Twout chip nor mar to see!
Too, smooth tongue affected
Honey dripped unceasing sweet.

Nay more! Just me, 'tis just me
You mark now, spotted and maul'd
Yet, burden'd light as can be.
For, one mask is no mask at all.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Long Have I Chased Inner Peace

Long Have I Chased Inner Peace
Flitt'ring flutt'ring, all flowers kissed
Brightly hued and fragrance sweet
A meadow's worth, nothing missed

But me. I called to Peace, chased
Through meadow deep, my palm out
Stretched begging Peace to land
Cajoling, pleading, a-shout

To my hand to come, just once.
My tears stinging, staining my
Calls, my cheeks, my heart, my sleep
Always that sweet Peace denied.

At last, wearied dear and spent
I breathed my pain to a calm
Long and last, to my surprise
Peace alighted on my palm.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Wisdom Haiku

The sun's light tints the leaf
As effortlessly
As wisdom washes the heart.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012