Book cover

I worked all day yesterday on this image (well it is actually a composite of 3 images) for a book cover for my friend Sybil's upcoming short story collection Talismans. She is a wonderful writer and the book is about growing up, longing, traveling and finding love.
Go to www.sybilbaker.com for more info.

Here is the final product, which will be available in December.

My cat sleeps 22 hours a day

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night." Edgar Allen Poe

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras was just a full fledged fun-filled four days. What a celebration and what a gorgeous city. We stayed in the most amazing house thanks to our friends Ben and Dina.

Art Afternoon

I gave up my seat for a free roundtrip ticket and had a wonderful afternoon at the Art Institute and in downtown Chicago. It was snowing and cold, but the Renzo Piano new wing was beautiful. Had a nice extra evening with old friends and tried ostrich meat for the first time. It was actually pretty good.

Flying

I didn't fly for many years. I think it started in high school. Somewhere around my 16th birthday and reading The World According to Garp, I became deathly afraid a plane would crash into my house. We lived on the 4th floor and I frequently heard the planes going into Logan Airport in Boston in the middle of the night. I think it might have had something to do with the fact that I was home alone that summer and my parents were in Europe. In any case, after that, I became deathly afraid of getting on planes. So for about 10 years I just stopped flying. I took a lot of long car trips and trains (once took the train from Chicago to San Francisco - which despite taking 4 days was spectacular). Now with the miracle of xanax, I fly again a lot. I still don't love it, but it is no longer as painful. And I do always marvel when we get above the clouds, that this is a view our ancestors never saw. And I do love going places too.

Hipstamatic

Another photographer showed me this ap on her phone and I love it.

I just love the poem HOWL. I found it a few years ago read it for the first time. It is hard to imagine that it was written in the late 50's.

"angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz, "

I can't say why I am drawn to it, but something about the wild use of language and the raw emotion are just incredibly seductive. Also, the fact that it was written at a time when things were so much less permissive and people didn't talk about getting high and crazy gods.

Sometimes I think we are all burning for an ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo and sitting in the supernatural darkness of life? Well, at least I am.