Category Archive Art

ByGD

Canon Fodder

Campfire Georgia cocktailI won’t pretend I’ve never poured Southern Comfort into a McDonald’s milkshake. But Jameson and Glenlivet feature more prominently in my stories of college-era drinking than sickening concoctions. In those days, we would buy a bottle of the best whisky we could afford, and more bottles of something cheaper that we referred to as “cannon fodder” and saved for drinking after a strong buzz had dulled our palates.

Over time, we came to understand that there was a canon of cocktails, with nuanced variations and underground classics that paralleled the music world. Cannon fodder was replaced by classic cocktails and proper barware. Read More

ByGD

A Hearing Trumpet for The Whispering Muse Pt 2

Leonora Carrington

Leonora Carrington

This is part two of the story of my recent foray into Surrealist fiction. Read Part One here.

Suddenly I remembered – Leonora Carrington was Remedios Varo’s best friend! (Okay, I confess. I googled her.)

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I became a member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I never made it to DC to visit the museum, but the member materials acquainted me with Varo, a Spanish surrealist who lived in Mexico. Her life was every bit as shockingly bohemian as that of her contemporary Frida Kahlo, but her art more closely resembled Hieronymus Bosch. According to my special-ordered copy of Janet Kaplan’s biography of Varo, she and Carrington

established an association between women’s traditional roles and magical acts of transformation…stimulated by the Surrealist belief in ‘occultation of the Marvelous’ and by wide reading in witchcraft, alchemy, sorcery, Tarot, and magic.

They collaborated on plays, constructed elaborate hats, and victimized their famous art world friends with performance art/pranks that sometimes made their way into each other’s painting and writing.

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ByGD

What I Felt

Nils_Frahm_-_Felt album coverI was listening to Nils Frahm’s album Felt while washing dishes when I was overcome by the most powerful sadness.

It was a good day. The whole family was together, shopping for ski season and checking out books from the library; I picked up Outside magazine’s special life-hacking issue “127 Strategies for Living Bravely.” We ate prawns, seasonal vegetables, and locally made pasta with our favorite cheap red wine, Protocolo.

But Nils Frahm always sends my thoughts down a rabbit hole, and the music was so achingly beautiful it set me to yearning, once again, that I too could make something exquisite to add to the collection of extraordinary things that brighten this world. Frahm conjured all my dreams of a life of art and ideas; images of traveling the world, not just to see what I could see, but with something precious to share as I discovered each wondrous new place. I had to fight not to be a clichéd housewife crying over the dinner dishes.

Then I remembered the phone conversation with my mom earlier in the day. Read More

ByGD

Great Panty Caper Cover Reveal

It’s a big week in the run up to the release of Tawna Fenske’s interactive romantic comedy The Great Panty Caper. First up, the cover reveal!

I got all hung up on the question, “What does a cover reveal even mean when you’re talking about an e-book?” and forgot to pay attention to the rest. So that you don’t get as confused as I did, here’s what’s happening:

  1. Cover reveal
  2. Photo contest
  3. Free books!

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ByGD

In Which I Love Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Roméo et Juliette Immoderately

PNB Romeo and Juliet booklet

You kiss by the book(let)

Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure…this one left them all behind.

This line from The Princess Bride kept running through my head during Roméo et Juliette at Pacific Northwest Ballet. Since I first saw ballet, there have been four instances that left the others behind. Read More