If you haven’t read On Writing by Stephen King yet, get a copy now. Stock up on cute highlighters while you’re at it. (He’s also hella feisty on Twitter.)
If there is any one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it’s that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects.
Stephen King, On Writing
I love this golden nugget quote in the chapter about theme. It’s so true, right? Even those of us who can only hope to be Stephen-King-quality after a couple lifetimes know this feeling. Hitting that sweet spot where things you didn’t even know were in you fall together into a cohesive story or paragraph or sentence? It feels otherworldly.
Saul Leiter was a pioneer of American color photography. His painterly images of 1950s and 1960s city life are so wistful. His work makes me see bad weather, stinky streets, and the humans who inhabit it all — differently. Better. More lovingly.
“A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.”
Here are five of his most lovely snow-filled images that might make this seemingly never-ending winter snow a lot more bearable. At least more beautiful.
Dawoud Bey is a MacAurthur Genius Award-winning portrait artist whose most moving photographs are black and white images in urban settings; however, his exhibition currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago happens across a different landscape.
Titled, in a nod to Langston Hughes, “Night
Coming Tenderly, Black” is a compilation of 25 photographs taken of
places in Hudson and Cleveland, Ohio, that marked the end of the Underground
Railroad.
The large-scale images are darkened to mimic the blackness of night, a time of day when it was “safest” to run. The darkness makes it hard to see what you’re looking at, inducing a sinister terror that must, when you think about it, only be .01% (if that) of the sinister terror runaway slaves felt when approaching these final stops toward freedom—a term that feels especially meaningless when faced with the final resting stop, Lake Erie and sky. Canada’s freedom on the horizon, but at what cost? How did these people ever feel free or safe or whole? It seems as impossible as swimming in the dangerous choppy waves of the photograph.
Their reflective nature is particularly Bey-brilliant. With this effect, the viewer sees themselves in the image, in this situation, both long ago and in the modern world. At first, I thought about how alone these images made me feel, no human to be found, just the potential for danger that had to freeze you in your tracks. Seeing a shadow of myself in each image, I also thought about the ways white supremacy has shaped my own understanding of the world. How its effects linger today. I thought of Flint. Of Chicago police brutality. Of my own willful blindness that contributes to modern racism.
I was moved by the titles of his images, too. A forest. A marsh. These seem idyllic to me—because they can. But in light of the darkness of these settings and the truth behind them, I understand how these words and places represented a challenge, a cover, an enemy to the people who had to escape through them without the cover of peace… or even hope… or even, sometimes, other people.
Outside the gallery is a wall of framed photographs Bey curated from the AIC’s private collection. In addition to harrowing images of the murder that racism has justified on American soil are images of people who fought back and found strength in the darkness. Their courage is breathtaking.
The landscape portraiture Bey picked to include in the roundup is also meaningful. A particular Ansel Adams image of a tree, which, in a different context, I would have mused on romantically or in a rosy awe of nature, gave me chills instead. The photograph’s juxtaposition to a lynched murder victim evoked the trauma of a tree, how everything has been affected exploited in the name of “natural order.” It’s a devastating exhibit. It’s an important one. It’s on view through April 14.
As a longstanding diehard coffee consumer, I’ve
been asking myself the same questions.
A few weeks ago—three tomorrow, to be exact—I wasn’t
feeling very well. I had a coffee on my nightstand as I laid in bed, trying to
nap off whatever bug was bringing me down. The smell of the coffee, though,
kept waking me up and making me feel queasy.
I haven’t had a lick of it since.
Considering I quit drinking alcohol almost three years ago, I am still surprised at my ability to be surprised when I fully quit something that has been part of my everyday life for over a decade. But I was drinking five to six cups of the strongest coffee I could find a day, and now I’m… a tea drinker? It’s weird. Surprising. And weird.
There are several upsides, obviously, to cutting the extreme caffeine. I’m saving money not purchasing $4-a-pop pick-me-ups. My energy is way better, ironically enough. More consistent. Fewer crashes. Less dramatic energy surges and lethargic dips. I l-o-v-e that I don’t feel restless/ manic if I haven’t had my morning coffee. AND, best of all, the ritual of making tea is way more fun.
I’m not fancy. By ritual, I mean literally
just boiling water. But it’s like when you’re 16 and learn to drive and get a $300
janky, old, dump-destined beater that is a straight-up diamond in your eyes
because it represents freedom, delicious freedom.
That beater = boiled water for me right now. <insert heart eyes, hashtag EZ2PLZ>
Once I passed the two-week coffee-free threshold, Justin and I decided to get a new kettle for the house so I could boil water like a lady. (Technically we had one already but it was, well, a dump-destined beater that was ~16 years old itself.)
Here are some places I found awesome options, including a few unexpected locales. So many tea pots, so little time (and also counter space).
A sea foam green cast iron kettle ($24.99) with a stainless steel infuser on the inside, embossed Japanese-style grapevines on the outside.
The Etsy marketplace is often a go-to when I’m shopping for jewelry or décor, but I didn’t think of it right away for tea kettle shopping. Don’t make the same mistake. There are some really lovely options available, including punny pots like Mr. Tea, who pity the caffeine-fiending fool, and many vintage goodies, like this amazing Corningware cooker.
Yet another destination you might not consider right away, art museum shops often have a curated section of hip home goods. For example, The Art Institute of Chicago’s Museum Shop has a sparse but mighty selection, and MoMA has some seriously great stuff that will ensure your tea routine is a work of art. (PS. I bet your local bookstore also carries some tea related must-haves.)
Ah! Tumultuous love affairs aside, these Frida and Diego mugs = amazing wedding gift alert!
Ah, good old Amazon. Fun options abound, though we ended up getting none of the above and, instead, going for function over style, purchasing an energy efficient electric kettle that can boil water in mere seconds.
Le sigh. It’s cool in a practical way, but I’ll be in the market for adorable mugs soon. This, friends, is what kitchen-based compromise and communication looks like.
Debut author Stephanie Land takes a painfully honest look back at her years spent cleaning a lot of other people’s houses for only a little pay, while also raising two children alone. “Maid” has been billed as “‘Evicted‘ meets ‘Nickel and Dimed,'” which are two of my favorite nonfiction books about the cyclical challenges of rising out of poverty in America—no matter how hard you’re working at those bootstraps.
I think of reading books like this (and “Evicted,” etc.) as a civic responsibility. They help me understand how poverty in our country works (both in the past and today… because its causes and effects are constantly morphing), why it is so hard to climb out of, and how we all contribute to poverty’s brutal repercussions even if by simply misunderstanding what poverty can do to a person. Or in this case, one tough mother.
Also an intangible civic duty: educating ourselves on the history of truth and democracy. I found this little pocket book at the Chicago Public Library branch that opened LITERALLY WITHIN A BLOCK FROM MY APARTMENT (!!!!). It features excerpts of Orwell’s most potent arguments about what truth actually is and how hypocrisy can manifest itself in even the most well-intentioned. His brilliant, astute critical observations about how language shapes our cultures and world views made him an enemy of both the left and the right. Which kind of makes him my hero.
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell
There’s so much I didn’t know about Orwell or appreciate about his work until reading this brief book. I was surprised at how modern his essay writing reads; though, I shouldn’t have been, considering that “1984” is perhaps the most prescient novel of all time. Nostradamus of the nine-to-fiver.
And, because it’s Valentine’s Day month, I’ll be reading this historical fiction novel from 2015 that I still see people raving about on social media. It gets so much love! I’ve been meaning to read Kristin Hannah’s book that came out last year, “The Great Alone,” but figured I should finish this tale first. A story of two sisters struggling to survive in WWII France, Hannah weaves together a big-hearted story about the power of love in a time of hateful power. I can’t wait to soar away with this one.
All my word finds this month look a little tipsy-turvy! Hmm… I blame weeks of near apocalyptic levels of hibernation. Still getting back my sea legs (and steady camera hands, I guess?).
This should, instead, say, “Just wipe your tail and wash your hooves.” 😉The wall to the left read, “No Parking.”Some excellent copywriting/ color naming finds on a recent snowy sojourn to Home Depot, a trip in which I did very little except enjoy these carpet color titles. Shoutout to my homeboy/house husband Justin for being a more rational, practical human being and getting what we actually needed on the visit. You are forever my “Sophisticated Dove.”“Black Ice and Oatmeal” is pretty badass. The silly decision to add “Stupendous” to this already sorta outrageous color name is everything a bored girl could ask for in the aisles of the hardware store. Thanks for that, Home Depot. And also for the sale on lightbulbs.
Showing (ie. I grabbed my back and fell to the floor. I was going to have to crawl from bed to bathroom.) not telling (ie. My back really hurt when I woke up this morning.) offers a better reading experience, whether you’re consuming a case study, a magazine article, or a new novel. But it’s surprisingly hard to do when you’re writing. (I always think first drafts are where you “tell” as you get the structure of a piece down. When you edit, you can find the places where “showing” would be better.)
“To bring your reader into your fictional world, you need to offer data for all the senses. You want to make sure your readers see the rain’s shadow, taste the bitterness of bad soup, feel the roughness of unshaved skin, smell the spoiled pizza after an all-night party, hear the tires screech during the accident.”
Chris Lombardi, “Gotham Writers Handbook”
“Show don’t tell” encompasses not only physical descriptions, but the way a story unfolds for the reader too. I think this is especially true considering how TV- and film-savvy readers are now. The omniscient narrator is so old-fashioned for a reason. We’d rather be in the moment, experiencing the situation with the characters, even if it’s a story in the past tense.
I’ve been binge-watching the TV show “New Amsterdam” during this #DeepFreeze, and the first episode is a great example. We see Max Goodwin wake up in a basically bare apartment. We don’t know his story, yet, so when a pregnant woman calls him and asks how the apartment is and how his first day at the hospital is going, our perception of him changes. He’s the father, clearly, and she asked about the apartment, so maybe he just moved to this city and she’s heading here soon? It isn’t until further on in the episode, through another “show don’t tell” sorta scene, that we realize they’re in the same city — they’ve just broken up.
“Show don’t tell” is a smart (not necessarily slow) reveal. And details enrich how you do it.
One of my favorite “show don’t tell” examples is one of thousands in Michael Chabon’s 2016 book “Moonglow.”
This simile has really stuck with me. Have you ever read a better description of what your elementary school smelled like than this?:
“He pressed his nose against her hair and breathed in her school smell, a smell like the flavor of a postage stamp.”
What it is (in 60 seconds or less): A productivity hack in which you work for 25 minutes straight on something without any distractions. When that 25-minute period is up, take a break.
I try to do 25-minute sprints, and five-minute breaks in the morning/afternoon, eight-minute breaks after 2 pm because, hi, fatigue. My favorite thing about Pomodoro, other than that it works for me, is that it’s named after the Italian word for tomato. Why? The guy who made it up used one of those cute little tomato-shaped kitchen tickers to time his tasks.
What it is (in 60 seconds or less): The idea that work will expand to fit however much time you’ve allotted for it.
So if you’ve given yourself a whole day to “blog”… it will take the entire day. Maybe longer. If you, instead, time block the job and write it on your to-do list as a specific directive, such as “9-10 am: Sit the ef down and write your blog about productivity,” it will happen in a much shorter amount of time—usually the amount for which you’ve planned it.
What it is (in 60 seconds or less): This one’s a numbers game that says 80% of consequences come from 20% of actions.
In terms of productivity, this is just something to keep in mind when you determine what tasks to tackle in a day. If the majority of your benefits are coming from a small portion of actions (or, for example, accounts), say yes to those actions and a #HardNo to the other things you could spend your limited time doing.
Because sometimes you just need to treat yo’self for a job well done… or a job not perfectly done, but done nonetheless.
Every image in this blog is from my trip to a hidden gem of a museum in Evanston called the Halim Time & Glass Museum. That is, every image except this image. This image is a gift from the internet. Thank you, internet. Thank you, pizza cat.
Can you believe we’re almost one month deep into 2019? I’ve commenced Hibernation Mode throughout most of it, which you could have probably guessed given the following “stay inside under lots of covers” nature of the following obsessions that have been consuming my January.
Ya’ll been Kondo-ing like it’s a verb. I’ve been doing something similar. The website Apartment Therapy’s January Cure is a program that breaks down the often overwhelming act of cleaning your place into daily assignments—curing cabin fever and pack rat-ism in one swift swipe of the dust cloth. With assignments like #9 (do a bathroom cabinet cleanout) and #18 (clean the floors and treat yourself to flowers), this is a to-do list I can get behind.
Get it? “Get behind.”
Some of the key projects Justin and I tackled this month: organizing and purging all of our office and art supply cabinets, upgrading our cleaning equipment like the vacuum cleaner and even our guest towels, and sprucing up one room with a few new décor elements. We got a new grid patterned shower curtain from Amazon that we both love and a black and white nude sketch from Etsy that we framed and hung above the towel rack. Racks on racks.
This TED Talk
Therapist Mandy Saligari so wonderfully explains emotional habits that begin forming when we are children—why they happen and what we can do to conquer the unhealthy ones as adults. For a talk about emotion, her logic is surprisingly the most moving part of the whole thing. This one’s worth a listen.
Two new podcasts by writers
Writer Mike Ingram’s new podcast Day Jobs features interviews with artists who are trying to make art while making a living. Though he’s only three interviews/ episodes deep, I enjoy the tips the interviewees offer for how they get creative work done during their day job (ie. a construction worker writes on his phone during a lunch break). It’s realistic and inspiring to hear their stories.
Check out U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s podcast The Slow Down.
U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s podcast The Slow Down is produced in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Poetry Foundation. Regardless of how you feel about the rise of the Insta-poet, I’m all for the growing power of poetry and the myriad ways poetry has become more accessible to the general public in recent years. An Insta-poet Smith is certainly not; she’s brilliant and The Slow Down’s short five-minute episodes—described as “a different way to see the world, through poetry”—have been a welcome meditative addition to my mornings.
Twitter’s #SundaySentence challenge
To participate, post to Twitter the best sentence you’ve read all week with the hashtag #sundaysentence. Or just be a lurker like me and read all the goodies other people post.
Some of my favorite sentences from “Eat Only When You’re Hungry.” “As a dress, it was a raised fist, but in a silent crowd.”
I love this Sontag sentence, too. “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.”
This Chicago Public Library branch that opened LITERALLY WITHIN A BLOCK FROM MY APARTMENT (!!!!)
This blog is run
by a dietician who lives in the Netherlands. She’s named Sadia and she’s beautiful. Her voice is
beautiful. Her blog is beautiful. Her food is beautiful. Her personality is
beautiful… ah, le sigh.
I’ve been watching her YouTube
channel’s recipe videos. They make cooking and eating vegan food not seem
so terribly challenging. I’m a wannabe-veg, so I’ve been sprinkling her recipes
throughout my occasional carnivore eats. One of my favorites right now is the Peanut
Butter and Jelly Smoothie Bowl (that’s my beautiful re-creation of it at
the top of this blog post), and I’ve been putting my own spin on the Mushroom
and Lentil Tacos with Creamy Garlic Avocado Sauce.
New Amsterdam
Until a few weeks ago, “New Amsterdam” was just a TV show that starred the man I know and love as Tom Keen from The Blacklist. Turns out he has a real name (actor Ryan Eggold), AND that he is also an excellent Dr. Max Goodwin, the good-hearted renegade medical director of New Amsterdam Hospital. If you’re hibernating and need an entertaining, feel-good watch, hit up this mind-numbing show that I’ve been binge-watching on Hulu.
