CREATIVE INSECURITY

Does any artist know when their work is  good?  Aren't we all insecure and full of self-doubt? I've flattered myself that I've done good work before but with time and distance from it I recognize my mediocrity. It's tough to be honest with yourself about your creative work. 

Then again, what does it really matter? It makes me think of a great scene from the movie, Julia based on Lillian Hellman's short story. (Apologies to the screenwriter but I'm paraphrasing here). While trying to write her first play The Children's Hour, Lillian says to her lover Dashiell Hammett, "I think I'll give up writing. It's too hard." He replies, "This is a good time to stop. No one will miss you." 

Of course she didn't stop, thank goodness, and dammit, neither will I. And neither should you.

MURAKAMI, DU MAURIER & SOMERSET MAUGHAM

My February Reading List Recommendations

For thrills:

Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami (Vintage International)

For elegance:

Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham (Doubleday & CO)

For great story telling:

Don't Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier (New York Review Books)

Let me know what you think.  CEW

ANOTHER YEAR GONE

I've reached the age where people say things like, 'Getting older beats the alternative'.  None of us really knows if getting older beats the alternative but I'm willing to take it on faith. Despite the physical ravages of time (thank goodness I'm not vain or I would be a basket case) there are so many good things about being 61. Minor insults or disrespect from strangers rolls off of me without ruining my day, I don't get the blues as often as I used to, and  I can see through bull**** quicker. I love the people I love more deeply and can look beyond the moment to the greater scheme of things.

True, there's a certain desperation that comes with getting older. Since the days are a diminishing return I feel the need to pack as much living into each one as I can. I have to live with the aching knowledge that I squandered my young years on fruitless pursuits and now those years are gone forever. But, since I believe that the only reason to revisit the past is to inform the future, I hope that I can fashion something of value from the years I have left.

So here's to getting older and hopefully wiser. To hell with the wrinkles!

CHRISTMAS 2009

The family gathered in Los Angeles as we have almost every year since the kids were babies. 

As the decades pass our numbers grow smaller, but the one's we've lost are never forgotten.

REMEMBERING CHRISTMAS 2006

Journal entries:

•December 24, 2006•

A traditional Czech Christmas dinner includes a baked carp. Two men have set up a table on the corner of our busy street. They have big, beautiful live carp in water filled troughs and people line up to buy them. The men pull the fish out by the tail then smash them over the head with a heavy wooden mallet. It's horrible. On and on it goes. Thud, thud, thud. It makes me think of that old Beatles song, bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down on their heads. Puts me right off fish.

Two blocks from our apartment is the Flora, a three story shopping mall, lavishly decorated and full of shoppers. Credit cards are a fairly new phenomenon here so now the Czechs can dig themselves into debt with the rest of us. It's a real sign of prosperity when people can buy what they can't afford.

•December 25, 2006•

Today we went to a cousin's house for a couple of hours. She made sandwiches and cookies and that was our Christmas dinner. It was just the three of us. Now I know how lonely the holidays are for people without family. One year in Oakland I decided not to make Thanksgiving dinner and we went to a restaurant instead. I remember feeling so sad to see people eating a restaurant turkey dinner alone. To me the holidays are about family together telling funny and touching stories about years passed and remembering loved ones who are gone. 

So this was our Prague Christmas. Pretty dismal. But Christmas, like paying taxes, comes every year and there will be others.

VOICES FROM THE VOID

OK, so there is light in the cyber darkness. Thanks R. I guess a blog is as good a place as any to spill your guts. It's a little like eating food that has no taste but there's got to be some nourishment in it. 

I recently joined facebook to see if I could reconnect with lost friends from my years in the music business. I did find a few old friends but was also bombarded with friend requests from people I see frequently. When did talking on the telephone become obsolete? And will someone explain to me why anyone would think what coffee they had at Starbuck's is interesting to anyone else. I'm obviously missing  something. omg, I'm beginning to sound like Andy Rooney.

Here's a picture I took in Prague. No banal explanations necessary.

SPACE DUST

Writing a blog is like drifting weightlessly in space. Without connection it's dark, cold and directionless. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a point to blogging. Is it just a narcissistic exercise? Is it the sound of one hand clapping? Tonight I feel like space dust.