what will become of us?

tonight i attended a short film series on the history of topanga canyon. the wistful pieces, mostly depicting brutally artistic souls in the throes of nostalgia, were a wire whisk in the stirrings of my soul.

a pied piper of a blonde ageless man, also present this night in the same pin-striped suit and feathered cap, spoke onscreen of time travel, his experiences with warhol, and true transcendence of the temporal. his pen and ink illustrated depictions of these esoteric concepts fluttered between frames of state-issued community bulldozing.

he struck me as a dying breed.

after, as i approached anastasia the filmmaker, full to bursting, as always, with another project i wanted to take on - the suggestion that we track down the neal young's, joni mitchell's, taj majal's and devendra's and garner the interest this project needs - the blonde man, similarly bursting, presented me with a list, hand-scrawled in red, of the musicians of that place, past and present.

He had the same idea. And it became despicably clear he was as overwhelmed by passion for the impossible as myself.
'I'm his squaw,' said a beautiful, pregnant woman, pushing me out of the room with her energy, and I felt ADD and silly and hate myself a little for having so much vision it veritably fetters me.

I ate a slice of apple and then I slipped away and drove up to Topanga and was happy to be home, even if that's what this rented hobbit-hole is for only a few more weeks.

a very cool blog on the daily routines of creative people

Chris Ofili

"First, he tears a large sheet of paper, always the same size, into eight pieces, all about 6 by 9 inches. Then he loosens up with some pencil marks, “nothing statements, which have no function.”

James Thurber

"I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, “Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.” She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, “Is he sick?” “No,” my wife says, “he’s writing something.”

Truman Capote

"I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis.”

I am here to rein in, harness and corral my thoughts into some potentially viable semblance of order. My New Year's Resolutions - essentially of working hard and being published and generally kicking ass, NOW - have already begun to gallop off without me. I feel like I'm bouncing along behind, one foot caught in the saddle, trying to protect myself from a buffeting of my own over-zealous creation.

I must remember that half the reason I've taken it so slow and easy the last few years was because I recognized my ability to get all nutso about goals at the expense of my peace of mind. Now is the time to find that productive middle-ground between self-indulgent laziness and fevered anxiety.

STRAYS: meeting with a William Morris agent this week, at my roommate's behest. I feel it's a little too early. I need to reapproach the whole concept before doing the rewrite. As of now, I am going to try to have that rewrite done in 3 weeks' time for my screenwriting class. I am reading 'flight of the conchords' episodes and the pilot for 'gossip girl' to get the creative juices flowing. I need to introduce 'more conflict' 'more reason to be invested in these characters' everyone advises. I want to be quirky and honest, yet mainstream and marketable. Possible? Unknown.

Meanwhile, will just meet this agent and have fun, with a goal of having an updated bible/treatment for him by end of week.

BRIDE OF CHRIST: literary agent is counting on something new from me by end of the month. This is going to have to wait until February. I am stewing with new ideas, though, and even looking online for fellowship/grant options, because if this thing is going to be any good, i need a lot of time and patience, still. And I think I need to write the whole damn thing, from my heart, rather than continue to try and write teaser-snippets to get that advance first. In my new voicing, i'm going for no passing of judgment and visual, tactile realness. Drop the sensationalism. Sorry, commercial world, and yes, I know, bad timing for artistic integrity in a dying industry. Oh well.

HIPSTER: what to do?! Maybe try to compile a pitch for it, and see if it sells with what i have. no time right now. would like to pull out some samples and send them around as short stories.

SHORT STORIES: wrote a good one over Xmas break. Am researching lit journals to submit it to, and have a feeling this one will be published within the next few months.

ARTICLES: wrote a self-introspection travel piece from my Xmas break journeys. Will be sending it off to various magazines today and tomorrow. Already got turned down by LA Times - they're not even buying freelance anymore! OMG! - and Sierra Magazine, although the editor at Sierra suggested I send in some column-type pieces for a new section called Ponder. Have to work on that by end of week.

and, as if I need more ... want to compile and reexamine my 'Big Ideas' document so I can put my best foot forward to this William Morris agent this week. and need I mention I have what amounts to almost a full-time job in entertainment marketing already? No problem!

2009

This picture is in tribute to the owl that lives in a tree off my new Topanga porch, to the childhood memory of a rare great snowy white owl I once saw flying over Wisconsin woods, and to all the ancient forms - Greek, Roman, Celtic, Hinduism and Native American traditions - that hold owls as representative of spirituality and insight. I will be wise and rise above and continue to soar.

the blood of a poet

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

Art is science made clear.

Tact is knowing how far to go too far.

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death. --cocteau

topanga tales

*** UPDATE: I GOT THE PLACE! moving in for a month or two. ***

ah, life. a series of panic-stricken bumbles staccattoed by deep
breathing and occasional crescendos of conviction. at least that's what it feels like as i rampage from one impressively orchestrated distraction to another, accented by supporting choir, all in an attempt to keep the symphony's volume at thought-drowning level.

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this is a very fancy, alliteration-filled run-on sentence (my favorite bad habits in writing) way of saying i've been procrastinating and hearing the tsk-tsking buzz of silence beneath all the clamor anyway.

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i need to run away. i'm waiting to hear from a magical doppleganger i stumbled upon in topanga, as to whether or not she will sublet her hobbit-hole on a hill to me for 2 months for dirt cheap. i'll know on sunday, and if it works out, i expect to finish hipster by the beginning of february; just in time for the scheduled call with my agent that i have put off until then.

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this is the place. too good to be true. WISH ME LUCK!!!

from my book hipster

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There is a place where dry, golden wheat crackles under the afternoon sun, and the muted fragrance of death, natural and sweet, abounds. A place where autumn soil is dry and caked but when you dig into it, with fingertips stubby from use, you find moisture, still, beneath the surface. Dark, rich and full of life.
When Joleen sucks the air in through her nostrils, so deep that she finds the space beneath the smog, she can freeze-frame this place, and keep it as hers, in the depths of an inner garden, where no one, not even It, with Its fears and doubts and trepidation, can tread.
It is not made for man with his trodding desires, it is a place solely bred for life-giving oxygen, and that is what she finds, that is what sustains her next step forward, when she breathes deep, deep, deep, puncturing the seams of sodden grey and into clean, clear white.