So Here's the Truth About the Real Work of an Artist

You will try a bunch of stuff and most of it is not going to work out.  And the stuff that does work out, most likely, no one is really going to notice, or even care.  And at first, that’s really discouraging, but then you learn to accept it because you love what you are doing and you care, so you keep going and you keep experimenting because what you love most is the discovery of  “What can I do with this?” and “How can I express this old idea in a new way?” and "What happens when I put that next to this?"  And sometimes, you get on a roll and you have this incredible momentum of thoughts and ideas and production and at that point, the most poisonous thing is the fantasies that rise, of being discovered, of being celebrated, of being known for your work.  Because inevitably, you get a call from your parents who tell you that your recent stuff has taken a turn for the worse and that they find it depressing and that they know you are losing your audience and that they are afraid that you are losing your mind and that they wish you would focus on one thing like those cute bird cartoons you used to do.  “Everyone liked those,” they remind you.  And even though you know they love you and want the best for you and even though you want them to be honest, right?, you can’t help but feel wronged, right here in the same spot where you feel the unfettered waves of energy pouring forth when you are the most inspired, the spot that now calcifies into a hard little pit because you are afraid they might be right.  Maybe you are a fool.  Maybe you are losing your mind.  Maybe everyone is shaking their heads and saying, “What a pity that she isn’t doing those cute bird cartoons anymore.”  Maybe you even cry.  But then you remember that your father-in-law told you, just the other night how much he likes what you are doing and to keep it up, so you send him an email thanking him for being appreciative, and “by the way, thanks for the wild turkey,” the one he cut from a poster and sent to the kids, the one he was worried was lost in the mail.  “It got here,” you write, “but strangely without a postmark, instead, across the two stamps. . . .” And just then, as you are about to describe how across the two stamps, American flags both, one saying “Liberty,” the other “Freedom,” that across those, someone had scribbled a black wavy line as if saying, “No.” And because you practice everyday, your mind is agile and makes a connection to the turkey your father-in-law sent in the envelope with those stamps and that little hard pit you felt when your parents told you that you are not living up to their expectations, dissolves into a vision, a collage, a commentary on the state of America, with the wild turkey speaking those stamps and all around a ridiculous array of products that we are constantly being force fed Free Shipping 50% Off Entertaining Essentials and you grab a scissors and dig through the recycling for those catalogs – the incessant stream of advertising that lands in your mailbox everyday and makes you mad, but today makes you glad because you are going to take them and rearrange them into a piece of art that you feel passionate about, that you care about because that is the real work of an artist, not becoming famous, not winning awards, not pleasing your parents or anyone else for that matter, except you.  So, always remember, keep practicing and listen to your first cousin when he says, “While it’s kind of deflating because they’re our parents and we really want them to like and support what we do, we can’t let that stop us from doing what we’re passionate about.  So I say, keep posting existentialist poems juxtaposed with severed rabbit heads, dammit!”

My First Garden, Episode 8: "What Vegetables?"

Sunday

Was it something I ate, 

Or something someone said? 

Why do I suddenly feel so strange? 

Maybe if I were more focused, 

I wouldn't feel so divided. 

Life used to be simple, 

before there were so many distractions.

I can't help but be nostalgic.  

Less is more, the saying goes, 

but what is there when there's nothing?

Five Dollar Organ Blues

tad neuhaus and joanna dane, magic genie organ

Meditation #18

It's Raining

tad neuhaus, guitar; joanna dane, ukelele, vocals

Mid-Western Housewife Feels Cool When Twenty-Something Friend Claims She's the Coolest Forty-Year-Old She Knows

Even though Janet Kay Delmar is pushing 43, she reported feeling "very cool" when her friend Emma Kelly Mickelson called out, "You're the coolest forty-year-olds I know!" before leaving Delmar's party on Friday. "I think there was only guy there who was actually 40," Delmar said.  "But still, we all took it as a high compliment."

Delmar, along with her friends, Timmy Norman and Marcus Tuscany (both older than Delmar) showcased their band at the party.  "We've been playing together for a couple of years now, so we wanted to play for our friends," Delmar explained.  Norman also reported feeling good about being called cool by someone so young.  "Sometimes you wonder if kids like that even know you exist." Tuscany though expressed some dismay that Mickelson didn't realize he is closer to fifty.  "If she knew how old we really are, would she still think we are cool?"

When asked if Mickelson was the coolest twenty-something Delmar knows, Delmar admitted she doesn't know that many twenty-somethings.  "We mostly hang out with people who have kids, and most twenty-year-olds aren't too interested in that.  So yeah, I'd have to say she is because she is willing to hang out with us."

Norman, Delmar, and Tuscany being cool.

E.B.R. #1 - Results

Thank you for your patience and for coming to the show.  

We appreciate your understanding while we continue to grow.

Performing is more scary than posting a drawing.  

Everyone's a witness to every foolish utterance.  

Thank you for listening and for drinking and for laughing.  

Thank you for supporting the strange breed of improv.

Tiny Song #1894, take two

Sometimes it's hard

to know what to say,

The perfect words

refuse to appear.

They tell me it's green,

when I know that it's red.

All these things you believe

are just in your head.

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals

Experiment #1

The experiment is on-going. No one knows what the experiment is about or what the results will be. It is not the first experiment, nor will it be the last. It is labeled otherwise for convenience sake. Everyone is a participant in the experiment. This makes 93% of the participants nervous. At the mention of the word "experiment," most participants envision test tubes and flasks though no test tubes nor flasks will be used. However, not having test tubes or flasks does not preclude them from not being used at some future point, if deemed necessary. Even though it is understood that all experiments are valuable whether they fail or succeed, most all participants feel embarrassed by failed experiments.  This embarrassment should have no impact on the experiment, even though it does, especially when a successful experiment, to some participants, continues to be a failure.

How To Make an Improvisational Music/Spoken Word Collaboration

Crow's Nest

I tell the students to write without stopping, to keep the pen moving no matter what, even if you must repeat words repeat words repeat words like Gertrude Stein, or write the alphabet a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k, until the rhythm launches you back into the flow like Lynda Barry, even if none of it makes sense because what does make sense, anyway?  It seems that every piece of news these days leaves me baffled. So why not just keep going? Eventually, something interesting will fall from the pen. It may take years, but don't let that discourage you. If you pay attention and relax, even the most mundane things will be as astonishing as the first time you comprehended the distance of a star. That's what they say. But who knows? Relaxing is not easy.  

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, I remember hearing, was difficult and religious reading, so I avoided it until Heather mentioned it.  I checked out the library's large print edition.  It is full of small profundities: "When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters." 

I tell the students not to go back and re-read what they have written, not to worry about making it good, not yet, but just to keep going keep going. Still, I pause, lost, and retreat, paragraph by paragraph, desperate to find something decent. On the way to school, I have a vision that sends me running to Phyllis's. She isn't home, so I go get the kids, and tell everyone I run into. I spend the afternoon drawing crows. But the vision fades and now I feel silly, back at home, making dinner, listening to the news on the radio.  

Cluck or Duck?

Is that the question in your community?

It is in ours.

t-shirt design by Elyse Mische

chicken harness made by Heather Urness

Thoughts on a Sketchbook Left Inside the Porch Door, #3

* anonymous drawing dated 7/21/92

The Stories Most Remembered, the Ones Rarest Told

Uncle Sam died yesterday.  My parents called to tell.  When we were children we made outings to Uncle Sam and Aunt Ida’s.  They lived in a neighborhood that was not far from ours, but foreign nonetheless, the houses smaller and set close to the street.  They had a furry little dog that wiggled around our legs, too excited to pet.  As I remember it, Aunt Ida was skinny, high cheekboned, tanned, half moons of color on the lids of her eyes that curved from her head like domes.  She laughed a lot and always smiled even when the smile turned sad.  It felt real easy-going at their house, Aunt Ida’s voice loud and musical, like the star of a sit-com, all oh’s and ah’s.  Uncle Sam was quieter but his voice was gruff and deep.  Dad told us stories that Uncle Sam fought in the thick of World War II. Five landings including Okinawa.  One of his fishing buddies collected WWII books and when the man died the books were passed on to Sam.  One day, one of his daughters was looking through a volume from Time Life when she saw her dad.  The photographer was standing at the back of the boat that had just landed at Palau. Soldiers were on the beach, some running, some, bellies to the ground, shooting into the thick of trees decorated with the flashing of enemy gunfire.  One Marine was turned, looking back towards the empty boat as if to say, isn’t anyone else coming?  That was Sam.

After victory was declared, Sam came home, after four years away.  My dad, just eight, remembers seeing this guy who looked like a movie star in a Marine uniform running up the street, running to see my dad’s Aunt Ida.  My dad and his little sister stood inside Chodak’s house spying through the venetian blinds at Sam and Ida sitting next to each other on the porch swing, kissing.  They had three children.

Sam never talked about what happened in the war.  We knew not to ask.  But late in life, he told my dad about being on watch and one night coming across a Japanese soldier and shooting him dead.  He couldn’t have been any older than Sam.  For days, he walked back and forth on watch, passing the man he had killed.  Then, he started talking to him.  You better get up, Sam would scold, or they’re going to kill you. He knew he was going a little bit crazy.

The last time I saw Sam was at the beginning of this past summer.  He walked stooped, leaning on a cane, pained.  It frustrated him, he admitted, but then he shrugged his thin shoulders, nothing he could do about it.  For some reason, that day, as we picnicked at my parents’ place, Sam talked about the war.  I had some room left on my camera, and I got a little footage of Sam, the very first time I ever heard him talking like that, age 89. 

Everyone there was amazed to hear Sam talking about the war, so Helen called her friend who archives interviews with Omaha Jews, and the man came out to Sam’s, twice because the first time, he forgot to turn on his recorder.  He shot two full hours of Sam telling stories.

It was at Uncle Sam and Aunt Ida’s house that we all got to try our first pair of headphones.  I was littlest, so I had to wait until last, watching my brothers’ expressions, standing there in the silence. Then Uncle Sam lowered the giant muffs over my ears and my mouth opened wide from the sensation, waves of music pulsing from the inside, out. 

Sam and Ida always seemed to appreciate each other.  It was sad to hear about Ida dying, knowing how lonely Sam would be.  He lived without Ida in the house for eight more years, up until two weeks ago.  My dad said he was real sharp through the end, that the doctors offered to do surgery on his gut to keep him alive, and Sam said no, he was ready to go.  He told my dad to make sure the book made it to his surviving daughter.  My dad knew he meant the one with his picture from the war.  He got real weak after that, his breathing fuzzy, his lungs filling up with fluid. His breath rattled and then he completely relaxed and was gone.

 Fedman, Sam Jan 3, 1924 - Sep 13, 2013

last picture my mom took of Uncle Sam, with my husband, early summer 2013

Journal #34,629G

You always carry a pen and paper even if just an unread flyer from school, blank on one side, folded twice and stuffed in the pocket alongside a pen. Every autumn you find them in your down vest, square bleached leaves with ink smeared from snow that fell as you struggled to hold the pen with an oversized mitten, walking while writing, to keep from freezing.  Of course, today the note makes no sense at all. Do you save it or throw it away? You already have boxes full of similar things. Entire notebooks, big and small, presents some, the remainder, black and blue and red hardcovers, purchased at Borders (when they were still viable) where cheap blank journals dominated the display just inside the sliding doors. You could never leave without buying several, guilty that of all the thousands of books in the store, you chose the ones with nothing inside.

And so you begin to wonder yet again: Why do we think of each other as one type or another?  Why do we feel such permanence in a forever changing world?  Are we never what we seem to be or only what we seem? How easily a stereotype dissolves into its opposite when we engage in conversation. How else to explain evolution if not for these changes of mind. If it weren't for certain habits, would there be revolutions? Why are you afraid of writing in journals that are too pretty and full of expectation? How long until you learn, it's not so much about convincing others as it is about convincing yourself?

Tiny Song #1694 - Silly Little Things

Give me an hour and I'll paint you a song,

Give me a year and I'll write it all down,

Give me a lifetime and I'll make it up you,

Somehow, somehow, I'll make it up to you.

I woke up today to a little Charlie Parr,

Making me cry at the shadows on the wall,

It's a silly little thing to be thankful for,

But it's the silly little things that make our days worthwhile.

Tad Neuhaus, ukulele

Joanna Dane, vocals

Even If I Try to Convince You That It Is, This Blog Post Is Not Important

It is tempting to find something else to do, anything besides sitting here and typing new sentences. Why? Not because I don't like to sit here and type sentences. I enjoy the challenge of ordering words, of attempting to make sense of things, mostly, these thoughts that burden me. But what drives me away from writing more than anything else is the sense that I should be doing something important. We writers and artists and musicians become well versed in telling ourselves and the world how high-minded, necessary, and important our work is. And certainly, the arts are a vital part of a healthy human society. But any individual artist is as expendable as a flower in a field full of blooms.

So the nagging never disappears.

When I was in my mid-twenties and just back from the Peace Corps and living in my parents' attic working on a novel, I spent a lot of time fretting about what people would think of me, wasting so much time, sitting alone, writing words that, most likely, no one would ever read. And then one day, it dawned on me, that the neighbors have much better things to do than to worry about what I was doing with my time. That was a great relief. Yes, the nagging can fade to a near silence, though it never completely disappears.  Some days, it roars: You have spent your morning writing a few paragraphs for your blog when you could have been volunteering at the school or cooking a meal for the homeless or tending your neglected garden or clearing the mess from the basement or writing long overdue thank you letters or communicating with your parents. What a schmuck you are!

But it seems that I'm not going to stop. So, better than berating myself, perhaps it's best to acknowledge that doing something that brings me a great amount of satisfaction and pleasure is good enough. Though it may be easier just to indulge in the delusion that there is nothing more important and necessary than composing this blog post.

Not Just for Dogs: Advice from Trish McConnell

Respect and understand the breed.

Investigate the issue with curiosity.

Provide excellent treats.

Be supportive and fun.

Stay positive.

Be consistent.

Stuff Charlie Parr Said That I Wrote in My Notebook While Watching the Documentary "Meeting Charlie Parr" at the Trout Museum During the Mile of Music Festival

No need to talk religion or politics.

Teach your kids to be satisfied with what they've got.

Pay attention to the music that vibrates you.

Do your best doing what you love and if people like it, great, and if they don't, that's fine too.

Be influenced by everything.

There's something interesting about each and every day.

Sarah Ellison's Lady Di

A well told story is good no matter where you cut it.

(cuts from Vanity Fair's September 2013 cover story)

Tiny Song #1668 - Renaissance Man

How does he do the things he does?

Where does he find the time?

What special powers has he learned?

And which reside in his bones?

Tad Neuhaus, bass

Joanna Dane, vocals

Visions of Sappho: Someone

sounds by Tad and Joanna

words by Sappho

Thoughts on a Sketchbook Left Inside the Porch Door, #2

* anonymous drawing dated 11-26-78

Thoughts on a Sketchbook Left Inside the Porch Door, #1

* anonymous drawing undated

My Favorite Homophone

sounds by

Tad Neuhaus

Joanna Dane

Isn't It About Time I Posted Something To My Blog?

Has anyone noticed that I haven't posted to my blog in over two weeks? Is this a record? How would I feel if it were? Isn't my second blogiversary coming up next week? Should I wait to post until then? Will people think I've given up? Why is it that I can only write questions? Do you think, like Kenneth Goldsmith, that the written word is undergoing a revolution, much the way painting did with the advent of photography, a rethinking that will completely change our idea of what a writer is and does? Have you considered that every image and sound on the internet is, under the sheen, text, and that this text (even when written by machine) and the manipulation of it (even when manipulated by machine) will become the new art of writing? Does this sound disturbing? Or refreshing? Why do we cling to our habits and beliefs, especially when everything is changing? Will the neighbor ever be done mowing? Will I ever write another novel? Why didn't people discourage me? Or did they? Is it possible to write an entire novel with only questions? Should I try to find out? Would anyone ever read it? Or would it become a curiosity piece? Would I get interviewed by Terry Gross? What if I wrote the entire novel with questions that have already been written and posted to the internet? Is that plagiarism? Is it possible to ask a question that hasn't already been asked? Could a person read a novel written only in questions and not want to strangle the author? Why are we so obsessed with lawn mowing? Will my husband be upset if I don't make dinner? Will he be upset if I do? Will he read this blog post? Who could possibly stand to read this far? My parents? Charlie Parr? Why does his music make so many people cry? Could he be some kind of a prophet? Is it true, like I told him, that we will meet again? Why is it the new habit to put just one space at the end of a sentence? What are the kids up to in the kitchen? Should I be concerned? Should I end with a statement? Or would that ruin it?