Our boy likes to sleep. It's the peaceful time when his brain gets to work building itself. He likes to sleep.
But he doesn't like going to sleep. He wakes with a smile, for the most part, but he goes down swinging. He's contrasting moods wrapped in flesh, some joyful, some tortured, and the borders between are thin and difficult to navigate. A dazzling smile can become a frown--and, like a good magician, he never reveals how it happens.
Our boy likes to sleep.
Started this drawing earlier today on the subway while running errands and finished it up at home on the red carpet while Laura made dinner. I think every nominee should take the subway to the Oscar Ceremony. If I run for president that will probably be my platform. I don't expect my campaign to do too well.
Here's the video of Catie Lazarus's interview with Jon Stewart for The Employee Of The Month show on Thursday at Joe's Pub. You can clearly see my disembodied drawing hand working away, down stage right.
But mostly you see Stewart being a gracious interviewee to Catie Lazarus's bright questions.
Sherman Powell, retired pickpocket and noted storyteller, telling the crowd a bunch of tales during Catie Lazarus's Employee Of The Month show at Joe's Pub Thursday night.
This is a not entirely successful portrait of Jon Stewart, drawn live on stage last night at Joe's Pub as I sat with him and Catie Lazarus during her Employee Of The Month show. There were times as I drew this (and more than a few other abandoned and failed attempts) that Jon would look directly at me while he answered Catie's questions and it felt like he was speaking just to me.
I'm certain that anyone in the audience felt the same way whenever he made eye contact with them. It's a familiar feeling, being spoken to by Jon Stewart. I've been listening to him talk for sixteen years or so; he's a virtually-present presence in my life.
So, the fact that I was there on stage, having a genuine moment with him in real time, was filtered by the already intimate relationship I have with his face, voice and humor.
And maybe--although it seems counter intuitive--that's why I had a hard time getting a good likeness of him. Drawing for me is a discovery process, a way to know something unknown in myself or what I'm watching. But, in a way, I feel like I kinda already know Jon Stewart--though I had never met him before last night.
Wait.
Now that I think of it, I never actually formally met him. He was just there, we got our group picture taken and then we all went out on stage together and did a show.
"That's Jon?," said Catie after Stewart departed, leaving the audience and those of us on stage alone together in the Pub, looking at my drawing on the big screen.
"Yeah, it's not my best. I have a good batting average with drawings, but . . ." I bowed my head.
Stewart was present and relaxed, dressed in a leather jacket over a sweatshirt. The discussion--his first public appearance since announcing the other week his impending departure from The Daily Show--was absorbing and funny. It ranged from his employment history to his work on The Daily Show, his sober if light-hearted assessment of his acting skills and what the uncertain future held. When asked if he had any thoughts about who might succeed him as host, he said he was more interested to see what the next iteration of the Daily Show structure might be. "By its nature, each show is sort of disposable," he said, pointing out that a daily show requires a new commitment every day, and a letting go of the last one. Pointing with admiration and humility to John Oliver's HBO show, he observed that the Daily Show had become a model that could be adapted in a variety of ways.
I'm grateful to Catie for inviting me along. Hanging out with Jon Stewart was fun; I laughed a lot.
That said, my drawing doesn't look like Jon Stewart.
But it's the best drawing I could do the night I shared the stage with Jon Stewart. And I hope it captured something about the evening--something about showing up, being present and moving--with humor and good intentions--into the next.
A video I made for Steve Salett's Poison Tree project. Filmed by Allison Michael Orenstein and edited by Maria Cataldo. Allison and I shot all the footage over about 45 minutes in a studio we shared in DUMBO in 2011. I love this song so much and working with Allison and Maria was about as close to a perfect collaboration as I've ever experienced.
We've been re-arranging the apartment for the last week.
We want to move but we don't want to rent another place and we can't afford to buy anything in Brooklyn or possibly the East Coast or on this planet. We moved our bedroom into our middle room and put the baby in the front room where we also carved out a sitting area. It's the best our place has looked since we moved in and it's all Alden's fault for making our life better in almost every conceivable way, except sleep.
Today I ran over to the hardware store to buy some nails and hangers so we could put up all our framed things that have, until now, been tucked in to corners and behind furniture, waiting for us to live like we're staying in one place for a while. On the way to the store I saw a man dragging his two kids along the snow in a sled and I wondered if I'd have the strength to do that with Alden in five years when that's all it'll take to bring him joy.
Life's funny, sad and beautiful in equal measure, but it isn't bad and that's pretty good.
California Dreaming . . .
Winter Sketchbook.
This year's the best Valentine's Day I've ever had, with my wife reading next to me on the couch and my boy deep in his morning nap in the swing. I've never known love before, but these two are as good as I've ever got and I guess I feel pretty blessed.
That doesn't mean I approve of Valentine's Day. Love's a discovery not a destination; it sneaks up without a calendar appointment. I've had a lot of Valentine's dates that I inflated, blew up, found wanting and I've had more than a few where I pined for something I didn't have. I'll take this one, with spit up on my shoulder and a shared cup of coffee.
I'm in love; who needs Valentine's Day?
Last night, I got a couple of last minute tickets to see Lynda Barry and Matt Groening speak at BAM. They're an accomplished pair, with an almost life long friendship that resembles a marriage but isn't. The night before, I had been talking in a bar with Loser's Lounge leader Joe McGinty about my admiration for long friendships between creative people--Groening and Barry's deep acceptance, obvious frustrations and absolute adoration of each other is about as inspiring an example of creative lives lived separately and together as you're likely to find.
In addition to her accomplishments as a cartoonist, Barry works as a professor of creativity at the University of Madison, Wisconsin and--although they both spoke of the challenges and histories of their creative endeavors--I found myself particularly moved by her assertion that the hand is leader to the creative act. In Barry's estimation, drawing is simply the follow through of a curious hand and a childlike acceptance of truths revealed. I had never thought about it in these terms, but it's a notion that sits well with me.
When I got home after the talk, I showed Laura a breathtaking video Barry shared--a YouTube clip of a baby discovering its hand. "I like to think that the hand is discovering the child too," a delighted Barry had said. Laura went to bed then--our baby, Alden, was already sleeping--so I went in to the other room, made myself some tea and pulled out my sketchbook, reminded again that drawing is really just allowing the lines to be what they will.
Last night my friend--and sometimes collaborator--Peter Salett performed his Suite For The Summer Rain at Rockwood Music Hall's intimate Stage 3. It's a unique presentation--a 37 minute dreamscape beautifully performed by Peter on vocals and acoustic guitar, backed with strings and gentle percussion. Peter introduced the piece by asking the audience to hold any applause until the end--a request that has the effect of creating a delicate and warm listening experience that's rare in this day and age. I look forward to seeing what happens next with this work; Peter performs it again at Rockwood in April.
A cartoon I submitted to the New Yorker in the 40s. At the time, it was considered "ahead of its time."
Woke this morning to the sound of sleet. . .
An "outtake" from my recent Hedwig Sketchbook report for Vanity Fair. This is actually the first drawing I did the week of tech. It shows the stage manager and a costumer in the house, watching as John Cameron Mitchell rehearsed. The costumer ended up being the audience stand in whenever Mitchell practiced his "in the house" moments.
Winter Chill.
Subway Sketchbook: A Train on Flickr.
Bright Ideas.
Leonard-Cohen on Flickr.
Happy Birthday, Leonard Cohen.
