Oct
6
The 4 pieces pictured below are currently in a Vinyl Art Show at
APW Gallery
195 Chrystie St Suite 200
New York, NY 10002
…through October 17.
::
I was frustrated as heck working on Eartha, but I ended up liking that piece the best. That’s the way it usually is.
Clockwise:
La Vern Baker.
La Vern Baker Sings Bessie Smith. One listen is all you need. That album cover is one of the sexiest photographs of a woman, period.
==
The spectacular Josephine Baker, from East Saint Louis. Cabaret star, decorated agent in the French Resistance, civil rights activist, and mom to 12 adopted multi-ethnic kids (Brad and Angelina still have a ways to go…).
==
Nina Simone. Audacious, uncompromising, phenomenally gorgeous and what a voice. My Dad told me he saw her perform in Saint Louis in the late 60s: she came onstage in a very open weave white fishnet dress that left nothing to the imagination; she was so haughty and regal, though, not a catcall was heard (although many of the men in the front rows came prepared with opera glasses).
==
Eartha Kitt. I never saw her play Catwoman on TV’s Batman; but I loved her records. She exiled to France in the 1960s after her anti war statements made Lady Bird Johnson cry. Meowww.
::
(For the curious, and equal opportunists, my next series will be my favourite blondes, and then my favourite boy jazz musicians.)
Sep
14
Damn, this one knocked the wind out of me.
Filed Under Me
Sep
3
Billie’s Blues
Filed Under Art, Comics, From the Archives, Me
I’ve moved a couple of times in the past three years: from my li’l country ranchette to JB’s city cottage; from JB’s city cottage to our suburban rambler.
I started putting my belongings in storage around the time of the first move since his home wasn’t much larger than mine and it hadn’t any closets, and more stuff still went to storage around the time of the second move even though our rambler rambles. I’m just now getting around to braving the storage locker. Under all the termites and mice and dead lizards and pigeon feathers (ahhh, the joy of urban storage lockers) there’s some fun stuff.
Generally my MO has been if you don’t know what’s in the box, you might as well Sally Ann it since you don’t miss it anyway — but this time I went against my rules and, boy, I was doing a jolly jig at the sight of all the uncovered long lost treasure. So many goodies.
So, some more from the archives: Billie’s Blues, also from 1997 (I’m currently rummaging the 1997 box apparently). If you’re a paying flickr member, you can see it larger on my flickr page by clickin on it.
Sep
2
Leia Has a Li’l Sleepover…
Filed Under Art, Comics, From the Archives
From the 1997 souvenir book for the San Diego Comic Con. One of the themes that year was the 20th anniversary of Star Wars.
I haven’t gone in years, but I will be there next summer (likely with a bug-eyed toddler in tow).
Aug
31
[Filed under Eat Me — heh, heh…]
One of the reasons I love to travel is that you get to try food you otherwise wouldn’t. Regional specialties! Admittedly, sometimes regional specialties stay regional because they lack wide appeal.
On a drive from San Francisco to Detroit, for three days I listened to how amazing Bumpy Cake Ice Cream was from someone who grew up there and missed the specialty with a passion. When we finally got to Detroit and I tried it, I was dismayed: it was merely white cake and frosting — not even vanilla cake and frosting — in vanilla ice cream — not even frozen custard — with a few chocolate ribbons running through it. I have not tried it since, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt: it may have been an off-brand.
My favourite regional specialty is not immune to inconsistency: the last time I had a commercial Gooey Butter Coffeecake, a Saint Louis favourite, it was dry and disappointing, despite having been made at the venerable Missouri Baking (their canolies and stollen are worth driving a thousand miles for).
However a Gooey Butter Coffeecake, properly done, looks like a lemon bar but is all buttery and cream cheese lusciousness on a base of pound cake. It is a cake that men like. It is a hit at parties. Upon trying it for the first time, my husband pronounced it not just better than sex, but better than orgasm itself.
Below is the recipe my grandmother used; I took it from her recipe box after she died. Despite this recipe being made from a box cake, it is so tasty I’ve yet to bother making it from scratch.
Aug
29
All the old stuff…
Filed Under Housekeeping, Me
…is now at Tecopa Jane — we’re rearranging (still, endlessly, forever more). Cookbooks, the Prego Saucy journal, Pinups, Comics…are all there.
(There are lots of broken links, but hey, you are an adventuresome sort and love uncharted territory!)
If I watched Oprah, I’d probably declutter and rearrange a heck of a lot better — but I don’t watch it, and thank Gord for that (Lightfoot, Sumner, Gano…whichever one suits your mood).
(If you’re dying to find something, email me: I use gmail, my username is the name of this website.)
Aug
28
My latest project has been illustrating an adaption (by Tom Pomplun) of Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome. The 32-page comic will be published in December as part of Graphic Classics‘ “Oscar Wilde.”
Since this is an all ages book that will be distributed to public libraries and middle schools, Salome keeps her business to herself — but I do get to show a drippy severed head.
Aug
26
[Despite the very first column in my new website being about
parenthood, I want to mention straightaway: this will not be a mommy
blog; additionally, there will be no unnecessary capitalization or all
caps shouting. This is a column, about stuff that interests me.
Occasionally I will plug things. My own things, other people’s
things.OK, here we go…]
My original plan was to have a tubal ligation for my 35th birthday.
Instead, JB took me to Italy and convinced me to consider having a
child. “OK — if we can name her fiore di zucca,” I joked between
mouthwatering bites.
I had a laundry list of reasons not to have a child; there were the
usual too many people in the world and environmental reasons, and a
few personal ones like, “I will lose my mind.” The conversation
continued in a purely theoretical way for another six months when JB
offered his final rebuttal: “You can stay home with the baby, and you
can do your art.”
[SFX]: Lights and sparkles burst from Molly’s head; glorious,
inspiring music crescendos.
Hmmm, you don’t say…
I had always figured that if — very big, very unlikely if — I had a
kid, I would go back to work — because I am educated and had a
semblance of a professional career and why “waste” that experience
being a housewife? But the whole continuing to work and shuttling back
and forth to daycare and playgroups nonsense was high on my list of
personal reasons to not have a kid. That level of hectic is something
I strive to avoid — and, I would never ever have time to do anything
remotely creative.
Um, ok! I said. I really had not expected to meet a man who would want
me to stay home with the kids who was not a backwards Neanderthal. So,
despite being on the wrong side of 35, within a few shakes of a
rabbit’s tail, I was knocked up.
I think having a kid after being dead set against it, and waiting
until you are of advanced maternal age (as I was labelled) can have
some benefits. By now, you ought to be happy with who you are or at
least have a sense of humour about your shortcomings; you ought to be
more patient and accepting of other people; you tend to plan and
research major life transitions. Still, once Miss Perla came along,
there were some things that took me by surprise and caused me doubt
and frustration.
Some babies are a cakewalk; they nap and are satisfied easily, they
sleep for 10, 12 hours at night. Some babies take up a lot of your
time, day and night (especially night) and never seem to be satisfied
or rested. There is even a trendy name for these types of babies:
“high need babies.” Guess what kind of baby I got.
In order to function and to keep Perla happy I often carried her in a
wrap or Baby Bjorn for the first 14 months; and I nurse her on demand:
nearly 18 months old, she still nurses sometimes every 45 minutes –
including between the wee hours of 3 and 6am. Weirdest of all — are
you ready for this? — I sleep with Perla. To many people, especially
those with the cakewalk kids, I am setting Perla up for disaster: she
will be clingy and unable to comfort herself for years to come.
Despite having perfect children themselves, never having dealt with
fussy babies personally, they know this to be true about my child.
Now, I had heard that you would get unsolicited advice once you had
children, but I never believed that perfect strangers would have that
much gumption to outright order me around. I tend to mind my own
beeswax, yet it’s true: people you have just encountered — not even
properly met and introduced to — will tell you precisely how you
should be raising your child, even though you are well into adulthood
and possibly even older and better educated than the person
questioning your parenting skills. Because after all, my child is
demonstrably fussy while they have a perfect baby: so, they are right.
I have taken to countering unasked for advice with some of my own:
You know if you didn’t overpluck your eyebrows, your beady little eyes
would look bigger.
If I were you, I’d wear a size larger. Really. It’ll help.
Lady, shut your pie hole.
Additionally, it is possible that your own family — possibly even
your partner — will disagree with something about the way you are
raising your kid, relaying their perceived horrors of the child
continuing to sleep with you until she’s a teenager, or screaming
“Want boooobie!!” during the denouement at the opera.
Happy surprises and life affirming joy happen on a regular basis, too.
Until having a baby, I had lead a happy and fortunate life — yet
actual life affirming joy is something, in retrospect, that I cannot
say I experienced. Sure, I would often have a great day, a splendid
meal, an awe-inspiring canoe trip. But never something that made me
say, “Alright then, this is what life is all about.”
Having a child — again, after never, ever, in a million years wanting
one — has brought joy and true love to my life. My heart has been
warmed; I have been won over by a drooly, almond-eyed pixie. (And this
next part, imagine me whispering because it is a super secret: I love
Perla more than I love creating art — I could give it all up for her
if I had to. I could never do that for a boyfriend.)
Which is why I’m amazed that there is child abuse, that there is war,
that there is downright awful evilness in the world. Most world
leaders are parents — why are they such rotten jerks? You would think
they would strive to make the world a better place for their children,
rather than bombing, buying and selling it to a lowest bidder or best
buddy.
Those silly little feel-good bumpersticker aphorisms about change
beginning with you, or imaging world peace, or it being easier to be
happy than sad…since having Perla, I truly do believe all that
stuff. (You can imagine me whispering that part, too, if it’s easier
to swallow.) So, I’m going to leave you with some unsolicited advice,
in the words of Uncle Dave and Ted O’Reilly:
Be good to each other out there; and think nice thoughts.