"What do you think of her poetry?" I said.
He gave me an inscrutable look. "It reminds me of a plant growing sideways."
"Is that good or bad?" I said.
"That depends on how you feel about a plant growing sideways," he said.
A Special Thanksgiving Message from Nancy Robinson
It was bound to happen sooner or later: someone mistook my blog for an advice column. "Julia" from "Paris" (not her real name or geographic location) just emailed me and said "Nancy, you're so clever and interesting, can you suggest a recipe for a unique and exciting dish I can take to a Thanksgiving potluck supper?"
Usually when invited to potlucks, clever-and-interesting me waits until the last minute and runs to a 24-hour grocery store to buy a couple of tubs of doughnut holes (one plain, one sugared). But I have a favorite potluck item I make on very special occasions, such as when I'm snowed in and the potluck is occurring in the hallway outside my door and I happen to have all the ingredients on hand.
PEAR BUNNIES
Take one canned pear half and use as the bunny body. Place the bunny body on a fresh, ruffled lettuce leaf. Use the following for features:
- Nose: a maraschino cherry
- Eyes: pomegranate seeds
- Cotton tail: a large blob of mayonnaise
- Ears: uncooked, unshelled whole green beans
- Bunny trailings: raisins
- Other bunny emissions: the juice from the canned pears
- Garnish with baby carrots, cheese cubes, smoked oysters, teeny jars of caviar, expensive crackers, theatre tickets and glasses of champagne.
Assembly time per bunny: 30 minutes
Enjoy!
The World Situation is Desperate as Usual
I was wandering around my neighborhood with my sketchbook last weekend and suddenly felt very tired. I went into a restaurant and ordered a cup of coffee. The waiter returned with two cups on a tray, one for me and one for a man in a cowboy hat who was sitting at a nearby table. I stirred cream in my coffee and took a sip. The cowboy waved to the waiter and said, "My coffee is cold."
The waiter retrieved the cowboy's cup of coffee. "Sorry, sir. I'll get you another."
The cowboy gestured in my direction. "Her coffee is cold too. "
"My coffee is fine," I said to the waiter.
"He brought yours at the same time as mine," the cowboy said. "It must be cold."
"It's fine," I said to the cowboy.
The waiter walked away and into the kitchen. The cowboy said to me, " I suppose you think I'm a pain in the ass, sending back my coffee like that."
"No, I don't think you're a pain in the ass," I said. And I meant it. I didn't think he was a pain in the ass. I opened my sketchbook and drew a picture of the salt shaker next to my coffee cup.
The man watched me for a moment and said, "'This neighborhood has a lot of artists."
"Yes it does," I said.
"You an artist?" he said.
"Yes," I said.
"Do you make a living at it?" he said.
"I wouldn't call it a living, but yes I make money from my art," I said.
The waiter returned with a fresh cup of coffee and set it down in front of the cowboy.
The cowboy took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. "It's still cold."
"I'm sorry, sir, but that's as hot as the coffee gets here," the waiter said. "Would you like me to get you something else?"
"No," the cowboy said. "I'll drink it anyway."
The waiter walked away.
The cowboy gazed at me with a bleak expression and said, "Why does this always happen to me?"
"I don't know," I said. And I meant it. I didn't know why it always happened to him.
Modern Art
During last Monday's snowstorm I went shopping for art supplies. As I trudged to the art store, I saw a poet I know walking down the street. "Hey Nancy, what are you painting today?" he called out. "A picture of myself in a snowstorm," I said. "How are you going to keep the snow from melting?" he said.
Good question.
The Weather Report
The beautiful men were out today. They were cleaning the streets and riding the trains. They were bustling through skyways and playing guitars and drinking coffee and wearing shoes and writing novels and handing out leaflets and sitting on benches and eating hamburgers and driving cars and dancing down Hennepin and reading books and waiting on tables and sporting fedoras and working in offices and whistling tunelessly and smoking cigarettes and flirting with women and getting arrested and hailing cabs and climbing barricades and walking through art museums and shopping in gift shops and starring in movies and talking on cellphones and frequenting bars. They were everywhere doing everything today, the beautiful men.
Yes indeed...it was a VERY beautiful day today.
A Persistent Quirk, oil on masonite, diptych, 34" x 31" x 1/2"
How to Die Happy
For a few moments yesterday I thought that if I'd painted Window I by George Tooker I could have died happy.
But then I remembered that dying happy was never one of my goals, so I went back to painting my own paintings instead of one painting by George Tooker.