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Month: July 2010

Painting the Pups at Marmalade Skies

July 30, 2010 • • 10 Comments
Phoebe and Joey get Lichtenstein-ified

Well, look at that. We made us some art.

Last Friday, R and I took a painting class for adults at Marmalade Skies here in Austin. The class is called Pinot Picasso and it’s geared toward people who have never painted before. People like R and me. Actually, I have painted a few houses and I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t think it’s the same thing. At all. For one thing, this was fun.

The instructor was great, letting us explore and helping us out of holes all while talking about Roy Lichtenstein and his technique as well as general painting technique. We started with photographs—everyone else did people but she let us try dogs, which was new for her. In the end, much to our surprise, R and I had a couple of cool looking paintings of 2 of our favorite people (though I’ll need to go back and do one of Simon some time before he gets jealous).

What amazed me was how quickly the time went. How lost we both were in what we were doing. The instructor said, “We’re closing in 15 minutes,” and I looked around saw that it was dark outside and I had a nearly finished painting and an empty bottle of TopoChico in front of me.

I love making things, and even more, I love the act of making them. Most of what I make comes out in the form of pixels or food, but it was a thrill to make something I can hold and hold on to as I don’t do enough of that.

It’s the most fun I’ve had going out on a Friday night since I can remember, and I couldn’t wait to get home and show the dogs who weren’t interested once they realized they couldn’t eat the paintings.

The Pinot Picasso classes at Marmalade Skies at 183 and Anderson Mill in northwest Austin are held every Friday from 7-9:30, and each week they teach a different style of painting. We’ll be going back.

[saveagrey]

I’m Interviewed over at Lonestarters

July 29, 2010 • • 2 Comments

Most Wednesdays, Matthew over at Lonestarters posts an interview with a different Austin blogger. He recently asked me to respond to some questions and today, you can read my responses. The questions were really interesting and got me thinking about this whole blogging thing I’ve been doing these past few years as well as the history of Coyote Mercury—how I started and how it’s changed—as well as about writing in general. Go read it and while you’re there have a look around. Matthew is new to Austin and Lonestarters is the ongoing tale of his adventures of discovery within this wonderful town and it’s good stuff all around. Go say hi (or howdy).

Summer School

July 27, 2010 • • 3 Comments

Three o’clock in the afternoon,
central Texas summer day,
over a hundred degrees out.
I know there will be no birds,
nothing but grackles and vultures.
I still go out, and I’m not surprised.
Only grackles seem to like this heat.
The other birds hold still like
knots in the trees, silent waiting for dusk,
trying to keep their colors from melting
into the brown grass and faded leaves.
Overhead a few vultures soar on
steady outstretched wings,
folding sky and letting it move
around and over them as they ride
thermals up to more temperate
atmospheric zones. Meanwhile,
the grackles and I enjoy the heat
until the other birds begin to stir
and it’s time for me to go home.

Muir Woods National Monument

July 22, 2010 • • 4 Comments

These photos were taken last week at Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County, California, a short drive north of San Francisco. Muir Woods is part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area. You can click on the images to enlarge and view at a higher resolution.

Muir Woods is an old growth redwood forest. It feels like a church or a library or a little bit of both. At least until the tour buses arrive.

The coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the tallest and among the oldest of living things.

The tallest trees at Muir come to around 250 feet, and the oldest ones are around 1200 years old.

The tallest and oldest trees at Muir Woods are relatively short and young for coastal redwoods which used to cover two million acres of coastal California and Oregon.

Most of that is gone now.

Alcatraz

July 16, 2010 • • 6 Comments
Alcatraz
Welcome to Alcatraz
Western Gull
Western Gull Chick
Alcatraz Officers' Club
A Cell
A Window in the Dining Hall
From the Exercise Yard
Guardhouse and Sally Port
The Cell Block
Western Gull

—

(click any image to enlarge for higher resolution)

U.S. Highways

July 9, 2010 • • 4 Comments

 

We read lines and studied rest stop signs to
learn the languages that govern highways.

Electric rivers flowed outward from cities
in red trails along the eastern highways.

We lived on the salty French fry grease and
fast food feasts of American highways.

We waited through summer road construction,
rebuilding and slowing northern highways.

In the mountains, we squinted through the dark
studying switchbacks to discern highways.

Green shadows crept across the road through
endless rolling tree-lined southern highways.

We avoided the rest stop stares of owls
and meth addicts on nocturnal highways.

In the desert night, lightning played with stars,
and we saw God on the western highways.

The engine downshifted, slow to grip the
road; tires clung like goats to mountain highways.

At night in desert motel rooms we laughed
and followed love down unspoken highways.

Elsewhere on the Web

July 7, 2010 • • Leave a comment

Yesterday what with celebrating Joey’s birthday and all, I forgot to link to a handful of stones. My poem “Highway 73 to Port Arthur” is up over there, though I submitted it untitled and that’s how it appears. It’s an attempt to describe the scene along highway 73 in southeast Texas after the devastation of Hurricane Ike, which came only 3 years after Hurricane Rita did a number on the region.

In other cool news, two of my poems are included in Austin-based Virgogray Press’s latest chapbook anthology: America Remembered. The poems, which first appeared here at Coyote Mercury, are “Trickle Down Hope” and “Deeper into Texas.” The former was a response to a Read Write Poem prompt. In fact, I think it’s the first prompt I did over at RWP. The latter was also a response to an RWP prompt, though parts of it where taken from a draft of an older poem. I originally called it “It’s Like a Whole Other Country.” You can order copies of America Remembered here.

Happy Birthday, Big Joe

July 6, 2010 • • 6 Comments

Joey’s birthday was last week. He’s 8. We got him in August 2006 and we almost lost him in 2007 when his dog food turned out to be poisonous. But he’s doing great these days. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s the boss of Phoebe and maybe Simon, though Simon is sharp and best left alone.

We learn a lot from our dogs and Joey is a constant reminder to stay optimistic. He is the most optimistic dog I’ve ever known. There is not a single dark thought in his head. No matter what, he knows with absolute certainty that his food bowl will be filled twice a day, and that makes him very happy, especially a half hour before mealtimes when he likes to demonstrate what he’s capable of by battling the biggest toy he can find.

It usually ends in defeat for the toy and sometimes, he likes to pose with his prey just like hunters in the woods like to pose with their kills.

Back in August 2006, we almost didn’t get him. At the time, we already had 2 dogs and didn’t know if we could handle a third. Turns out we could. So happy birthday, big guy, may your couch always be comfy, your bowl always full, and the squirrels plentiful, fat and slow.

Phoebe hopes so too, though the camera might be more interesting.

[saveagrey]