On painting

In Stephen King's book On Writing he says that if you want to be a writer you need to "read a lot and write a lot"- he says that if you can't or won't take the time to do these two things then you can't expect to write well. I'd say that's true.

As someone who draws and paints (though not as much as they used to) I'd also say that the same applies to drawing and painting: you've got to sketch and paint and you've got to look at other painting, past and current, so you know what else is out there.

I always made pictures, but it wasn't until high school that I spent any time studying art history and even then, not a lot of time. Production dropped off a great deal after high school, for reasons that I didn't notice at the time.

Looking back I can see why. I spent too much time thinking about pictures- what would make the perfect picture, what would make a picture "timeless" and not "dated", Ayn Rand's theory of art (I became very nervous that the paintings I made would not meet that standard and were not good enough), and lastly, and probably most importantly, I'd lost my audience. In high school, I got a lot of support from the other kids and a lot of attention. If I drew a picture one night after school, within two days a lot of people would've seen it and said something.

I read Kristin Hersh say that music isn't meant to be performed in a closet, it needs to be heard and it has to go out into the world. After high school I'd still make paintings but they'd go straight to my closet, and then when my closet was full they'd go to my parents' attic.

After a while you don't want to paint. What's the point?

I've always made pictures for my own enjoyment. I like making them and I love looking at them afterward. But I have to admit, I enjoyed having other people look at them. I like the idea that they were out there, walking around, living a life of their own.

So lately I've been trying to get back into painting. Many times over the past few years I've re-started. First I do some sketches that come out horrible and I want to stop and watch TV instead. I keep going and the sketches get better. Then I do a watercolor that comes out really well and it goes into an oaktag folder along with other watercolors that I did and I have another vacation.

I know now I've got to make some brand new paintings, both watercolor and oil, with the intention of exhibiting them somewhere. I live in a town with a big art scene (which I know nothing about as of yet) and there are plenty of galleries. Plus there are thousands of things to do on the internet; I just need to be creative and think a little.

There's just one other problem. It's another of the main reasons that I don't make as many pictures. I'm discouraged by a lot of the art I do see.

My pictures have always been realistic- recognizable images, people and places made to look the way I want them to look. So many of the paintings I see in art books and magazines are just shapes and colors. Here's where I sound like an old lady writing to Miss Manners- "I must be hopelessly out-of-date, but is this the way things are done now?"

I know it isn't cool to make representational art. "It's boring. I've seen this already. It's already been done." is what certain people say. And I don't mind going against the current views on artwork but I have to say, it really is discouraging to look at what the art world is holding up as "real art" these days. I don't se how people can be impressed by, say, Jackson Pollack, or what's-his-name with the paintings that are just one blue square with a little white around the edge. When I read people praising that in art history books I can't believe it. They can't really be being genuine- how can they talk about it as if it is anything related to art? How are they impressed by it? Are they, really?

Sweet Ride: The Best of Belly

Sweet Ride: The Best of Belly (2005)

I read somewhere that Tanya Donelly considers Sweet Ride to be Belly's third and final album on account of all the B-sides, live tracks, alternate versions, and the inclusion of the unreleased track "Lilith".

I have to agree, and I think they did a good job choosing the songs. I like the fact that they used remixes of the hits and some of their best cover versions. There are a couple songs I would've liked to have seen included: "Sexy S" & "King" would've been nice. I also think they could've dumped "Super-connected". But overall it's as close to perfect as it was gonna get.

The sleeve design was hit & miss though I like the back cover a great deal.

Trompe Le Monde

Trompe Le Monde (1991)

Trompe Le Monde is the last Pixies album (so far); I like to think of it as the latest Pixies album.

As I've said before, I'll probably never listen to Doolittle again- I just know it too well, I've listened to it a million times. I've played TLM a million times too but if someone put a gun to my head and said I'd have to pick Pixies album and listen to it I'd think that was really wierd. Why would someone do that? But I'd pick Trompe. I think it has the most mystery to it.

And I love the sleeve design. Not the Pixies logo that they use on this record; what I really like is the eyeballs with the curtain- I think it's neat and the lettering is like an old horror movie poster- maybe a Vincent Price-Roger Corman "Poe Picture", as Stephen King calls them.

diVINYLS

diVINYLS (1990)

I can't believe it's been 20 years.

Summer had just started andf I was camping in New Hampshire with my dad's side of the family. I was the only kid so mid-afternoon I took off on a bike and rode around for 4 hours with diVINYLS in my walkman.

It's an awesome record and not long after I got it went out and found all their other albums. All were a mix of very good and very bad- Desperate (1983), What a Life! (1985), & Temperamental (1988)- but they were from the 80s so that explains it.

It was all new to me and I didn't realize till later that Divinyls songs were featured in a lot of the movies I had seen:

"Ring Me Up" was in 16 Candles.

The Legend of Billie Jean had two Divinyls songs: "Boys In Town" over the opening credits and "Heart Telegraph" during the beach scene towards the end.

"Back to the Wall" was in Nightmare on Elm Street 4-The Dream Child.

Anyway, diVINYLS is my favorite of their records- it's got "Make Out Alright", "If Love Was A Gun", and the best-"I Touch Myself".

Jaws 3-D

Jaws 3-D (1983)

I got to see Jaws 3-D at the movies and was very excited by the 3-D. I remember lifting the glasses up from time to time and looking at all the lines across the screen (That's what I remember, though it doesn't make sense- the screen should've looked like the pictures above; it probably did and I'm just remembering things wrong).

Anyway, people say Jaws 3-D is a shitty movie but I caught it on AMC not too long ago and it really isn't bad. The leads are fun and charming and actually very believable. You watch and you believe that that Dennis Quaid and Bess Armstrong work at Sea World and are in love. They're very good in this movie.

My Friday night, Saturday

Friday night (and all of Saturday) was so strange- I never would've thought this would happen or that it would happen this way. You'd think I was making it up or changing the facts around or leaving things out. I wish you were there.

I want to put it all here, at RJ Battles, but I can't yet. There are a lot of reasons, but mostly, because there's someone else involved, and also, it may not be over just yet.

But I am writing it all down. Every word and action is worth recording and someone reading it all 100 years now will find a lot in it.

"King Kong"

King Kong (2005) directed by Peter Jackson

A couple nights ago a friend invited me over to watch King Kong; he said it was one of his favorites and that he'd seen it a dozen times.

I'd only seen a few moments of the 1933 and 1976 versions but I knew the story and wasn't very interested in seeing the 2005 version. It just didn't seem like my kind of movie- all the special effects, they just don't interest me.

I think a good way to judge a movie is to look at it without the special effects. Are the story, characters, and dialogue good enough that they would stand up without the special effects. Would people still like Jurassic Park if there were never dinosaurs on screen? Not really.

The perfect example is Jaws. There aren't a lot of scenes featuring the shark and if someone went to the kitchen a few times and missed the shark it wouldn't matter. Jaws could've been done almost entirely as a play: scenes at the police station & town hall, the chief's house & the beach, above & below the deck on the Orca.

Jackson's King Kong wouldn't work as a play- the charcters and diologue are better suited to a slasher movie. More than half the actors are there just to be attcked by natives and eaten by giant bugs.

Still though, I was impressed by the Empire State Building scenes. I felt dizzy from views from the building and the airplanes. That was all very well done.

I have to admit, I nodded out during the scenes where the natives were attacking. I wasn't bored, just very tired.

Even though it was 187 minutes I'd like to watch it again and see everything. It's just too bad that the movie doesn't match up with its special effects.