I was excited when my agent
informed me she’d landed us a plum assignment with Steinfeld’s Products.
Steinfeld’s had been manufacturing pickles, sauerkrauts and relishes for over a
century, and I was eager to work with them. Of course things seldom go as we might hope. Read about my assignment (here).
This might be the most
self-serving post I’ve written. First a confession: I’m really stupid when it
comes to math. Back in grade school I was already having trouble when the
government forced “New Math” on us so we could compete with the Russians who’d
just launched Sputnik, as if Russian children had anything to do with hurling a
satellite into space. Check out my philosophy of Math (here).
I’ve stopped watching the news at
dinnertime because it’s too disturbing. Mrs. Chatterbox and I have been
watching—please don’t judge us too harshly— Family Feud. A recent question
asked was : Aside from their cars, what do men value most? The #1 answer
was…their tools. Tools aren't my thing, but read what happened when I ventured into a hardware store (here).
Actually,
it’s more like the picture of the month since it took that long to complete
this painting. Hopefully, you’ve read my previous post so this
picture, which I call The Little Sultan, will
make sense. Check out the entire painting (here).
I wrote this post several years ago,
shortly after Mrs. Chatterbox and I returned from Turkey. I’ve spent the last
four weeks working on a painting based on this post. I’ll reveal my finished
canvas on Wednesday. Read about the inspiration for this painting (here).
Clever was once used to describe someone
who was brilliant, sharp and possessing quick intelligence, but lately it’s
come to imply shallowness and superficiality. It is a mystery how “clever”
managed to attain positive status in the first place, considering all Aesop did
to disparage the idea.Read about it (here).
Life had not treated Raju
kindly. He’d been sold as a baby fifty years ago and since then his life had
been a living hell. He’d been taunted, beaten, starved, forced to perform
tricks and had been reduced to eating scraps thrown at him by tourists. You
might have read about Raju recently. He’s become famous for doing something
remarkable, something extremely common in humans but never before witnessed in
an elephant. Read about it (here).
I was terrified long before the
theater lights dimmed. It was July of 1975 and Mrs. Chatterbox and I, living in
West Los Angeles, had come to see the movie Jaws. The theater was packed with enthusiastic movie-goers, here for 124
minutes of terror and gore. Read what happened (here).
When traditional medicine didn't help with my pain I turned to an ancient form of healing. Check it out (here).
My streak of bad luck at winning contests
started with, surprisingly, a win. It happened in the fourth grade when my
entire grade school was herded into the all-purpose room for the annual
end-of-the-year assembly. Read about it (here).
When Ken Orrett entered our college
classroom that first time I thought he looked like Santa Claus with a Bahamian
tan. Jovial and bursting with knowledge, he was here to teach art history, a
subject I knew very little about. He explained that, while he loved teaching art history, he was primarily an artist and had been
painting for nearly forty years. But he had a secret. Read about it (here).
I might not have survived owning a crumbling old house if it hadn't been for a special place with a magical hold over me. Read about it (here).
It looks conventional enough, a wealthy older man in a posh setting, an
expensive Japanese screen in the background and an antique leather chair
beneath him. He is easy in his own skin as he faces the sunset of his life, a
scarf around his throat and a jaunty handkerchief in the pocket of his coat. He
isn’t one to suffer fools easily but he appears friendly and probably has a
good sense of humor. Or does he? Check it out (here).
