Wednesday, June 3, 2009

hello long lost

We made it from winter into spring and are now inhaling muffleheads, mayflies, and/or midges that are living out their paltry lives right where our houses are...but it's a symptom of a healthy lake, so go ahead and high whine around, you damn insects...

The art museum opens its new Raphael Vinoly wing with modern and contemporary art, finally, this month. Seems an age since we've seen some of the old faves. And there is new work, too. Ben got a sneak peak the other day and said, "Who needs LeBron James? We have this!"

Does anyone have a cure for an addiction to coffee ice cream?
Does anyone have a cure for writer's block?

6 comments:

Erin O'Brien said...

gimme some o' that coffee ice cream!

Try a silly 100 things list. It's fun to write and always fun to read.

Meagan said...

Coffee ice cream cure: eat it until your sick. It will either cure you or be totally worth it. Writer's block cure: If I can't think of anything to write I write 3-5 pages of nonsense. Stuff like, "There was a frog sitting outside my house yesterday. You might expect that it was green, but actually it was a poison dart frog and responsible for several deaths. Assuming frogs can be responsible for anything. Take that Kermit."
Eventually embarrassment usually chases away the writers block.

Jennifer Sullivan said...

I haven't had coffee ice cream, but I will give it a try.

Writer's block-I have no idea. I'd like to think you force yourself to write, but that certainly doesn't work for poetry (for me). When I force myself to write, like the PAD thing, I produce awful work and then I feel bad about myself.

What sometimes helps me is if someone gives me a list of 7-10 words and tells me to use at least 5 of them in a poem.

Seriously though, post MFA writer's block really sucks.

Randall said...

Just keep writing and it will happen. As for coffee ice cream Im going out and get some. Why should you have all the fun....

mistersargent said...

I don't know if this will help with your writer's block, but your writing has had quite an impact on me. I just finished reading articles about Katherine Anne Porter and Geoff Dyer in the 20 April 2009 New Yorker. Both pieces got me to wondering about local writers in the places I've lived.

Yours was the very first name that popped into my head. I lived in Cleveland from '99-02, and there was a free local paper for which you wrote: the Free Times, I think. I remember a piece about a Guided By Voices concert . . . that was you, no? You mentioned Pollard's "man-breasts"? Rich, that.

Anyway, I remember thinking that you were really good at both expression and telling details/cases in point. I remember picking up that paper and thinking, "I hope that Sparks lady has something in this one."

Your non-fiction was so very good, buuuut, you're no longer doing interviews and reportage? I didn't know, till this evening, that you wrote poetry. Not gonna lie: don't get poetry. But good luck with it.

Amy said...

Hey thanks ya'll.

And thanks to you, Mistersargent. It's nice to be remembered...