Literary Safari

I’ve been keeping a morning journal on and off (mostly on) for the past twelve years. Inspired by Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, where she invites readers to start their days off by handwriting three pages of stream of consciousness, I’ve found these morning pages an ideal and meditative way to clear the clutter out of my mind.

On a recent visit to the East West Books near Union Square, the universe sent me a not-so-subtle reminder to make time again for my morning pages. Upstairs in the café, hanging on the wall right next to the table where I sat down with my iced red bush tea, was a framed dress entirely made up of morning pages!

Created by artist Caterina Bertolotto, the dress “Morning Pages” is part of a series Dresses of Transformation. Of the dress, Bertolotto says:

I have been practicing “The Artist Way” for over two years, and it has helped me incredibly to get to know myself, what’s important for me, and to be more creative. I love the morning pages. Since I have been writing them, I can collect all the ideas that come to me and no longer forget them. When I want to make art, I have plenty of ideas.

I’m reminded of Cameron’s second reason for suggesting morning pages as a practice for all types of artists. They act as a repository for our creative ideas, perhaps even those that we would otherwise discount if we were to write them down in the light of day (versus in the moments just after we awake) when our inner critiques are most alive and kicking.

Speaking of the creative unconscious, I’m reminded of Carl Jung’s Red Book, which I’ve been meaning to get a copy of.

Help preserve what’s left of the weirdness of New York. Submit a Twitter’ish length short (about 60 words or so) in response to the question:

What’s the strangest, craziest thing that you’ve ever seen or experienced in the city?

If you have a gem, it will be featured with a byline in a forthcoming guide book that my friends are writing. The book captures and introduces you to some of the city’s most unusual, outrageous, and subversive places and attractions.

Send your submissions to gonzotourismnyc [at] gmail.com.

In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron prescribes the “artist date” as an essential building block of the creative life. She describes it as:

a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, committed to nurturing one’s creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers. Doing your artist date, you are receiving–opening yourself to insight, inspiration, guidance.  [more here]

I used to go on these artist dates all the time, but in recent years, they have been few and far between. Imagine my delight this afternoon when I found myself actually stumbling into an unplanned one after a doctor’s appointment when I had a free 45 minutes at my disposal.

After discovering an amazing but not too sweet green tea flavored Japanese ice-cream called Kinako – it’s base is roasted soybean flour—at Cafe Zaiya, I found myself on 41st Street on one of my favorite blocks in New York City — Library Way. Between Park Ave. and Fifth Ave., the pavement is lined with bronze plaques displaying featuring quotations from literature and poetry. with quotes from great writers.

Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz following the yellow brick road, I followed some of my favorite quotes, crossed Fifth Avenue and climbed up the stairs of the imposing New York Public Library, guarded by its regal lions “Patience” and “Fortitude.”

First stop: the current exhibit [on view until August 1, 2009] of an original copy of a draft of the Declaration of Independence, handwritten by Thomas Jefferson: (more…)

This is a short one. I’m guest blogging at Marc Aronson’s School Library Journal blog, “Nonfiction Matters” today. Check out my post “Great Resources on Islam. and on the Experience of Being a Young Muslim in America” here.

Update: In his Democratic National Convention address, Barack Obama said, “All across America something is stirring.  What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me.  It’s been about you.” This line somehow reminded me of this painting. 

Down on the corner of Stone Street and Coenties Alley, not too far away from the New York Stock Exchange, I came across New York portrait artist Geoffrey Raymond and his acrylic painting of Barack Obama. “The Annotated Obama” is an impressionistic work that screams for public participation. Raymond has been standing next to it all week long, encouraging pedestrians to inscribe their thoughts about Obama and the presidential race on the canvas, using color-coded magic markers (Blue for Democrats; Red for Republicans; Black for Independents). At the end of the week (Sat., i.e. the end of the DNC). , the artist will close his current auction on eBay.

Passersby, including me, were curious and tentative when they were first approached, but quickly warmed up to the idea of placing their personal touch on the work of art. People who haven’t grown up in democracies–and there were some that I did see–always ask, “Do we have to put our names on it?” To which the artist answered “no.”

Right now, the handwriting is mostly in blue but comments are in many languages. (Raymond said that he thought Republicans didn’t feel it was appropriate to write, and expects that more of them will come forward when he unveils his portrait of McCain during the Republican Convention).

This is not the first annotated portrait Raymond has created. His piece on ex-Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne fetched $12,000 on the eBay bid. And, his annotated Eliot Spitzer got a good deal of attention as well. [check them out here]

So, what do we call this? Citizen artistry? Public art? Democratic Impressionism? Whatever it is, I like it. Made me feel a bit closer in my own city to the goings on in Denver this week.

It rained heavily this morning, but this portrait of Obama and Hillary by Jordan-born sidewalk artist Hani Shihada can still be found on Broadway and 109th Street.

Hani has been making public art in NYC since 1985. He can be found all over New York City from April to October. Part of the Italian tradition of madonnari, street painters who typically use charcoal, white chalk, and bits of roof tiles, he started his career in Perugia, Italy. His works last for this long because he makes his pastels himself and then, applies a thin film of acrylic to the finished work. Yet, like the Tibetan sand mandala, his works also eventually fade and vanish.

I’ve been enjoying walking by this particular work over the last several weeks. Though I didn’t get to see Hani work on the painting, it was interesting to watch people’s responses as Obama began to appear next to Hillary (she was there first), how they make sure to walk around the art, to not step on it. (Granted, this is the liberal, left-leaning Upper West Side!)

I checked in with Hani. If you want to catch him at work, he is currently creating an outdoor mural on 10th Avenue and 40th Street, from now through the 17th of August or thereabouts. (Incidentally, it was a commission he received from someone who had seen his Hilobama piece.)

Last night, inside the Manhattan Center on W. 34th Street, several thousand people received hugs from the 54 year old Mata Amritanandamayi, better known as Amma.

She began hugging strangers in her teens, first on the streets of her village in Kerala, India, then later in living rooms in Madison, Wis., and Dallas. Word spread about her message of unconditional love and, as many of her followers believe, the healing power of her embrace [see full story in yesterday's NYT]

I was there watching. She sat on a stage, the hugging mother guru running a marathon of embraces. Countless hours, countless whispers, countless smiles doled out to young and old, black and white and brown and yellow. Never tiring. As long as 12 hours, into the wee hours of the night.

At about 9:30, I, on the other hand, was tired and decided to go home. I still carry with me the hug that I recieved six years ago at Amritapuri, Amma’s ashram in the backwaters of Kerala. My mom and sister and I had traveled to India a year after my father’s death, carrying an urn full of his ashes with us. While on a relaxing backwater cruise in Kerala’s waterways, the boatmen had told us that we were just outside Amma’s ashram. How could we not go?

When we got off our houseboat, Mom somehow figured out a way for us to finagle our way into the front of a very long line. Oh no, we weren’t cutting. “We’re only passing through for an hour. It’s very important that we meet Amma,” she said to everyone who stood in her way, until one of the very kind volunteers came forward and led us to the stage.

Standing in a mad rush of people, my mom pushed my sister and me forward and pressed us into Amma’s chest. Leaning forward, she whispered conspiratorially to Amma, “Bless my girls. Find husbands for my two daughters. ” (more…)

If you’ve ever traveled to Boston, Baltimore, or Washington DC aboard the cheap Chinatown bus, you’ll want to check out yesterday’s NYT. “Dreams and Desperation on Forsyth Street” examines a small corner of Chinatown–Forsysth St. and East Broadway–the throbbing heart of the long-distance bus economy. The Chinatown bus depot is a “bubbling cauldron of ambition, creativity and competition — the New York immigrant experience boiled down to its essentials, ” writes Saki Knafo. And, now, it’s in danger of being shut down.

In the piece, Knafo sensitively portrayed the challenges and dreams of immigrants, shedding light on larger issues by simply focusing on one small city block. Her interview with a 43 year old ticket vendor Lin Ah-jioa especially stood out to me.

Ms. Lin works 13 out of 14 days and shares an apartment with her husband and daughter and four other people, including her uncle. In a narrow passageway with “grease-spattered walls” Knafo notices hundreds of tiny Chinese characters. These letters, it turns out, are poems that Ms. Lin’s uncle writes. Here’s one of those poems:

In the morning I go to the restaurant to work.
I come back to my bed in the evening.
My sweet dream has come true: I have turned into a ghost.

This image of a wall lined with calligraphy reminded me of Angel Island, the San Francisco island immigration station where hundreds of poems were carved into the walls by detained immigrant laborers from China from 1910 to 1940. These poems were discovered in 1970 and the site where they were recorded is a national historical landmark. [related article]

One example:

“I wish I could travel on a cloud far away, reunite with my wife and son. When the moonlight shines on me alone, the night seems even longer.”

Click on the image below to find out more about Angel Island poetry.

It’s snowing in NYC this morning. Big, fat, wet flakes that make the sky look as though somebody shook it fast and hard. This is my favorite kind of snow. Makes me want to open my mouth and catch the miniature white clouds; feel them melt on my tongue.

As I watched all the people pull out their umbrellas this morning, I was reminded of Jocko Weyland’s little essay in the New York Times “Urban Studies” column some months ago: The Mystery of the Umbrellas.

In his essay, Weyland, a newcomer to New York, aptly observes:

THE first time it happens, the neophyte will probably think it’s an aberration, maybe one oddball’s bizarre pathology. Then there will be another, and another, and it turns out everyone’s doing it. What a funny bunch, these New Yorkers.

Autumn has faded, the cold has descended, and then the first snowfall of the year arrives. The flakes start falling, and to the transplant from the snowy provinces, they will be a nostalgic reminder of home. Ah, the snow! So lovely, and what a hush and lulling contrast to the usual hustle and bustle.

Then the transplant sees that first person walking down the street nonchalantly holding an umbrella overhead … [read the complete essay]

As for me, I never carry an umbrella in the snow. Even if it’s coming down hard and strong, I’d rather get wet than keep it from turning my black coat into a polka dotted blanket.