Hey lah hey! hello ah....

[hester_prynne]

Greetings from Hester Prynne.
I come to you with scarlet letters pinned on my shirt, two of them in fact, yep a big F and a U right above me breastisies......
Heh.
Not really.

How are you?
Tell me, and make it long.
You see, I don't know how I am so maybe I could get some ideas from you.
I get up, I go to work, I come home. I do the chores.
I eat something, then I get all settled and ready to do what I want to do for awhile. Like, get out my big chief tablet and a pen, ready to write.
And then....
that's it.
I wake up at four am on the couch, stumble around, put out the candles, and sourly go to bed. Another missed inspiration dammit.
Then,
I get up, I go to work........blah blah blah.

Weekends? What do I do on weekends?
I hide from everything and everyone of course! Don't you?

How are you!!!!!! Really! I need to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
H

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Hester:

Since this is a public letter, I'll tell you what I've been doing but omit the most grievous indecencies and perversions.

BUT, aside from that, my life is Art and more Art.

My wife teaches Algebra at seven in the morning, which I may have mentioned, and I get up every morning at five to make her breakfast and coffee and see her off.

Then I use the rest of the day to make art. I sell watercolors and other paintings occasionally, and also occasionally get an illustration job-- the last paying one was illustrating an edition of Frankenstein and producing the design for a poster for a reading curriculum ( including FRANKENSTEIN) at a local college. Among other things I received a fifty dollar gift card to Starbucks, a place whose door I wouldn't consider darkening. But the woman who's in charge of the reading program, meant well.

I'm used to getting paid for art jobs in barter. I got a pound of tea, a dozen roses and a raincoat last year for various jobs. But here in Southern California it rarely rains.

Most importantly, compensation or not, I draw all day every day. Since I got a cancer reprieve unlike our poor Molly Ivins ( who was just short of a year older than I am and very much of my generation), I intend to use all my remaining time doing what I do best.

I heard yesterday they had to close the schools in the Midwest because it was thirty degrees below zero. It was a mild cloudless day here and got up to about seventy-two. Another day in Paradise as they used to say in the days of W.C. Fields and Mae West.

I've been working on a new series of writers' portraits, as well as some prints-- lithographs and etchings, aided and abetted by my computer at times.

And here's wishing you are getting plenty of gigs and using that golden voice to everyone's best advantage.

I was thinking of you just yesterday when I was listening to one of my collection of Joshua Redman's early nineties jazz albums.

That man can blow.

With affectionate best wishes, I am( sometimes)


Zlatko

[hester_prynne]

Nice to hear from you Zlatko, I enjoyed reading your post immensely. I get so lost in the wail of my current rather blase` routine I lose perspective, and you gave me some. You sound happy and as if you are doing what you like to do. You sound like you are where I hope to be sometime soon....

Funny you mention Molly Ivins. I was so sad to hear of her death, and I miss her columns already...The Daily Astorian here always ran them. In fact in today's paper the publisher mentioned running into someone downtown who asked him who he will replace her column with...who could possibly fill that spot. .....she told it like it was....a rarebird....

I have been on occasion lately, doing some singing with a local 4 piece jazz group, doing some nice new tunes....one I really dig called Everything but you....Bob Dorough does a nice version of it...

You know the state of our country really gets me down in general. It's as if I got burnt out on all of it a few months ago, like I ran out of the will to fight what feels like an inevitable, ignorant, all-powerful oppression. I find myself going to great lengths to just stay out of it, and under the radar.
I miss my happier go luckier self.

Thanks for reaching back Zlatko...
H

[mnaz]

tryin' to get thru winter, in general, these days..

really nice to hear from you, hes...

that will help.


But you're right. It just seems to get tougher.. The people I used to argue with earnestly, as if it meant the future-- they just slowly wear me down...

[Zlatko Waterman]

Jazz is so magnificent-- the greatest contribution this country has made to world art-- along with the movies and comic books.

But jazz permeates everything and is supreme. It's a black art-- mojo I mean, and black folks telling the truth, like Molly.

As much as I'm a lover of American graphic art-- if I could choose to be anything ( at this stage I can't choose "to be" anything except what I am) I probably would want to be a jazz pianist.

You could lean on my piano with a warm brandy in your hand and "sing me back home."

Best of news and blues to you. m'dear,


--Z

[Anonymous-one]

Sleep , eat , commute , work ... Repeat
I'm routinely , routining ( not a word , i know )





In an another life perhaps.

[e_dog]

I've been working on a new series of writers' portraits, as well as some prints-- lithographs and etchings, aided and abetted by my computer at times.

pardon my ignorance of artist technique, but Zlatko how's that possible? computer etchings, lithography?

[judih]

good to hear from you hest and i read with pleasure how others are doing.
i'd rather not talk about myself, and this is how i'm currently living my life

i started a process of self-actualization and then life got in the way. how quickly i forget that without art and expression, i melt away into a gathering pool of neurosis.
yet, on the outside, all is fine. i'm rather organized (which is no small feat).
i'm getting better at doing my job and i often wonder why i felt it was such an important thing in the general scheme of things.

We're all replaceable and that, alone, gives strength to stay a fraction more detached and able to serve.

my kids are well. my life-partner is strong. i am alive.
can't wait for spring - i'm coasting in neutral till i wake up and paint nonsense as i long to do.

[Andeh]

Night. Night is where it starts. I hear French music, alternative music, and jazz blaring from a gray box with a lit screen. I attempt slumber at midnite. I fall asleep around 2 or 4. Insomnia never fails. Stories are edited at night. 7, or 8 times. I wonder when I am done if whomever reads it will like it, or "get" it. Who else has traveled the same roads? Will I ever know?

Daylight. Whichever day it. is. Odd jobs. Odd jobs that may or may not pay money. Moving stuff around behind little theater stages. Adult student program. Parttime. Seems like fulltime. I am at least 5 or so years older than most other students at my college. This involves a lot of sitting alone reading books in a student lounge and waving at people. And a lot of sneering and sulking in a chair in a class of creative writing or politics around younger students quite a bit. And this phrase oft thrown upon me: "26? My god, you do not look 26!"

Mountains are my home. This involves a lot of concern over what they or the roads or weather conditions look like. Are the mountains covered in snow, are they brown, or blue today? Are the roads iced over? We don't get pizza delivery in the mountains. It's the South so I leave the g's off the ends of words, marvel when someone else sounds more Southern or less, and why an amazing amount of people from Brooklyn tend to migrate here.

Up here some things tend to happen. The moon comes out during the day. The wind eventually howls outside of a cabin. I drink iced tea and ponder and occasionally try the task o' getting published. My cat looks bemused at me. Jazz pours out of the gray box again. A few road trips will occur in between these days, where there are no Walmarts and the streams can be drunk from. And I go to bluegrass shows. It was either that or Babtist church, the two choices you are given, if you move here from the city.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear e-dog:

I use the computer to "groom" certain illustrations-- i.e. restore some flattened areas, lighten or darken slightly, as opposed to creating the whole image on the computer. I make the image with traditional media, then "groom" it.

When the drawing or painting is finished, it doesn't show any computer touches at all.

--Z

Dear Anon-one:

I love that posterized image of the early Bill Evans from the cover of the complete Riverside recordings. Bill Evans is just about my favorite jazz pianist of all time. I'm listening to him as I write this.

Thanks for posting.


--Z

[firsty]

hey hes

it's snowing
and ice

i'm becoming an international star in my own imagination
and a doctor

do you want to know something?
the earth is a microbe within the brain of an enormous bully
and he has a headache
it's only a matter of time before he realizes the source of his trouble
and rips out the tumor

i'm signing up for the army

writing 3 books

camped out at the cvs

shoveling the sidewalk

standing on the fax machine
holding a knife

yeah yeah

hey hey, good to see ya

[Traveller13]

Hello Hester.

To be honest I no longer hide on week-ends. I don't see anyone during the week so on week-ends the zombie lurks out of his grave groaning "EEEEeeEEeEEErRRrr" until good-willed bystanders play music with him to shut him up.

I finished lessons and exams. I am now a professional student.

I'm doing research on tuberculosis modellling.

I greatly neglected my e-life for 5 months, and some people who were once good online friends now refuse to write back to me.

I feel... different. Permanently different, moving out of something and into something else, all the time.

I'm doing some work on my dreams. I managed to snap out of my body a couple of times, but what happened afterwards was too confusing so I'll leave that field of exploration for later.

I'd like to do my phd in the UK next year, to remember what British culture looks like.
Besides, finding a phd in France is so damn complicated, the country is so disorganised. Hundreds of brains must be wasted every year.


Speaking of the weather, it's like an experimental jazz concert in the sky round my way. 2 weeks ago it was snowing. The week after that people were walking around in their t-shirts. This week it's passive-agressive: one day of strong rain, one day with sunglasses.
Of course, all this was punctuated with wild outbursts of wind - 100kph for a couple of hours, then nothing. Happened last Wensday and Sunday.


Firsty, I get the international star thing too.
Not the doctor one though.

[Doreen Peri]

Hey hest!

I've been stuck in the house for several days. They still haven't plowed our street. It's solid ice out there. I never planned on living in the arctic.

I've been working and eating and drinking and generally making a mess. I'm cluttered and confused. When my surroundings aren't orderly, my mind is a mess. Snow and ice outside are part of my surroundings. When it gets cleaned up or melts and goes away, I'll be doing much better.

I work from home so not being able to get out of here for a couple hours a day is a real trip. I wake up. I go to work. I take a break and eat something. I go back to work. I take a break and work on something I want to work on (the art jam for instance, or the book... yeah, I'm STILL working on the book... sigh). Then I go back to work and take another break and go read a book or watch the weather report on TV. I'm going stir crazy. I miss the gym. Today I'm hoping the snow plow gets to our street. Otherwise, how long will I be here? Temperatures aren't expected to rise over freezing in at least a week. Now, I COULD try driving on top of it. Looks like others have but it's treacherous and scares me to death!

Not complaining. Just reporting. Can't much complain about winter being winter. It will be winter no matter what I say or do. I can always walk to 7-11.

Today I will order some business cards and some forms I designed and try out an online print service I discovered. If it works out, it will be very helpful for my work because it's reasonably priced and should be quick.

I'm also working on a Flash animation which has me puzzled. (It's a jigsaw puzzle coming together )

Later tonight, I'll work on the book and then maybe jam a little bit again. I'm really enjoying the portrait of love jam!

Well, gotta get going. Good hearing from you. Sounds like a lot of us are doing similar things. Work. Eat. Sleep. Work. Eat. Sleep. hehe

Let's have a party! We deserve a break! When are you coming to the east coast?

love,
d

[hester_prynne]

So cool to read all of your responses...so kind of you to remind me we all are captive to the cirque de survival....

I took an extra day off this week, for the hell of it. It has helped. I feel a vague sense of myself stirring and I still have another whole day off tommorrow. It's amazing how much I enjoy just staring at the walls or out the window. I have some awful nice daydreams in the old noggin. Lately, I crave daydreams.....
I hope that doesn't mean i'm depressed.

I sure love hearing from you all.
H

[stilltrucking]

Hester said:

we all are captive to the cirque de survival....

"they say I was a rebel till I reached the age of five
It was then that i got caught up in the struggle to survive"
peggy wilson
waitress/guitar picker

'waiting on the tables
waiting for the tables to turn"
Anne Romaine
folk singer