"He was a one of one. Anything he’d seen, he could draw for you — like the logo of a defunct 1910s company or a piece of footwear."

"He was like a visual savant. It was weird. You would refer to something visual, and he’d go, 'Oh, yeah, I can sketch that up for you.'"

Said Ethan Coen, quoted in "J. Todd Anderson Has Died. The Coen Brothers May Be Lost Without Him. The storyboard artist produced scene-by-scene sketches that shaped films like “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski” and 'No Country for Old Men'" (NYT)(gift link, lots of drawings and photos).

Upticks.

The word "upticks" appears in the previous post — "the CDC data showed big upticks" — and I had that Mad Magazine idea of depicting it literally. Being a tad lazy, I told Grok, "draw 3 ticks who are happy and dancing — cartoon style."

I was appalled to see:

That's so not my vision. I corrected with severe specificity: "black and white line drawing only. not aimed at children. not cute. more anatomical accuracy."

You can see what I mean, can't you? Grok gave me this:

See? This is why we can't trust A.I. It's trying to follow instructions. Isn't it?

By the way, ticks are arachnids. They have 8 legs — and no arms — and no antennae... and no bones!

"Carson, 76, is best known for her translations of ancient Greek texts and for remixing those in a modern, playful voice."

"'Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse,' from 1998, turned a fragment of Greek poetry into a tale of a moody teenager’s destructive love affair, and 'Red Doc >,' from 2013, a sequel of sorts to 'Autobiography of Red,' concerned a road trip. 'Many toil in the interstices of genre,' Daisy Fried wrote in a 2013 review of 'Red Doc >' for The New York Times. 'Carson’s palatable, popular, sophisticated and who-cares approach may have done the most and best work in the last two decades to stop people worrying so much about what’s poetry and what’s not.'"

From "Canadian Poet Anne Carson Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature" (NYT)

"Her book jackets rarely feature an author photo.... She has rarely discussed her private life in interviews, although in an August 2024 essay in The London Review of Books she said that she had Parkinson’s disease and that her handwriting had 'disintegrated' as a result. 'I used to take pleasure in writing in notebooks, shelves of them, day after day, year after year,' Carson wrote: 'Now the upright strokes bend or break or go in all directions, vowels shrink to blobs, slant loses its smooth smart angle, it all looks embarrassing. I scrub out whole paragraphs in shame.'"

Informed that she had won the Nobel Prize, "All the poet would say was she was 'in Iceland,' where she was 'listening to the wind.'"

AND: There are some nice photos of her in this 2021 Interview magazine piece. From the interview (with the British artist Tacita Dean):

"The artist Edward Gorey (1925-2000) ornamented his correspondence with elaborate drawings."

"Each year, the Edward Gorey House on Cape Cod runs an all-ages envelope art contest. This year’s theme is 'The Utter Zoo.' You have until Dec. 1 to submit envelopes decorated accordingly. The website suggests 'a compilation of creatures, a bestiary, a compendium of the fictional, plausible, cranky, vengeful or just highly undomesticated.'... My favorite winners from last year are the ones from little children who seem deeply imaginative but not necessarily artistically gifted in the classic sense. A friend told me recently about taking a singing class with a guy who couldn’t hold a tune but who was so passionate that the teacher gave him a solo in the class’s final presentation. Of course his performance was the one the audience found the most stirring...."

Writes Melissa Kirsch, in "The Good List: 6 Things to Add Some Delight to Your Day" (NYT).

Click on that link for winners from last year. Lots of great stuff, mostly by the artistically gifted. As for singers who can't hold a tune but are powerfully passionate... reminds me of the early years of "American Idol." It's highly amusing... up to a point. And these days, what's the problem? All the singers are auto-tuned. 

"In an upstairs room in Capitol Hill, a dozen people settled into a circle of folding chairs — sketch pads in one hand, cocktails in the other..."

"... and watched a model in cheetah print lingerie and bunny-eared kink mask spread across a stretch of red satin. Then they got to work. They came to practice life drawing, but this wasn’t a traditional class held at an arts center or university. This was Kink N' Draw, held, for this session, at a bar called As You Are. The event is part of a proliferating practice around D.C. where people can shell out a few bucks to draw live, naked models at a bar.... 'This is a space for creativity, self-expression and appreciation of the human form in a way that is respectful, open and completely judgment-free,' announced 27-year-old showrunner and Kink N’ Draw founder Dominique Landinez...."

From "Sorry, pub trivia. Nude drawing might be the hippest new event at D.C. bars/The scantily clad events popping up across the city’s nightlife scene are more wholesome than you think" (WaPo).

1. I've spent hundreds of hours in life-drawing classes, so this seems quite normal to me, "but this wasn’t a traditional class." Oh, it sounds traditional enough. So you've got a few props — lingerie, masks. 

2. There are lots of photos at the link, but absolutely no nudity on view, not even in a drawing. We don't get to see any of the drawings. Perhaps that's because the drawings are bad — and not in a kooky amusing way. But I think it's because WaPo is protecting us readers from nudity... even as it sniffs at "a traditional class" and titillates us with the mere idea of "kink" — manifested in the form of a bunny. 

3. Titillation from a bunny?

"The people who want AI to be off-limits are right that technology changes how you think and write."

"I am old enough to have done creative writing in longhand and then on a typewriter, before I got my first computer. Something was lost in each transition, because the slowness and forced rewriting of the old methods improved the text in certain ways. But they also raised the cost (in time and effort) of making changes, and ultimately most writers decided the new ways were worth it.... There will be artisanal holdouts who reject all those possibilities, but I doubt they’ll be a majority. So for the foreseeable future, the rest of us will be figuring out where to draw the lines, knowing that some lines will be crossed by others, if not erased entirely. The best we can hope for is that in the struggle to draw and redraw them, we’ll learn where they belong...."

Writes Megan McArdle, in "I told the internet I use AI. Boy, was it mad. Artificial intelligence helps you work harder, instead of just outsourcing your brain" (WaPo).

ADDED: I write so I can see what I think. I asked Grok, "Has anyone ever said, verbatim, 'I write so I can see what I think.'" The answer, I'm told, is no, but there's a similar expression, examined in the Quote Investigator article, "Quote Origin: I Do Not Know What I Think Until I Read What I’m Writing."

Notably, Flannery O'Connor wrote, in 1948: "What you say about the novel, Rinehart, advances, etc. sounds very good to me, but I must tell you how I work. I don’t have my novel outlined and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again." So there was this mythic "old lady" who seems to have been regarded as a fool. In 1927, E. M. Forster wrote of an old lady who said, "How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?"

Why am I writing this as a postscript to McArdle's discussion of A.I.? It's because it explains something about how I've been using A.I.

Why is the Wall Street Journal's big story on Trump behind a paywall?

Are they trying to destroy him or not?

Here's the link if you want to try to use it. I found a way last night, but it's not working for me now. I was going to quote the part about Donald Trump supposedly drawing the figure of a woman with 2 big curves for breasts and the scribbled signature "Donald" as the pubic hair.

Is that in the article or just the detritus of a bad dream? I don't know. There's that paywall. If you want to take down Trump — save the world from the marker-wielding fiend — you've got to show what you've got to everyone, not exploit the occasion for subscriptions.

And if I remember correctly from last night — or was it a dream? — you didn't even show us the drawing. I want to see this famous historical drawing that brought down a President. Has there ever been a drawing like this? 

Here's what I prompted Grok: "Imagine a contest where you have to do a drawing that is supposedly by another American President that would reveal something this bad about him. What would be some entries in the contest? That is, what would it have been possible but terrible for Abe Lincoln to have sketched, etc." I'm sure you could think of funnier ideas that Grok described.

But let's see if I can get Grok to draw that picture Trump supposedly drew but the WSJ did publish (perhaps out of fear of getting "Rathergated"). Oh, no: "Unfortunately I can't generate that kind of image."

ADDED: If you were trying to play up to someone you knew was a pedophile, why would you emphasize a woman's pubic hair? It seems more like a way to call out and needle a pedophile. Try that interpretation, Trumpsters, if the letter turns out to be real.

"There’s a book that my therapist recommended. I didn’t read it, but I did read the first chapter on this practice called morning pages."

"It’s meant to get you connected with your creativity. I’ll sit down and free associate, either with writing or with doodles. I might sketch shapes that relate to an interior or a table. It was pushed on me by my therapist, to wake up, make tea and create a soft, uninterrupted moment for myself."

From "How the Owner of a Nightclub and a Roller Rink Spends His Sundays/Varun Kataria owns various nightlife venues in Bushwick, Brooklyn. His Sundays usually begin with creative projects and end with his dog, Mushroom" (NYT)(I made that a free-access link because the photographs draw you into a particular world).

1. "Morning pages" — similar to but different from what I'm doing here on this blog. Before this blog, I'd use a sketchbook and a fountain pen. There were more doodles, fewer quotes. 

2. "I didn’t read it... pushed on me by my therapist" — he's getting "connected with [his] creativity" and disconnected from that therapist. 

3. "Mushroom" — name your dog Mushroom, and those people who just have to ask "What's his name?" — or "What's his name or her name (I don't want to misgender him... or her)?" — will forever be inquiring whether it refers to psychedelic mushrooms. Good conversation starter actually... probably.

"These cryptic smears are nevertheless meaningless, nor do I know how they got there.... Mess, not mystery."

From "The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey" (Paris Review/no pay wall).

A nice selection of Gorey drawings — on envelopes — from what will be a book, out in February, "From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey" (commission earned).

Have you ever drawn on envelopes? I have... enclosing fan letters when I was a teenager... long ago.

"He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism."

"He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. The politician I'm referring to is Mitch McConnell.... He’s been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? The fact that he hasn’t always kissed Trump’s backside has infuriated the former furor-in-chief. Despite his opposition to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — admitting publicly that Trump 'provoked' the attack on the U.S. Capitol — McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021...."

Writes Robert Reich, in "Goodbye, Mitch: You were the worst/But the Republicans might find someone even worse to replace you" (Substack).

I'm not agreeing with this, just calling attention to it for its harsh language and for Reich's drawing of Mitch McConnell, which is quite nice.

And then there's "furor-in-chief." Did he mean Führer-in-chief? "Führer," which means leader, is strongly associated with Hitler. "Furor" refers to an emotional state, not to a person. It means "fury, rage, madness, anger, mania" (OED). Maybe saying Trump was the "furor-in-chief" is like calling Aguirre the "Wrath of God"...

"The four children found alive after surviving for 40 days in a Colombian jungle were told by their mother to leave the site of a plane crash and seek help..."

"... their father said. According to the oldest child, their mother lived for about four days after surviving the impact of the crash that left the group stranded in the wilderness.... Fidencio Valencia, an uncle, told reporters... that the siblings initially sustained themselves on cassava flour known as fariña, which was being transported aboard the aircraft.... 'When the plane crashed, they took out a fariña, and with that, they survived.... After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds.'... [R]escuer Henry Guerrero said the children also found one of 100 emergency supply kits scattered by the military — as well as wild fruits and plants in the jungle."

From "Mother told kids to leave Colombia plane crash site for help, family says" (WaPo).

Here's a tweet from Colombia’s military showing a drawing from the 2 oldest children. We're told: "This drawing represents the hope of an entire country":

"Andy Dick, Anchor-Head McGillicuddy, and Shakespeare"/"Beatnik Three Stooges"/"They are all Bob Dylan"....

Answers to a question I'd never — in all these years — thought of asking: "Who are the three men on the 'Planet Waves' album cover?"

Here are 9 TikTokk videos I found to while away your next 10 minutes. Let me know what you like best.

1. The lizard's table manners.

2. The chef disapproves.

3.  A drawing of chaos and order.

4. Sidewalk chalk art.

5. Broadway Barbara can help you get a good night's sleep.

6. Nurse Melissa is back with her Nancy Pelosi lip-synching.

7. Infuse other exercise classes with religion the way yoga classes use Hinduism.

8. "I want to be the Bob Woodward of 'Family Feud' clips. I want to lead a ragtag group of journalists into the Steve Harvey reaction underworld, like that movie 'Spotlight.'"

9. Evel Knieval and all his friends.

"Question: When will we put Dr. Seuss on the twenty?"

That's a question I wrote in this page of the sketchbook I drew when I was in Paris. (It was some time in the 1990s. I forget when. I blogged this page in 2004, the first year of this blog, after St. Exupéry's plane was found in the Mediterranean Sea, 60 years after he crashed and died.)

I loved that France had put an artist on its money, and I felt a little sad that we Americans don't put our artists first. So I must feel elated that we've done it at last. We've put an artist on our money:

I got my wish, so I'm just going to be happy about an artist on the money, not argue about the particular artist chosen. 

When I wrote in my sketchbook, I picked the name Dr. Seuss not only because he wrote accessible words and drew charming drawings, which is what St. Exupéry did. I picked it because I thought virtually all Americans could get behind the choice of Dr. Seuss. We all know him and have enjoyed his work. Who can't like him? But 18 years have passed, and... is Dr. Seuss cancelled? He's somewhere on the road to cancellation.

So I couldn't get my precise wish.

When you wish upon a Star-Bellied Sneetch/Makes no difference who you reach/Something like your heart desires/Will come to you....

So I got my wish imprecisely. I got Maya Angelou! 

***

Like a songbird, her legs are invisible as she flies, arms outstretched/Darting into the slots of vending machines/Across America.

"I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to read her mind. Maybe she was just bored coming out of her jail cell. I know her sister sometimes also sketches in court. Maybe the Maxwell family just likes to sketch in their free time."

Said Jane Rosenberg, the courtroom artist who found herself on the receiving end of drawing by Ghislaine Maxwell, quoted in "'My life is weird': the court artist who drew Ghislaine Maxwell drawing her back" (The Guardian). 

She and another artist, Liz Williams, were sketching Maxwell one day during a pre-trial motion when they noticed that Maxwell, armed with a pen or pencil, was returning the favor. 

It made me think of the phrase, "When you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you." 

There's no gazing like the gazing required for drawing. 

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you." 

When you draw the monster, the monster draws you.

The artist puts a light spin on it — maybe it was just boredom or she likes to draw. I don't think so. I think Maxwell is speaking silently, saying: You're looking at me? I'm looking at you. You see evil in me? I see it in you.

imagine doing a court illustration of ghislaine maxwell while she stares directly at you and draws you right back pic.twitter.com/zGQBSkSbzl

— ¬(abcdentminded) (@abcdentminded) December 2, 2021

"By the time I’m done with a sketch, it is as if I’m a new man. This is partly because drawing has taught me to make the most of my mistakes."

"I work in ink, from life. It is as if every line is already out of place from the start. It is oddly liberating, as I have learned to forgive myself. I draw not for the result but for the process, and fortunately I’ve been doing it long enough that the results are pleasing. I love capturing the three-dimensional image on the two-dimensional page. If Wordsworth’s heart leapt up when he beheld a rainbow in the sky, mine jumps when I convincingly foreshorten the handle of a frying pan, and it rises off the page."

From "The Big Impact of a Small Hobby/Drawing mundane things like my dish rack had helped me survive job loss. Could it be helping me through the coronavirus?" by John Donohue (NYT).

You can see a lot of his drawings at this Google image search: here.

And here's a New Yorker article of his from 2016: "The Drawing Pad as a Fatherhood Survival Tool."

"The archive’s drawings, which date to between 1905 and 1920, range from self-portraits to pictures of other people and quick sketches..."

"One is an intimate portrayal of Kafka’s mother, who wears her hair in a high bun and dons small, oval-shaped spectacles. Another ink drawing titled Drinker shows an irate-looking man slumped in front of a glass of wine.... Among the newly digitized papers is a scathing, 47-page letter to [his father] Herman; never delivered, it describes Kafka as a 'timid child' who cannot have been 'particularly difficult to manage.... I cannot believe that a kindly word, a quiet taking by the hand, a friendly look, could not have got me to do anything that was wanted of me.'"

Smithsonian reports.

View the archive here. Here's "Drinker":

"If you didn’t know Ms. Anglund’s stories, you probably knew her drawings of children: Their faces were blank orbs with just two wide-set dots for eyes."

"They became ubiquitous, appearing on Hallmark cards, dolls and ceramics, as Anglund merchandise secured a prominent niche in the collectibles market... Ms. Anglund’s illustrations were particularly distinctive. While the adults in her drawings all displayed fully formed and expressive facial features, the children had none at all, save for those dots for eyes. Ms. Anglund, who used her own children as models, said she had never made a conscious decision to omit her young characters’ mouths and noses. But over time, she said, she realized that unformed, untouched faces better evoked the innocence of childhood. 'I think perhaps I am trying to get down to the essence of a child,' she said, 'not drawing just a particular, realistic child, but instead I think I’m trying to capture the "feeling" of all children, of childhood itself, perhaps.'"

 From "Joan Walsh Anglund, 95, Dies; Her Children’s Books Touched Millions/Her first in a prolific career, 'A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You,' was a phenomenon. And her illustrations capturing childhood became a cottage industry" (NYT). 

Anglund wrote the line "A bird doesn’t sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song" — which Maya Angelou, author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” took to quoting.

"It's March 2021, and I'm looking back on this comments thread about drawings from Van Gogh Museum. It's so weird to see the one commenter breaking in..."

"... with the emergency news that Peter Jennings has died and I must get right on it," I write in the comments to a post I put in 2005. 

We were talking about a post that had my ink drawings of Van Gogh and of a museum guard yelling at a baby who'd sat down on the ledge that is there to keep people from standing to close to the paintings, and of the baby muttering "Bummer, bummer, bummer." 

I thought that was pretty amusing, but the commenter was all: "Ann, if you're still up, Peter Jennings' death was just announced 15 mins ago. I have a link in my blog, but so far, only lgf have the story. Since you're doing Glenn's blog this week, it seems you're going to be doing extra-duty on the obit watch -- they'll start to pour any second."

The notion that I'm here to hop to it when there's breaking news... it was absurd then and it's absurd now. Everyone knew Peter Jennings was dying. It was one of those death-watch situations. And yet it seemed important to some people to burst in and be first! when the dying man is actually dead. Why?!

"The Louvre museum in Paris said Friday it has put nearly half a million items from its collection online for the public to visit free of charge."

"As part of a major revamp of its online presence, the world's most-visited museum has created a new database of 482,000 items at collections."  

Yahoo reports.  

Here's the site.  

Here's the first thing I looked for:

I wanted to see that because I have a strong memory of drawing it (in person) and only remembered my drawing (blogged before, here): 

ADDED: Oh, no, wait. It's this one — an older, nakeder Voltaire. This is the "portrait absolument fidèle" that I drew: