I got the desk on May 2, 2009. (I’m able to be this precise because I wrote about acquiring it.) Shortly thereafter, our laptops were stolen, and for a while it put me off keeping the computer in such an obvious place. Besides, I felt like there was something maybe a little precious about ooh, I must be at my desk to commune with the muse.

But in restoring the desk area post-festivities, I started thinking it could also be precious in its more positive sense; dear, treasured. And that simply maintaining a physical space devoted to writing (even if it takes on other functions from time to time) is a way of claiming writing as a priority.

In writing about the desk here, I’m inspired by Terri Windling’s On Your Desk series, and also by the Science Friday Desktop Diaries — I love hearing Oliver Sacks describe his desk and what’s on it:

Oliver Sacks made me remember how nice it is to have objects on a desk that give your hands something to do while you stare into the middle distance:

Beach glass, smooth stones, petrified wood, tiny animals, a clay skull, an antique pillbox, a miniature pitcher, a yellow off-kilter heart with a bright red crab inside. I’ve had this assemblage for some time, but managed to disregard its tactile appeal for reasons that now escape me as I pause from typing to pick up each object in turn. And you can’t see it, but the pewter tray they all rest on has an engraved Raggedy Ann.

This bowl is full of ancestral objects:

The souvenir wallet from Atlantic City, plastic fan, beaded change purse, and silver compacts all belonged to the grandmother I never knew but whom I somewhat resemble, who died shortly after giving birth to my father. The daguerrotype is an unknown ancestress, and the contractor badge belonged to my great-grandfather. (I wish I knew more about the history of contractor badges. If you do, let me know.) The stoneware bowl is another family object.

And even though I do most of my writing on my laptop, pens are important:

They’re inside my favorite mug from when I was a small child. I was entranced by the colors and how they change depending on the light, the elephant that functions as the handle, and the panels, each of which illustrates a different fairytale. Behind the mug is a bottle I bought at an estate sale. It once contained Weber Waterproof Drawing Ink for the use of artists and draftsmen,  freely flowing and non corrosive as its lovely label attests. Now it holds the marbles my dad played with as a kid.

Here’s a closer look at elephant and bottle:

Below, my laptop in action. (You can’t tell, but the screen shows my latest project in Scrivener.) Behind it is Sarah Oleksyk‘s pen-and-ink drawing of characters from my Flytrap Circus stories. (Yes, I plan to write more of them.)

Above Sarah’s art hangs a piece called Carruaje de delirios by the Cuban artist Eduardo Guerra Hernandez. I bought it nearly ten years ago when I was fortunate enough to visit Cuba.

I’ve looked for more information about him for years, and just yesterday found this slideshow. (I’m not so much a fan of the musical accompaniment, but I like seeing all the work.)

Finally, here I am seated at the desk, courtesy of Photobooth. Behind me is the W4W Buzz poster from Dis Magazine:

The desk won’t stay like this, of course. The available surface will be filled with stacks of research books, cups of coffee, and — inevitably — the cat, whom I hope will refrain from predating the more fragile of the ancestral objects.

That’s my staging area as of 1/2/11. I’d love to see yours.

The artists are Eatcho and Jason Graham. I’m particularly impressed by how they blended their styles.

Now for a tiny nap, and then to start Day 2.0, the one where I write fiction and do not get sucked into the Internet.

This woman and her baby are in the midst of breaking open their tomb.

I took this one because I never expected to see such a dramatically rendered cauliflower.

“Vexed Man.” That’s seriously the title on the placard.

Venus reclining on a sea monster.

Detail from an extremely large vase. The description said it included life casts of spiders, which I think means that spiders were harmed in the making of the vase.

Detail from a fire screen. The bird is defending her young against the snake.

Abandoned Stuffed Animal, c. 2009.

And then after a while I was tired, so my friend Harry and I found a place to sit without any art in it.

“Known for her persistence and ability to embrace difficult characters, Lt. Cmmdr. Rebbeca Jordan used speed and pugnaciousness in leading her Smog Town troops in the Battle for Interstate 5 while still maintaining professional poise and a ready supply of head shots.”

• Latest entry in the sub-optimal feline storage series:



• I just bought this ring. It has a bug in it:

Joe Alterio’s genius project: robots and/or monsters, designed based on three words. Here is Kingbot, aka typing, music, defenestration:

Nigel-Bramsford-2.0, aka outgoing, Victorian, bicycle:

Tubble — hedgehog, rumbly, tricky:

You owe it to yourself to see the whole set.

The late eighties and early nineties were when I was first trying to grope my way into underground art & culture; going to Common Language Bookstore for Dykes to Watch Out For and Hothead Paisan, watching Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Animation at the Michigan Theater, braving the casual contempt of comics and record store clerks, putting in my first several hundred hours of hanging out in coffeeshops reading zines — and there’s something about this anthology that takes me back. The graphic design, the colors, the deliberately unpretty art style of many of the comics, the overall insider outsider sensibility.

When I read pieces like the ones in this anthology back then, I always used to worry that I wasn’t really getting it, that there were codes and in-jokes I’d never decipher. And yeah, I still feel a bit of that, the feeling that if only I’d listened to the right stuff, everything would make some terrific, unprecedented kind of sense. But now I’m a little less concerned with whether or not I qualify for membership in the secret club, and more pleased that at least we can all read the meeting minutes.

This is the one I was looking for –

doesn’t it look oddly like she has an iPod?

At first, I found myself oddly resistant to what I was seeing. Then I realized that in order to look at the ballet-related images, I had to overcome a century or so of kitsch overlay; banish the spinning ballerina on my childhood music box, in her tiny tulle tutu. Like listening to the original after hearing dozens of lackluster covers. After that mental readjustment, I fell right in.

Two surprises: first, the solidity and strength of many of the figures. My friend explained that the ideal of the super-thin ballerina came in later, with Ballanchine. Second: Forain. Even if I hadn’t taken art history, between dorm-room posters and the aforementioned balletic kitsch, I’d have seen a lot of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. But I’d somehow missed Forain.

His work is lovely, and also creepy — those abonnés in their ominous top hats. I was very glad to discover him. Too bad he was also “a great hater.”

Still, the exhibit is most definitely worth seeing. It’s up til May 11th, Portlanders.

In entirely unrelated news: via the magic of RSS feeds, there is yet another place to read these posts. As of yesterday, I’m signed up with Amazon Connect. I won’t be responding to comments there, though, so if you find me in the land of Amazonia, click back over here to let me know.

I’d always thought of it as being particular to writers, that quality of being an observer, and I’ve often found myself grateful for the distance it creates.

But I happened to catch, a couple weeks back, a theater professor from Northern Illinois University on NPR, talking about his reaction to that tragedy; how he began to conceptualize it as though it were theater. And I thought, oh. It’s not just writers.

What a paradox, though. One of the goals of art is to bring experiences closer, to remove the distance between the viewer, reader, listener and the experience being conveyed. And yet in order to create the art, we need the distance.

Anyway.

The cognitive dissonance starts when I walk into the Moscone Center on Saturday morning. Previously, I have only been to the Moscone Center when ALA’s in San Francisco, so I keep half-thinking that there’s a YALSA meeting I’m supposed to be at, or wondering why so many librarians are cosplaying.

Cosplay, cosplay, cosplay. There’s so much of it, and I’m feeling especially pop-culture-illiterate because there are so few characters I recognize. Someone, I think, should do a Non-CosPlayers Guide to Who The People At Cons Are Dressed Up As. You could even do it as a comic. Anyone?

I stare intently at one fellow in charcoal gray baggy jacket and pants, Bluetooth in his ear. He’s wearing latex gloves, and has several backup pairs hanging out of one pocket. As I’m pondering — is this yet another character I don’t know? does he maybe have OCD? — he walks past me and I see the sign on the back of his jacket, which reads, in big block letters, FACILITY STAFF. Oh. Yeah.

I get to our table, and can’t believe our luck: we are opposite Century Guild, and they have some amazing artwork: Heinrich Kley, Alphonse Mucha, several Gail Potocki paintings.

Eventually Terri informs me that the woman in the really cool dress IS Gail Potocki, and I gush at her briefly.

Buttons aren’t cosplay per se, but sometimes people wear so many of them that they present like armor. One guy has entirely covered his jacket with buttons in rigorously exact lines, and I wonder if anyone has stopped him and asked to read all of them. I also wonder, uncharitably, if anyone wearing a FREE HUGS AVAILABLE HERE t-shirt has ever been asked for one.

One other cosplay note: I’ve done a fair amount of flying lately, and in every airport, I’ve seen armed services personnel on their way home for leave or en route to deploy. So it’s deeply odd to see camouflage on civilians, even if the army they’re supposed to be in is not from this planet.

For a minute, I thought this was somebody’s costume, too: