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Rejoice, the blog is there again! I put Paul van Ostaijen here to show you that creating a blog in Moveble Type the software is as prodigious an accomplishment as creating print in actual Movable Type. I am old enough to know, we still had a print shop in art school, I did quite a bit of printing. I don't have much left of that, unfortunately. A postcard, but that was a cliché, not type. And I don't even have that one in the original colours anymore, just some samples on which I experimented with different colours. My Irish friend in England still has one he says, I hope he'll scan it for me one of these days, I'll blog it if he does. Anyway, Michiel is exhausted and I am grateful. Good thing Movable Type the software doesn't give you lead poisoning. 

I had a great day, it was really necessary.

Such a comforting idea that the time wasting habit of watching bad TV can be such an inspiration.

This is the uplifting story I promised you the other day. You can tell it to your relatives under the Christmas tree if you want. It is about my neighbour Marilyn. And about my dear father-in-law. And a lady in The Hague. My neighbour Marilyn maintains a website for her father Jan Kiewiet, who is a painter, and who immigrated to North America in 1953. A little over a week ago, she received an email through this website, sent by a lady in The Hague. The lady in The Hague owned a painting (a pastel rather, to be precise) by a Jan Kiewiet, and she was wondering whether the Jan Kiewiet whose website she found was the same Jan Kiewiet. The style looked very different, but then again the painting was very old, 1942. Marilyn had the answer, the painting was not her father's, but her grandfather's, and she was of course delighted to hear from somebody who owned one of his works. It gets better. The lady in The Hague had owned the painting for fourty years, but was now ready to part with it, and wanted to return it to the family, how sweet is that? The next day however, there suddenly were doubts, because friends of the lady in The Hague had tried to convince her to have the painting evaluated. Some people have just seen a few too many episodes of the Antiques Roadshow. Fortunately the day after that, the lady in The Hague had made up her own mind, and decided that she was going to go through with it. Fourty years ago she had gotten the painting as a present, she never paid for it, and she didn't want make money off it now. And that's where the dear father-in-law comes in. Willem drove to The Hague, climbed two flights of stairs with all of his heart problems (oh my), had coffee and cookies, and took the painting home. And now he is going to find a way to have it shipped to Canada. Marilyn feels like her grandfather is sending her a Christmas present from the grave!

Look what I found, Walter Trier's successor! After Trier's death in 1951 Horst Lemke illustrated Erich Kästner's books. I've said it before, research is the best part of illustrating. I'm doing something literary again, you'll see. Oh and it was my little radio moment again tonight. You can download the podcast if you want. I explain the whole Steven Harper uproar, so it's maybe even worth it. And I tell an uplifting story. One I will also publish on my blog, but not before I have the imagery. Do I sound mysterious?

And a Las Vegas song!

My own dear husband of twenty-five years is sending me stupid quizzes. On this one, apparently, one is required to reply "yes" to everything. Or else, no long term relationship. The two of us must be the exception to the rule.

____ Are you clear about how much appreciation your partner needs you to show, and do you keep working to show it even if you don’t understand why he or she needs it so much?
____ Do you defer to your partner’s “housework help” criteria by doing more even though you think you already do more than your fair share?
____ Do you “stifle” yourself by not saying what you feel like saying because you think it might hurt your partner’s feelings?
____ Do you acknowledge and try to live up to your partner’s ideas about personal hygiene practices even though they are not the same as yours and even seem silly?
____ Do you try to dress in ways that please your partner even though you would sooner wear something else?
____ Do you try to live up to your partner’s definition of punctuality?
____ Are you willing to talk on your partner’s terms by listening as long as he or she wants and talking about what he or she wants to talk about, even if it requires you to draw on your entire store of energy, attention, and ability to mask boredom?
____ Do you do things (such as shopping, watching sports, yard work) just because your partner loves doing them and enjoys them more when you do them with her or him?
____ Do you avoid correcting your partner even when you easily and rightly could?
____ Do you pay attention to being a good sleeping partner by sacrificing the sheets, not rolling over because you might wake your partner, turning off the light or television even when you would sooner leave them on, and trying to go to bed and get up in synch with your partner?
____ Do you know what makes your partner laugh, try to cheer him or her up when you can, and laugh at your partner’s jokes even when you’ve heard them many times before?
____ Are you cautious with your comments and jokes even though you think your partner is oversensitive on some issues? (The AT&T rule of marital humor: Is your joke Appropriate, Timely, and Tasteful—by your partner’s standards, not yours?)
____ Have you asked about your partner’s sexual preferences and turn-offs (not assumed them), and do you try to comply with them?
____ Do you “lie” well to your partner by complimenting cooking or projects that you really consider a disaster?
____ Do you think your partner would eagerly marry you again?

Of course we don't go to something as vulgar as the Santa Claus parade. We watched it from the opera, during intermission. A sad affair in drooling rain, even a WalMart float. Brrr. Whole families in sleeping bags, waiting for the parade since God only knows what hour this morning. Who wouldn't prefer the opera. Or rather, it was the ballet. When I say opera, I mean the building, although the building is called the Four Seasons centre. It gets more complicated, the ballet really was a play. Chekhov turned into ballet. Quite wonderful, really, especially my friend Michele in the pit. But there is one thing that keeps bugging me time after time in that beautiful opera. Why oh why is the costume and set design never ever at the same level as the dancers and the musicians? Or the singers, in case of actual opera. Maybe I am weird, being a visual artist, but I experience those aspects as intense as the music and the acting/singing/dancing. And once again today, they weren't nearly up there together.

I grabbed this little work of art away from Piffin, to scan it before she could take it to class. If the teacher decides to put it on display, we won't have it back for a long time. What you see is utterly charming simplicity, very rare in art school students. Speaking of myself, of course. I always envied students who could do that, I always went about things in an incomprehensibly complicated way. Often my finished products had nothing to do with the assignment anymore. The assignment here was to find a recognizable everyday wooden object, and carve it.

I am doing something with this painting, and as you can see I am not the first to do so. And since otherwise some sweet but ignorant soul is going to ask, yes, the bottom one is Picasso. And ladies and gentlemen, it is official, I am a 5K runner, I finished all the podcasts, congratulate me! I am going to do the 5 to 10K ones too, but I promised Michiel I would wait until his injury is healed. Until then I'll just run 5K every other day. 5K feels easy peasy, I am sure I can do a lot more. Takes up much time though. But it's nice, especially all this supportive attention. My dog walking friends in the park see me sweating, and almost cheer me. And neighbours see me, and go, oh I should do that too! Even Michiel's physiotherapist is proud of me, and he doesn't even know me. Michiel's injury, you ask?