Make an appointment with yourself

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Here is the opening page of The Steal Like An Artist Journal painted by Heather Champ.

I wanted to start the journal with Mary Oliver’s quote because I felt that it summed up the whole project. It’s taken from her On Being interview:

I think we’re creative all day long. We have to have an appointment, to have that work out on the page, because the creative part of us gets tired of waiting, or just gets tired. And it’s helped a lot of students, young poets, doing that — to have that meeting with that part of oneself…

The quote took on greater meaning for me recently when I came across these words from James Hollis:

“We each have an appointment with ourselves, though most of us never show up for it.”

The way I show up for myself, the way I discover who I really am, is to make an appointment every day to show up to the page. If I show up to the page, I show up to myself.

A mixtape for someone who doesn’t know you

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Here’s a cassette tape I used to keep in my Honda in college. Probably tells you a lot about me.

I got to thinking about it after watching the “Hillbilly Shakespeare” episode of Ken Burns’ documentary about country music on PBS.

Hank Williams, man. Those songs! Here’s what Bob Dylan wrote about him in Chronicles:

I became aware that in Hank’s recorded songs were the archetype rules of poetic songwriting. The architectural forms are like marble pillars and they had to be there. Even his words – all of the syllables are divided up so they make perfect mathematical sense. You can learn a lot about the structure of songwriting by listening to his records.

On the flip side, you could say the same about Ramones songs. They’re like little math equations. (Dee Dee shouting, “One! Two! Three! Four!”)

Back to the tape: Kate Bingaman-Burt made a few drawings of it back in 2010 for her “Other People’s Music” project:

And those drawings inspired this exercise in The Steal Like An Artist Journal:

Make an appointment with the page

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtweA9JHYqe/

PS. The “make an appointment with the page” line is a nod to the Mary Oliver quote that opens the journal.

The opening page of *The Steal Like An Artist Journal*, painted by Heather Champ

Journal talk at Book Passage

Friday, March 4, 2016

Video of a talk I gave last October at Book Passage in Corte Madera, while touring The Steal Like An Artist Journal. (I didn’t remember they were filming! I gave three talks that day on completely opposite ends of San Francisco — this was the third.) It’s the same as the talk I filmed at BookPeople (which has all the slides) but there’s a Q&A in this one that starts around the half-hour mark, if you want to skip straight there.