Saturday, June 29, 2013

Our house

Finally, after many years, I'm living in the home of my dreams.


My wife, being an artist, has decorated our rooms with warmth and whimsy ...


A stoneware image of the kid ...


And Chicken George, who guards our front door.


Our family history grins at us from our stairs.


I love impressionistic art, like this ...


... and this, which is actually a part of the set for OF MICE AND MEN.


Being writers, we do not own a television set, unless you want to consider this pillow on our bed ..


Ok, ok, I lied. I keep a 7 inch TV hidden in my sock drawer, and when my wife is away I send the cat out of the room, turn out all the lights, and watch "Are You Being Served?"

I hope you're happy now. You know all my secrets.

j






Friday, June 28, 2013

PAINTING THE RAIN

My wife's book is scheduled to be available in the Kindle version on Amazon within the next five days.

This publishing business has certainly been an interesting experience for the both of us. PAINTING THE RAIN started as a play we co-authored. Later she decided to "flesh out" the story (adding 100,000 words ...). not knowing the finished work would go thru five editors - including myself, and result in a necessary Facebook website (J.E. Ocean), opening both a post office box and a separate bank account, and much correspondence, of course, with Amazon,. The past few days has been involved with graphic artists simply to create the book cover ... and the first reviewer has been requested.

I ... think I'm gonna stick with plays. I write, put it on a disc, send the work to somebody and they send money back. I like the simple life.

j

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The Kid

Today a casual acquaintance commented on my blog from yesterday, pointing out first that my style of placing sentences one only occasionally following another was "artsy."

Not knowing that he had already garnered umbrage, he then postulated the theory that, since her Mother and I are both ... unique, our daughter must most certainly take after (shall we say) more normal (and obviously) distant members of our families.

It is with a degree of righteous indigestion that I must point out that this individual does not know me at all; he does not know my wife, the kid, certainly nothing of our family relationships, nor any true appreciation of what is perceived by us as "normal."

And so, with only a token amount of heavy breathing, I will do somewhat to set the record straight.

In regard to the writing "style" of the last blog, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I wrote in the correct form - that is to say in a manner acceptable to most schools where grammatically flatulent sentence structure is encouraged. When I hit "Publish," the blogger mucked it up. I didn't look at it until today, and I wouldn't change it now unless someone gave me cookies.

In regard to Art, my wife is the true artist, and I'm an acceptable craftsman. Together if we can imagine something, we can build it. M y philosophy has always been, "if it's not fun, don't do it." This does not make me a libertine. Rather, my mindset is on the sweet moments in life, rather than the sour. Further, as you know, I write and direct plays. Convincing actors to do things utterly humiliating is always a great reliever of stress.

In regard to daughter, she has been one of the abiding loves of my life for years, and I can honestly say she's one of my best friends.

If  I might take credit for anything, it would be in encouraging her to be whatever she wants to be.


And "normal"? OF COURSE she's normal. If you ran into her on the street, you'd hardly notice anything out of the ordinary.



Okay, the beard, maybe. And the sword. But other than THAT ...

j

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

OF MICE AND MEN (No, not THAT one - the OTHER one.)

     Sorry, it's been awhile since our last chat.

     I'm excited. A play I've been working on for years is nearing completion. It's THE TEAPOT COLLECTOR, and I've so enjoyed pouring my soul into it that I never actually expected it to reach a conclusion. But it is a-l-m-o-s-t there. Now I can't wait to see it finished  ...

(Aren't writers strange ducks?)

     My wife's first novel, PAINTING THE RAIN, is set to be released by Amazon on Kindle sometime this month. I have had reactions falling all over each other ...

     (1. NOW she can keep me in the style to which I might wish to be imagined)

     (2. The book is lifted from a play we co-authored. In the novel the dashing leading man -
coincidentally named Jack Petersen - is KILLED OFF by the author on page 2.)

     (3. Our daughter is getting married. The wedding is going to cost more than my first house.)

     (4. We might be able to travel to those strange mythological lands we've read about in weighty
tomes - like England. I have this abiding love for Brit wit, and, although I am comfortable with
American, French, German, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, the English language remains a
challenge. My only solace is in the fact that the English don't seem to have any more luck with
it than I do. )

     I leave you with two photographs - because I am inclined to do that. The first is aforementioned daughter, The second is Chicken George, created by my wife, and guarding one corner of the living room. In case you are confused, Daughter is the one with dark hair.





















j