What you're looking at here is a place for my occasional casual writing.
My relationship with writing is long and complicated. You can see my properly published articles and essays here. At this point, there are seasons where I feel very "writer-y" and those that I don't. So expect long pauses in updates; satisfaction certainly not guaranteed.
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I noticed the first obscenity around Independence Day.
Then they popped up like poison mushrooms after the now infamous Butler rally — the one where the gunman missed his shot.
I’m speaking here of Trump flags and signs. There are about a half dozen now in my neighborhood — a neighborhood which I carefully chose for having a more liberal demographic. (I checked the voting data when we were house hunting.) But it’s still Western Pennsylvania, albeit a borough of Pittsburgh. Here it is politically a dark violet, still enough red in the mix to muddy the blue.
Last year I would occasionally see houses decked out in “Let’s Go Brandon” and other assorted bullshit. I would see pickup trucks plastered with stickers decrying “Joe and the Ho.” (I’m serious.) MAGA people would sometimes hold a shouty gathering on highway overpasses with their garbage signs and flags. So I knew it was around here. Just not in my immediate surroundings.
When it was just one house with the MAGA flag along my daily route, I would routinely flip the bird at it when I drove by. *
But often I would just drive down another street. It hits me the same way a swastika would; I’d rather not get riled up about it while I’m dropping off books at the library or wherever. Then the Butler rally and the RNC and the approach of Election Day made it so that there are now no unsullied streets I can drive down.
Now let’s put that in perspective: I’m talking about one MAGA sign or flag on a half dozen houses, out of a couple hundred houses.
But there are also no houses with Harris/Walz signs on my flight path**. And my house doesn’t have a sign or a flag either, even though my vote has never been in question.
This is because I am also very aware that the MAGAs have a lot of guns. (Republicans are twice as likely to own guns or live in a household that does, compared with Democrats.)
The national media made a lot made of the gun culture here after the Trump rally shooting. Some of it lacked context — the articles about the shooter talked about his local shooting club, but never mentioned the equally local Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
But the fact remains that 40 percent of Pennsylvania resident have guns, a rate twice as high as my native New York. It’s one of the things I like least about living here: Gun safes at Costco. Billboards advertising gun shows — not things I saw regularly in Greenwich Village.
To be sure, there were definitely Republicans in the Manhattan building I lived in for a decade. It was a relic of affordability and thus a naturally occurring retirement community — the most common destination for those who move out is a cemetery.
So there were lots of seniors, and thus a vocal few Fox aficionados. I heard plenty of lobby discourse concerning “the electrical college”and Hillary hatred. (There were no lobby gatherings for the 2020 election for obvious reasons.) These people were loud and dumb and annoying —but manifestly not scary. They were red pinpricks In a safely deep blue area.
This is also not my first time living in a purple state: I lived in New Hampshire during the 2002 midterms and the run up to the 2004 election, a time when the state was way less swingy than it is now. Democrats were (and remain) completely outnumbered by Republicans and Independents combined. We had lawn signs for various Democratic candidates that would sometimes be yanked out overnight. That was creepy and infuriating, but I was never frightened.
And that is the difference. Post January 6th. Post Kyle Rittenhouse. Post the president being immune from criminal prosecution. Post uncountable mass shootings, so many of which have been perpetrated by right wing crazies.
Putting out liberal political signs feels a lot like putting out a target.
I see appealing Kamala t-shirts and bumper stickers — I especially loved the “Trump is a Scab” t shirt. I consider them —but then I also think about how it will expose myself and my family to not just the vitriol, but the not guaranteed but not hypothetical risk of violence. As the flag on one neighbor’s home warns “the rules have changed.” Another flag says something about retribution. It’s not really subtext.
So I make my small donations as I can. And I do not buy the merch. I do not ask for lawn signs.
I am aware that in this way I am handing MAGA a small victory. They’ve effectively chilled some of my political speech, which would unequivocally condemn them, which would clearly show others that the Democratic perspective isn’t fringe or peculiar. I am intimidated.
In this way, I am no longer a full American. My civil liberty of political speech hasn’t been legally curtailed -yet - but my perception that it is unsafe means it might as well be.
*I have actually pulled a muscle in the middle finger of my right hand, make of that what you will!
**Coincidentally, right after I hit publish, our next door neighbors put out a Harris Walz sign. They are good neighbors and it does make me feel much better.
***And then, after house on the other side of my neighbors parried with a big 🤮🤮 sign, I decided to put up on my own Harris Walz sign, because I didn’t want my neighbor to stand alone. About a week in and no one has shot out my windows yet.
Pittsburgh seems to be a place that people come from, rather than move to. The famous children of the ‘Burgh grew up and went elsewhere, often to New York. Andy Warhol, Billy Porter, Mary Cassat, and far less luminary but still names you know …I just read Bari Weiss and Mark Cuban are from here.
I did that in reverse. After absorbing so many Yinzers, The City sends one of her own the other way across the PA turnpike.
Since we moved here I cannot count how many times I’ve been asked by locals “why Pittsburgh?” It’s not that like the question comes from any particular animus towards this city, there isn’t much of “this fucking place” sentiment, not that I have been able to sense, in any event.
Nor is it about any particular sentiment about New York.
I picked up on way more…discontent… or let’s call it “second city” feelings in all their complexity when I lived in Boston, and my partner confirms it was the same when he lived in Philly. Living in the long shadow of “The City” is different. This is hundreds of miles away from New York and it just feels irrelevant.
What I have sensed is a great deal of pride, and a feeling that Pittsburgh is a place apart — special, yes, but also hard to categorize.
Is this the Northeast, the Midwest, Appalachia? Yes.
There are parts of Pittsburgh that could easily be in Brooklyn, or Philly, or Chicago, or San Francisco. There are even aspects to life here that remind me of LA — in that it’s a network of many neighborhoods that can have almost nothing to do with one another, neighborhoods could appear to be close geographically, but are logistically and psychologically difficult to get to. There are many, many parts of Pittsburgh that are just suburb and could be anywhere.
One thing it’s not, though, is a place that has “destination” stamped on it in the national imagination.
When I was getting ready to move here, a good friend told me that she thought the city’s slogan should be: Pittsburgh: You’d Be Surprised. I think that’s the overwhelming emotion. When I talk to people from back home or elsewhere who have been here, they usually tell me how nice they think it is — they’re still obviously processing their surprise.
Maybe I am too.
I just finished a wholesale scanning/editing operation of the work I’ve done this year, which has been mostly paintings.
Despite a year full of illness and elder care, I made twelve paintings that felt good enough to put out there, and mostly I think that’s pretty good — she wrote defiantly! (Of course I also spend the requisite amount of time feeling like shit about my productivity, but not today Satan.)
There is some digital work that I still need to upload, and that’s up next. Then there is also the sketchbooks and the art journals due for the scanner, which have some collage in there, and some textile work that I likely won’t share.
But the freestanding work which is meant for the world was my first priority and those are now all up on the “work”/home page of this website, and are the first pieces you’ll see in each category. No one is planning a tickertape parade to fete me for this accomplishment, so I thought I’d share a few random thoughts here as a victory lap.
Here is a painting that will be thematically on point for the rest of what I want to say:
Anyone reading this is most likely aware of the way that AI has rocked the illustration and art world. I’m obviously not pro machines making art. I came up in journalism, mostly magazine journalism and I’d really rather not see another industry I’m in go the way of the dinos.
One thing that surprised me when I got more into visual art was how essential Photoshop and its ilk are to the endeavor. Even if you never create work digitally, you are going to share it digitally. There is no scanner or camera yet invented that can perfectly capture work without requiring at least a little tweaking, often much more than that. Not knowing how to edit an image is tying at least one hand behind your back.
Back when I was renting a bench in a jewelry studio, the lovely owner hosted some art school students, and she was asked what skill she’s leaned on the most. She said Photoshop. This really took me aback at the time — after all, when you’re making jewelry you’re literally dealing with precious metals and fire — but she was right. Subsequently I invested quite a bit of time learning Photoshop (which translates to similar programs as well) and I’ve yet to regret that.
Anywho, I hadn’t done a big serious scan and edit of trad work in over a year — and while Photoshop has had plenty of AI under the hood for a while, damned if the new stuff didn’t make the job much faster and easier!
Ten of the twelve pieces were too large to scan in one go, so I was dealing with multiple files for an image, before I even got to color correction and so forth. In typical Photoshop fashion, the functions I found the most useful were buried in weird menus, so I didn’t find them immediately. I can state with certainty that without AI, I’d be at least a workweek away from typing this very sentence.
I guess something like this has been a standard part of technology’s apologia for a while — that the machines will handle the tedious parts of work, leaving the good stuff to the humans. I think we’ve seen that even when it’s true, it’s not necessarily a social good. I don’t have a well developed grand point to make here, just that like with everything, the issue of AI and art is more complex than any simple slogan can express.
*Original title was “Me Myself and AI” but I figured I wasn’t the first one to think of that. Since there’s a podcast by that name I tweaked my title, lest there be confusion in the marketplace.
A few words on Finn, my young Husky. Who is throwing us a curve ball this summer!
This is a compilation of margin sketches I’ve made of Finn in my writing journal. Writing only possible because of the napping.
The most casually online dog fan probably knows these things about Huskies. They are extremely beautiful, they are highly energetic sled dogs, they are big talkers, and they shed their winter undercoat in the Spring.
This is called a blow out.
It is a truly impressive spectacle. Photos are aplenty via Google, but you can easily picture it: a Husky regally sitting in a blizzard of hair, almost as if dogs made for snow just went ahead and created their own.
Other double coat breeds blow out too, but I suspect the Husky version is the most dramatic because Huskies know nothing of subtlety.
Finn takes his breed characteristics very seriously.
I am about to talk some shit about him, so let me preface it with this praise: He’s smart, strategic, and bestows his love and affection extravagantly. He makes us laugh every single day. He is perhaps the most joyous creature I have ever known. Unlike our other (single coat) dog Maggie, who is more suspicious and withholds judgement, Finn greets every day with a big silly smile, and treats all excursions as extraordinary adventures.
Plus look at that punim.
Finn. The dog, the myth, the legend.
We are also enjoying the big Beer book in the shot, because for a dog Finn is unnaturally interested in beer.
Now here’s the other side. Those Husky tantrums you see online are real. Finn is very particular and extremely dramatic when his often invisible boundaries are crossed. Deep offense will be taken. He will sulk. He will lecture. He will bury his face in a pillow and scream in frustration. (This last was something he seems to have grown out of, but he may decide to bring it back. I take nothing for granted!)
Relevant to my topic today, Finn does not permit brushing. Zero tolerance! This is an issue during the Spring Fur Apocalypse; those photos you see of Huskies surrounded by fur are what happens after brushing. Absent brushing his undercoat just clumps up and turns into loose tufts that fly off of him constantly, like a dog dandelion.
We adopted him in a January, and I didn’t think the blowout would be a big deal. What’s a few days of extra vacuuming?
Once it started, I was quickly searching “Husky blow out how long?” And the answer was weeks, probably more convenient to measure in months. And the solution was brushing, preferably outside. A challenge in a Manhattan apartment, for sure, and also see Finn’s aforementioned strict no brushing policy.
After trying all sorts of things — bribes of peanut butter mostly, getting a few brush swipes in on walks when he was distracted by a squirrel — and dealing with the emotional breakdown that inevitably followed when he realized what was happening—his and mine—I gave up and found a groomer.
Finn wasn’t any happier about his brush out (“He is opposed” said the groomer’s receptionist, dryly informing me they would need a bit more time with him.) But at least he didn’t temporarily hate me and I wasn’t having a migraine.
When we moved, I found a groomer who miraculously had the touch with Huskies. Finn fell in love with Melissa, couldn’t wait to see her, bestows many kisses upon her —which he generally reserves for family only.
Also I realized his blow outs were timed to the Spring Equinox rather than the weather, and so was able to book coveted weekly sessions in advance. The spring blow out was manageable, I was on top of it.
I had won the Husky Mom game!
But then, this summer, I wrote in my journal:
Finn is running around raggedy again. The Spring blow out was just a first pass! He needs weekly grooming again. I grab great clumps of fur off of him, when he tolerates it. It offends his sensibilities and yet he is uncomfortable.
(Oh right I forgot to mention this, being as focused as I am on feeling sorry for myself here: I don’t think the blow out feels nice for Finn. He doesn’t act like a dog in real discomfort, but it’s clear he’s having some skin sensation when it’s at its height.)
And another day:
I vacuum up drifts of white fur that accumulate along the baseboards, table legs, couch bottom, anywhere they can find purchase — the rugs are saturated with fur.
I can’t tell if I resent it, or respect this process, watching his body body-ing. My body’s bodying on the other hand, can eat a bag of dicks.
{I wasn’t feeling well on this day. I don’t know if “a body body-ing” makes sense to anyone but me. For me this means the many uncontrollable and natural functions that bodies do every moment. As an aside I have a fascination by how much control we like to think we have over what our bodies do and especially how they look (i.e. a body body-ing), when so much of it is genetics and other environmental factors outside our control. A topic for another day!)
And yet another day:
Finn is at the point now where I can see the clear demarcation of his undercoat, or what’s left of it, and what areas are done shedding. I vacuum some more and pulled great clumps off of him to throw in the trash when he lets me.
In the course of writing this, this “bonus” summer blow out has wound down. I can get away with spot vacuuming once a day, which is pretty much as good as it gets in a multipet home. The sense of being under fur siege has ended.
And I plan to enjoy this interlude! A more minor blow out is waiting for us in the Fall when he sheds his finer summer undercoat to grow the winter coat I’ll be vacuuming off the floor next spring.
And apparently also next summer too.