Artist Funny Quotes

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

I am an artist you know ... it is my right to be odd.

Weirdism is definitely the cornerstone of many an artist's career.

You don’t have to go to some special private school to be an artist. Just look at the intricate beauty of cobwebs. Spiders make them with their butts.

...it’s just another one of those things I don’t understand: everyone impresses upon you how unique you are, encouraging you to cultivate your individuality while at the same time trying to squish you and everyone else into the same ridiculous mould. It’s an artist’s right to rebel against the world’s stupidity.

Our lips met hungrily, and his clever artistic hands wrapped around my hips. A sudden buzz from my regular cell phone startled me from the kissing. "Don't," said Adrian, his eyes ablaze and breathing ragged. "What if there's a crisis at school?" I asked. "What if Angeline 'accidentally' stole one of the campus buses and drove it into the library?" "Why would she do that?" "Are you saying she wouldn't?" He sighed. "Go check it.

It’s funny what love can do to a person. It strips them of everything, even their instincts. It creates a new reality for you to adhere to, a new world where you break the rules just to keep the love intact.

... an artist should paint from the heart, and not always what people expect. Predictability often leads to the dullest work, in my opinion, and we have been bored stiff long enough I think.

Artists are the serfs of a leisure society.

I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination.

—Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant? —I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

The ones who constantly make us laugh are the hardest of friends to know - for comedians are the caricatures among us.

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves

Remember, the village idiot was the spiritual man who built the ark and saved his family. Keep being you and never give up marching to the beat of your own drum!

Often the inspiration to write music comes from the voices in your head. You’re not crazy. Just be thankful they are not making you rescue people in 20-degree weather at 2:30 in the morning in the forest.

While I was backstage before presenting the Best New Artist award, I talked to George Strait for a while. He's so incredibly cool. So down-to-earth and funny. I think it should be known that George Strait has an awesome, dry, subtle sense of humor. Then I went back out into the crowd and watched the rest of the show. Keith Urban's new song KILLS ME, it's so good. And when Brad Paisley ran down into the front row and kissed Kimberley's stomach (she's pregnant) before accepting his award, Kellie, my mom, and I all started crying. That's probably the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I thought Kellie NAILED her performance of the song we wrote together "The Best Days of Your Life". I was so proud of her. I thought Darius Rucker's performance RULED, and his vocals were incredible. I'm a huge fan. I love it when I find out that the people who make the music I love are wonderful people. I love Faith Hill and how she always makes everyone in the room feel special. I love Keith Urban, and how he told me he knows every word to "Love Story" (That made my night). I love Nicole Kidman, and her sweet, warm personality. I love how Kenny Chesney always has something hilarious or thoughtful to say. But the real moment that brought on this wave of gratitude was when Shania Twain HERSELF walked up and introduced herself to me. Shania Twain, as in.. The reason I wanted to do this in the first place. Shania Twain, as in.. the most impressive and independent and confident and successful female artist to ever hit country music. She walked up to me and said she wanted to meet me and tell me I was doing a great job. She was so beautiful, guys. She really IS that beautiful. All the while, I was completely star struck. After she walked away, I realized I didn't have my camera. Then I cried. You know, last night made me feel really great about being a country music fan in general. Country music is the place to find reality in music, and reality in the stars who make that music. There's kindness and goodness and....honesty in the people I look up to, and knowing that makes me smile. I'm proud to sing country music, and that has never wavered. The reason for the being.. nights like last night.

I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.

Funny how we do not realize the true value and legacy of a living icon until they suddenly pass away. Truth is, there are many living legends among us, we just do not stop and take time to notice their worth until it's too late.

An illustration is an enlargement, and interpretation of the text, so that the reader will comprehend the words better. As an artist, you are always serving the words. You must never illustrate exactly what is written. You must find a space in the text so that the pictures can do the work. Then you must let the words take over where words do it best. It’s a funny kind of juggling act.

Let me put it more artistically, with greater sophistication: They left us in the toilet. In the deepest pile of shit. And we're coated in the crappy residue of their desicions. But that does not mean we are the one who pooped, Moritz. And neither are we the poop. Never think that. We're not the poop.

I might act like a rhinoceros, but I'm a unicorn.

Now, as I understand it, the bards were feared. They were respected, but more than that they were feared. If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do, she's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that — no big deal. You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skilful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless, in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself, and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing, at what a twat you were.

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.

In the field, one quickly learns that everything that was funny at age ten is funny all over again.

Nothing said family more than shared soap.

I mean really, how could an artistic individual stay grounded in the nitty-gritty of how many minutes per pound meat has to stay in the oven when trying to fathom the creative philosophy behind the greatest artistic minds of the world?

I'm a Baroque person. More than Baroque, I'm a Rococo person. I don't draw straight lines.

Funny how a nice ass, firm pecs, and a great smile could thwart a woman’s best plans.

Orpheus never liked words. He had his music. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music. If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much. But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats. This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful. Orpheus said the mind is a slide ruler. It can fit around anything. Show me your body, he said. It only means one thing.

TRACY MARANDER: [Kurt Cobain] was a really good artist. He would draw cartoons with funny sayings. I have this huge picture of this homeless guy, and it’s a satirical thing on how homeless people are mentally ill, they’re alcoholics, they had messed up childhoods — but they’re expected to fend for themselves in a box in the snow.

There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language about magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as it is about supernatural events. A grimmoir for example, the book of spells is simply a fancy way of saying grammar. Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness. And I believe that this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a Shaman. I believe that all culture must have arisen from cult. Originally, all of the faucets of our culture, whether they be in the arts or sciences were the province of the Shaman. The fact that in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation, is, I think a tragedy. At the moment the people who are using Shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than try to wake people up, their Shamanism is used as an opiate to tranquilize people, to make people more manipulable. Their magic box of television, and by their magic words, their jingles can cause everyone in the country to be thinking the same words and have the same banal thoughts all at exactly the same moment. In all of magic there is an incredibly large linguistic component. The Bardic tradition of magic would place a bard as being much higher and more fearsome than a magician. A magician might curse you. That might make your hands lay funny or you might have a child born with a club foot. If a Bard were to place not a curse upon you, but a satire, then that could destroy you. If it was a clever satire, it might not just destroy you in the eyes of your associates; it would destroy you in the eyes of your family. It would destroy you in your own eyes. And if it was a finely worded and clever satire that might survive and be remembered for decades, even centuries. Then years after you were dead people still might be reading it and laughing at you and your wretchedness and your absurdity. Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They’re not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being; that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment; things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die. It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.

When I need some striking inspiration about deep depression for my new painting, I just need to go to check my bank account...

I'm like a circus standing on two legs.

Even Dad likes it," said Caddy, and her father agreed that he did. In a way. Being a broad-minded, tolerant, artistic sort of person. Or so people told him... "Oh, yes?" said Saffron, rolling her eyes. "Yes," said Bill, sounding a little bit peeved. "So you thank your lucky stars, my girl, because in some families you would have come home to very big trouble! A nose stud! At your age! If you come down with blood poisoning, don't blame me!

There is certainly no hope left of getting away. And it isn't even terrible; it's possibly funny, if even that. It's embarrassing. That's all. A little embarrassing to realize that I no longer control my life, that the major decisions have already been made, long before I was conscious that any change was occurring.

this morning I go to pay for breakfast and there, right there at the Kroger check-out, staring me in the face is a national magazine with your picture on the cover. Counterfeit Countess, it said. In great big, bold type: Counterfeit! Countess! Counterfeit,” he reiterated, “a word interchangeable with forgery and often associated with arrest.” Ah, yes. Patrice had called from Austin and warned me she had sold the story to Woman’s World magazine. “Last sentence?” Mittwede asked. “You know what it is?’ “No, I’ve not seen it.” “Tanya says, ‘I’m going to grow up and be a con artist.’” It had struck me as pretty funny when I said it, but Mittwede had better delivery. I think it was the hysteria. He was saying, “I remember that story. That was like a year and a half ago. You didn’t tell me you were that girl, the Dallas Countess. I already knew the story but I read it again, and I know all the cops have read it again, too. And now your picture is with Passport Services and at the check-out counter. You think federal agents don’t buy groceries? You’re fucking crazy. We’re going to be arrested.” “You maybe need to take a Valium.” “I threw them all in the fire!”   ~~~~~~

Wait. Like an art museum, or are we talking a history museum? I could tolerate the dinosaur bones and war relics, but modern art will just give me a headache. A red dot on a white canvas isn’t ‘a representation of a woman’s struggle in a male dominated society;’ it’s a red freakin’ circle!” Michael and Ryan nodded their heads in agreement with Jack’s artistic tirade.

If you’re a struggling artist having money problems just superglue a brick in the middle of a blanket, and call it art. Someone will buy it.

Anything can be art, it just might be bad art.

When you paint late at night, drinking beer or wine or both, you gotta be very careful to watch what you are doing...

Two artists had an art contest...It ended in a draw.

It's been so long since I last had sex that I sometimes go to my local coffee shop just to hear someone scream my name.

Some things are so silly they have a certain brilliance to them. Other things, set as standards for brilliance and therefore exalted by many who don't know why, become tarnished because of it.

The creative process is a love story that never ends. The ideas are like suitors competing for your attention. You may have relationships, with multiple ideas, at once. You may devote yourself completely to one idea, for a awhile, but the affairs will never end. There will always be more ideas to romance and more concepts to develop. And all for that wonderful moment when you get to gaze at the complete creation and hold perfection in your arms, for one blissful moment... before your inner-critic starts tearing it to shreds.

All the world’s a stage. Creative work is a kind of theater. The stage is your studio, your desk, or your workstation. The costume is your outfit—your painting pants, your business suit, or that funny hat that helps you think. The props are your materials, your tools, and your medium. The script is just plain old time. An hour here, or an hour there—just time measured out for things to happen.

Halfway through the set, the lead singer, who goes by Cloud, knife in hand, begins to stab at the cutout of Copal Brandt with a lion's passion. Out of nowhere blood is produced and Cloud proceeds to rub it all over his own face and body, then on his own bandmates. Afterwards he roars into the microphone, 'Do you know why we're doing this, McAllen? We're doing this FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON!!!!!!!!!

my problem is that my body acts before my brain thinks... it sometimes brings me huge trouble, or also huge success. recently, my body and brain got come to an agreement. it may be far better to live this gambling life than living in boring average ...they at least make my art more interesting

Yes, I hate blown glass art and I happen to live in the blown glass art capital of the world, Seattle, Washington. Being a part of the Seattle artistic community, I often get invited to galleries that are displaying the latest glass sculptures by some amazing new/old/mid-career glass blower. I never go. Abstract art leaves me feeling stupid and bored. Perhaps it’s because I grew up inside a tribal culture, on a reservation where every song and dance had specific ownership, specific meaning, and specific historical context. Moreover, every work of art had use—art as tool: art to heal; art to honor, art to grieve. I think of the Spanish word carnal, defined as, ‘Of the appetites and passions of the body.’ And I think of Gertrude Stein’s line, ‘Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.’ When asked what that line meant, Stein said, ‘The poet could use the name of the thing and the thing was really there.’ So when I say drum, the drum is really being pounded in this poem; when I say fancydancer, the fancydancer is really spinning inside this poem; when I say Indian singer, that singer is really wailing inside this poem. But when it comes to abstract art—when it comes to studying an organically shaped giant piece of multi-colored glass—I end up thinking, ‘That looks like my kidney. Anybody’s kidney, really. And frankly, there can be no kidney-shaped art more beautiful—more useful and closer to our Creator—than the kidney itself. And beyond that, this glass isn’t funny. There’s no wit here. An organic shape is not inherently artistic. It doesn’t change my mind about the world. It only exists to be admired. And, frankly, if I wanted to only be in admiration of an organic form, I’m going to watch beach volleyball. I’m always going to prefer the curve of a woman’s hip or a man’s shoulder to a piece of glass that has some curves.

[Bill] Gates said he connected with [Eddy] Izzard even though it would appear they have nothing in common — but that might be the point the author is trying to communicate. "I've recently discovered that I have a lot in common with a funny, dyslexic, transgender actor, comedian, escape artist, unicyclist, ultra-marathoner, and pilot from Great Britain. Except all of the above," Gates wrote. "We're all cut from the same cloth. In his words, 'We are all totally different, but we are all exactly the same

Style is not how you write. It is how you do not write like anyone else. * * * How do you know if you're a writer? Write something everyday for two weeks, then stop, if you can. If you can't, you're a writer. And no one, no matter how hard they may try, will ever be able to stop you from following your writing dreams. * * * You can find your writer's voice by simply listening to that little Muse inside that says in a low, soft whisper, "Listen to this... * * * Enter the writing process with a childlike sense of wonder and discovery. Let it surprise you. * * * Poems for children help them celebrate the joy and wonder of their world. Humorous poems tickle the funny bone of their imaginations. * * * There are many fine poets writing for children today. The greatest reward for each of us is in knowing that our efforts might stir the minds and hearts of young readers with a vision and wonder of the world and themselves that may be new to them or reveal something already familiar in new and enlightening ways. * * * The path to inspiration starts Beyond the trails we’ve known; Each writer’s block is not a rock, But just a stepping stone. * * * When you write for children, don't write for children. Write from the child in you. * * * Poems look at the world from the inside out. * * * The act of writing brings with it a sense of discovery, of discovering on the page something you didn't know you knew until you wrote it. * * * The answer to the artist Comes quicker than a blink Though initial inspiration Is not what you might think. The Muse is full of magic, Though her vision’s sometimes dim; The artist does not choose the work, It is the work that chooses him. * * * Poem-Making 101. Poetry shows. Prose tells. Choose precise, concrete words. Remove prose from your poems. Use images that evoke the senses. Avoid the abstract, the verbose, the overstated. Trust the poem to take you where it wants to go. Follow it closely, recording its path with imagery. * * * What's a Poem? A whisper, a shout, thoughts turned inside out. A laugh, a sigh, an echo passing by. A rhythm, a rhyme, a moment caught in time. A moon, a star, a glimpse of who you are. * * * A poem is a little path That leads you through the trees. It takes you to the cliffs and shores, To anywhere you please. Follow it and trust your way With mind and heart as one, And when the journey’s over, You’ll find you’ve just begun. * * * A poem is a spider web Spun with words of wonder, Woven lace held in place By whispers made of thunder. * * * A poem is a busy bee Buzzing in your head. His hive is full of hidden thoughts Waiting to be said. His honey comes from your ideas That he makes into rhyme. He flies around looking for What goes on in your mind. When it is time to let him out To make some poetry, He gathers up your secret thoughts And then he sets them free.

Stop teasing you two,” Suzy jumped in, “not all of Kathy’s ideas are wacky.” “Gee thanks. Was that supposed to be a compliment?

ONLY' having the Gift, people appreciate this madness as Art. Everybody wants to have Art in their lives, but no body wants to have what the Art came out from in their lives...

You think I'm some kind of con artist?" "I think you're a very charming guy," I say. "As far as insults go," he says, pausing halfway up the stairs, "that's a new one for me.

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

I enjoy poetry where I can talk as bizarre as I please, but theology or philosophy, I always respect the truth by taking it a step further.

It felt odd to have Regina laundering his clothes. 'Oh. If you’d rather clean them yourself . . .' No, that didn’t sound right, either.

In his letter, he’d written three different words. 'You’re not alone.' They swirled inside her head, solid and deep and resonant in a way that ethereal 'I love you' could never be.

If being lazy was an Olympic sport, I would totally win the bronze.

When everyone else sleeps, artists create.

Chato visualised strangling her thin neck with the same underwear; tying it around her collar like a luscious red bow on a birthday present. Pesto gasped for air, her reptile like tongue sticking out, her face turning to a beautiful shade of onion pink as she choked on Chato’s kachcha. What a lovely contrast of that delicate pink against that gaudy red and green underwear. Poetry in motion, Chato thought, smiling. What an exquisite and intense way to die.

Find hard to talk to stranger. Terrible at chit-chat. Think people look at me funny then I start panic think have to be clever all of time. They not understand I artist, not entertainer! Magic of Bigfoot what happen when people not looking.

He’d almost redoubled his efforts to charm her. Prepared a wink and a smile and a glib response but stopped. Every time he tried to charm her, she stiffened, so he’d given her the truth instead. 'I’ve nowhere else to be.' Surprisingly, it had worked.

He was friendly and funny most of the time—though his work on The Room nearly drove him mad. Years later Sandy would claim to have directed the lion’s share of The Room, which is a bit like claiming to have been the Hindenburg’s principal aeronautics engineer.

I thought leaving home would be a liberation. I thought university would be a dance party. I thought I would live in a room vined with fairy lights; hang arabesque tapestries up on the wall. I thought scattered beneath my bed would be a combination of Kafka, coffee grounds, and a lover’s old boxer shorts. I thought I would spend my evenings drinking cheap red wine and talking about the Middle East. I thought on weekends we might go to Cassavetes marathons at the independent cinema. I thought I would know all the good Korean places in town. I thought I would know a person who was into healing crystals and another person who could teach me how to sew. I thought I might get into yoga. I thought going for frozen yogurt was something you would just do. I thought there would be red cups at parties. And I thought I would be different. I thought it would be like coming home, circling back to my essential and inevitable self. I imagined myself more relaxed—less hung up on things. I thought I would find it easy to speak to strangers. I thought I would be funny, even, make people laugh with my warm, wry, and only slightly self-deprecating sense of humor. I thought I would develop the easy confidence of a head girl, the light patter of an artist. I imagined myself dancing in a smoky nightclub, spinning slackly while my arms floated like laundry loose on the breeze. I imagined others watching me, thinking, Wow, she is so free.

It's funny, this - so many words to describe the same thing,” she smiled...“Penis is simply an anatomical appendage, as exciting as a finger or a phalange. A willy is something small and flaccid, and at least slightly humorous. Prick is the organ as viewed with distaste, perhaps with so much as to describe the entire body it’s attached to, like a dick, but more so. Phallus is a symbol of fertility, but my favourite...is the cock, which is only ever the hard, real thing, unleashed and ready to dive head-first into any waiting orifice. Or hole, while I’m in thesaurus mode.

Art is dead. Art is dead. Art is dead. Art is dead. Entertainers like to seem complicated But we're not complicated I can explain it pretty easily Have you ever been to a birthday Party for children? And one of the children won't stop screaming 'Cause he's just a little Attention attractor When he grows up To be a comic or actor He'll be rewarded for never maturing For never under- Standing or learning That every day Can't be about him There's other people You selfish asshole I must be psychotic I must be demented To think that I'm worthy Of all this attention Of all of this money, you worked really hard for I slept in late while you worked at the drug store My drug's attention, I am an addict But I get paid to indulge in my habit It's all an illusion, I'm wearing make-up, I'm wearing make-up Make-up, make-up, make-up, make... Art is dead So people think you're funny, how do we get those people's money? I said art is dead We're rolling in dough, while Carlin rolls in his grave His grave, his grave The show has got a budget The show has got a budget And all the poor people way more deserving of the money Won't budge it 'Cause I wanted my name in lights When I could have fed a family of four For forty fucking fortnights Forty fucking fortnights I am an artist, please God forgive me I am an artist, please don't revere me I am an artist, please don't respect me I am an artist, you're free to correct me A self-centred artist Self-obsessed artist I am an artist I am an artist But I'm just a kid I'm just a kid I'm just a kid Kid And maybe I'll grow out of it.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much—no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version—maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”) I waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy. But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed—she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool

Now give me some advice about how to take full advantage of this city. I’m always looking to improve my odds.” “Just what I’d expect from a horny actuary.” “I’m serious.” Carlos reflected for a moment on the problem at hand. He actually had never needed or tried to take full advantage of the city in order to meet women, but he thought about all of his friends who regularly did. His face lit up as he thought of some helpful advice: “Get into the arts.” “The arts?” “Yeah.” “But I’m not artistic.” “It doesn’t matter. Many women are into the arts. Theater. Painting. Dance. They love that stuff.” “You want me to get into dance? Earthquakes have better rhythm than me…And can you really picture me in those tights?” “Take an art history class. Learn photography. Get involved in a play or an independent film production. Get artsy, Sammy. I’m telling you, the senoritas dig that stuff.” “Really?” “Yeah. You need to sign up for a bunch of artistic activities. But you can’t let on that it’s all just a pretext to meet women. You have to take a real interest in the subject or they’ll quickly sniff out your game.” “I don’t know…It’s all so foreign to me…I don’t know the first thing about being artistic.” “Heeb, this is the time to expand your horizons. And you’re in the perfect city to do it. New York is all about reinventing yourself. Get out of your comfort zones. Become more of a Renaissance man. That’s much more interesting to women.

At the end of the vacation, I took a steamer alone from Wuhan back up through the Yangtze Gorges. The journey took three days. One morning, as I was leaning over the side, a gust of wind blew my hair loose and my hairpin fell into the river. A passenger with whom I had been chatting pointed to a tributary which joined the Yangtze just where we were passing, and told me a story.In 33 B.C., the emperor of China, in an attempt to appease the country's powerful northern neighbors, the Huns, decided to send a woman to marry the barbarian king. He made his selection from the portraits of the 3,000 concubines in his court, many of whom he had never seen. As she was for a barbarian, he selected the ugliest portrait, but on the day of her departure he discovered that the woman was in fact extremely beautiful. Her portrait was ugly because she had refused to bribe the court painter. The emperor ordered the artist to be executed, while the lady wept, sitting by a river, at having to leave her country to live among the barbarians. The wind carried away her hairpin and dropped it into the river as though it wanted to keep something of hers in her homeland. Later on, she killed herself. Legend had it that where her hairpin dropped, the river turned crystal clear, and became known as the Crystal River. My fellow passenger told me this was the tributary we were passing. With a grin, he declared: "Ah, bad omen! You might end up living in a foreign land and marrying a barbarian!" I smiled faintly at the traditional Chinese obsession about other races being 'barbarians," and wondered whether this lady of antiquity might not actually have been better off marrying the 'barbarian' king. She would at least be in daily contact with the grassland, the horses, and nature. With the Chinese emperor, she was living in a luxurious prison, without even a proper tree, which might enable the concubines to climb a wall and escape. I thought how we were like the frogs at the bottom of the well in the Chinese legend, who claimed that the sky was only as big as the round opening at the top of their well. I felt an intense and urgent desire to see the world. At the time I had never spoken with a foreigner, even though I was twenty-three, and had been an English language student for nearly two years. The only foreigners I had ever even set eyes on had been in Peking in 1972. A foreigner, one of the few 'friends of China," had come to my university once. It was a hot summer day and I was having a nap when a fellow student burst into our room and woke us all by shrieking: "A foreigner is here! Let's go and look at the foreigner!" Some of the others went, but I decided to stay and continue my snooze. I found the whole idea of gazing, zombie like rather ridiculous. Anyway, what was the point of staring if we were forbidden to open our mouths to him, even though he was a 'friend of China'? I had never even heard a foreigner speaking, except on one single Linguaphone record. When I started learning the language, I had borrowed the record and a phonograph, and listened to it at home in Meteorite Street. Some neighbors gathered in the courtyard, and said with their eyes wide open and their heads shaking, "What funny sounds!" They asked me to play the record over and over again.

Hermione made purple and gold streamers erupt from the end of her wand and drape themselves artistically over the trees and bushes. “Nice,” said Ron, as with one final flourish of her wand, Hermione turned the leaves on the crabapple tree to gold. “You’ve really got an eye for that sort of thing.” “Thank you, Ron!” said Hermione, looking both pleased and a little confused. Harry turned away, smiling to himself. He had a funny notion that he would find a chapter on compliments when he found time to peruse his copy of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches; he caught Ginny’s eye and grinned at her before remembering his promise to Ron and hurriedly striking up a conversation with Monsieur Delacour. “Out of the way, out of the way!” sang Mrs. Weasley, coming through the gate with what appeared to be a giant, beach-ball-sized Snitch floating in front of her. Seconds later Harry realized that it was his birthday cake, which Mrs. Weasley was suspending with her wand, rather than risk carrying it over the uneven ground. When the cake had finally landed in the middle of the table, Harry said, “That looks amazing, Mrs. Weasley.” “Oh, it’s nothing, dear,” she said fondly. Over her shoulder, Ron gave Harry the thumbs-up and mouthed, Good one.

The crappy mass media narratives about men will continue. They will go on telling our sons, brothers and fathers that the way to be a man is through your wallet or your fists. Our responsibility is to add other stories and other ideas to the cultural mix. Yes, men can be tough focused warriors. But they can also be gentle and loving and playful and funny and sweet and yes, feminine. They can be healers and caregivers and poets and artists and everything else under the sun.

Peter is still amazed at the degree to which a certain widening gyre of accolades can change an artist's work, literally change it, not just the new stuff but the old as well, the pieces that have been around for a while, that have seemed "interesting" or "promising" but minor, until (not often, just once in a while) an artist is by some obscure consensus declared to have been neglected, misrepresented, ahead of his time. What's astonishing to Peter is the way the work itself seems to change, more or less in the way of a reasonably pretty girl who is suddenly treated as a beauty. Peculiar, clever Victoria Hwang is going to be in Artforum next month, and probably in the collections of the Whitney and the Guggenheim; Renee Zellweger - moonfaced, squinty-eyed, a character actress if ever there was one - was just on the cover of Vogue, looking ravishing in a silver gown. It is, of course, a trick of perception - the understanding that that funny little artist or that quirky-looking girl must be taken with new seriousness - but Peter suspects there's a deeper change at work. Being the focus of that much attention (and, yes, of that much money) seems to differently excite the molecules of the art or the actress or the politician. It's not just a phenomenon of altered expectations, it's a genuine transubstantiation, brought about by altered expectations. Renée Zellweger becomes a beauty, and would look like a beauty to someone who had never heard of her. Victoria Hwang's videos and sculptures are about, it seems, to become not just intriguing and amusing but significant.

...curse them with dirty looks for the next hour or so, ... I`m funny when I want to be funny. Damn it, I`m hilarious. .... there on that boulevard, one hand in my inside pocket and another resting on the cab door, the world froze and went mute in a kind of revese deja vu, in which I saw Stella for the first time. ...the torn T-shirt which hardly covered her slowly freezing nakedness ... or perhaps those were the sizes of the holes in your soul, Artist, which you try to conceal with that buckets of paint?.. .. God let me find myself .

Most people live in almost total darkness…people, millions of people whom you will never see, who don’t know you, never will know you, people who may try to kill you in the morning, live in a darkness which...if you have that funny terrible thing which every artist can recognize and no artist can define...you are responsible to those people to lighten, and it does not matter what happens to you. You are being used in the way a crab is useful, the way sand certainly has some function. It is impersonal. This force which you didn’t ask for, and this destiny which you must accept, is also your responsibility. And if you survive it, if you don’t cheat, if you don’t lie, it is not only, you know, your glory, your achievement, it is almost our only hope... Because only an artist can tell, and only artists have told since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die; what it is like to be glad... The trouble is that although the artist can do it, the price that he has to pay himself and that you, the audience, must also pay, is a willingness to give up everything, to realize that although you spent twenty-seven years acquiring this house, this furniture, this position, although you spent forty years raising this child, these children, nothing, none of it belongs to you. You can only have it by letting it go. You can only take if you are prepared to give...It is a total risk of everything, of you and who you think you are, who you think you’d like to be, where you think you’d like to go...everything, and this forever, forever.

Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their— “Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten. “How far did you get?” Quentin said. He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment. I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play. In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me. The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California. “That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin. “That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.” “Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.” “The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.” “This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.” “Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion. “I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.” Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter. “mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!” “What the hell is so funny?” “You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?” It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here. “Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.” I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off. “You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.” I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.

I like everything about you, Larry. I like the way you look and how you’re so clever, and I like it when we laugh together and watch TV together. I like going to art galleries with you and hearing you get all bitchy about some of the artists. I like watching you when you’re doing marking, ’cause you get these funny looks on your face. I like watching you sleep and hearing that snuffly noise you make. I like waking up with you at weekends and spending the day together, just doing stuff like walking round town and shopping and cooking and stuff.” I kind of ran out of breath after that. For a moment, I thought he was going to cry.“Is there anything you don’t like about me?

When the sun peeped into the girls' room early next morning...he saw a comical sight. Each had made such preparation for the fete as seemed necessary and proper. Meg had an extra row of little curl papers across her forehead, Jo had copiously anointed her afflicted face with cold cream. Beth had taken Joanna to bed with her to atone for the approaching separation, and Amy had capped the climax by putting a clothespin on her nose, to uplift the offending feature. It was one of the kind artists use to hold their paper on the drawing boards, therefore quite appropriate and effective for the purpose to which it was now put. This funny spectacle appeared to amuse the sun, for he burst out with such radiance that Jo woke up, and roused the girls with a hearty laugh at Amy's ornament.

I couldn’t think of anything funny.” He hesitated. “Though that hasn’t ever stopped you.” Shallan grinned. “Have you ever considered, bridgeman, that bad art does more for the world than good art? Artists spend more of their lives making bad practice pieces than they do masterworks, particularly at the start. And even when an artist becomes a master, some pieces don’t work out. Still others are somehow just wrong until the last stroke. “You learn more from bad art than you do from good art, as your mistakes are more important than your successes. Plus, good art usually evokes the same emotions in people—most good art is the same kind of good. But bad pieces can each be bad in their own unique way. So I’m glad we have bad art, and I’m sure the Almighty agrees.” “All this,” Adolin said, amused, “to justify your sense of humor, Shallan?” “My sense of humor? No, I’m merely trying to justify the creation of Captain Kaladin.

Tina, who worked at the Hampshire Gazette and drank like a journalist in a movie, was loudly musing about getting her shadow altered to have a cat tail. “Guys love a tail,” Tina proclaimed, to protests by nearly everyone. Aimee thought Tina shouldn’t consider fetishes along a gender binary. Ian wanted it to be known that he thought it was disgusting, and that men did not want to molest animals. The artist agreed it was kind of hot, but his comic was about saucy mice. Charlie told Tina that maybe she had misunderstood what “getting some tail” actually meant. “Mermaids, right?” Vince asked, in such a clueless just-joined-the-conversation tone that it was hard to know if he was joking, or if he’d misheard the earlier part. It didn’t matter. Everyone laughed. It was funny either way. As Charlie poured more bourbon—with ice this time—she decided she was glad she’d come. She was just buzzed enough to feel an expansive warmth for the people in the room. See, she was fine being a normal person and doing normal-person things.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

Azriel straightened a sagging section of garland over the windowsill. 'It's almost like you two tried to make it as ugly as possible.' Cassian clutched at his heart. 'We take offense to that.' Azriel sighed at the ceiling. 'Poor Az,' I said, pouring myself another glass. 'Wine will make you feel better.' He glared at me, then the bottle, then Cassian... and finally stormed across the room, took the bottle from my hand, and chugged the rest. Cassian grinned with delight. Mostly because Rhys drawled from the doorway, 'Well, at least now I know who's drinking all my good wine. Want another one, Az?' Azriel nearly spewed the wine into the fire, but made himself swallow and turn, red-faced, to Rhys. 'I would like to explain-' Rhys laughed, the rich sound bouncing off the carved oak moldings of the room. 'Five centuries, and you think I don't know that if my wine's gone, Cassian's usually behind it?' Cassian raised his glass in a salute. Rhys surveyed the room and chuckled. 'I can tell exactly which ones you two did, and which ones Azriel tried to fix before I got here.' Azriel was indeed now rubbing his temple. Rhys lifted a brow at me. 'I expected better from an artist.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.

When it comes to a wedding, all women are artists and the least shading out of synch with their creative thought can make or break their magnum opus. It makes it worse when one of them is actually an artist.

You’re not an artist, you’re not a scientist, you’re not an intellectual. All that’s left to you is politics.

This is funny but it saddens me that ‘art project’ is now a byword for useless, unskilled amateurism. You know that often someone who’s not very good at making television programmes becomes a video artist, and someone who’s not particularly good at writing hit songs becomes an art band.

I’ve not only learned the name of the dead girl, but I also know where she lives.” Falco arched an eyebrow. “All that, and you still found the time to bat your eyelashes at some traveling con man? That is impressive.” “I wasn’t batting anything,” Cass said. “I was appreciating his performance. Come on. I’ll fill you in on the way to her place.” As the two passed the conjurer, Falco’s grip on her was so tight, she was afraid he was going to leave a bruise. “Good-bye, Maximus,” she called behind her. “Thank you for the magic.” Outside the house, Falco kept his hand wrapped around Cass as they headed down the marble staircase. The tall boy in the vest was gone. “So who’s Paolo?” she asked, pausing at the bottom of the steps to catch her breath. The night had definitely taken a turn for the better. “My roommate,” Falco answered shortly. “Friendly,” Cass said, remembering how the boy had looked straight through her. “Seems to me you have no shortage of admirers,” Falco said. And then, abruptly: “You know conjurers are nothing but common criminals, right? I’d check your pockets--I wouldn’t be surprised if several coins are missing.” Cass’s eyes widened. “I believe I’ve heard the same about artists. And it almost sounds like…But surely it’s not in the nature of a patron of a common prostitute to be jealous.” One of her ankles wobbled, and Cass had to grab on to Falco’s waist to keep from falling over. Falco pushed her away playfully and then pulled her tightly to his chest. “Funny,” he whispered in her ear. “But I doubt there’s anything common about you.” He shook his dark hair back from his face. “Ready to get serious now?” “What do you mean, Master?” she asked, half reeling from the heat of Falco’s breath on her jawbone. A rush of warmth surged through her body. “You’re the one who figured out where our murdered prostitute lived,” Falco said. “Lead the way, Signorina Avogadore.” Falco linked his arm through hers.

So who’s Paolo?” she asked, pausing at the bottom of the steps to catch her breath. The night had definitely taken a turn for the better. “My roommate,” Falco answered shortly. “Friendly,” Cass said, remembering how the boy had looked straight through her. “Seems to me you have no shortage of admirers,” Falco said. And then, abruptly: “You know conjurers are nothing but common criminals, right? I’d check your pockets--I wouldn’t be surprised if several coins are missing.” Cass’s eyes widened. “I believe I’ve heard the same about artists. And it almost sounds like…But surely it’s not in the nature of a patron of a common prostitute to be jealous.” One of her ankles wobbled, and Cass had to grab on to Falco’s waist to keep from falling over. Falco pushed her away playfully and then pulled her tightly to his chest. “Funny,” he whispered in her ear. “But I doubt there’s anything common about you.

My childhood was a drag show!

Realism is criminal.

Hollywood was called Tinseltown for a reason and I was caught up in its glitter. My friend Ken seemed to know everyone and once took me to the NBC Studios in Burbank, where he introduced me to Steve Allen. “Steverino,” as he was known by friends, must have thought that I wanted to get into show business and promised that if I applied myself, I would go places. I hadn’t really given show business much thought, but it sounded good to me. However, I’m glad that I didn’t count on his promise of becoming a star, because that was the end of it. I never saw Steve Allen again, other than on television, and I guess that’s just the way it was in Hollywood. Later Steve Allen starred in NBC’s The Tonight Show, which in more recent times has been hosted by Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and now by Jimmy Fallon. Steve Allen had a rider in his contract that whenever he was introduced as a guest, the introduction would include: “And now our next guest is world-renowned recording artist, actor, producer, playwright, best-selling author, composer of thousands of songs, Emmy winning comic genius and entertainer – Steve Allen.” He was a funny guy and he would crack me up, but more than that, he would frequently crack himself up. Steve was loved or hated by people. It was said that he was enormously talented, and if you didn’t believe that, just ask him. Jack Paar, who followed Steve on The Tonight Show, once said, “Steve Allen has claimed to have written over 1,000 songs; name one???” The truth is that he did write a huge number of songs, including the 1963 Grammy award-winning composition, The Gravy Waltz. He wrote about 50 books, one of which is Steve Allen’s Private Joke File, published in 2000, just prior to his death in that same year. He also has two stars on the “Hollywood Walk of Fame,” one for radio and one for TV. Say what you want…. He cracked up at least two people with his humor, himself and me!

You think it’s funny,’ she took a sip then shifted her body towards me, ‘you think you’re alternative, and outside of the system. You rented the interesting movies. And went to the noise concerts in Bushwick. And you, like everyone at that school, thought you had to be dirty and weird to be a good artist. But that’s not true.’ ‘I don’t think I’m alternative,’ I said incredulously.

I am not much of an artist. But I can still draw comparisons.

You are the artiste of the slightly funny deal.

Deborah Harry: Giorgio was great. He’s a funny personality. In a way, he’s a scientist. A bit like Leonardo da Vinci, he’s this multilayered artist, a scientist, a curious person. He’s kind of a mathematician, and we were all sort of in awe of him.

be funny nor attempt to deal analytically with social ills.4 Even the original title (Gangway!) and the original setting (warring Catholics and Jews in a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story) held little promise for commercial or artistic success. In addition, the show would feature no stars, and the cast—consisting primarily of dancers—might be inexperienced kids pulled from the streets of New York (if the New York press was to be believed), not from dance rehearsal halls. The score, written by a classical music conductor, would be dissonant and fiendishly difficult to play and sing and would include—of all things—a fugue. The teenagers, whose dialogue was written by a middle-aged Jewish playwright, would speak in an invented street slang, uttering lines like “womb to tomb” and “cracko Jacko.” The backers’ meetings continually and repeatedly failed to attract investors for producer Cheryl Crawford, who finally dumped the project shortly before rehearsals were to begin. It is no surprise that no one thought this show would succeed.

the white tents. 17. Two views of The Wild West in Paris, igo5. Colonel Cody, a Hawkeye by birth, is personally lionized by the Parisians, and his unique exhibition, so full of historical and dramatic interest, made a wonderful impression upon the susceptible French public. The twenty lessons I took in French, at the Berlitz School of Languages, London, only gave me a faint idea of what the language was like, but as I was required to make my lectures and announcements in French, I had my speeches translated, and was coached in their delivery by Monsieur Corthesy, editeur, le journal de Londres. Well, I got along pretty fair, considering that I did not know the meaning of half the words I was saying. Anyway it amused them, so I was satisfied. I honestly believe that more people came in the side show in Paris to hear and laugh at my "rotten" French than anything else, and when I found that a certain word or expression excited their risibilities, I never changed it. I can look back now and see where some of my own literal translations were very funny. Colonel Cody's exhibition is unique in many ways, and might justly be termed a polyglot school, no less than twelve distinct languages being spoken in the camp, viz.: Japanese, Russian, French, Arabic, Greek, Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, Holland, Flemish, Chinese, Sioux and English. Being in such close contact every day, we were bound to get some idea of each other's tongue, and all acquire a fair idea of English. Colonel Cody is, therefore, entitled to considerable credit for disseminating English, and thus preserving the entente cordiale between nations. 18. Entrance to the Wild West, Champs de Mars, Paris, Igo5. The first place of public interest that we visited in Paris was the Jardin des Plantes (botanical and zoological garden) and le Musee d'Histoire Naturelle. The zoological collection would suffer in comparison with several in America I might mention, but the Natural History Museum is very complete, and is, to my notion, the most artistically arranged of any museum I have visited. Le Palais du Trocadero, which was in sight of our grounds and facing the

Bucket list,” Julie said in session as we tried to envision her Holland. “It’s such a funny term, isn’t it?” I had to agree. What do we want to do before we kick the bucket? Often people think about bucket lists when somebody close to them dies. That’s what happened for Candy Chang, an artist who, in 2009, created a space on a public wall in New Orleans with the prompt Before I die _____. Within days the wall was completely filled. People wrote things like Before I die, I want to straddle the international dateline. Before I die, I want to sing for millions. Before I die, I want to be completely myself. Soon the idea spawned over a thousand such walls all over the world: Before I die, I would like to have a relationship with my sister. Be a great dad. Go skydiving. Make a difference in someone’s life. I don’t know if people followed through, but based on what I’ve seen in my office, a good number may have had momentary awakenings, done a little soul-searching, added more to their lists—and then neglected to tick things off. People tend to dream without doing, death remaining theoretical.

In the meantime, I like things the way they are. Maybe that makes me weird. Maybe its even part of what makes me an ‘artist,’ like Mom said, but it just kind of works for me this way…

Here I am!” Captain East was cantering his mount toward them. He rode beautifully, confidently. Molly’s family spent their summers in the country, and she used to say that the way a man rides a horse could give you a pretty good idea how he would do something else. Jane eyed Mr. Nobley on his mount, noted that he was a smooth, gentle rider. The surprise of thinking this while wearing a bonnet made Jane choke. Her breath snarled in her throat, and she laughed. Mr. Nobley’s eyes widened. “What’s funny? You often have some secret laugh, Miss Erstwhile.” “The way you have some secret displeasure?” “No, not displeasure,” he said, and she realized he was right. Sadness, or heartbreak, or grief that there was nothing to give him hope, perhaps. She was pretty sure now that he was Henry Jenkins, poor sop. Captain East reined in beside Jane. “Miss Heartwright had a headache and went inside. So sorry to neglect you, Miss Erstwhile. You must tell me what I missed.” “I’ve discovered that Miss Erstwhile is an artist,” Mr. Nobley said. “Is that so?” “It’s been years since I picked up a paintbrush.” She glared at Mr. Nobley, and zing, there was his smile again, brief, urgent. When his lips relaxed she wanted it to come back. “That is a shame,” said Captain East. That evening when Jane retired from the drawing room, she found a large package on her side table wrapped in brown paper. She ripped open the paper and out tumbled neat little tubes of oil paints and three paintbrushes. She saw now that an easel waited by the window with two small canvases. She felt very Jane Eyre as she smelled the paints and ticked her palm with the largest brush. Who was her benefactor? It could be Captain East. Maybe he still liked her best, even after his tete-a-tete with Miss Heartwright. It could happen. Even so, she found herself hoping it was Mr. Nobley. Instinct urged her to stomp on the hope. She ignored it. She was firmly in Austenland now, she reminded herself, where hoping was allowed. Did Austen herself feel this way? Was she hopeful? Jane wondered if the unmarried writer had lived inside Austenland with close to Jane’s own sensibility--amused, horrified, but in very real danger of being swept away. Ten days to go.

The thing about being a screenwriter, scriptwriter, or scenarist, You get to have multiple personalities and not be charged!