Book #76

76) Robinson, Alex. TRICKED. Top Shelf Productions: 2005.

I stayed up til 1 am last night reading this graphic novel straight through; really enjoyed it. (*sigh* although my aging bifocaled eyes did not; I had a hard time with the size of some the handlettered text blocks..good grief, do I need to ask our fiction librarian to purchase LARGEPRINT g-novels?) I seem to prefer this style of b/w, edgy and gritty graphic novel to the pretty slickness of Marvel type books.

Publisher's Weekly review:
This dense graphic novel follows the paths of six characters who weave around one another, all finally meeting in the story's violent climax. The six are Ray Beam, a blocked and exhausted rock star; Nick, a small-time grifter; Phoebe, a daughter in search of her father; Steve, the very worst kind of music fan; Lily, a young girl drawn into Ray's artistic drama; and Caprice, a self-defeating waitress. Before the final meeting, each leads a fully realized life, whose detailed individuality and complex relationships mark Robinson as a truly gifted writer. His art is no less impressive, with clear line drawings that hone in on the subtleties of his characters' emotional lives. A master of the slice-of-life indie comic genre, Robinson brings a strong dramatic force to his work as well. Robinson's talent allows his characters to be comprehensible even when they act like spoiled jerks or sabotage their own chances for happiness but his authorial generosity returns them all to their own best selves by the end.

Art happy

I just realized that I hadn't posted yet about going up to Nashville to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Frist Museum!

Wonderful. Awesome. Blissful.
I looked; I smiled; I beamed; I gasped; I sighed; I teared up.

Enjoyed sharing the experience with Coleen and Barry.
Coleen and I agreed a couple of the sculptures would make very cool cake designs. And we both liked the wall of brightly hued poster sized paintings by Chihuly, ideas/inspirations for glasswork.
It was standing with B.,his arms around me, looking at the arrangement of purple spires and green organic forms reflected in its black glass base, in the large (room size) Garden installation that I cried a bit.
I made silly comments about how I wished the fluted cuplike Macchia pieces were just a bit bigger, because they made me want to curl up inside them. And that the swirling colours "looked how orgasms feel" to me.
Barry tried to get my goat by saying the (14' high) Tower piece looked like "so many pop bottles gone wrong", but somehow the idea of the piece as a "bottle tree" actually appealed to me.

In the museum gift shop, Barry bought me a book and DVD (Emmy winning documentary) Chihuly in the Hotshop, which is kind of a retrospective of his body of work over 40 years and a workshop reunion with many of his fellow artisan crew. Very cool (hot?) seeing the process of how many of the types of pieces are made.

There is a local glass artist out at Lowe Mill. http://www.susanknecht.com/ I wish I could afford (as well as get over my fire phobia) to take one of her glassblowing classes, but she does offer "blow your own ornament" walk ins during the holiday season. I think I may do that, get a glass globe made in pretty colours to give to B. (so, I'd be giving him my very breath).