Burning Man
What Inspires: BURNING MAN
Upon arrival at Reno Airport, last Monday, we were greeted by all manner of folks holding "I NEED A TICKET!" signs.
"Ticket to what?"
Near baggage claim, a row of tables crowded with "interesting" and "artsy" types with yarn woven into their hair and camping gear, busily passed around papers and scribbled on sign up sheets. The buzz was audible, their excitement, catching. What ever sort of camp or convention they were going to, I wanted to go to.
Then I spotted a poster of a metal sculpture mounted on a pyre and knew:
BURNING MAN is an 8 day-long event held in the Nevada desert, about 100 miles north of Reno.
I've never been to Burning Man. The first I heard of it was in a Reno bike shop a few years back when the salesperson suggested I could get the best deal on a used bike the weekend after Labor Day because thousands bring bikes to ride at Burning Man (as no cars are allowed inside) and then dump them rather than pay to have them shipped home.
The rest I had heard of Burning Man was it's a week-long camp out in the desert, with no amenities, lots of drugs, music, art and wild costumes.
The latest I'd seen of Burning Man is an exhibit in the Reno Airport (while waiting to leave Wednesday) of massive, detailed, awe-inspiring sculptures erected in the desert: :
metal ships cast adrift in the sand sea;
pyramids,
twisted semi-trailers squirming skyward.
spaceships,
sea creatures . . .
and of course, the human effigy from whence the gathering takes it's name. Burning Man is torched the last Saturday night of the gathering.
Afterwards, and through today, the 1st Monday in September, Labor Day, participants dismantle the community. . They pack out their trash and tents and disburse.
If you'd like to know more about Burning Man, you'll find oodles of photos, videos, blogs, etc. etc. and so forth . . .
But you might not find THIS. . .
And
THIS, coupled with the thought of 50 to 60,000 people from 22 countries
coming together to celebrate, create and support art
--and others just out to have a grand time--is what inspires me about a week-long camp- out with strangers in the middle of the arid, hot, dry, summer, hot, dry, dusty, hot, dry desert.
THIS:
Family Affair
August 13, 2013, at 11:04 am (Tulsa Time), My son--my baby boy--and his wife Michelle, had a baby!
Bennett weighted in at 8 lb, 9 oz; 21 inches long.
Already comfortable--a true lion, he didn't even bother roaring!
Baby Bennett and I getting acquainted--a warm loaf of lovies!
Mama Michelle and Papa Max holding their bundle--6 hours after his birth! Proud Papa Max with his baby boy!
Our world has now and forever been changed!
Welcome Bennett Sam Goldman!
On Being the Filling and Refilling that Well!
When I used to grouse about how life interfered with my writing schedule, my friend, Richard Harnett, always brushed it away saying "You're refilling your writer's well, Kel."
It always made me feel good to hear that. To think those times I was so busy with living I couldn't write would one day, serve my writing.
My well is filling, brimming, overflowing . . . It's been keeping me from posting here--sorry for that. But this is life: rich, messy, exciting, unpredictable, scary--definitely a piled high, deli sandwich.
To paraphrase Auntie Mame, "If life is a banquet I'm stuffing myself." (Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.)
Mom's the bottom layer. Hers is a stodgy, crusty, nutty and grainy end of the loaf slice, anchoring our open-faced sandwich.
Mom has been in and out of rehab and hospital the past few years. Heavy as it may be, it's a spicy, interesting layer as it has brought me closer to my brother Joe and his family as we band together to support mom.
Curtis and my move from Indonesia to Trinidad and New York last year, brought with it a whole new bag of flavors we're sampling. It's predictable and surprising as dried seaweed sprinkes.
Son Max's wedding to Michelle in Long Island last summer, added a flavorful, thick ham and sweet, spicy saucy layer.
Daughter, Lexi's wedding to Ryan, scheduled for this November in Turks and Caicos, is proving pesto--fresh & complex with zing!
My new, long awaited picture book, Vampire Baby--the gumbo, sambal, curry layer adds fuel.
And soon to come--and feeling real courtesy of these 3D photos--our newest layer: a grandbaby! Max and Michelle's baby--a festive topper--arrives this August!
Yep, that well is brimming! And that's some kinda ink! In the meantime, our Dagwood-style sandwich is growing taller and more interesting. A banquet indeed!
When life gets in the way of your creating, loosen your belt buckle so you, too, can enjoy the banquet. And think ink! INK!
Please stay tuned for more!
Selamat makan! Happy filling and refilling!
E.L. Kongisburg's Silence
E.L. "Elaine" Konigsburg has passed. 
A true genius of a writer, witty, funny, smart, snarky--she was a thinker who created thoughtful, smart, young characters who made us think. I made a point of reading her books--all of them. Silence comes to mind when I think of her. She subscribed to the Japanese belief that creative blooms in negative space. That first we must empty ourselves, empty our minds, clear a space and let it rest, still and silent, trusting that new ideas will emerge in the same way spring buds in my Aunt Ingrid's garden (these are her pics). 
E.L. Konigsburg's speech stayed with me, just as the characters she created have. I've referred to her often, as in this posting: Nothing is Something. Here's the link: http://www.kellybennett.com/blog/2009/12/nothing-is-something/
Here's from NPR:"E.L. Konigsburg, the author of the 1967 children's book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, about two children who run away from home to live secretly in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, . She was 83. Konigsburg won two Newbery Medals, and actresses Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall both played Mrs. Frankweiler — Bergman in a called The Hideaways, and Bacall in a TV movie. The book famously begins: 'Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.'"-http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/22/178338252/book-news-childrens-author-e-l-konigsburg-dies
Be Mindful What You Wish. . .
Adages are busting out all over. To quite Phoebe Figalilly’s theme song, “so many splendid things keep happening!” Most significantly, my children, Max and Lexi are growing—have grown—into adults! Max married Michelle this past September; Lexi is engaged to Ryan, preparations are underway for their wedding this November; and Max and Michelle recently announced that they have a baby on the way. I’m going to be a GRANDMOTHER!
Aging aside, any/all of these wondrous events are enough to keep one awake at night…hence this post which comes as part Announcement, part Revelation and part Cautionary Tale:
I’m in New York at my first ever SCBWI Mid-Winter Conference where it is all about writing and books. In yesterday’s roundtable session, I brought a picture book manuscripts I’ve been obsessing over for about a year now to be workshopped. It’s about an excited sibling awaiting the birth of a new baby in the family. Afterwards, the writer seated beside me asked about my books: “Have you written anything I’d know?” A question that is flattering. . . and humbling. “I’d know” translates as “a book that’s sold a zillion copies or won a major award.” I was floundering wondering how to answer when my eyes fell on her baby bump. First I thought: “So that’s why you liked my story. . . “ Then an Ah hah!: If you haven’t read them, you should—and buy them, too, because you and your mother are my intended audience:
As this morning was dawning, it dawned on me that each of these joyful, life changing family events I’m enjoying now came after a “brilliant, inspired, must-write-it-right-now” story idea struck. I’m not talking about a little “oh this will be fun” idea, either. I’m talking capital letters kind of IDEA that pulls me to my chair and holds me there captive, obsessed and loving the process. Which lead me to pose the oft posed question: Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?
Stories—even picture books—take a long time. The manuscripts for Your Mommy was Just Like You and Your Daddy was Just Like You, had to be written and revised, and then sent to my agent, and then sold to the amazing Susan Kochan, my GP Putnams' Sons editor, and then sent to David Walker who created the art, and then published—years! Back when the notion of Max being a “grown up” was just wishful thinking. As for this “little” story I had workshop, I’ve been tinkering with it for over a year, long before Max and Michelle tied the knot. It’s as though, on some cosmic level, my story IDEAS portend the future—cue Twilight Zone theme.
Which led me back to another book, one I read and worked through with the GGs, my creativity group, The Passion Test, by Janet and Chris Attwood, a guide to finding and achieving your goals based on the “Laws of Attraction.”
As anyone who knows me knows, I have song snippets in my head and these snippets, while often a source of irritation as they loop---day and night, night and day—these lyrics often also, and perhaps cosmically, point me toward the point of my ramblings. Oddly this morning, instead of song, (which is especially strange on this of all days as last night I went to bed with my noggin humming with Gershwin classics as Lexi and I had gone to Nice Work if You Can Get It with Mathew Broderick (a camp, delightful 20's style musical that have everyone in the theater smiling and humming along) a joke came to mind:
A love-smitten little boy and girl are sitting side-by-side on the steps. With cartoon hearts swirl around his head, the boy grabs the girl. “I get what I want when I get it!” he demands, repeating words he’d heard a TV hero say. Evading his puckered lips, the little girl pulls free, telling him: “You’ll get what I got when I get it!”
Okay, maybe there’s nothing to all of this. Maybe it is just me trying to make sense of my largess and rapidly changing status (I don’t feel old enough to command the title “mother-in-law” much less “granny”). Be this as it may, it seems an excellent time to play it safe and revise another adage:
Be careful (make that mindful) what you wish [or write], you just might get it!
Lamest Excuse Ever
if i ever doubted the power of kRAzy GLue, i don't NOW. . .
I would be working right now but . . . i broke my favorite earrings last night. i got up, set up my computer all ready to work. i was making coffee and had this excellent time-saving idea: indstead of wasting all this time waiting for the water to boil,fix your earrings. it was such an easy fix: just a tiny dab of glue, fit the post back into the whole....DONE.
I WAS WATCHING THE GLUE FLOW TOWARD THE APPLICATOR TIP....next thing i knew, it gushed out onto my fingers holding the post. i saw it happening. AFRAID THE GLUE WOULD GET ALL OVER EVERYTHING, I CAPPED IT FIRST....
HUGE MISTAKE!!!!!
now 2 fingers are stuck to the earring and two others are stuck together.
Directions on back of the bottle read: "soak in acetone nail polish remover then roll skin apart..." I AM SOAKING...
IF I EVER BEFORE DOUBTED THE POWER OF kyazy glue...
i am soaking, gritting my teeth against the pain as i try to pull/roll my fingers apart and typing this.
Palm skyward ala SCARLET O: With you as my witness, if i ever get free, i will never procrastinate or use KRAZY GLUE again!!!
**This posting was brought to you by an impaired in-pain inpatient wrong-handed typist.
Spending My Summer Vacation
Were your "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" Back-to-School essays fact or fiction? Or like mine, some of both.
I used to think you had to "go somewhere else" in order to have something "interesting" to write. I'm learning what Tam Smith and Sharry Wright, blog sisters on Kissing The Earth
seem to have known all along, and what led young reader-me to spend countless satisfying summer days curled up in a cozy spot, reading: the landscapes of a book can be a real, as captivating, as life-altering as any. In case you're wondering why I haven't been posting, it's Summertime. I'm spending my Summer Vacation. I'll write you all about it, later. . .
TRACING THE STARS: Just the Thing on a Hot Summer Day
I recently subscribed to Goodreads Quote of the Day. I'm delighted I did; these daily missives provide the jolt needed to spark my sluggish mind. This quote, by the late Carol Shields, author of STONE DIARIES, was the permission--and reminder-- I needed to toss aside all those "must-dos" and DO one of my favorite activities:
"Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve"
Erin Moulton's newest book TRACING THE STARS took me away on this hot summer day!
I didn't stop at 50 pages and you won't either!