Merrill Markoe's Blog, page 10

Exciting Multi-Media Halloween event

OKAY…Its not an event exactly. Its just this Halloween card I made. But that's sort of an event. Especially if you define event as anything I say it is.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: Part Two

I have been preoccupied, lately, with whether this is an especially crazy time to be alive, what with the instantaneous information/misinformation bleeding out of the internet. (See the thing about Tacitus in the blog just before this one.) I do think that crime and show business have never been more closely aligned. I don't know if there has ever been a time where criminal arrests are worth as much in terms of $$ as going on a publicity tour or being in a movie . But otherwise, I am starting to conclude: apparently things have always been running like this. Here is a quote from a book review of a new biography of George Washington (by Ron Chernow)  in today's NY Times

"Washington" also devotes great attention to the harsh criticism that Washington faced as soon as the luster faded and the governing began. As president, missing his beloved Mount Vernon and incurring great financial losses to serve as head of state, he was carped about so relentlessly that even his way of tapping a fork at the dinner table could become fodder for malicious gossip."

I guess that's just the way we do things. Oh well. And also yikes.

My new cure for political nerves

I feel compelled to keep up with the news for some reason, even though it causes me to then spend an awful lot of time fretting about the way things are going and the ways things are going to end up. I follow that with long spells of wondering what I am supposed to do to help or how I may be inadvertently contributing to harm.  When I think about it all, it  just seems like everything keeps getting worse and its a trend no one can reverse. And when I say 'it' I mean…you know…IT. All of it...

I just finished my new book

HOORAY for me But at least on some level, a draft of it is finished. Its a book of essays. It includes a lengthy piece about my mother, for which I will be going to hell.   The title of the book MIGHT be "Cool, Calm and Contentious."  although that makes me sound a little like Clint Eastwood. All I know is that now, suddenly, I am not swimming in three feet of loose paper.  I write on the computer but in the final stages I find that I can't see what, if anything, the book says unless I...

I think I just finished my new book

HOORAY for meI could be wrong.  I have been wrong before.  But at least on some level, a draft of it is finished. Its a book of essays. It includes a lengthy piece about my mother, for which I will be going to hell.   The title of the book MIGHT be "Cool, calm and contentious."

The Lost Shoes of Zuma

I am trying very hard to finish up the first draft of a new book of essays.  It is taking forever and is endlessly labor intensive.  So I did what any right thinking person would do to cope: I started a TUMBLR. I had never even been ON Tumblr before so I don't like this format so much. I will almost definitely change it pretty soon.  But meanwhile we, the two human residents of my household, have taken to documenting the shoes that we see left behind at Zuma Beach every time we go for a walk ...

Is this going to be on the test?

Being a writer sometimes leads  to unexpected situations.  The one that happened today involved a text book requesting permission to reprint a piece that I wrote ten years ago.

This  is not the first time.  I am told that I have pieces in a few different English text books, though I have never actually seen one of them.   Maybe its for the best. When I am writing a piece, usually I am trying to be funny and also trying to figure out who these people are  that will or will not be entertained...

My nominee for worst art of the 21st. Century

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I went to UC Berkeley where I was an art major all the way through to a Masters degree. Why? Because in the words of the great Joe Strummer, "There's only one answer to what you're going to do after school and that is art school: the last resort of malingerers and people who don't want to work."  I admit that  I may have screwed around an awful lot in the name of academia. But  I also learned a few things. And I was thinking of those few things today when I was waiting to get out of  ...

Daddy has bought an old Thunderbird

Thunderbird: V-8 Wonder of the Western World

At long last: My Reality Show

I think it is time for me to have a reality show. So I have made the important decisions.

My reality show is going to be about the highs and lows, the pitfalls and the triumphs of being a single woman. You will share in the heartaches and the struggles but you will also be there for the good times. My problems will turn out to be not so different from your problems because I will do the research necessary during pre-production to make sure that we are in sync.

I don't think the fact that I am n...