Danger Is My Middle Name

My favorite author (and maybe yours) will be reading tomorrow evening at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts.

David Sedaris was in Phoenix last Spring reading from his latest book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. I was truly disappointed not to be able to go see him. My dearest friends went and said the tears were flowing from belly aching laughter. That's my favorite. The kind where you can't breathe because you are laughing so hard. After the reading they looked at the hours long line for the book signing and decided to go grab dinner and come back.

They drove over to the Cornish Pasty Company, picked up food for themselves, and an extra Pasty for David Sedaris. It was getting late and maybe he was hungry after all that talking? The line was shorter when they returned, but they still had to wait. The Pasty was sitting in the bottom of Brooke's purse, becoming less warm, a little less flaky and a bit more soggy. As the people in line in front of my friends dwindled, the thought crossed Brooke's mind that maybe she shouldn't present the Pasty, perhaps David Sedaris is a germaphobe? Or was that his sister?

It was finally their turn. There was no one in between my friends and David Sedaris except for Brooke's perfectly round, pregnant belly. They instantly hit it off swapping bizarre stories and David Sedaris proceeded to name their unborn child. Danger as his middle name. The Pasty stayed at the bottom of Brooke's purse.

A week later I received for my birthday, my very own copy of When You are Engulfed in Flames. I flipped open the cover and thumbed through to the title page where to my delight I discovered a little drawing of a bird, with a conversation bubble saying simply, "Hi!", followed by Sedaris' signature. It's my favorite.

making art vs. living art

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the difference between a person who lives a creative life and one who actively creates art. What is the difference between these individuals? Are they sometimes the same person who shifts back and forth - sometimes caught up in specific ideas that result in a product while other times going about their lives without much of an end product, but brain still going through the same processes?

The reason I wonder this is because much of the way I problem solve and evaluate the things I see in the world is through the same vision that I create artwork. To be clear, I haven’t made much art over the last several years, besides a bout here and there, but I still feel like my brain processes the same way. Just as before, I always have my best ideas in that twilight between wake and sleep – striving to allow myself to continue the thought without interruption, always worried that in the morning, pieces will be lost.

Another question: who is qualified to discern what is art and what isn’t? When pondering this, I can’t help but think of a purely comedic response, always coming up with the same answer: David Sedaris. From a piece called “Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist” from Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris, after being rejected from the traditional art world, falls in with some other art school students keen on conceptual art and crystal meth. Making such references to their art including dragging a heavy cash register through the forest, balling up socks on a hardwood floor, and lying in a fetal position before our national monuments, Sedaris compares the difference between “making art” and “living art”. I must note here that he does contribute many of his views at the time to his excessive use of speed and the lack of self-consciousness he felt while on it. While I don’t personally view these concepts as art, in general, it does raise a funny if not real question about where one might draw this elusive line.