Oh my word, it is hot as the blazes this week.  I often joke that I was made for Norway. (Although I have never been there, and the ancestry information I’ve found so far has all led back to England.)  I certainly wasn’t made for anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.  I’m fair-skinned, have a sun allergy, turn beet red in the heat, and feel nauseous if I can’t cool off.  So, I’m getting my gardening and pool chores done in the morning, making sure everything has enough water, and then I’m spending the rest of the day inside.  The upside is we can enjoy the pool in the evening when the sun isn’t so intense.  I’m already dreading the utility bill, though.  Happy July.

I hope you’re staying cool and enjoying the slower pace of summer wherever you are.

Here are my four things for this week: Garden Potraits, Sunset Boulevard, inimitable strangeness, and the in-between

what I’m reading

One of my Instagram friends recommended the book Garden Portraits, and that was the book I took to my appointments last week and browsed through during my reading time at my desk.  It’s like taking a garden tour through the pages, and I found some nice inspiration.  The gardens are definitely aspirational, but those are the kinds of gardens you want to tour, right?

what I’m watching

As a musical theatre girl, I sometimes go down the rabbit hole of YouTube bootlegs (or professional recordings) of live shows.  Sunset Boulevard is a show I have loved since it first came out, but I was never able to see it in person.  Well, Jeff found a recording of a Sunset Boulevard concert-style performance HERE, so we decided to watch it last week.  Jeff has a man crush on two people – Tom Brady and Ramin Karimloo, and the latter was playing Joseph Gillis in this production, which is how he found it.  (I am joking about the man crush thing, but it is well known in our household that he’s a fan of both of those guys!)  I think the recording might’ve been from a rehearsal because people were still using music and scripts, there were some obvious mistakes, and clearly the kinks hadn’t been worked out of Joe’s Act 1 on-stage costume change.

Aside from the occasional adjusting on the lap-turned-tripod of the videographer, it’s a pretty good recording, and we enjoyed watching it.  I think it’s some of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best music.

The funniest thing for me, though, was when the actress who played Norma Desmond came onstage.  “Oh, she is far too young for that role.”  Jeff looked over at me with squinted eyes.  “Norma is 50.”  I had to think through the lyrics.  Oh my gosh…  “Nothing’s wrong with being 50!  Unless you’re acting 20.”  You see, Sunset Boulevard premiered when I was in high school, so Norma seemed ancient.  I think, in my mind, she’s just gotten older as I’ve gotten older.

I had to come face-to-face with the fact that Norma is two years older than I am. If I were still in theatre, that would be the role I would audition for.  Yikes!  A play about a washed-up, senile, fragile, desperate 50-year-old now seems a little unfair.

So, middle age just keeps smacking me in the face this month.

what I’m loving

“There may be nothing new under the sun, but it is our distinctiveness that matters, our specialness. I deal exclusively in old, well-worn ideas, but there is still no song like a Nick Cave song, or a Morrissey song, or a Prince song, or a Lana Del Ray song, a Wu-Tang song, a Cure song, a Pixies song, a Kate Bush song, a Kneecap song, or the work of infinite other artists who have found their characteristic voice. Perhaps that is the purpose of art, and indeed life – to enchant and reinvigorate the world using those timeless ideas interpreted through our own inimitable strangeness. The elements are all there, your unique self and that host of ancient ideas.”   – Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files Issue #370

what I’m working on

It’s felt like a bit of an in-between week.  I finished recording the audiobook for Move Slow & Make Things and turned in the photography for my 2027 book, so now I’ve been shifting focus back to the 2028 book.  I’ve been fleshing out the outline, identifying people I want to interview, organizing and reviewing the research notes I’ve collected, and gearing up to write 30-60 minutes a day until the manuscript is done.  I’ll dive into that after the long weekend.

Until then, I’ve been working on oil paintings, packing prints, getting the July Pup Club Print mailing ready to go, and sharing here on the blog. Here are a few paintings from this week…

What have you been reading, watching, loving, and working on?