Connections Clark: June 2010

Monday, June 21, 2010

Upside of my Downside

For the past week I've been battling some sort of infection, hacking up a lung, experiencing an allergic reaction to a round of antibiotics, you know, all things you don't want to be doing on summer break. The upside o

f my downside is that I'm able to catch up on my reading, writing and DVD's. In no particular order, here's what I've ingested in the past 7 days:

1. Trouble, a novel by Kate Christensen - a frothy novel about three women friends in their 40's who are all experiencing their own mid-life crisis. The author's earlier novel, The Great Man, won the Pen/Faulkner award and is next on my list.

2. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson - this is a YA novel about a girl who's older sister passes away and how she comes to terms with it and the mysteries the sister has left behind. An odd,

perky tone to this book about grief, but definitely a page turner.

3. All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab - another YA novel about a young woman's murder and the ex-boyfriend and cousin left behind to figure it out. I couldn't really get into this one and sort of sped-read to the end.

4. Season 1 of 30Rock - Late to the party again in my TV viewing, but I do love this series. At least one scene in every episode makes me laugh out loud. Dr. Spaceman. Need I say more.

5. The Wire - episode 1 - I don't think I had the patience that night for this complex series. I will give it another try in better health - so many people rave about this show.

6. The Chicago 10 - Filmmaker (and Crossroads alum) Brett Morgan tackles the story of the Chicago 10 trial in animation. An ambitious and artistic and long pie

ce of work.

7. Joan Rivers; A Piece of Work - Went with my mom to see the screening of this documentary yesterday when I was feeling a drop better - wow, this woman is funny, but oy, this woman is troubled. It was honestly a little hard to sit through watching that plastic surgeried face talk about the perils of aging, etc. Still, it's worth seeing. We should all have such energy when we are 75. Speaking of energy, I'm going to attempt a shower, a gargle, and a neti pot. Perhaps I'll climb back into bed with another book, or perhaps this is the day I'll reclaim my health!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Silhouette

Last weekend I attended a party where there was a silhouette artist (I know what you're thinking: only in L.A.). I watched from afar as children sat in her chair as she outlined their profiles and then, in Edward Scissorhands speed, cut out their silhouettes.

I remember when I was five someone at my school did my silhouette. My parents always displayed it in the den, and as the years went by I often marveled at how this shadowy profile truly captured the essence of 5-year old me.

A silhouette is defined as a representation of someone or something showing the shape and outline only, typically colored in solid black. To me, it looks like a shadow, and this immediately brings to mind Jung's "Shadow Aspect."

"Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." Jung also believed that this shadow self was the "seat of creativity." As I plow through my new novel, a bleak, dark, true crime piece, Jung's statements ring truer than ever.

There is something beautiful about silhouettes, how they capture the essence of a person - eyelashes, nose, mouth, chin - without concern of detail (skin tone, eye color, wrinkles). Perhaps because it was a warm day and I was wearing my hair in a ponytail, this silhouette also captured the child in me, the one who still believes in writing stories for a living, one who sits in the chair designated for kids as another artist cuts through the blackness to reveal the shadow aspect, the outline, the self.