For me, art *does* imitate life

I should be asleep, considering I went to bed around 3 a.m. after working on a contract deadline and got upt up at 7:30 for carpool duty. I'm sure it will soon hit me that I only had 4.5 hours of sleep and I will pursue my second shift.

But for now ...

Todd and I had a little 5th anniversary getaway this weekend, all the way to Southlake, about 30 miles from home. We made a stop Saturday night at the Ft. Worth Main Street Arts Festival before returning home. We wanted to check out the Quebe Sisters Band, so we got our cheesecake to go from the Cheesecake Factory. If you think this was a brilliant idea, remind me to remind you, it was not. The normally delightful desserts were warm and squishy by the time we drove 45 minutes, looked for parking for 30, and walked another 30. Ewww. Anyway, I digress.

Those Quebe girls can certainly play fiddle and sing swing. I've read about them in the paper for years, and it was nice to finally get a chance to see them live. Looks like they'll be at the Scottish Fest this summer, too.

When they finished, we decided to stroll up Main and check out some of the art booths before they closed (which, as it turns out, was about five minutes later), and I noticed something interesting. Whenever I'm at something like the arts fest, or an art museum, or in a store with art or books about art, I am inevitably drawn to the photographs. I enjoy other mediums as well, but the photos draw me like paper clips to magnets. I can stare at a photo for a long time, as my family will attest, just checking out the details, thinking about what might have been going on in or out of the frame.

And then it occurred to me that I've always told people how, when I was a child, I was never really that interested in cartoons. I had a few favorites--the Jetsons or the Flintstones--but on Saturday mornings, I always counted the minutes until the CBS Children's Film Festival began. When Kukla, Fran, and Ollie introduced a short film, I couldn't wait to see what it was about that week. Real kids, real lives.

In the same vein, I have never been a big reader of fantasy or sci/fi. I enjoyed the Chronicles of Narnia (who didn't?), and a few other stories that had some fantasy elements, but overall, I've always wanted real stories about real people in real situations. To this day, I can't wait to sink my teeth into a book that details the dilemmas of people who could be real.

And at the theater? Do you see me shelling out the bucks for Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or the Matrix? Only under duress. Todd and I went to see Smart People this weekend, and while it was really quite sad overall, I liked it. It resonated with me, well beyond the two hours in the theater. For instance, one of the poignant lines that stuck with me was when Lawrence (Dennis Quaid) said to his daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page), "You don't seem happy." Vanessa answered, "You're not happy, and you're my role model." I like it when things make me think hard. That made me think hard.

And guess what I'm writing? Stories about real people and real lives and real situations ... or they could be, anyway.

What about you? Are there parallels between other art mediums you love the most and what you typically read or write?

Or ... am I just boring? (DON'T ANSWER THAT OUT LOUD!!)

I'll try to get back to recording some of my "beauties" this week, but maybe using some different tactics. An article I read about essay writing last week suggested watching for what surprises you every day, so this week, I'm watching for surprises.