Hi everybody, sometimes we're our own worst critic. I keep hearing over and over and over again Brian don't be so hard on yourself. I have to be patient. Last week I saw my new neurologist that specializes in seizure. I've picked a neurologist that's closers to home. The best news I got out of the meeting was she said I could drink regular coffee and have chocolate now and then. Other than that, it was pretty much the same thing. She wants me to do a blood test to check my medicine levels. She didn't change anything. If anything, I'm on the minimum
amount of anti seizure medicine.
I wanted to include an email I got from a friend. He's a cinematographer who went with me to Greenland. Pace Editions sponsored a father son trip to Greenland. My father and I did the trip together. He painted the icebergs and I photographed them. It was a great thing to do. We had a show of the work after we came back. I'm going to include the special video portrait of what was shot there.
First, Here's his email:
Brian, I printed out your entire blog and read it all at once yesterday, it was a really amazing experience. Various themes stand out more clearly when you read that many posts all together, such as Water, Patience, Calmness.
It made me remember some things from Greenland through that prism:
Just the blue, the neon blue of those icebergs on that first overcast afternoon. Floating, drifting along and all we had to do was breath the air and paint and photograph and film. It was so quiet and calm, awe inspiring and peaceful like I'd never felt before. I think of that whenever I need a moment of clarity.
The water dripping off the melting ice, running down the side of a giant berg as we held out a flask to catch it and brew up some coffee. I mean, come on, Iceberg Coffee?! Unbelievable.
Stopping randomly because Don just had to paint the view of Ilulissat and you telling me that this is how it always was, even when you were growing up. You'd travel around Europe and as an antsy little kid you would have to sit there patiently while he whipped out his watercolor sketch book and threw down another masterpiece of whatever happened to strike his fancy.
I loved seeing the cartoon you posted, it reminded me of the ones you did during that trip, I have such a vivid memory of them even though I haven't seen them since. If you could post them someday that would make me the happiest kid in the city.
Best Adam Hall
The email summarizes the trip. It makes me realize how much fun I had with my father. It all went by so quick.
I'm going to make this a short one, but tell a quick story. I'm going to go off on a tangent here.
I was living in Australia off Manly beach. I had a big dinner party. I got really drunk (how unusual) anyway I promised all my friends I would give a big Thanksgiving dinner. When I woke up the next morning (with a big hangover) my wife at the time reminded me I promised to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner.
Well, I tried to keep to my promise and I did the Thanksgiving dinner. My first step was to get a big turkey. Not easy to do in Australia. Never even thought about it. I couldn't find one anywhere. A friend finally suggested I call the American Embassy for advice. They said "No way mate. We over ordered some turkeys. You can have one of ours. Go ahead and pick it up at the butcher." So I did. I went to their butcher and picked up the turkey. It was huge, I asked the guy, "Are you sure that's not an emu?" I'd never seen such a big bird in my life. It hardly fit in my car. Then I got home and looked at my oven, and then at the bird, and then the oven. I thought it's never going to fit. I took out almost all of the racks, put the bird in. The door wouldn't close, so I got the tinfoil and bridged the gap. It took 2 rolls of big tinfoil to bridge the gap. The door was more than half open. Well I cooked that bird for about 14 hours. I think we drank a case of wine waiting for it to be done. By 3 am the bird was finished. We were too. We could have eaten the couch and it would have tasted fantastic. We were ripped but we had a great Thanksgiving. By the way, the bird tasted real good, but I'm pretty sure it was an emu.
I was awoken by a noise about 4:30 am. There was something in the trash trying to get the turkey carcass I think. I was inches from the window looking down trying to see what was in the garbage. I had a funny feeling. I looked up and about 2 inches from my face was another face. It was looking at me. It had its hands on the window it scared the hell out of me. I screamed raised my hands up, it did the same thing. It screamed and raised its hands. It fell out of the tree, I fell on my bed. It turned out to be a tree kangaroo. It wasn't hurt. It helped its friend grab something from the trash and ran into the woods. I checked my shorts.
Please watch the video by Michelle Icahn and let me know what you think. Love, B. Nice
