Are You an Albert or a Georgia?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Are you an Albert or a Georgia? Are you an Einstein or an O’Keeffe? Quickly, look at your desk or your workplace.  Recently I saw a photo of Albert Einstein's desk by LIFE photographer Ralph Morse. 

I am terrified to post it because it's probably copyrighted but here's the link.  And just imagine chaos. I will admit, mine looks very similar.  

Minus the pipe and tobacco tin, of course, and my white board certainly does not have runic and scrawled equations on it--unless, hmm,  they are equations in words, and actually,  thinking about it, that might be the case. 

Anyway, I predict his piles of papers and opened books have more numbers on them than mine does. But the volume of paper is the same.

The marvelous Kathryn Lasky, who writes a wonderful traditional mystery series starring a fictionalized Georgia O'Keeffe, had kind of an epiphany when she saw a replication of the real Georgia O'Keefe's desk. A desk, as she describes, that is quite different from her own.

(and this week’s winners and news below!)

Opposites Attract: Why Georgia?
by Kathryn Lasky

Someone recently asked me why I began writing about Georgia O’Keeffe. All I could say is ‘she is so unlike me’. 

Where to begin about this woman who was born more than half a century before me? The point was driven home when I recently attended an exhibit on Georgia O’Keeffe at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They had replicated her studio in her home in Abiquiu, New Mexico. It was the essence of an immaculate, calm and orderly environment. Everything had been pared down to the essentials. It was all harmony and not dissonance.

My own workspace in contrast, is an appalling tornado that perhaps betrays my mind. There is not a clear surface except for where my laptop sits. Post Its are stuck everywhere. Grandchildren’s photographs, pictures of owls and my kids' drawings from years ago clad the walls. There is a roll of Tums nearby in case stomach acids boil up when I’m trying to work out a plot point. Beneath my desk are some shoes that I have kicked off. Unless I remove books from chairs there is no place for friends to sit without a whirlwind clean up. That usually evokes shouts of wonder as I discover a book that I thought I had accidentally given away.

But that is not my only point of difference with O’Keeffe. My mind is disorderly. I often write too much in a scene. I need to pare it down until it is nearly skeletal for it to gain the power I seek. To me, Georgia is the very essence of pared down. She never had. to declutter. She sees to the essence of things right from the get-go whereas I continue to wander aimlessly through the debris of my own mind.

So, I am drawn to Georgia O’Keeffe. She has successfully cleared the clutter and is on a straight shot to the essence of things, be it a painting of an iris or the dawn illuminating a mesa. I am not her. I’ll never be her, but opposites attract and I shall continue celebrate her genius.


HANK: So funny isn't it, how our desks reflect something, although I am not sure what. If you saw my desk, I'm sure you would wonder how I know where everything is, but I truly do. I do the piles-of-papers system, and every pile has a purpose, and although from time to time I cull things out, and I like my piles to be small, piles they are.

How about you, Reds and Peaders? Are you an O'Keefe or an Einstein?

And a copy of Kathy Lasky's new A SLANT OF LIGHT to one lucky commenter!

A SLANT OF LIGHT

When students of St Ignatius go missing, painter and amateur sleuth Georgia O'Keeffe must infiltrate the school to figure out what's going on in this thrilling historical mystery set in 1930s New Mexico from multi award-winning author Kathryn Lasky.

New Mexico, 1936. Settling in for a harsh winter alone at her house at the Ghost Ranch, painter and occasional amateur sleuth Georgia O'Keeffe makes the most of the weather before a storm rolls in. But when she finds the ideal spot to capture a particularly nice sunset, Georgia discovers a boy - cold, exhausted and desperate . . .

Joseph Reyes is a student at St Ignatius School, and he claims that sinister Sister Angelica and Father Raphael have raped and killed his sister. And she is not the only one who suddenly went missing!

Georgia is determined to find out what's happening at this seemingly peculiar school, but as she investigates she uncovers even more disturbing machinations that link the school to the newly founded Opus Dei institution and its cult-like practices as well as Nazis and hidden spies - not knowing how much she puts herself in danger.

Lovers of historical mysteries that feature real-life people will have a blast! "Step aside Miss Marple, Eugenia Potter, and Kinsey Millhone - Georgia O'Keeffe is the new sleuth in town!" (Award-winning author Katherine Hall Page).

Kathryn Lasky is the author of over one hundred books for children and young adults, including the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, which has more than eight million copies in print, and was turned into a major motion picture, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. Her books have received numerous awards including a Newbery Honor, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and a Washington Post-Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award. She has twice won the National Jewish Book award. Her work has been translated into 19 languages worldwide. She lives with her husband in Cambridge, MA.





THIS WEEKS WINNERS!

The winner of Jacqueline Faber’s THE DEPARTMENT is Lisa in Long Beach

The winner of the JRW check in (and who gets Hank’s choice of ONE WRONG WORD) is Helen Mitternight

The owner of the Lunch Bunch book of Hank’s choice (and who gets HER PERFECT LIFE) is Margie Bunting!

Email me at Hank@Hankphillippiryan.com to claim your prize

(and we’ll announce the winner of Kathryn’s book next week!)


And don’t forget: The Jungle Red Happy Hour is this coming Thursday, February 20, at 5PM on the Reds and Readers Facebook page! And we’ll chat, and take your questions, and have prizes galore! But you have to join us to join the fun–so click https://www.facebook.com/groups/6835060499909032     on Facebook to join! And then we will see you LIVE on Thursday!