Before we dive in, I feel I should explain myself. Namely, the name of this venture. Names are important and valuable, and you have the right to know why what you’ve gotten yourself into is named the way it is.
The scene:
In a little yellow dollhouse suspended in time, sit 3 young humans in one straight line.
I am sixteen. He is seventeen. The other he is fifteen. I am wedged between the two, and we are sitting on a couch like a chronological stepping-stone portrait, like a neat little row of teenage complexity and burgeoning identity stacked one after the other after the other. The quaintness of the portrait: 3 wild haired kids with giant brown eyes and even gianter imaginations on a couch surrounded by impossibly perfect chachkies and a very serene and wise dog named Doug, with the implacable scent of musky nostalgia wafting around our wee heads as we stare intently forward, by golly it’s like we could be a poster or a scene from a Wes Anderson movie or something!
And well, we are watching a Wes Anderson movie.
The Dickson Brothers are introducing me to Rushmore, and my oh my I am devouring it with gusto. I have recently met the Brothers, and in the short time I’ve known them I’ve acted in a play and sang songs with one and kissed and begun to fall in love with the other and danced to Bob Dylan with both of them on a roof in Dinkytown, North Carolina so this whole arrangement is really going well so far. Anyway, here we are, watching the colorfully curated world unfold on the screen, when THE SCENE happens:
Bill Murray is walking along with the woman he and Jason Schwartzman are in love with. They are walking outside through a class of young children painting outdoors.
Walking up to an impossibly adorable kid, Bill Murray points to his easel and asks “What’s that you’ve painted?”
The child does not look up, his eyes remain concentrated on the easel, and in this moment he must decide what the hell it actually is that he’s created.
Impossibly Adorable Kid: “That’s…ahhh..uhh a jellyfish.”
Now, it’s entirely possible that Impossibly Adorable Kid fully intended to create a jellyfish and merely experienced a slight moment of hesitation while presenting his masterpiece. BUT what I saw in this 6 seconds of cinematic genius is that the child was simply throwing paint to canvas and watching the image unfold in organic tandem with the movements of his unbridled brush, and when confronted with defining it, he had to ask himself the question for the first time. And when the answer came, the fact that it was a jellyfish was a discovery for all 3 onlookers, including the artist.
This is how I create. Impossibly Adorable Kid’s method is quite similar to my own. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I suspect many artists must feel the same way. We are constantly riding the line of technique and instinct, strategy and passion, and the best stuff usually comes out when we set off on the road with an unclear destination and a backpack with a couple of tools, determination, and maybe a snack for later.
All this to say, this is the first reason for why this blog (I’m writing a blog?!) is titled the way it is.
The second reason is because my alter ego is named Bonanza Jellyfish, a riff on one of my all-time favorite literary characters Bonanza JellyBEAN, created by National Treasure Tom Robbins in his novel Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. I read this book right before Bandits On The Run formed, and when we were discussing the Very Important Issue Of Choosing A Bandit Name, Bonanza Jellyfish came to me in a sunburst of inspiration and I knew in an instant that this is what I was meant to be called. I’m sure I’ll tell you about the origins of the band and the persona of Bonanza Jellyfish and the rest of the crew at some later date, as I’m sure this introduction is already incredibly lengthy by internet attention span standards. (Is it? I do not know, friends. It’s my first time!!)
The third reason is I’ve always identified with creatures with tentacles. I was given the nickname Squidney by my childhood best friend’s father, and many of my family and friends have continued to use this name because it’s cute as shit. I still have a stuffed squid given to me by a college boyfriend that chills on my bed, and that is saying quite a lot because I have quite the track record of losing objects (RIP Tigger, my mom’s stuffed tiger from childhood that I think was sucked into a black hole when I was 11). Jellyfish and squid are certainly not the same, but I love the idea of a creature with many arms because that is how my brain feels, that’s how my art feels and that’s how my life feels, arms outstretched in many directions, occasionally following one with a very strong pull for a while til the current tosses me in another direction.
The fourth and final reason is jellyfish are amazing kickass creatures and weird as all get-out. They have no BRAIN. They have no HEART. They are BIOLUMINESCENT. They can CLONE THEMSELVES. Some species are ACTUALLY IMMORTAL– Seriously, look that up: turritopsis nutricula can return back to their younger polyp stage in times of stress. This process can continue indefinitely. STAGGERING. SCIENCE.
So, welcome to the Jellyhouse. Your guess is as good as mine how this blogventure will unfold. But I’m pretty giddy about the whole thing. I’ve journaled for about 10 years now and I’ve always really dug stringing words together, and this is the first time I’m doing it for all to see, so thank you for sharing this with me.
This is Syd the Squid or Bonanza the Jelly (take your pick, they’re one in the same) signin’ off.