a date with SCHUBERT

 

WHAT'S YOUR NAME AGAIN?

 

Never too early for HALLOWE'EN MUSINGS

We're getting all moothy for the upcoming NaNoWriMo 2024, which will be written, partly, in Scots language. We'll be writing as we remember it. No' half!

Here we are, floating over either the moor or the brae. There's still time to photoshop some magic into it before writing begins. 

1. Wings, like Wili wings

2. A moor or bonnie brae

3. The beloved sternotomy scar?

4. More hair - a Wili-like spook sister would have a solid fringe

FAKE WIKIPEDIA

... because no-one can be arsed to write us a real Wikipedia. Maybe you don't warrant one, some might say, with a pinched church-lady expression, as though we issued a bad smell or articulated an oppositional political view. Don't warrant, don't deserve. Who are you, anyway, mouthbreather?

RAT UNDER PAPER is the pen name of Canadian illustrator A. G. Duffy, a name used mostly when there are issues involving usernames that have already been taken. How a name like "Amanda" could have ever become popular enough, let alone attached to "Garland" and "Duffy" is a mystery, but there you go. 

A. G. Duffy, aka RAT UNDER PAPER, is best known for a style of illustration described variously as witty, amusing, charmingly edgy, and "a ball of pent-up something - not rage, not bitterness, but something requiring vengeance or medication".

 "It's a tall order for a Gen Jones," says A. G., "But so far, we've kept our work from appearing nasty or over-the-top melancholic. We didn't get every toy we wanted in the 60s and 70s, but we won't build a pop culture museum dedicated to our lost youth, or romanticise neurosis as art."

Her work has been published in numerous publications, including weekly columns in TV Guide and The Wall Street Journal. Other illustrations, including several magazine covers, have appeared in Christianity Today, Out, Forbes, Ms, Good Housekeeping, The Atlantic Monthly, New York Daily News, Saveur, Report on Business, Fast Company, Sales and Marketing Management, Readers Digest, Ryerson Review of Journalism, Quill and Quire, Playboy, Saturday Night, and Entertainment Weekly, among others. 

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION:

A. G. was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on September 3, 1959,  the only child of Leslie Ruth (née Walker) and Owen Duffy. The family moved to Kelty, Scotland for a year and a half, before settling in Toronto. 

A. G.'s fanciful and attenuated childhood was spent drawing, designing and writing elaborate comic operas, musicals and plays. The illustrations in Jack and Jill, Oor Wullie, the Broons, and MAD influenced her stylistically. At an early age, she realised she was a lexical-gustatory synaesthete and balletomane. This had no effect on her drawing but inflated a runty ego.

A.G. attended the Ontario College of Art (and Design) from 1978-1982, graduating with honours. 

CAREER:

A.G. aka RAT UNDER PAPER began illustrating for Homemakers, The Globe and Mail, and Toronto Life while still at OCA(D). She got a kick out of the notion of freelance illustration when she noticed her work on the page of a newspaper read by the subway patron sitting next to her.
. 

She has worked mostly for magazines and newspapers over many years. She has an ongoing comic strip, LOSER GRRL, which highlights the foibles of a flawed heroine who has no intention of saving a dirty, messed-up world, but loosely associates with its denizens, occasionally transforming them into inanimate yet articulate objects. The main character bears a likeness to A. G. Duffy (the illustrator). Her sidekick, Down Boy, is a representation of a succession of beloved (real life) bull terriers. 

She paints portraits both large scale (over 5') and small (under 4") and is in the process of restoring a discarded dollhouse into a Gothic art gallery of miniatures with a live viewing audience of vintage Liddle Kiddles. 

Her illustrations often feature hand-lettering, which was turned into the font "Duffy Script" by ShinnType/ShinnDesign. A new font is in the works, which combines a traditional serif typeface with elements of Duffy Script. 

PERSONAL LIFE:

A. G. likes houses; the work of Yoshitomo Nara and David Hockney; popcorn; knitting; Chopova Lowena; Bodoni; Neo-Calvinism, old garden roses; tomato soup; the impression of luxury; Modest Mouse; the Smiths; Duran Duran; ballet (still); the Arts and Crafts Movement; old school painting; black turtlenecks; Ruinart; Farrow and Ball colours; Supergas; novels of J. M. Coetzee, D. H. Lawrence, Haruki Murakami and Martin Amis; the Oxford comma; the royal "we"; ayce salmon tataki, and Schubert - all of Schubert, obsessively, but mostly his piano sonatas and impromptus.

She lives in Toronto, and says "Though it was once a great city, it's still good. Naysayers should STFU."

Apr 29 (still no particular order)

 Apr 29

The day begins, ends, with Schubert.

For this, an LBD, slinky, 

not tradwife –  Franz would not be wowed

by ruffles or cowlike florals.

How would you know anything of

composers, says Mister. Nothing 

wrong with a woman who knows how

to dress like a lady. We pour 

glasses of Ruinart – one for 

me, one for Franz - and wait until 

the second movement of the fifth,

our favourite, before we sip.

Apr 22 (remember: no particular order)

 Apr 22

The river runs through the neighbour’s 

backyard, east to west, then dips south,

missing our yard completely. We’ve 

never seen it, but we’ve heard it

alright; it sounds just like Mr’s 

voice, whispering, as though he were 

telling secrets in the garden, 

things we should know but never will. 

That’s Mr for you, always plays 

his cards close to his chest, we’d say, 

if the river came close enough

to give us a hint, its pssshpsssh 

no longer mysterious but

making sense at last, while we get 

on our knees with gratitude for 

the warning we knew was coming.

NaPoWriMo 2024: not all of 'em, and in no particular order

Apr 18

There You Go, part 2

 

Why do you not trust, we say to

ourselves, though the truth is that we

have looked through every closet, 

nook and cranny in search of  - we

admit this – things we lost, lost things, 

things of which we were the steward

and we’ve no idea what went 

wrong. We’ve found the missing Barbie

doll, the glass tabletop that went 

awry, even eclipse glasses. 

It takes a week before it dawns

on us that we threw our missing 

cheap-ass earrings into the leaves 

of a potted ficus at the 

mall. If we go looking for them

out of curiosity, please 

please please do not let us find them.