Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for November, 2020

From Whence I Came

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on November 10, 2020| 6 Comments »

“The word was born in the blood, grew in the dark body, beating, and took flight through the lips and the mouth. Farther away and nearer still, still it came from dead fathers and from wondering races, from lands which had turned to stone, lands weary of their poor tribes, for when grief took to the roads the people set out and arrived and married new land and water to grow their words again. And so this is the inheritance; this is the wavelength which connects us with dead men and the dawning of new beings not yet come to light.”

― Pablo Neruda

Found myself awake early this morning. So many things racing through my head that it was hard to focus on trying to sleep. Big things and little things- a gnawing worry for this country and tiny nagging reminders of things that need to be done soon. All things that couldn’t be resolved at 2 AM in the woods where I live.

Then it struck me that it was around this time of the morning that my mom died 25 years ago on this very date.

Geez, 25 years come and gone. And there I was, in bed thinking of her death. 

I tried to dredge up memories of her, hoping that it would drown out the other things in the background of my mind, all screaming for attention or at least equal air time. Some memories came easily. Those are the ingrained ones that have become part of the synapses.

But I tried to dig deeper and there were only shadows of memories. Not real recollection. Maybe not even real. I don’t know for sure and most likely never will.

25 years has a way of changing things in your mind.

So, I tried focusing on the traits that I may have inherited from her, some good and some bad. Some neither. They just are what they are.

Some made me laugh. Some made me cry.

Laughter and tears. Quite the inheritance.

There are certainly worse things in this world.

It made me think in bed of the painting above that I recently took out to the West End Gallery. Called From Whence I Came, it’s part of my Archaeology series from back in 2008. I think this piece was only shown once in a gallery before it came back to me. For some unknown reason, it found its way to the back of a closet, where it has been residing for the past 12 years. I pulled it out a few weeks back and it was like seeing it for the first time again. 

It made me think of all the choices and serendipity that it took for me to arrive at this place in the world. It’s the same for all of us. We’re all products of the decisions and events that took place throughout the history of man on this planet. One person succumbing to a virus instead of surviving it a thousand years ago and our whole history as a person would be different. 

We’re all the spearpoints, the leading edges, the very top of the pyramids of all that came before us. We were brought to this point by the bones and blood of thousands of lives before us.

All their strength. All their vulnerability.

I don’t know where I want this to go. Just thinking out loud, I guess, between the laughter and the tears.

Gotta go. Have a good day, folks.

 

Read Full Post »

Good Bones

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , , , on November 9, 2020| 1 Comment »

“From a Distance”- At the West End Gallery

GOOD BONES/ by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

I came across this 2016 poem from American poet Maggie Smith very early this morning and it really struck a chord. 

We all want things right now, want them to be complete and perfect. Move in ready. But things are seldom that way. It requires imagination and desire to see the potential that things hold. And hard work and determination to reach that potential.

“This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”

Indeed.

I had never seen or heard this poem but it is quite well known. It has been read and published around the world and Maggie Smith is often asked to read it at events. She calls it her Freebird, which is quite a funny line.

It was written in the aftermath of the 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people. Its popularity was maintained through the momentous 2016 elections here and in the UK –it was called “Official Poem of 2016” by the BBC/Public Radio International— and has continuously popped up throughout the past four years as folks to try to maintain optimism in the dark atmosphere that has marked this era.

I somehow missed it until about 5:30 this morning. Always late to the dance.

But I imagine that this poem will remain popular because, as she points out, the world is at least fifty percent terrible and will no doubt remain so. It will always require plenty of imagination, desire, determination — and throw in loads of blood, sweat and tears– to overcome the awfulness that resides side-by-side with us in this world so that we can make it into that perfect home we all dream of for ourselves.

“This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”

Indeed.

Read Full Post »

Anthem

Posted in Current Events, Music, Opinion, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2020| 2 Comments »

“Human beings, whatever their backgrounds, are more open than we think, that their behavior cannot be confidently predicted from their past, that we are all creatures vulnerable to new thoughts, new attitudes.

And while such vulnerability creates all sorts of possibilities, both good and bad, its very existence is exciting. It means that no human being should be written off, no change in thinking deemed impossible.”

― Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“It is a happy faculty of the mind to slough that which conscience refuses to assimilate.”

― William Faulkner, Light in August

Yesterday was an interesting day. A good day.

A good and decent man and a strong and smart woman of mixed race and immigrant parents were declared the victors in our presidential election. Throughout the country and around the world spontaneous celebrations took place with throngs of people ( almost all masked, by the way) taking to the streets. A total release of emotion. Dancing. Singing. Banging drums and honking car horns. 

A cacophony of  joy. 

In Paris and other cities around the world the church bells tolled. 

I would like to think that witnessing this explosion of celebration might cause those who have steadily supported the divisive rhetoric and vindictiveness of the current president*** watched this and wondered how his loss could have possibly triggered such elation and joy. I would like to think that it made them feel cracks taking place in the shield of the cognitive dissonance they have maintained for the past four years, being fed as they have been a steady diet of pure falsehoods and subsisting on beliefs and .conspiracies that do not align with any sort of reality.

Living in their self-contained bubbles doesn’t allow them to even consider the possibility that their reality is not everybody’s reality.

I have to admit this applies to both sides to some extent. But the blind allegiance to the lies, vitriol and cruelty of this president*** is beyond anything seen on the other side. It is complete acceptance of every lie as truth even when their own eyes tell them it is not so. Their support for him even when confronted with facts is an amazing bit of pretzel logic that rationalizes his every action. In the four years since his election I have yet to hear anyone speak of their support for him in anything but broad generalizations and mischaracterizations of events.

They want to believe so hard that their kind rejects the reality that is before them.

I think yesterday went a long way toward bursting that bubble for some of those folks. Not all, of course. There were counter-demonstrations, though much smaller and less ebullient. And largely unmasked. Even when it comes to their health and a raging deadly pandemic, many still refuse to accept the reality that is so apparent to all others.

But for many, it had to be illuminating to see how country and the world reacted. It wasn’t a reaction to a political victory. People celebrated when Obama was elected but even that was dwarfed by yesterday’s outpouring.

This was a reaction similar to the winning of a world war or the toppling of a tyrant. It looked like something from a movie where the citizens of Earth have turned away an alien invasion.

To witness that from the other side had to be a mix of bitterness and bewilderment, probably wondering how so many people could be so wrong. And probably even more so, if they watched President-elect Biden’s speech last night, heard him speak in positive terms about unity and moving ahead together. Where was the anger? There was no promise of American carnage, no threat of retribution or revenge. Not raging with grievances. No us and them.

It was an extended hand and a promise to speak to and for all Americans. It was sane and calm and delivered in terms of unity and future built on hope, not fear. 

It most likely didn’t resemble in any way the strawman that they come to fear and hate. The future he spoke of includes them, doesn’t push them to the side or minimize their concerns. 

Like I said, yesterday was probably a day of illumination for some. The future doesn’t have to be dark, doesn’t have to be built on demonizing or blaming others. It can be okay, maybe even better than okay.

All they have to do is allow the possibility that there is sometimes another way of thinking about things.

Hopefully, yesterday cracked some bubbles and some new light was shed on their minds. Like Howard Zinn, whose words are at the top of the page, I believe in the potential for people to change their way of thinking.

Okay, enough. I am writing this off the top of my head so I apologize if this is not as concise or focused as I would like.

For this Sunday morning music let’s go with a song, Anthem, from Leonard Cohen whose message is most fitting today for this post: 

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in

Have a good day. There will be tough days ahead, but let’s hope there are many more good ones to come.

Read Full Post »

Revelator 2020

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, tagged , , on November 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Thought I’d rerun this post from last year. I can always listen to The Revelator and it seems appropriate to the moment.

 

**********************

Darling remember, when you come to me
I’m the pretender; I’m not what I’m supposed to be
But who could know if I’m a traitor?
Time’s the revelator

—Gillian Welch, The Revelator

***********************

I came across an image of the painting at the top, a piece from 2006 called What Is True that holds a lot of meaning for me, and it set me thinking.

Truth is patient. It waits for the light of a sun that sometimes travels through the vastness of space and time, millions and millions of light years, to shine on it.

Time always finds truth at some point and when it shine its light upon it, there is revelation.

Every day is filled with revelation, so it seems.

Time and truth are coming together.

Here’s a favorite song of mine from Gillian Welch, The Revelator.

Read Full Post »

The Misanthrope

Posted in Current Events, History, Opinion, Quote, tagged , , , , on November 6, 2020| 2 Comments »

Betrayed and wronged in everything,
I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king,
And seek some spot unpeopled and apart
Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart.

― Molière, The Misanthrope

Sorry I’ve been away for a couple of days but it was unavoidable as I had fallen into a small Black Hole that formed in a closet in the studio, just behind a stack of records. I was transported by it to the 7th Dimension of the Time-Space Continuum and was stranded there. I had to wait for the bus that brought me back here just minutes ago.

What have I missed? Anything important?

Actually, I just didn’t want to record any reaction to what was happening. Early Wednesday morning, I knew my emotions were too raw and that the process was not far enough along to make any real assumptions. If I had written it would have been too angry, disappointed and disillusioned.

It would have been something in the vein of the lines from Moliere’s The Misanthrope, shown above. 

It looks like this phase of the process is coming to an end and the reign of our wannabe dictator will come to an end. I thought this would make me want rejoice and yell out “Hallelujah” to the heavens. But it doesn’t. My happiness is dampened because, of course, of the weariness of the battle and the fact that there is much more danger and division ahead in the phases to come. Hopefully, we endure the rough ride and come out on the other side, where we can try to patch things back together, try to somehow repair the extensive damage this abomination has inflicted on this country.

But can we? Has he done irreparable harm?

I certainly don’t know. I can only speak to how he has affected my small world. 

And I worry that the damage he has done to my own view of my country and my fellow citizens is permanent.

And therein resides the greatest part of my immense loathing for this creature.

I have survived this world thus far by clinging to small bits of hope, to pursuing ideals that were based on some sort of goodness. Honesty. Empathy. Generosity. I have tried to find the better part of those folks I come across.

I have believed that this country did indeed have greatness but that it was never in our past. We were only on our way to greatness at any point in our 250+ years of history as a nation. I believed that our greatness was in the future and that we would slowly approach it so long as we pursued the great ideals of equality and justice for all. 

And even then, we might never reach it. But so long as we kept moving forward, that it would be okay.

But this creature has made me doubt my beliefs, made me question even the possibility of future greatness. How can any nation survive and progress towards any sort of, to use the words of the Constitution, a more perfect union when it is broken into two halves that seem to share few beliefs and values? How can it go on when  half wants to move forward and half wants to return to some imaginary point in our past? 

Because of this creature I find myself becoming more and more like a misanthrope. He has me feel judgmental and bitter towards people I don’t even know. I find myself asking how anyone could embrace his brand name hatred and vitriol, how they could blindly accept his ludicrous accusations and lies. How could they turn a blind eye to his barely veiled racism and open corruption? How could they think that the road to any sort of greatness ran through this soulless, selfish creature? 

Is this how I will forever be– angry and distrustful? Will I ever be able to restore the belief in the ideals and virtues that have sustained me for the many years of my life? Can I ever believe that these values are still shared with the vast majority, that we are willing to work as one to move forward toward that more perfect union?

I truly don’t know.

There are too many balls still in the air, too many potentials still out there for both disaster and redemption, to make any sort of determination. I doubt that I will ever be the same as I was before this creature slimed his way into our lives. I will always have doubts now, even greater uncertainty in who and what we are as a nation and what we might one day be.

In the words of the always wise Jiddu Krishnamurti:

When you once see something as false which you have accepted as true, as natural, as human, then you can never go back to it.

I am certainly going to try to maintain my optimism, try to regain my starry-eyed idealism. But I do not know if I will ever fully be the same. His words, his actions and his effect on the people of this nation have changed me.

And among his many crimes, that is one I will never be able to forgive.

But now, I am off to try to recoup some of that which was lost. Off to the easel where, as Moliere wrote:

I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king,
And seek some spot unpeopled and apart
Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart.

Be careful out there and have a good day. Now get off my lawn!

Read Full Post »

Election Day 2020

Posted in Current Events, tagged , , , , , on November 3, 2020| 4 Comments »

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

Well, H.L. Mencken was certainly proven correct, only 60 years after he published the words above back in 1956.

I don’t know what that truly says about us as a people and our inner soul. But I do know that today we have a chance to clean up that lapse in judgement.

It’s election day 2020! Kick out the jams, folks! Let’s get this thing done. To be honest, I was going to use a different word here instead of folks. All you old MC5 fans out there will know what I was thinking.

I am not going to drone on. Just asking you to participate, to get out there and vote. Thank you for all who have already taken their civic responsibility seriously and voted early. And if you have yet to vote, stand tough and get that vote in today.

Take nothing for granted and do not be discouraged, intimidated or swayed.

Just vote.

I used the painting above from Norman Rockwell albeit with the addition of a mask to make it even more relevant to 2020. Even without the mask, it seemed to sum up this year pretty well. You can interpret it for yourself.

Have a good day and let’s hope together that we vote for a different and better future than the one we’ve been headed towards for the past four years.

Here’s an ad from the Lincoln Project, a group of longtime Republican operatives who have been actively opposed to the current iteration of their party and this president***. This is their final message for the election and it features the magnificent rendition of America the Beautiful from Ray Charles. It’s the only time his foundation has allowed the use of his music in a political ad.

This ad doesn’t attack or elevate either candidate even as it asks for you to vote for a change from what is now at hand. It aspires to the ideal of America, its vision and promise. It’s about what we hope to be, How we wish the world to see us and how we hope to see ourselves.

Only one candidate this year can take us anywhere near that goal.

Like the ad says, the time has come.

Vote for change.

Vote for America.

 

Read Full Post »

Today’s Mantra

Posted in Advice, Current Events, Quote, tagged , on November 2, 2020| 2 Comments »

“Mantra”- Available Now at West End Gallery

We can make a little order where we are, and then the big sweep of history on which we can have no effect doesn’t overwhelm us. We do it with colors, with a garden, with the furnishings of a room, or with sounds and words. We make a little form, and we gain composure.

–Robert Frost

We’re in the last days of an election cycle that will no doubt have huge consequences for our future. Short of having to cast your vote, there is little left for any of us to do at this point.

Well, nothing truly productive. I guess you could try to block traffic with the hopes of keeping others away from the polls or could take your assault rifle and go stand near polling places with the intent of intimidating others from voting against your candidate.

There is plenty of evidence that there are some folks of lower intelligence out there who think these actions might be productive. How they believe that that acting goonish and obstructing the vote and the will of others somehow helps their cause is beyond my comprehension. If anything, it might instead harm the legitimacy and strength of their cause.

My belief is that which is just and righteous is often exhibited best through calmness and composure. 

I recently came across a snippet taken from a story from author G.K Chesterton that stayed with me on this very point:

“If we are calm,” replied the policeman, “it is the calm of organized resistance.”
“Eh?” said Syme, staring.
“The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle,” pursued the policeman. “The composure of an army is the anger of a nation.”

“The composure of an army is the anger of a nation.”

Think about it. The strength and rightness of one’s cause is best exhibited with calm determination. 

Okay, I am getting away from the original intent of this entry. I am actually falling into believe that at this late date words can still have an effect when we are at a point that Frost describes at the top as “the big sweep of history on which we can have no effect.”

No, from this point on I am focusing, or at least trying to focus, on Frost’s advice of making forms. Create some sort of order with line and color, something I can control to some extent.

I have done what I can do. Now I must leave the the results behind, along with all anger and angst. Focus only on that which is in front of me. 

Repeat this mantra today and tomorrow: Composure comes from form.

 

Read Full Post »

November

Posted in Music, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on November 1, 2020| 2 Comments »

“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

November slid in under a blue moon this year with clocks being reset to give us a redo of that first hour or so of the new month. Perhaps to let us get adjusted to the change the month brings. 

No comment this morning on the potential change that seems headed towards us, in one way or the other. Just taking in the stillness and the darkness of the first morning of November in the year 2020. It feels like the clocks being set back an hour are more of a timeout this year, a pause amidst the chaos that seems omnipresent lately.

The quiet feels good.

Here’s a piece, November, from composer Max Richter performed brilliantly by violinist Mari Samuelsen. It fits the morning.

Have a good Sunday.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts