Redtree Times

There are a lot of things I wanted to comment on this morning but I didn’t want to make myself — or you–crazy. I thought I would try to sooth some nerves. Since we are beginning the rundown to Thanksgiving I would run a post from that day back in 2015. It seems like hundred years ago now. So much has happened in this world in that time, much of it troubling. But a constant remains– the power of gratitude. That’s the theme of this post. Plus it has a great song that has powers to sooth the troubled soul.

So, even thought it’s not Thanksgiving, give a look and listen. And be thankful for what you’ve got.

Another Thanksgiving and  it might seem that it would be hard to find much to be thankful for in this turbulent world with its endless cornucopia of anger, hatred, intolerance, injustice and inequality set out for our consumption each day. With a diet of so many negatives it would be easy to forget that one simple thing that truly feeds and sustains us– gratitude.

Recognizing and acknowledging those things that make us happy is such a simple thing yet we somehow lose sight of it. I know my life feels so much more complete when I see how I am made happy by the light that the full moon casts on our evening walk. Or in the way my studio cat, Hobie, runs to me with an audible purr when I enter in the morning. Or in watching the deer play and stroll through the studio’s yard, one or two sometimes stopping to stare in at me through the window. Or in the songs of the birds in the woods.

Or in something so simple as a stranger returning a smile and a hello as they pass by.

Just little things that we sometimes overlook in the crush of the world. But things that are important in our real connection to the world. So today set aside your fears and anger and whatever else eats at you on a regular basis and try to think of those people who make you happy, those moments that might bring a smile or a tear and anything that gives your life fullness. It’s not always easy but life ain’t too bad.

Here’s one of my favorite songs. I know it makes me happy even when I am strolling along and can’t get its chorus out of my head. It’s Be Thankful for What You Got from William DeVaughn from back in 1974. Have a great Thanksgiving.

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GC Myers- Reunion on the Bounty

Was this how a mutiny was sparked? In a moment of heedlessness, so that one became a stranger to the person one had been a moment before? Or was it the other way around? That this was when one recognized the stranger that one had always been to oneself; that all one’s loyalties and beliefs had been misplaced?

― Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace

The painting above is called Reunion on the Bounty and is headed to the Principle Gallery for their annual Small Paintings show that opens in early December.

It’s a piece that has a little humor. Or so I think. The idea of a reunion between the mutineers from the Bounty and Captain Bligh and the other crew members who remained loyal to him seemed to have a certain degree of absurdity that appealed to me.

It might be something like the Capitol Police and the seditious Insurrectionists of January 6 having a picnic to commemorate that day.

When I thought of that comparison it brought to mind something a lot of people say when faced with the consequences of their actions, such as those insurrectionists now facing criminal charges and prison time. After doing horrible and often violent things, people often say that this was not who they really were. They often add that they are good people.

I find those interesting things to say. The passage at the top from acclaimed Indian author Amitov Ghosh sums it up well. Was the horrible action an aberration? Or was it a revealing of their true reality?

After all, everybody thinks they are good people. Who truly thinks of themselves as being awful, as being thoughtless, selfish creeps?

Nobody.

We have built-in mechanisms that rationalize and justify our own actions that sometimes, in effect, blind us to how those actions or our true natures appear to others. Unfortunately, we seldom acknowledge the faults in our actions or express any remorse.

Well. at least, until we’re in custody. Then, of course, we claim that the person who committed the atrocities wasn’t who we really are.

But maybe that was who we were all along.

I don’t really know. I’ve done and said plenty of things that I regret. But I admit that I was that person in those instances, at that time. Hopefully I learned, grew, and evolved. Maybe became a different person who was the real me as a result.

But I don’t know if I will ever know for sure which is the real me.

And I am sure that Captain Bligh or the Capitol Police wouldn’t give a damn if that was or wasn’t the real you because they had to deal with whoever it was on the day in question. If Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer came at them with a sabre or a can of bear spray, all their previous good works would mean little to them.

Mother Teresa with a can of bear spray? Hey, maybe that could be a future painting…

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Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

― Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison, 1641

Doin’ my time…

I was going to write about prisons today. Actually, about how some free walking folks are as imprisoned by their behaviors and beliefs as anyone behind the stone walls of any prison.

As Lovelace pointed out nearly four hundred years ago, freedom’s a state of mind. For the most part, we make our own prisons and do our own time.

Take that any way you choose.

I am just going to use it to segue into a performance of  Doin’ My Time from Billy Strings.   It was written sometime in the 1940’s by Jimmie Skinner and  famously covered by  Flatt & Scruggs as well as  Johnny Cash. Billy Strings is a young (only 29) and exceptionally talented performer who was raised on a musical diet of bluegrass, heavy metal and jam bands. This version shows his virtuosity and knack for  identifying the strength in a song and running with it.

Really impressive performance that holds up well against those of the legends. Just plain good stuff.

And now I have to get back to my cell. Got some more time to do.

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GC Myers- And the Season Ends

my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world.

― Charles Bukowski

Yesterday, I wrote about one of my new paintings headed to the Principle Gallery as part of a group to be included in their annual Small Paintings show in December. That piece, Wait ‘Til Next Year, was about the hope and expectations that grow while waiting for the next season to begin. It was a pretty optimistic painting in color and tone, in my opinion.

Today, I am showing another baseball painting from that same group going to the Principle Gallery. This one is not quite as optimistic, however. I call it And the Season Ends. It has a much darker tone, with grittier colors and showing no sky at all. Certainly no blue sky.

It has that feeling I get when I realize that my rooting interests for the year have vanished as my team is eliminated. The loss is till processing and there is a dark void which hope hasn’t yet had a chance to fill.

There is a bit of sadness in it, like watching the leaves of autumn fade and fall from the trees. Or the needles from the dried out Christmas tree.

But my soul is not beerdrunk yet this morning.

So, there’s room to hope soon…

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If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

― Henry David Thoreau

I am preparing a group of paintings for the annual Small Paintings show next month at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. Included in this group are a few of my baseball field pieces including this diminutive 6″ by 12″ canvas.

I call this piece Wait ‘Til Next Year, a phrase many baseball fans have uttered as yet another season ends in utter disappointment for their favorite teams. But even as one crummy season ends in despair, the hopes and expectations for the next begin to grow. We fade into winter with our disappointment turning into grand dreams for the next season as we wait for it to begin.

That’s one of the beautiful aspects of the game, the way it echoes our human journey through the year. The winter has us reflecting on where we came up short last year and planning and dreaming for what might come with Spring Training. Summer finds teams putting in the hard work that will hopefully pay off with a chance to play in the fall playoffs. Perhaps even ending the year with a World Series trophy.

But this can only occur for one team and its fans. For the rest of us whose teams fell by the wayside, there is no relishing the thrill of victory. No, it’s a winter of blotting out the low points from the past year and building up the hopes for next year as your team makes personnel moves, adding new members that you are sure, in your gleeful hopefulness, will be the ones that makes a difference. That these new cogs  will make the machine hum all the way to the Series.

For the baseball fan, hope springs eternal..

We’ll get ’em next year. You’ll see…

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Cool and Composed -At the West End Gallery, Corning NY

The first dusting of snow fell last night. Just a small amount, most likely to be gone later this morning. But enough to send the message that the feel of winter with snow and its accompanying stillness would soon be here to stay. Or at least on a more regular basis.

With the vagaries of this year’s warmth and wetness, it might be more rain and ice than snow this season. Or big snowfalls followed by quick thaws that swell the rivers.

I personally hope for snow. Not so much that my time is spent trying to keep our long driveways open and begins to make me resent the imposition. No, not snow measured in feet but enough that the white blankets the ground and coats the limbs and trunks of the forest, creating a muffling effect that creates an almost Zen-like stillness. 

It’s easy in the vacuum of this snowy silence to lose one’s sense of busyness and to just stop to listen to the nothing. The creaking of a tree. The plink plink of from the drip of melting snow from a tree limb. The gentle gurgle of the creek and the rustle of a few remaining leaves as the breeze moves through them.

This brings to mind a Wallace Stevens poem, The Snow Man. He pretty much sums up what I have been trying to describe. It certainly works for this snow man. Here’s reading of it from Tom O’Bedlam.

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It ain’t over till it’s over.

–Yogi Berra

I knew that Yogi Berra was the one who most famously uttered the short phrase above but I thought it was much earlier than 1973 when he was referring to the chances of the NY Mets, who he was managing, in winning the pennant that season. It’s such a simple obvious little phrase but it says so much about the power of continued resistance against defeat. It’s easy to throw in the towel or at least try to compromise with your opponent in the face of imminent defeat.

But when it comes to weighty matters, matters of life and death, that is not an always an option. Tired or seemingly beaten, the struggle must continue.

One must continue to speak those words–It ain’t over.

That brings us to this week’s Sunday Morning Music which is It Ain’t Over from Northern Ireland native Foy Vance. The song refers to the main character, Mathieu Delarue, from a series of books, the Roads to Freedom trilogy from Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The books takes place the German invasion and occupation of France in World War II and echoes in many ways Sartre’s own experiences during that time.

In the books, Delarue fights a brief, intense battle against the Nazis and in it discovers a feeling he has never known, a sort of freedom found in decisive action and brave commitment to one’s belief. Delarue is ultimately captured and sent to a POW camp where he comes to the conclusion that the evils of fascism and nationalism will never end– it ain’t over— until the ordinary people of  the world can unite to overcome the class struggle that divide them.

As we all know all too well, that is not anywhere close to happening anytime soon. But so long as at least one person continues the fight, it ain’t over.

This is a beautiful version from Vance, recorded in the Scottish Highlands. I particularly love the character of the underlying sound from the foot powered drone. It adds great depth to the song as it builds.

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Cam Cole– I See Album cover art

I came across a video of a song, New Age Blues, from a busker named Cam Cole who earns his living playing his music on the streets of London. I had never heard of him and decided to give it a look and a listen. The video was a running record of a typical day of busking, from morning until evening. 

I found it pretty engaging. I admire the bravery of street performers for the fact that they put themselves so directly out in the face of the public. But there is also something so brave in daring to attempt to make your living on what amounts to a mixture of your wits and whatever talent you might possess.

As an artist, I can identify with that. I often find myself stopping and smiling at the sheer absurdity that I have made a living over the past 25 years by my willingness to share my inner world. I often don’t understand it at all but by now it’s all I know. 

So I watch this young guy baring himself on the streets, playing his heart out, and I feel like I sort of understand the freedom he must be feeling in knowing he can survive on doing just that. And in doing so, maybe the onlookers feel a bit of that as well. I know that’s what I hope for my work on some level.

Take a look at the video, if you have a few moments. It’s interesting and really well done as are several of his other videos including one, I Don’t Need to Live Your Way, which sort of lines up with this blogpost. As I said, I had never heard of Cam Cole before this morning but for those of you who have watched the highly acclaimed Apple TV series Ted Lasso, which I haven’t yet watched, you might recognize him from an appearance on that show. 

Take a look. It’s New Age Blues and a day in the life of  a busker.

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The Durable Will – Now at the West End Gallery, Corning, NY

Traffic with one’s higher self. Everyone has his good day, when he finds his higher self; and true humanity demands that we judge someone only when he is in this condition, and not in his workdays of bondage and servitude. We should, for example, assess and honor a painter according to the highest vision he was able to see and portray. But people themselves deal very differently with this, their higher self, and often act out the role of their own self, to the extent that they later keep imitating what they were in those moments. Some regard their ideal with shy humility and would like to deny it: they fear their higher self because, when it speaks, it speaks demandingly. In addition, it has a ghostly freedom of coming or staying away as it wishes; for that reason it is often called a gift of the gods, while actually everything else is a gift of the gods (of chance): this, however, is the man himself.

–Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, Aphorism #624

For those among us who have spent their lives observing people, this current time in our history is filled to the brim with all the widest possible array of examples of human behavior, from the noblest to the most awful and base.

Of course, it’s always been that way throughout history. It just seems to become more apparent in certain times of great conflict and stress.

And much of this can be attributed to the thought behind the entry above from an 1878 book of aphorisms, Human, All Too Human, from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. We sometimes lose sight of those parts of us that comprise our highest sense of being, instead opting to act in ways that seem easier and less taxing on our willpower.

We choose to do that which is expedient but not necessarily in line with our higher self.

And it is a choice. We all have our own higher self, our highest level of being, always at hand. It is built in, the gift of the gods as Nietzsche calls it. But we often choose to ignore this gift and act in less worthy ways.

I don’t know if this higher self can be extinguished in someone. I am pretty sure that the Nazis that appropriated some of Nietzsche’s writings in the 20th century and twisted them for their own evil purposes had lost much of their higher self or at least had a most distorted sense of it. But for most of us, we have the choice to serve our higher self on an everyday basis, to elevate our personal sense of grace while pushing down our darker urges and biases.

I want to believe this is applicable to the real world. I do believe it, actually. But I worry that too many of us will not be willing to answer its call because, as Nietzsche points out, it speaks demandingly. It is not always easy to deny our base urge or reaction, to opt for reflection over reaction.

But it’s there for us, if we so choose.

Just letting you know.

Now get off my lawn!

See? I am still looking for my higher self…

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Today is Veteran’s Day and I thought I might have an image that somewhat represents the experience of some vets on their return home.  There are a lot of  really powerful images  in the great 1946 movie, The Best Years of Our Lives, which shows tonight on TCM. It gives a credible depiction of the veterans’ experiences, telling the story of three veterans of varying economic classes as they return to their shared hometown and the challenges each faces.

In the film, Dana Andrews‘ character, who had been an Air Force bombardier, struggles on his return to his hometown. After losing his job as a soda jerk for punching out an obnoxious America First customer and breaking up with his wife, he decides to leave his hometown and find a new life somewhere elsewhere. While waiting for a flight, he comes across a local airfield where they are junking old war planes from the recently ended World War II. He crawls into an old B-17 bomber and takes a seat in the nose cone of a plane just as he had in his many bombing runs,  peering through his bombsight for his appointed target.

In a brief moment of PTSD, he vividly relives the terror from his experiences that still haunted him, tainting every moment of his life. Though still alive, his life was a casualty of war. The harrowing image of Andrews appearing ghost-like in the nose of that B-17 is a powerful one in a movie filled with powerful scenes, one that doesn’t sugarcoat the experiences and hardships of the returning vets. It remains relevant to this very day.

For this day that honors those who served in our military services, I would like to play something in the spirit of this upcoming holiday. It would be easy enough to play something patriotic but this isn’t really a holiday of nationalism and a call to arms. No, this is a holiday that celebrates an end to war, namely World War I when the holiday was originated as Armistice Day, and honors the service of all soldiers with the hope that they will soon return home and resume their lives there.

This holiday honors those who have served and sacrificed so much, not the wars to which they are sent.

The song is Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya which is the original tune on which the Civil War era song When Johnny Comes Marching Home is based. While When Johnny Comes Marching Home is more celebratory and martial in tone, the original Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya is pointedly antiwar and mournful. It was supposedly written in the 1790′s as a protest to the British imperialist invasion of Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka. It tells of a young woman seeing her lover, who left her after their illegitimate child was born to join the army, as he returns home from the war. He is much changed in appearance and she mourns for his loss.

This is a very emotional version of the song from British opera and folk singer Benjamin Luxon accompanied by American Bill Crofut on banjo. On this Veteran’s Day, give some thought to the men and women who have given their time and their selves to serving their countries.

Let’s honor them by creating a world in which their lives do not have to be sacrificed.

This post is derived from an earlier post that ran back in 2014.

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