Not your typical Easter egg, I suppose. Most definitely different than the brightly colored eggs of my youth. I don’t recall any flirty topless young women on any of the Easter cards back then.
Maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.
Back then I never knew much about the origin of the egg in the Easter tradition. Never gave it much thought at all. But there is a story behind that iconic egg. Like the rabbit which has come to symbolize Easter as well, the egg stems from the pagan Easter festival which celebrated both as symbols of fertility and the emerging new life of spring. The coloring of the eggs, done in earliest times by boiling the eggs with flowers petals, also symbolized the budding colors of spring.
For the Christians part, the egg also had a part in their tradition. There is a legend that states that after the crucifixion of Jesus,Caesar summoned Mary Magdalene to appear before him, and upon hearing her claims that Jesus had been resurrected is claimed to have said, pointing at a nearby basket of eggs, “Christ has not risen, no more than that egg is red.” At that point, the eggs supposedly turned red. Many orthodox Christians traditionally color their eggs red to symbolize this story as well as the sacrificial blood of Christ.
There’s also a pragmatic part to the story of the Easter egg. The festival of Lent, the 40 days prior to Easter that symbolize Jesus’ 40 days spent fasting in the desert, had long had a prohibition on all meats and animal by-products including milk and eggs. This created quite a surplus of eggs which would have gone to waste in those days long before modern refrigeration without their preservation by boiling.
Now, where the topless lady in that Victorian era card at the top falls into the story, I have not a clue.
The Victorians certainly had unusual tastes in their greeting cards. I’ve shared some in the past here but some of the ones below have me scratching my head. The couple below with the bunnies riding on chickens behind a sword wielding Rabbit Generals raise a lot of questions. Should we be readying for such an invasion?
Hmm.
For this Sunday Morning Music, I opted to not play an Easter song. I usually play a bit of gospel music from Sam Cooke or Mahalia Jackson. But here is a gospel-tinged song from the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Here’s her This Little Light of Mine.
Rockin’ good way to start your Sunday.
I am taking a short break today so if this looks familiar, it is a slightly edited replay from a couple of years back. Now get out of here or I’ll set those crazy chicken-riding rabbits loose on you…
After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.
–Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Next Saturday you can be the one to take a little break and watch some other fellows busy at work.
I am busy this morning but wanted to remind everyone that I will be doing a painting demonstration at the West End Gallery on Saturday, April 26. My demo begins at 10 AM and runs to about 12 noon. Maybe a little later than that depending on how the painting I will be working on is progressing.
As I mentioned earlier, I seldom paint in front of people and fewer people than you might think have actually seen me at work. Being self-taught with a process that is constantly shifting in one way or another makes me both self-conscious and a little protective of my process. But I thought this might the time to break out of that pattern and give folks a glimpse.
Depending on how it goes, it might be the only opportunity you’ll get! But I am determined to make it work out okay so I think it will be a bit of fun. Hope you can stop out next Saturday.
There’s a reason I mentioned being self-conscious about doing this. There will be two other extraordinary painters showing off their talents at the same time. The marvelous Gina Pfleegor will also be giving a demo beginning at 10 AM while painter extraordinaire Trish Coonrod will also be starting her demonstration beginning at 11 AM. It’s intimidating for me but for you it’sa great opportunity to see three painters with distinct styles working in one space at the same time.
And to sweeten the deal, later in the day the talented Judy Soprano will be giving a demonstration of her highly skilled watercolor technique, beginning at 2 PM.
There will be a lot going on at the West End Gallery next Saturday so put it on your calendar. Like I said, take a little break from your own work and come out to watch some other folks working hard.
I wanted to share a song about work here. I was contemplating the old Johnny Paycheck song, Take This Job and Shove It, but felt that was little too pessimistic. I like my job, after all. So, I am going with a song that isn’t specifically about working but is way more upbeat. This is Workout, from an Ed Sullivan Show appearance by the great Jackie Wilson. It kind of makes sense since I look at every painting session as a kind of a workout, a flexing oof those painting muscles.
Just don’t expect that kind of dancing next week, okay?
Go to go now– I have a painting workout waiting for me. Hope to see you next Saturday at the West End Gallery!
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
–Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time (1967)
Several times I’ve shared the words of Eric Hoffer, the Longshoreman Philosopheras he was sometimes called who died in 1983 at the age 80. He had a way of stating complex idea in a straightforward manner. His 1951 book The True Believer, which sets out his theories on the rise of mass movements– most notably extreme political movements and cults– and the dangers they pose, is widely considered a classic of social psychology. You can read it and see many parallels to the
This particular passage spoke to me immediately when I came across it a few years back. It was something that seemed to be proving itself in real time with what we were and are experiencing here. It is a situation that might be described simply as a struggle between those who see things only in absolute terms and those who understand that there are few if any absolutes in an imperfect world such as ours.
A battle between unfounded certainty and founded uncertainty. True belief and true doubt.
Needless to say, Hoffer’s passage felt spot on for me, a creature who dwells in uncertainty. I could feel the truth in his words, particularly that last sentence: The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
This one sentence might be the best description of the horror show we are experiencing first-hand.
Not sure why I am sharing this this morning. This passage has been sitting in my drafts file for a long time now and it just felt right this morning, a simple understanding of what we are witnessing, though I doubt any of you need to have it clarified for you.
Anyway, there it is. And here’s a song that speaks to uncertainty in equally simple terms. It’s What’s Happening?!?! by the Byrds from back in 1966, around the same time as Hoffer’s words. Nearly sixty years later and it is the same story. Nihilism then is nihilism now…
Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.
–May Sarton, Mrs. Steven Hears the Mermaids Singing (1965)
Some of the most serious problems with our society stem from the hoarding of great wealth by the ultra-rich. Their constant need for more and more can only be fulfilled by sapping the wealth from those economically beneath them. But I’m not here to bitch about the super-wealthy today.
After all, there are problems that come with one hoarding anything. As it is with wealth, this drive to attain and hold on to more and more of anything generally causes a deprivation of something else. Everything we choose to do or attain has a cost of some sort.
We give up one thing for some other thing. If I do this, I won’t be able to do that. This might result from the cost in time, comfort, money, attention or almost any other thing. Time and money tend to be the biggest factors, or at least it seems so as I write this now. I will probably think of other examples moments after I post this.
I am a hoarder of solitude. It is my precious in the same way the Ring of Power was for Gollum. I hold greedily onto it and am always seeking more and more. And also like Gollum, when I am without it, I am frantically seeking to regain it.
And I am willing to pay almost any price for it. I have paid for it with the relationships and time I might have with others or loss of opportunities and income for my work, among many other things.
And the older I get, the more precious it becomes because solitude’s main currency is time, an ever-decreasing asset.
That may sound pretty sad to many of you. Maybe even a bit crazy. I get that and I can offer little if any defense or rationale to sway your opinion. Because when I am in the midst of my gathered solitude, what others think seems inconsequential.
I think only another hoarder can understand that.
Here’s a lovely guitar version of Astrud Gilberto’s Corcovado also known as Quiet Night of Quiet Stars
We’ve been visited just about every night recently by a family of bears, Mom Bear and her 3 young ones. I believe they are yearlings, probably not far from the time when they will be set out on their own by Mom. The photo above was from the night before last, right around 7 PM. It was a little earlier than their usual as they normally come under the cloak of darkness to invade our bird feeder, so I was able to get a few shots of the group. This shot was taken from a window in our dining area.
We normally get visits from bears several times a year. They usually tear down and empty our suet and hummingbird feeders or destroy two hanging feeding platforms that I continuously remake from old picture frames. Our large main feeder is on a pole that is about 9 feet off the ground because over the years bears had destroyed a few of our previous feeders on the shorter post that was then in place. We wrapped the pole with stovepipe because the taller post alone didn’t dissuade the bears from climbing up to get the feeder. You can see how crunched and dented the stovepipe now is from years of their attempts to climb it.
This group has made our feeder a regular stop on their dining schedule lately, to the point that I now go out as it is getting dark to stow away our platforms and the suet. They came this night before I had chance to get out there. Mom was not really feeding this time and seemed to be just showing the gang the ropes. She was super attentive to noises up in the woods and down the driveway and would sometimes lumber off to a point higher in the yard to sit and watch over the young ones.
We gave them quite a while to feed off the fallen seed on the ground. But when one of the little guys finally stretched up and was able to grasp one of the platforms, spilling the seed all over its head, we decided it was time to head out to disrupt their party before they destroyed the platform and crushed the suet cages. Merely opening our backdoor caused them to scatter, Mom and one of the small ones quickly heading up into the forest and the other two setting down through the yard toward our pond in full sprint mode. They might seem to lumber around but when they need to move their speed over open ground is startling. I don’t know that many large dogs could run faster.
We were worried that they might be separated but a few hours later they were all together again and revisiting the bird feeder.
We enjoy having them around even though they tend to periodically tip over our garbage and compost bins or invade our feeders. Or when Mom leaves big piles of, uh, let’s just call them calling cards all around our yard and bird feeder. Though I admire their resilience and love seeing their natural beauty, I find myself worrying for them. They have such a hard existence that it’s easy to overlook their occasional transgressions.
After all, bears will be bears.
I also want to remind everyone that I will be doing a painting demonstration at the West End Gallery on Saturday, April 26. My demo begins at 10 AM and runs to about 12 noon. Maybe a little later than that depending on how the painting I will be working on is progressing.
Gina Pfleegor-Unbound at West End Gallery
This event is being held in conjunction with the Arts in Bloom Art Trail of Chemung and Steuben County which involves open tours of artists’ studios and events such as this in the area’s art galleries. I mentioned in the earlier announcement for the demo that painter Trish Coonrod will also be giving a demonstration of her immense talent beginning at 11 AM but failed to mention that the wonderful Gina Pfleegor will also be giving a demo beginning at 10 AM.
So, at one point you can see three painters with three distinct styles at work. I’ll certainly be taking a break or two from my own demo to watch Trish and Gina ply their talents as I am big fans of both.
Hope you can come out to the West End Gallery to spend some time with us, maybe ask a question or just chat while I smear paint on stuff. Could be fun.
Trish Coonrod- Still LIfe with Eggs and Shot Glass, West End Gallery
Lawlessness is a self-perpetuating, ever-expanding habit.
–Dorothy Thompson, The Courage to Be Happy (1957)
Let me preface today’s blogpost by saying that I am sorry for being compelled to write this but, though I knew it could, I never truly thought such a thing would happen here.
I didn’t know much about Dorothy Thompson before a few weeks ago. She was a journalist/ radio broadcaster who died in 1961 at the age of 67. She was, to put it plainly, an asskicker and a truth-teller. She interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1931 before he came to power for the magazine Cosmopolitan and soon after wrote a book, I Saw Hitler. Published just before Hitler became German Chancellor in 1933, she warned of the grave dangers presented if he were to ever take power.
The book infuriated Hitler. As a result, she was the first American journalist expelled from Germany in 1934. Arriving in Berlin she was greeted in her hotel within hours by Gestapo agents who gave her 24 hours to leave the country. A crowd of journalists gathered at the train station the next day as she left, presenting her with bunches of American Beauty roses as a symbol of their solidarity.
She became a celebrity, on equal footing with Eleanor Roosevelt in as being the most influential woman in America according to Time Magazine in 1939, as well as a symbol for journalism’s role in fighting fascism.
She spent the 30’s on a crusade to warn the world and particularly the USA of the threat that Naziism and Fascism posed to all countries. She famously disrupted the infamous 1939 German American Bund at Madison Square Garden, heckling and laughing at the speakers until finally being escorted from the building. Her efforts against totalitarianism were tireless.
And of course, many brushed it off as hyperbole. It might be no coincidence that she was married to Sinclair Lewis from 1927 until 1942, a period in which he wrote the prescient and dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here which outlined just how an American candidate who fomented fear and division while making empty promises of instant prosperity is elected president. He then immediately takes complete control of the government and sets up a totalitarian regime.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
I came across the quote at the top from Dorothy Thompson a few weeks ago and its truth screamed at me. Looking her up made wish we had a journalist like Dorothy Thompson right now who had the guts and the brains to speak truth to the naked lawlessness we are experiencing.
If you’re not paying attention, it’s high time to get your head in the game because as Thompson said, lawlessness is self-perpetuating and ever-expanding. In short, it’s going to get much worse if something doesn’t bring an end to it soon.
As an example, the idea that due process can be thrown out the window for any reason should terrify everyone. Without due process, anyone can be whisked off the streets and dispatched to a distant or even foreign detention center (you can read that as slave labor or concentration camp) without any chance to seek legal counsel or defend oneself against the charges–if there are even charges.
Without due process, they could basically disappear anyone at any time for little to no reason and with no determined length of sentence. You are just gone. You cease to legally exist. And there is no telling when and if you might return.
And you better believe that this has been part of their plan for some time. In fact, at yesterday’s meeting with the El Salvadoran president, Trump told him that El Salvador needed to build about five more even larger prison camps as Trump was planning on starting to send native US citizens there. He used the term home-grown.
Don’t try to shrug this off and say these people being whisked away to camps here and El Salvador probably did something to deserve this kind of treatment because without due process there is no way of knowing that. Due process provides the evidence, charges, and adjudication that have been the backbone of our legal system for as long as we have existed as a country.
It feels like we are about 8 seconds from being fully into fascism here as this administration totally ignores Supreme Court orders and openly makes plans to disappear all sorts of people. Disappearing people has long been one of the go-to moves for totalitarian regimes. Think of the several thousand people disappeared in Chile under Pinochet in the early 70’s. %o years later Chile is still dealing with the repercussions from that time. Or think about Argentina in the late 70’s/ early 80’s when it is estimated that around 30 thousand people, mainly political opponents or activists who spoke out against the dictatorship that was put in place by a military junta that overthrew Juan Peron, were seized and never heard from again.
The numbers that are being thrown around here would dwarf those from Argentina.
The idea that they could sweep anyone off the street and imprison them indefinitely without charges should concern you deeply. You might think it doesn’t affect your life but it portends an even darker future where this corrupt and lawless government may very well affect every aspect of your life. Now is the time to stop this madness. The window for action is closing fast and there may not be an opportunity in the future. And depending on how the Supreme Court responds to their orders being tossed aside, that window might already be closed.
You might be shaking your head and saying that I should calm down, that this is all hyperbole. That such a thing couldn’t happen here. Dorothy Thompson heard that all the time and look what happened then when people ignored the repeated warnings from her and others.
It can happen here and will if we don’t act now. The crisis is now at hand and there is no avoiding it.
Here’s a song off the 1983 album Voice of America from Little Steven. The song is titled Los Desparecidos (The Disappeared) and is about those who were surreptitiously taken away in Argentina at the time. I urge you to pay attention to the lyrics here and be aware that it might well apply here now.
It can and will happen here unless we stop it now. As I stated at the beginning: though I knew it could, I never truly thought such a thing would happen here…
You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,–the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,–I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
–Kahlil Gibran, The Madman: His Parables and Poems (1918)
I was recently looking at some paintings from 8 or 9 years back from a series I call Icons. The subjects are people pulled from my ancestry that were done in a rough way like religious icon paintings. I stopped over this one at the top,Peter the Scoundrel. This one has been one of my least favorites from the series for a variety of reasons, some aesthetic, but mainly because the character it portrays, my 3rd great-grandfather, was such an enigma.
His name was Peter Bundy though it’s hard to tell if that was his real name or just one of the several aliases he assumed in his lifetime. I shared his story here back in 2016 and what a convoluted and confusing one it was. It had an abandoned family, two stints in the Union Army in our Civil War under different names one of which ended in desertion, capture and imprisonment in Andersonville, and a couple of other aliases that hid who-knows-what. My investigation into left me with the realization that the only thing I knew of him for sure was that he was buried in a small country cemetery in Caton. His stone there lists the unit of his second stint as a soldier and that he was born in Scotland. While I think he served in this unit under the name Peter Bundy, I have my doubts as to whether he was actually born in Scotland or born with the name Peter Bundy.
It was a frustrating look into his life, like trying to reveal the identity of someone behind a mask. Just when you thought you were going to see the truth of that person, you pull off the mask you see only to discover there is yet another mask beneath. And another beneath that one and maybe another beyond that.
It made me think of the masks many of us wear throughout our lives. Peter Bundy might be an extreme case but many of us have multiple faces we wear for different situations and people, often to the point where it becomes difficult to discern which face is real and which is a mask.
It is equally difficult to fully understand the reason for the mask we wear. Sometimes it is to deceive, plain and simple. Peter Bundy, for example. Sometimes we wear masks for protection against things we fear or to fit into situations where we feel uncomfortable. Sometimes we wear a mask simply because we don’t want to be who we are or to show our real self. There are many reasons and situations, some honest and some not, that cause us to don our masks.
I often wonder if there are those who never wear a mask and think that it must be a wonderful thing to be so comfortable in your own skin. I am sure they are out there, those people who feel so self-assured and real. But then I wonder if one would even be able to know for sure if that was not just a mask in itself.
That brings me to the parable at the top from Kahlil Gibran. I came across it the other day after sharing another short piece on a scarecrow that was from the same book of Gibran’s parables. It made me think of Peter Bundy’s masks as well as the many masks I have worn. But more than that, it made me think about the liberating feeling of shedding all your masks, to live with your naked face.
To live a life of transparency.
I realized that it’s something I aspire to through my work and this blog. I also realized that shedding every mask is not an easy thing. Some fit so well, feel so comfortable and protective, that they naturally just go back into place at certain times.
I have also found that trying to resist the temptation to wear these masks often leads one to a need for solitude and caring less, if at all, how others see you. This would be the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood as Gibran put it. I would quibble a bit with the use of loneliness in this translation as I seldom, if ever, feel lonely in my solitude. In fact, I often feel lonelier out in the public. That’s when I most want to pull on my mask.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be fully without a mask or two. Can any of us really make that claim? Is it even possible?
Who really knows?
Let’s finish up with a song that’s not really about masks. Well, the more I think about it, maybe it is. It is about madness of a sort. It’s some great early Rolling Stones–19th Nervous Breakdown.
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
–Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)
Have truer words ever been written about those who seek power?
It takes only a glimpse at the Rogues Gallery that surround our would-be king to understand that that this country is tottering on a tightrope today. Two words immediately jump to mind that I feel best describe our current government: kakistocracy and kleptocracy.
The first, kakistocracy, is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. We got that in spades, folks.
The second, kleptocracy, is a government based on virtually unlimited grand corruption. one whose ruler– the thief-in-chief— grants almost absolute immunity to those he has authorized to loot on his behalf.
We are seeing textbook examples of both. Well, they would be textbook examples in a society ruled by a government that didn’t rewrite textbooks in their own image.
It leaves us up there on a shaky tightrope with little chance of keeping the balance needed to make it across with little to save us should we fall since we’re now working without a net since they dismantled it.
It is almost as though they want us to tumble off that rope.
I could be wrong, of course. I keep saying that, but they never seem to prove me wrong. And if I am wrong and this is truly the best and brightest that have been assembled to lead this country, we are in worse shape than any of us thought.
The kakistocracy and kleptocracy we are witnessing brings to mind another word– idiocracy. I have read many times that we are living in the most stupid of times and while it is terrifying, it also gives me hope that it cannot exist for too long.
The worst and the dumbest can only hold off the best and the brightest for so long. Only one can make it to the other side of that tightrope and my money– and effort– is against the worst and the dumbest.
Stay up there, folks.
Here’s a predictable song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s the late Leon Russell and his Tight Rope. I was surprised to see that I never shared this song here in the many years I’ve been doing this blog. Well, let’s fix that today, as well.
For the keynote of the law of Karma is equilibrium, and nature is always working to restore that equilibrium whenever through man’s acts it is disturbed.
–Christmas Humphreys, Karma and Rebirth (1948)
I came across the quote above from a book on Buddhism from a Brit named Christmas Humphreys. I had never heard the name but agreed the sentiment that nature is a continuously bringing the world into equilibrium despite our best efforts to disrupt and destroy its balance. Turns out that Christmas Humphreys was a famous British barrister as well as a judge at the Old Bailey later in his career.
But the more interesting part for me was that he was, in his lifetime from 1901 to 1983, one of the highest profiled Buddhists in Britain, having founded the London Buddhist Society and authoring a large number of books on the religion. After his death his home in St. John’s Wood became a Buddhist temple.
His involvement in a number of famous trials led to him being portrayed in several films, including a recent one (it’s on the streaming service BritBox now) concerning the Ruth Ellis trial, in which he was the prosecuting barrister. Ruth Ellis was convicted of murdering her abusive lover and was subsequently the last woman executed in the UK, hanged in 1955.
I guess that’s some sort of karma, right? Probably depends on your perspective.
Humphreys was also mentioned with a line– “I went home and read my Christmas Humphreys book on Zen“– in the 1982 Van Morrison song, Cleaning Windows. I thought that make a good final addition to today’s triad alongside Humphreys’ quote and the 2002 painting at the top, Night Karma. which is one only a few pieces that remain with me from what I call my Dark Work, those pieces painted in the period of about 18 months immediately after 9/11. It’s been a longtime favorite of mine here in the studio.
Once I said to a scarecrow, “You must be tired of standing in this lonely field.”
And he said, “The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I never tire of it.”
Said I, after a minute of thought, “It is true; for I too have known that joy.”
Said he, “Only those who are stuffed with straw can know it.”
Then I left him, not knowing whether he had complimented or belittled me.
A year passed, during which the scarecrow turned philosopher.
And when I passed by him again I saw two crows building a nest under his hat.
–Kahlil Gibran, The Madman, His Parables and Poems (1918)
Looks like the theme for today is thescarecroweven though I have already spent too much time attempting to write something altogether different. The other and now discarded subject was just not coming together in any kind of cohesive way. But in a roundabout way it did lead me to the short parable above from Kahlil Gibran.
The answer from the scarecrow– “The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I never tire of it.” — struck my fancy.
I just stopped for a few moments after writing that to ponder what a strange phrase struck my fancy is. There may be a blog post in that phrase. Or not, which is probably for the better. Whatever strikes my fancy.
But the idea of that there can be joy in scaring is intriguing. I am not sure I ever felt scaring people was part of who or what I am. But taking joy in scaring those who richly deserve it might be within me. It probably should be within all of us just so that we keep the deserving aware of our presence and the power we possess over them.
That last sentence probably seems like pretty cryptic. Well, it probably is. Scarecrows are seldom what they seem so take it any way you wish.
Here’s a song, Scarecrow, from Beck just to round out today’s triad. Got to run– two crows are pecking around my hat…
Redtree Times 