Redtree Times

2013

“If I could work my will,” said Scrooge, indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.

“Nephew!”—returned the uncle, sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”

“Let me leave it alone then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas Time, when it has come round— apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts, freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say God bless it!”

–Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

Quite morning. Incredibly dark when I got up this morning, even though the sky was clear and stars were shining. It was the kind of dark that makes it seem as though it is something more than an absence of light, that it is an entity with a mass and density. It was so dark that it felt impenetrable, that you could walk into it and it would be like walking into a wall.

I begin every morning in the dark and am comfortable in it but can’t recall this sort of darkness. It made me a bit uneasy, actually, and had me wishing that the morning light would break through the trees soon.

Uneasy or not, I know the light will come soon. Always has and always will. I guess there’s a lesson in there somewhere, but it will have to wait for another day.

Let’s just leave it here, along with the passage from A Christmas Carol, and get to some Sunday Morning Music. This is a holiday song focusing on light, so it could well apply to the darkness that has descended on my woods this early morning. This is another song from the fruitful collaboration of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, The Light of Christmas Day. I’ve been trying to share holiday music in recent days that probably doesn’t get a lot of airplay and this might be another that falls into that category.

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Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk
At our Christmas party
We were drinking champagne punch
And homemade eggnog
Little sister brought her new boyfriend
He was a Mexican
We didn’t know what to think of him
Until he sang, “Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad”

–Robert Earl Keen, Merry Christmas from the Family

After yesterday’s post with a somewhat obscure holiday song, one of my good Texas friends and regular readers, Linda Leinen, reminded of a holiday song that she thought might not get much airplay outside of Texas, It was Merry Christmas from the Family from Robert Earl Keen, who has number of songs that I count among my favorites. This one has long been one of my favorites, one of those songs I sometimes break into unprompted at inappropriate times.

I was certain I had shared it here a number of times over the past 17 years. It turns out that the last time it showed up here was in 2009.

I guess it won’t be stale if I play it here today. Unless it is on your holiday playlist.

I shared the same image from The Simpsons in that 2009 post. Maybe that makes me appear to be lazy.

Lazy is as lazy does.

And that ain’t much this morning. I’m done here.

Here’s comes that song now. It is both funny and sweet. Perfectly imperfect. Just right for the season. This is a version that Linda shared with me:

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In Stillness and Rhythm-At West End Gallery

Through long December nights we talk in words of rain or snow,
while you, through chattering teeth, reply and curse us as you go.
Why not spare a thought this day for those who have no flame
to warm their bones at Christmas time?
Say Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.

–Jethro Tull, Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow

I haven’t listened to much holiday music this year. Haven’t fully invested myself into the holiday spirit thus far, plus the local radio channels that play only holiday music endlessly play the same songs over and over, to the point that you can almost predict the next song. I don’t know if I can bear hearing Mariah Carey sing All I Want for Christmas Is You again without tearing out my hair. I just don’t have enough hair to spare.

So, I went hunting for a holiday song this morning to share. one that might have eluded your ears. It did mine. It’s from Jethro Tull who have recorded quite a number of holiday songs over the years. This is from the late 80’s, I believe, and is titled Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow. It’s basically an admonition to spread your joy and lend a hand to those in need during the holiday season.

It just hot the spot for me this morning and I bet you haven’t heard this on any radio channel or holiday playlist.

Well, maybe you have. What the hell do I know?

Now get out of here before I lose my holiday spirit…

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2009

There’s a room out there somewhere with a woman in a chair
With memories of childhood still lingering there
How pretty the paper, the lights and the snow
How precious those memories of long long ago

We held hands and stared at the lights on the tree
As if Christmas was invented for you and for me
When the angel on the treetop requested a song
We sang, “Silent night all day long”

–John Prine, Silent Night All Day Long

Started the ADT (Androgen Deprivation Therapy) part of my treatment last Monday and it has gone pretty well thus far. However, I have had a creeping feeling of fatigue starting to show up in recent days, especially in the afternoon. It hit hard yesterday afternoon and this morning it was still with me, along with a sharp headache, which has eased a bit since I came into the studio, thankfully.

I can’t say definitively that any of this is related to the meds. I could just be tired this morning. Wouldn’t be the first time. But whatever the case, this is a going to be a quickie this morning, with a repeat of a favorite holiday song from John Prine that I shared a few years back. I really like the verses from the song at the top. They seem to capture Christmas from a kid’s perspective so well– as if Christmas was invented for you and for me. That’s probably why memories of Christmas past seem so vivid for many of us.

This is Silent Night All Day Long from John Prine.

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I worry about this time of the year…I remember last year about this time… it was two o’clock in the morning, and I was sound asleep… Suddenly, out of nowhere, this crazy guy with a sled appears right on my roof… He was okay, but those stupid reindeer kept stepping on my stomach!

— Snoopy, Peanuts (23 Dec 66)

What better way to wash away the stench from the subject of yesterday’s post than to take a little break with the Peanuts gang? This little world created by Charles M. Schulz in 1950 represents the better parts of us. Empathy for others, a sense of innocence and humanity, and a joy in living immediately come to mind, all qualities that seem to be lacking with yesterday’s subject.

Below is a post from 2014 on how the Peanuts comics influenced my work. It contains the Christmas Dance scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas so how can you go wrong?

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”Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”

— William Shakespeare, King Lear

I feel obligated to say something today. I’d rather not but my conscience won’t allow me to stay silent today.

I don’t know that I can even begin to comment on the despicable and demented recent statements from Trump after the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife by their son without it becoming a profanity filled rant. From his words and actions over the past decade it was already obvious to many folks, but the world is now witnessing the actions of a madman on full display.

From his orders to criminally murder fishermen off the Venezuelan coast and the masked ICE troops assaulting and brutalizing US citizens here to his betrayal of our historic allies to ordering the prosecutions of his political foes, every day reveals more and more of his descent into madness. And I am only scratching the surface here with this list.

And yet there are still those who accept each new depth of depravity as being the new normal.

It begs the question: Who is more insane, the madman or those who refuse to see it?

History will not be kind to this era and the mass hysteria that enabled a horrid, soulless creature such as this to assume such great power.

It has to stop. Now. There is no time to wait and see. That’s like watching a guy in camo carrying an assault rifle enter an elementary school and saying, “Hold on. Let’s wait and see what happens.”

We’ve already said that too many times and now he’s in the school. Now we must stop him before he finishes the job.

That is our obligation and responsibility in this moment.

I apologize for writing this. I try to make this a place to get away from such things. But it cannot be avoided by any one of us any longer, try as we may.

It is never going to get any better than it is at this moment. It will continue to get worse unless we bring it to an end. Now.

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Nirvana is right here, in the midst of the turmoil of life. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out of that. Voluntary action out of this center is the action of the bodhisattvas — joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. You are not grabbed, because you have released yourself from the grabbers of fear, lust, and duties.

― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Not going to say much this morning. Maybe just give The Regeneration and the words from Joseph Campbell above some time to marinate and blend with the song below. There’s not much for me to add to this recipe this morning.

The song is the Beatles song Across the Universe. It seems right for this morning and this post, with its refrain of Jai Guru Deva Om which literally translates from the Sanskrit as glory to the shining remover of darkness. This version is from the Norwegian singer Aurora. It has an ethereal and delicate feel with beautiful harmonizing.

Seems like it goes well with the other ingredients for this breakfast dish.

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2007

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells

The lines above are the last two stanzas of a poem Longfellow wrote in 1863 during the height of the American Civil War. Several years later, in 1872, the poem was incorporated into the Christmas carol we know as I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

There is a little more to add to the story which I thought I would add this morning.

At the time it was written, Longfellow was still deeply grieving the tragic death of his wife in July of 1861. Her dress caught on fire while using sealing wax on an envelope and despite Longfellow’s efforts which included trying to quench the flames with his body, died the next day from her burns. Longfellow suffered severe burns, to the point that he was unable to attend her funeral. It left deep scars on his face which prevented him from shaving and as a result he wore a full beard until his death in 1882.

After his wife’s death, Longfellow suffered extreme depression, turning at times to using laudanum to ease his sorrow. In the winter of 1863, as he began writing the verses above, he was deeply depressed by his continued grief, his worry over the war that raged between the states, and the fact that his son had been severely wounded in combat.

As he wrote, he heard two church bells pealing for the holiday and he felt his demeanor changed by it, feeling hope that indeed wrong would fail and that right would prevail.

It made for a powerful bit of verse and a memorable carol.

When I first shared this story of Longfellow’s poem back in 2016, it was with the hope that right would somehow prevail. It felt to me at that time that we were facing an upcoming period of darkness. Nine years later, we have staggered through chaos, pandemic, and insurrection. It doesn’t feel as though my fears were unwarranted.

And the same ominous sense of darkness still remains.

Even so, I still maintain the hope– no, the belief— that wrong will fail and that the bells will once more peal out right’s triumph.

I haven’t shared any holiday music thus far this year. I guess I am not in a holiday mood. Certainly not a festive one. But I thought I’d begin to at least make an attempt and share some seasonal music in the coming weeks. This version of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day seemed appropriate for this morning. It’s from The Civil Wars, the fruitful but short-lived collaboration of Joy Williams and John Paul White.

I very much like their interpretation of this classic carol, especially this morning.

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The Restless Seeker– At West End Gallery

Great art, especially literature, but the other arts too, carries a built-in self-critical recognition of its incompleteness. It accepts and celebrates jumble, and the bafflement of the mind by the world. The incomplete pseudo-object, the work of art, is a lucid commentary upon itself… Art makes a place for precision in the midst of chaos by inventing a language in which contingent details can be lovingly noticed and obvious truths stated with simple authority. The incompleteness of the pseudo-object need not affect the lucidity of the mode of talk which it bodies forth; in fact, the two aspects of the matter ideally support each other. In this sense all good art is its own intimate critic, celebrating in simple and truthful utterance the broken nature of its formal complexity. All good tragedy is anti-tragedy. King Lear. Lear wants to enact the false tragic, the solemn, the complete. Shakespeare forces him to enact the true tragic, the absurd, the incomplete.

Great art, then,… inspires truthfulness and humility.

–Iris Murdoch, Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (1997)

I came across this passage from an essay from the late novelist/philosopher Iris Murdoch and it sent my mind racing. I have long extolled our imperfection as one of the functions and driving forces of art, particularly my own. In fact, one of my early exhibits was titled Seeking Imperfection. It continues to be one of my favorite titles because it says so much about what I do in those two simple words.

Perfection, and the pursuit of it, seems to be the antithesis of art, at least as I see it. Life is imperfect and forever incomplete so a perfect anything is a less than truthful depiction of who and what we are.

I guess that’s easy to say for someone who deals in imperfection and incompleteness, someone who doesn’t aspire for perfection in their work because they know it is simply not within the reach of their abilities.

But that admission might be making my point.

We– actually I– am  flawed and imperfect in many ways, so much so that the best I can hope for in my work is some form of perfect imperfection. Work that highlights and even celebrates the flaws and incompleteness that mark me and everyone else as human.

That I can do.

When I first read the Murdoch passage the first thing that jumped to mind was that I should title one of my upcoming 2026 shows Perfectly Incomplete.

I might just do that. And yes, even though I will be deep into the treatment for my cancer, I am going forward with my shows. I am excited to see what emerges in the coming months.

It should be interesting. And truthful. And real. But I can guarantee you this, it won’t be perfect.

Well, maybe perfectly imperfect and perfectly incomplete.

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The Call of Wonder– At West End Gallery

The world will never lack wonders; what it lacks is wonder. We grow blind not because the light is dim, but because we forget to look. The moment a man learns to marvel again, he steps back into the richness of reality.

— G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles (1909)

When I came across the passage above from G.K. Chesterton, the lyrics to a Paul Simon song immediately came to mind. They were from his The Boy in the Bubble off his Graceland album.

These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah

The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry, don’t cry

The song was written in 1986, nearly forty years ago, predating the technology explosion that created so much that has been integrated into our daily lives, so much so that we now take for granted these things and the changes they produced in our world.

What once would have inspired awe and wonder now only brings a shrug.

I sometimes wonder if we have been beaten into submission by an unceasing stream of wonders over the past forty years. Has it made us drop our guard and made us too quick to unconditionally accept every new thing and change. In his song, Simon seems to understand the danger in this. He writes about a loose affiliation of billionaires using technology and information to surveil and control our lives, all while we go about our day to day lives unaware and without suspicion.

It seems to me that once we surrender our sense of wonder, we become susceptible to all manner of peril.

Perhaps a sense of wonder is one of our inborn protective instincts?

I don’t know, of course.

But I do wonder.

And maybe that simple act–this pondering of the who, what, and why of life– is more important for our survival than we might guess. 

Maybe. But then again, what do I know? I am still sometimes struck with awe when I see a jet fly overhead, thinking what a miracle this would have seemed to our not-so-distant ancestors. How would I even begin to explain satellites, cryptocurrency, or AI and all its ramifications to my great-grandparents from the 19th century who were still wonderstruck at the idea of a telephone– or even indoor plumbing?

Just wondering this morning and happy to still have even that small sense of wonder. 

Here’s that song:

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