Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Revelator 2020

November 7, 2020 by redtreetimes

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.

Posted in Early Paintings, Music | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

The Misanthrope

November 6, 2020 by redtreetimes

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!

Posted in Current Events, History, Opinion, Quote | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Election Day 2020

November 3, 2020 by redtreetimes

“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.

 

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Today’s Mantra

November 2, 2020 by redtreetimes

“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.

 

Posted in Advice, Current Events, Quote | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

November

November 1, 2020 by redtreetimes

“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.

Posted in Music, Painting, Quote | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Season of the Witch

October 31, 2020 by redtreetimes

Even if it weren’t Halloween today, there’s plenty enough scary stuff taking place. And, unfortunately, it won’t end with the passing of this day of normal tricks and treats. I am just hoping that there are more treats than tricks in our near future.

But today I am just sticking with Halloween and playing a song that kind of aligns with the day. It’s Season of the Witch from Donovan from way back in 1966. Great sound. One of my favorites, Richard Thompson, does a good cover but I am sharing the Donovan original.

The video that accompanies the song below is from a landmark 1922 Swedish silent film made by Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen  titled Häxan which was called Witchcraft Through the Ages in its English release. It has truly remarkable and sometimes disturbing imagery, sometimes seeming as though it were pulled directly from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. I have written here about my admiration of the silent films around this time who were realizing the visual potential of the medium and this is certainly one of those films that come to mind. I have included a trailer for the film below the song’s video.

There was also a rerelease of the film in 1968 which was shortened and featured a narration from author William S. Burroughs and a jazz score featuring violinist Jean Luc Ponty. It’s interesting but I don’t think it has the same impact as the original.

Anyway, have a safe Halloween. Be careful because, as we are seeing, there are a lot of witches and devils out there. Hoping we can exorcise some of these demons on Tuesday. Have a good day.

Posted in At the Movies, Current Events, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Garbageman

October 30, 2020 by redtreetimes

Yeah it’s just what you need when you’re down in the dumps
One half hillbilly and one half punk
Big long legs and one big mouth
The hottest thing from the north to come out of the south
Do you understand? do you understand?

—The Cramps, Garbageman

Okay, it’s just about Halloween. Between a deadly pandemic and the looming election, most likely many of you are already sufficiently spooked. But since those other things will still be hanging over our heads for a while, I thought we’d head towards more typical Halloween fare today. 

Well, a little more typical.

In a couple of prior years here on the blog, I have played a couple of songs from The Cramps, a now defunct band that emerged the legendary punk scene in NYC in the late 1970’s. The Cramps had their own look and schtick, a brand of macabre psychobilly that just made them a perfect fit for Halloween. Their first album in 1980, Songs the Lord Taught Us, had a host of weird but wonderful songs like I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Zombie Dance, The Mad Daddy, and TV Set, which is a gruesome but highly singable ditty about a cannibalistic serial killer.

I bought the album it on vinyl when it came out and have really enjoyed it periodically through the years. I say periodically because I believe a steady diet of it might be detrimental to my overall state of mind. That would no doubt please The Cramps.

One of my favorites from that album is Garbageman. It’s a song I revisit quite often when I want to get my engines revved a bit. I seem to always end up stomping around the studio, yelling, ” Do you understand? Do you understand?”

I thought I’d share it along with a great cover of it from the legendary rock vocalist William Shatner. Who can ever forget his cover of Rocket Man? He did this version of the song with The Cramps on a single whose cover, shown above, that employs the iconic artwork style from the cover of their greatest hits album, Bad Music For Bad People.

Actually, the Shatner version is not bad. A lot of kitschy fun. And in these weird and wild days, can’t we all use some of that?

Enjoy. And try to have a good day. And be careful — a lot of weirdos out there!

Posted in Current Events, Music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A House Without Joy

October 29, 2020 by redtreetimes

“A Time For Reckoning”– At the West End Gallery

Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.

― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

 

I think the hardest part of the last four years has been the lack of unified joy in this country. This void comes from the top where we have a president*** who lacks whatever gene is responsible for finding joy in this world. The closest thing to joy is the pleasure he finds in the obsequious praise of toadies. In fact, he is annoyed by the joy of others. Have you ever heard him praise anyone without somehow trying to take part of their success for himself?

He is, as the late Mr. Rogers might have said, disabled in that way.

And while our joy should not be incumbent on his behavior, it sets a tone that has seeped through our society. His way of crudely dismissing the joy and potential of others is becoming the prevailing sentiment. He doesn’t look at a person and see their story of what they have went through or what they may become. He see’s only what they can do for him. Those voters in their red hats and American flags with his face adorning it are only valuable for the time being as voters and a fawning chorus.

They will never find joy through him or his hollow lies. Only his bitterness and his eventual dismissal of them as well when they are no longer useful.

His disability will become theirs.

The poet Elaine Griffin Baker put it very well with her observational lines below on the last few years of this president***. As she writes: We are rudderless and joyless.

Below it is an effective reading of a large part of it by Bruce Springsteen.

Have a good day.

Vote. Vote so that we might someday soon find joy again. Just vote.

“I’ve been wondering why this entire country seems to be under a cloud of constant misery.
Why we all seem to be Russians waiting in line for toilet paper, meat, Lysol.
Hoarding yeast and sourdough starter “in case we can’t get bread”,
Buying stamps so that one of our most beloved institutions might survive.
Why we all look like we are in bad need of a haircut, or a facial or a reason to dress up again and go somewhere. Anywhere
There is no art in this White House.
There is no literature or poetry in this White House. No music.
No Kennedy Center award celebrations.
There are no pets in this White House. No loyal man’s best friend. No Socks the family cat.
No kids science fairs.
No times when this president takes off his blue suit-red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt- khaki pants uniform and hides from Americans to play golf.
There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation.
No Obama’s on the beach in Hawaii moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport, no Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape.
I was thinking the other day of the summer when George H couldn’t catch a fish and all the grandkids made signs and counted the fish-less days.
And somehow, even if you didn’t even like GHB, you got caught up in the joy of a family that loved each other and had fun.
Where did that country go? Where did all of the fun and joy and expressions of love and happiness go? We used to be a country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity.
We used to have a president that calmed and soothed the nation instead dividing it.
And a First Lady that planted a garden instead of ripping one out.
We are rudderless and joyless.
We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great.
We have lost our mojo. Our fun, our happiness.
The cheering on of others.
The shared experiences of humanity that makes it all worth it.
The challenges AND the triumphs that we shared and celebrated. The unique can-do spirit Americans have always been known for.
We are lost.
We have lost so much
In so short a time.”

—Elaine Griffin Baker

 

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=272836190717553&external_log_id=2e98a84b-a38a-49c5-8e23-c7a33624e66f&q=springsteen%20elaine%20griffin%20baker

 

Posted in Current Events, Poetry, Quote, Recent Paintings | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Ain’t Sitting on No Blisters

October 28, 2020 by redtreetimes

Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

― Abraham Lincoln

The US Elections Project anticipates that this year’s election could see a turnout of 65% of eligible voters casting ballots. That would be the highest turnout in well over a hundred years, going back to 1908.

That’s great news. 

But it raises a burning question: Who are those 35% who won’t cast a vote?

Think about that. We’re having a crucial election that could well dictate our whole way of life in the coming years. The pandemic has shown that who leads this country can make a crucial difference in our everyday life, in how we react and recover from adversity. Or how we avoid it altogether.

Yet a third of the citizens of the nation don’t care enough who heads our government and won’t vote. They are willing to let others make that choice for them, willing to go with whatever the others want.

Do these people live their whole lives this way? 

Voting is literally the least a citizen can do to participate in the affairs of the nation. It can make the difference between leading a nice, quiet life or furiously fighting an out of control fire for years to come. 

Heed old Honest Abe’s words: Don’t turn your back to the fire.  

Do your duty.

Vote.

Oh, and my personal suggestion is that you VOTE BLUE.

Note the blue waves in the painting at the top. 

But do what you will and just vote.

 

Posted in Current Events, Quote | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

In the Land of the Hypocrite

October 27, 2020 by redtreetimes

And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.

–Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

The stakes are very high right now, folks. Couldn’t be higher. You must get out there and vote. Though I have no right to ask nor any sway on your actions, I urge you to VOTE BLUE up and down the ballot. But I suspect that if you still read this blog, you probably at least lean that way anyhow.

This election finds this nation at a very sharp fork in the road that leads to our future. Both will be extremely rough going, one simply from trying to recover from the atrocities committed over the last four years and to somehow recover from a pandemic that has been allowed to run wild by a government without a real plan to battle it. 

The other is a path whose course has been set to take us into some form of authoritarian state. Maybe even a fascist police state.

With the hypocritical and illegitimate approval and elevation of a Supreme Court Justice and the dissembling of the Justice Department under an Attorney General who views presidential power as absolute, we are primed to go dangerously wander further from the path of democracy than in any time in our history. 

To further illustrate this point, in an underreported move, the president** last week signed an executive order that would sweep away the civil service protections of tens of thousands of government employees who are in their jobs because of their expertise, not their political leanings. These are people who serve the nation, not a party or individual.

They would now be subject to loyalty tests from the administration and could be dismissed for simply telling the truth. 

There is an interesting short article in the online magazine Government Executive that outlines the potential ramifications and dangers inherent in this executive order. I urge you to read this article because as is pointed out out in its last paragraph: The executive order’s implications for the government’s ability to perform —and for citizens’ trust in government’s impartiality—could not be greater. This is a very, very big deal.

I couldn’t agree more.  This is a very, very big deal.

So, as we come to that fork in the road, please use your vote with thought and care. It has never been more incumbent on you to participate.

We all have to choose.

And it is, as I have pointed out in the past, a binary choice even though there are other parties and candidates on the ballots. To choose to vote for third party candidate this year means that you don’t see that there is a stark difference between the two parties at the top of this ballot and that you don’t care who actually leads us ahead. It is a cynical and childish move, in my opinion.

There is no moral high ground in throwing away your vote with an insignificant protest vote, especially in this year of all the years that have seen us voting as a nation. There are many folks out there who desire to have real third party movements across the nation. I would love to have other options as much as anyone. But this year’s vote might actually determine whether there is even a two party system going ahead, let alone third or fourth parties.

As I wrote above, the GOP is attempting to bend the will of the government to serve its primary movers and not the whole population. They have a shrinking base that is already over represented because of their machinations and if they can, they will use further underhanded tactics to diminish the ability of the opposition party to retaliate in any way. They will use their power to expand the power of the president** and the executive branch. They will further suppress the vote. We will become perhaps a soft police state because though they have the reins of power they do so with the minority of the populace behind them.

Elections could become show elections like we see in autocracies around the world, engineered to provide the desired results.

Third party? Hell, there wouldn’t be much of a second party.

So, the stakes are sky high. Pick a side and let’s have at it.

I ask you to VOTE BLUE.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »