Harnett-Hargrove

2012-01-23T09:24:00.006-05:00

Sometimes art isn’t the sort you can see from a cross the room.

It may seem scary, but sometimes you need to get close–up to understand.

This was a different type of day.

Prophecies will pass; as for waging tongues, they will cease; as for notorious knowledge, it will fade.

There were garments everywhere. Where did all this come from? I’ve not entered the Cave of Lost Children; these clothes all too large. At least up-side they have clothing. All I can make out are the elongated Boticelli figures looking as though crumpled at the bottom of a canvas. Sandro was certainly a frustrated fashion illustrator. I can’t tell who owns that arm, whose leg is sticking out over there, which has that unnaturally long neck. Eyes rape me. I divert more than stare, wanting to know just enough to ponder the questions. Shall I ask for a line-up? Would everyone begrudgingly amuse me? Not likely. Elbows and knees pointing up like Burma-shave signs, mimicking the way out. There are enough ruins and faded ghost signs here reminding them of the middle world above. Damn, I forgot the popcorn. Journeys are always a better movie with concessions, and not a stand in sight.

I’ve come searching for someone in particular. For some one specific. In the stream of consciousness the ‘I’ is the thing relevant. I really hate that. I; again.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be pissed away.

Proactive is not working so to have a sit. Dropping into the fetal/futile position, I form the ‘O’ in hope, or in pOssibility. The hole for them to jump through and escape into.

Hoping the sought soul will recognize a hero and leap at the chance to be saved. Hoping goes nowhere. Returning empty handed is defeat, however, and I would never pick up again this quest. Empty handed doesn’t pay the Bill. Mute souls scatter by to ask questions for unidentified reasons. Not enough to pay a visit, just borrowing? Do I not look like a glimpse of news of the war overhead? A torn piece that fluttered down the small shaft. Yes, they are unaware I am a broken off bit of the thundering, catastrophic, never decisive conflict. From here the Megiddo playing above ground is a soft roar that rocks and comforts and pulls.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Strap onto my back and you can be recovered. Which soul dares?

Soul retrieval isn’t what it used to be. So many in the lost-to-be-found, so little time.

Go find yourselves. Ha! I should have worn that T-Shirt. I give you reasons when you ask for a yes-no.

I’m cold and dampish in this work. My garments wait, along with my power animal back at the entrance. Unless he has retreated. Perhaps humility is good for something.

Okay, someone steps up to the plate. ID is affirmed.

We see though a glass, darkly; the mirror dimly, but then face-to-face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully un/known.

Hey William, what ya got there? (Power animals can be annoying. If omniscient, why ask?)

What I came for. Have a look-see, no don’t look. I got it. Just lead the way.

Everyone’s thin neck has its own kilter.

Meaning?

Everyone has a unique point of view.

Soul retrieval has become soul searching. I guess it always has been.

So now? Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the great test of these is love.

2012-01-12T10:46:00.002-05:00

I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.

-Gertrude Stein

There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled.

-T. S. Eliot

As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

-Victor Hugo

2011-12-29T18:07:00.001-05:00

Albeit not an easy task …. the universe has succeeded in temporarily overwhelming me. So, my retort is to face the corner, pencil in hand, and learn to draw.

2011-12-08T08:38:00.004-05:00

These images were taped together and stuck in an old sketchbook. I love the idea of triptych. I got to thinking what this one was about, or rather, what I was trying to say other than putting things together and seeing how they relate. I do remember this was the day that we costumed as gypsies and I was tied to a Metropolitan column. Screaming during the photo shoot until a crowd had gathered. We did, however, disappear before the police showed up.

Quaint.

It had something to do with that evening’s wall installation for a nightclub. We made illustrations of white dancing macabre figures on black plastic trash bags. Behind on deadline, we doubled the number of images in half the time by wet coping them Rorschach test style. Ugh, that reminds me of painting backdrops in an abandon house, winching as we heard the rats chasing across the sagging sketchy roof.

Creepy.

Of course there were, and are, also the true quiet profound moments. Those just don’t seem as loud, or come forward as often.

Strange.

2011-11-25T18:39:00.003-05:00

Hello up there stop

Supply and demand has flubbed gone awry as there is not any chocolate in the house to be found stop General time is standing still and specific time goes out of the window without being sent stop On my desk sits a dark oxblood leather attaché wallet stop It is soiled in the bottom edges with splattered bird droppings and the lock smashed and half missing stop So it seems I have in my possession the curious case stop But the brown shoes have now gone missing stop The moonlight over through you stop Alert all who may not care

Yours

L. Dangling

2011-11-17T09:34:00.000-05:00

2011-11-03T16:48:00.004-04:00

About three-thirty in the nighttime, I came across a makeshift temple with a handwritten sign. Anyone that trespasses will be recruited.

The sky is alight with a form of distress signal I am unfamiliar with. The stars are not quite still, but alive with vibration as though the earth’s mounting energy obscures the clear deep space. Leaves close as com/radicals dart away into the greenery. Running along they trail fire with the ironic confidence of Hansel and Gretel.

I am drawn to this warming flame, it leads me. If the way out is unbound and clearly open then the way in is too clear. Without boarder crossing, without fence caging. No wall to leave messages for others to misinterpret, or to tell of a particular angle. Left unbound to play with fire’s emotion and the appropriate longing to inter/fear with the fire. All’s fair, so there is no need to qualify the hankering for the inner war of passion and the outer, too real. With eyes of fire no one can see. In this is confusion nothing is forgotten, only left behind.

I’m hit and assumption fills the being I am. Dropping my chin I see an arrow protruding from my breast the see the blood leak and rush into the earth in an anxious soaking to become one with the subtle energy that we all belong to in the end.

Looking up, I sway to an ancient internal rhythm and fall onto my knees. Eyes see vulture forms as ink spots above me, then twist and depart as if they were a mere thought flushed from the sky. Everywhere an echo of the outskirts of civilization.

I now long to take a partner by the hand. To follow and join with the parade I am slipstreaming into, but my mind turns and sees only one. Anteros is wiping his tears as he laughs at my shocked numbness. Not asking nor waiting for a reply he turns and haphazardly lets another arrow fly. It is shot into the sky power/full straight and at its far zenith levels, overcome by the earth’s pull of gravity. The weighty point leads a graceful arch down from the sky. Somewhere another is hit in the back. This victim’s victim wonders why, even as he knows the answer.

The moon fades to blackness and I am left alone without senses. I hear no longer the breeze through the heavy flapping green. I see no longer the details of this plane, only three mutinous shining moons. Three romantic old men mocking each other. I feel no longer the heat of a burning heart. Only a low resonating hum that becomes deeper, stronger and overwhelms me. Aware of a nonexistent kingdom so close that the only wholei/ness is the roof of my mouth as it expands, extending to exist beyond.

Not seeing the possibilities can sometimes be a half Hallelujah.

2011-10-29T15:24:00.001-04:00

Compassion without emotion is the privilege of few vocations in life.

2011-10-21T13:10:00.005-04:00

They peered into the cryptic question and gazed on the round table of post cards trapped between glass and masonite. Someone belched. A wooden chair creaked.

The brave one gave it a meek try,

“The answer can only be; Wonder.”

A complexion of 'eureka' and 'I wish I’d said that' scurried around the table till it hit the final player on his left side. He didn’t budge his poker face.

He remained stone for the rest to figure on whether he was seriously thinking, seriously numb, or just seriously miles away. They each gave up the read, breathed again, heads turning back toward private thought.

It was then he spoke out of turn, not knowing whose it was.

"It’s simply the Tenth Daughter. The stepchild that makes us think of something kind-of-like, sorta-to, or quite-near. Kind-of-like talking up sacred geometry. Speak that to a client and they'll eat that BS up real fast. Sorta-to like suffering through the present situation to have an enlightenment of it later.

And kind-of-like listening to a genius stutter."

The table commenced synchronized nodding and from up above it looked as though they were rehearsing for a Busby Berkeley Esther Williams swimming moment.

2011-10-12T19:40:00.000-04:00

2011-10-10T10:16:00.001-04:00

2011-09-23T00:42:00.006-04:00

Happy Birthday
(To someone who has probably stopped celebrating the reminder.)

2011-09-21T13:50:00.002-04:00

Tenth Daughter of Memory / deathbed revenge

(Next month perhaps Tom will have a happy little muse)

First of all, a deathbed does not seek revenge. Imagined or real.

People come to me as a last resting place. A place where you know where you’ve been, but not to where you are going. As elephants traveling out to the bone yard, or where you’ll find the deathly wounded sheltering in holes and scrubs. This place distracts from dreams and focuses concentration. A place people walk into knowing, having somehow decided, they will never walk back out. Everyone spends his or her life circling in on me. It’s like a parlor game. Reality always seems in the next room. Eventually I win.

There is history here. However, none of it judged.

What is missing is the future telling. Foretelling the future is taking away free will. Whose will is it any way? What would become of us if we controlled the present to foretell what is to be? I deal with the absolute/tion of death not the meander towards it, and certainly not the way it is handed out.

Everyone knows there is an end to everything that breathes. Does a cure take away free will? That is not miraculous, that is not prophetic, and that is not revenge for the living. No, I do not take away free will, it is will in process.

Second; I am in good shape, not broken down. Though once in a while I am, for lack of space. It is then I need to be re-built. That’s when I come in a kit of 22 easy to assemble symmetrical parts. For more rental dough I come with a pillow, for an uneven total of 23 parts. It is indeed a hard mean little pillow. You pay for the plastic wrap of new.

Thirdly: I do not recognize indulgences. You will have had to already taken care of that before you get to me. I simply pronounce the unconditional after passing the threshold.

2011-09-16T13:58:00.003-04:00

Stretching the rules Right Over Yourself

(And I mean) tedious random notes from a notebook.

Not very often, I’ll look into an old codex and read where my mind was at the time. Try to figure out my connection to the page. First, of course it’s deciphering phonetic spelling, and the mistakes of my furiously getting something down.

Dream of a refusal to listen to silent books.

A combination of misunderstood and thirsty.

Look for an alternate tribe.

Revisit an old painting -She Carried a Blazing Flag and was Looking for a Cause.

Meet someone who wants to become a pamphleteer. Not the type you run across the street to get away from.

Articulate ideology.

Decide whether life is detritus. Or not.

Always remember that understanding poetry is kind of like asking someone to untie some else’s knot.

2011-08-23T19:14:00.006-04:00

O me to be trapped

Forever on the outside

to circle trying

To understand a/way in

But glass is solid

To name a hard nothingness

Without a crack or

Muntin of a meeting place

And so to recoil

Into my own hush-hush prism

Of well defined space

Figuring the alien

Out there circling

The glass bowl of a sharp eye

Within an/other eye

Creepy but now contented

Strange but for contents

You’ll know when the light is on

Remember there’s no

Way hiding the obvious

Though safe from weather

Except from the winds of change

— Of normality

And the winds of cunning words

Does all of this count?

Is this place indeed soundproof?

If I can’t hear them,

Are they allowed to hear me?

And etcetera

I can see I can see through,

I can see stones lined

Up like gray broken teeth.

Standing in a row

Announcing just quietly

That someone has gone

Down beneath to stain that spot

If you cant see me

You aren’t here you are there.

Eyes clear and open

Though imbedded with mem/ries

Streaking the one good

Decent enjoyable view

Unless reminded

Why the need to think about

The day after now

And the yesterday prior?

The glass and stone meet and play,

Who will always win the game?

10th daughter of memory muse:
2 glass houses and 20 stones

2011-08-15T09:21:00.003-04:00

(a very oldie)

2011-08-05T00:51:00.002-04:00

Contemplative mind

Moment in time is magic

Highlands are between

The yearning and the learning

This will conjure up

An episode of kinda

Full of excuses

With emphasis on humane

Attentive devout

Life is an algorithm

Warrior cloud heads east

History of logic is

Full of dramatic

Episodes of eureka

That will lend credence

Well this is nothing like that

Gathering feathers

Needing somewhere to place them

Currently commune

Words are not my first language

Compassion near by

Obvious not yours either

Plateau in the clouds

Ends unexpectedly soon.

If we cant escape our fears,

What then, will they do to us?

choka — for 10thdom

2011-08-04T19:08:00.002-04:00

Dropping her fetters in the wings, she walks into the straight jacket of the theater in the mind.

She squints her eyes with childish solipsism making the eidolons mere whips in the dark space. The others had fallen into an echoing silence over the years, long ago. And just now.

Offstage in queue they sport costumes of heavy antique bullion and quilted brocade designed and built many years ago, mimicking a hundred years before that. A set of lovers coo, a pirate is selling buckets from a red corvette, another dangling a silver spoon, a child inside a feline, a drooling hunchback, a chorus in deep eggplant chiffon, each waiting a turn while the henchman fumbles with a noose.

Brushing by the understudy she hears break a leg whispered under a breath. The cliché rings in her ears until the deafening roar of the audience applauding becomes inescapable because of its absence. A queue is up. Closing eyes altogether, she gathers herself and charges out onto center stage expecting to be spell bound.

Settling into first position, centering, she glances up at the vacant right box. The big seat is empty. It is unworn and has always been empty. He is not coming. Again. There is freedom in that seat being empty.

Her eyes travel to the pit where the conductor’s arm is paused midair. Once and again a bond with the stick is made as it begins to flaunt and conjure and she easily steps into the slipstream following the major chord.

The exalted feeling is somewhere amid earthbound limitation. That gift does not come from a butt in the seat. Habit dictates she play her part without hesitation, as there is a cycle to round every week about this time.

When there isn’t scenery one must chew the curtain. The deep crimson fabric pulled up into a sculptured form hovering and leering at the wraithlike audience. The newly replaced footlights again glare like skinned eyeballs staring down and daring a reaction. Her flow steps up into the air and glides from stage left to right. This is when you can believe you are in the presence of a god. She knows sometimes it does not happen. Sometimes everything is in place and there is only disappointment. A spin turns staccato, as she becomes a marionette leaping and dragged down stage.

Rejected again. They aren’t coming. You think my dancing stinks? How about this move…

With a chaotic thrash of the body her leg shoots out and a foot ends in a severe punt to a footlight.

-bash

How does this one grab you?

- POP

Chaos takes the dance away from her.

One by one the lights erupt, flicker and die.

…And this, ass, they are foot-lights, yes?

- crash

She spins and hits with deft precision of practice until the only glow left is coming from her face.

The music ends in a deadly crescendo as her breath heaves and the lyrical stillness left behind brings her back to perennial dark Monday. Audition was again over for another week. She descended the stage steps into the house, making room for Next.

2011-07-22T09:54:00.003-04:00

A few choices;

I’ll be satisfied with this, and leave it go.

A loose knotted ending so the spirits can come sit for a spell,

and then be on their way.

Then they went down together, and the King awoke, and the Queen, and the whole court, and looked at each other in great astonishment. And the horses in the court-yard stood up and shook themselves; the hounds jumped up and wagged their tails; the pigeons upon the roof pulled out their heads from under their wings, looked round, and flew into the open country; the flies on the wall crept again; the fire in the kitchen burned up and flickered and cooked the meat; the joint began to turn and frizzle again, and the cook gave the boy such a box on the ear that he screamed, and the maid plucked the fowl ready for the spit.

And then the marriage of the King's son with Briar-rose was celebrated with all splendour, and they lived contented to the end of their days.

Bunuel/My Last Sigh, D.Thomas/Portrait of the Artist as Young Dog,
J.Steinbeck/East of Eden, M.Hurd/Goodnight Moon, Unfinished Script/JHH, M.Twain/Joan of Arc,
H. Melville/Moby Dick, N. Gaiman/Mr. Punch, Bros. Grimm/Briar Rose.

2011-07-05T17:26:00.003-04:00

He held the winged doll in his arms cradling it as he swayed back and forth imaging the life it represented.

Squinting into the sun he thought of the disadvantage of sword fighting against the light with the opponent in silhouette. He moved toward the surf and knelt down dragging the figure onto the sand. The silk brocade fabric wicked up the salt water splaying it in a meander following the woven pattern upwards to the collar. The darkening of the form interested him and he studied it with intent, not hearing the small girl child come up and plop beside him with familiarity, the obvious question asking on her face.

He silently cursed his inability to defend and responded begrudgingly,

“Just playing at magic.”

Her look remained unimpressed so he continued,

“This is a do-it-to-it doll. Somewhere it’s happening to another real live dragon. And I’M doing it.”

He made a jab to his chest with a thumb extended from a fist.

He realized having said so the idea relied on a leap of imagination. Glancing at her sideways and seeing her charmed, he eased and had a try at being humble.

“And that makes me St. George. The magic dragon slayer. "

A soft mist encircled the early morning moon as it rose from between the sugar trees. The reflective spotlight quickly embraced all that lay in its wake as if tardy and making up for the mistake.

“Merry we meet.”

She lit a white candle on the stone altar and stepped into the circle.

It was then she felt a dragging motion as if water deadened her limbs and crawled to her neck, holding her firm as if the strangling would be slow over a period of days. At once she became aware of the necklace she had worn since her fifteen birthday. It had become a tight reminder of old songs and past chapters; all hard won to be neatly forgotten.

This convincing had the young girl emptying her pockets of the tools and findings of the day. With the look of someone having to pick out of retribution and with great ceremony he moved his hand over the collection as if sensing energy. With disenchanted enthusiasm his hand hovered over the spilling of broken Coquina, an entire twirl of tangerine peel, a bit of string, a tangle of monofilament, a barbed fishhook and broken stick. He scooped up the fish line and held it out to her.

“Let out the knots and I’ll show you.”

She struggled with that task as he easily fashioned two spears from the stick and shell with the string. He pierced his finger in testing the weapon's worth and raised an eyebrow in expectation of her compliment. She gave up the de-knotting, noting it a ruse to keep her occupied. She traced his glance to his bloody finger then back to his eyes.

“Yuck.”

She immediately regretted it. Having gained tribal trust, his smirk now seemed to tell her he would simply gross her out with playing at boy torture punishments. He doubted her, but prided himself on not discriminating upon a person’s gender, as that was to act in ignorance of a deeper truth. He ignored the retort and pushed ahead.

“This is how you kill a frog without really killing it.”

She broke the necklace and tossed it toward the candle, hitting just so, making it sputter then reignite bolder. This became a sign, a chance to reunite with the inner plane. She wanted to burn clean and begin again from the supernatural that is naturally potential.

Walking the perimeter of the circle, she made a safe countenance against the spears of invading authoritarian hierarchy.

The young girl modestly withdrew her body, as she craned her neck toward the experiment for a better look.

Not wanting her to help further, he positioned the dragon between his feet and held fast as he readied the implements of despair. Ignoring the rules of the blood-circle, he challenged the air between himself and the fire breathing dragon foe of medieval legend. With a burst of adrenalin and a spear in each hand he forced the spears into the head of the doll meeting up through the center scale.

She gazed up toward the moon and saw an apparition winging toward her. An ecstatic ride held her in a trance and whispered vaguely in a language she had yet to understand. Two eagles crashed inside her head, exploding in a light unbearably brilliant and the electrical resonance left sparks scattering throughout her being. She tore at her hair until the divine ecstasy eased. Centering herself as the ancient Omphalos, she moved out from there not looking back.

With a bend and a twist he released the victim from the spears.

The dragon lay disfigured, an interpretation of death.

2011-07-02T20:55:00.002-04:00

Her imagination was trumped by anyone walking into the room.
She took to wearing a hooded sweatshirt backward to avoid commotion.

That went as well as could be expected.

2011-06-30T21:07:00.000-04:00

2011-06-22T19:53:00.004-04:00

The Medici sure knew a fine piece of land when they
saw it.

We had trekked all afternoon with the cypress twisting along the paths. Aged statues had very few pieces left so guessing the character became harder and harder to figure. Most were propped and suspended by awkward metal rebar and metal tubes, leaving empty space equivalent to what was missing. A few of them looked as though a game had not ended, and players took turns, rather slowly, fitting in a stone puzzle piece of the body each had been dealt.

We had visited Neptune in his abbreviated habitat. He stood rock on rock, threatening his trident at a fish, while sea deities hid beneath in the hollows crouched out of the way of him doing his business.

We had chalked the mosaics and taken the obligatory photo ops. Looking around there were literally masses of opportunities begging to be violated.

With all of the other amusements in the Baboli Gardens we were still disappointed that a high sharp wire wall had sealed off the Grotto of Buontalenti. The structure seemed to be in repair, but it didn’t look as though the maintenance man would show anytime soon. Yes, 423 years can be a very long time for fake molten rock to look rather slimy and rotten. I think they may have just got sick and tired of foreigners putting their hands all over it. The day had been planned around visiting Buonarroti’s Prisoners. Actually, the fakes, as the real works were in the Galleria dell'Academia. There, the trumpet in your head goes off for David, not the six prisoners lining the nave. Mickey thought himself a tool of god, and reckoning god created free-hand, did the same. With the frenzied spirit upon him, and chisel in hand he hacked in a cloud of dust to expose the figure locked inside the stone. These restless men are claustrophobic, possessed, struggling to free themselves from the stone. The figures were abandoned just as they surfaced from a pool of water. Perhaps he was satisfied with the bellies emerged shiny and finished like a target. There are no apologies in the grooves from the chisel. Emotionally charged work has always intrigued me far more than the perfection of David, who in his temple is treated to reverent gazes and hushed voices.

Of course, on the flip side, Mickey may have simply been delighting in a practice of 3/D stone sketching by pulling out muscular, tanned, and sweating bodies of the workers from the Carrara marble quarries.

Oh, how we wanted to climb that dangerous looking barbed wire and walk into that chamber. It was the only way in, unless of course you climbed on top and dropped in through the ceiling cupola.

We never took these things personally.

After we had gained entrance, we reckoned we were obliged to stay until dark.

The bathing Venus was no longer alone. The mural to the back ‘looking out’ from the shelter of the grotto was a pastoral setting of wild beasts that simply glanced over the hidden place. The play of faux, relief and dimensional made the grotto look expansive. There was a nice little kitten that had followed us in apparently taking an easier route. She was a bubbly little thing the color of whipped butter making herself at home by loitering with sheep, and curling up in a Shepard’s goblet.

Michelangelo’s men were impressive in this venue. Two of the prisoners were graced there but not imprisoned by the hardened merd that had been slug everywhere around. The well endowed bearded man and the see-no-evil figure were embedded, but stood out in white form from the Mannerist sculpture that also inhabited the cave. The two were slumped over and forward, leaning into from opposite corners.

We camped in the back near Rossi’s Helen and Paris. Talking about the surreality of situations, thinking of past moments, and wondering if we would ever think of this one hence.

On our way out in the wee hours the cypress had grown eerie sparkle lights, glowing from the damp ground to the tiptops high above us. They lit up in time, in turn, in tune with each other. How thoughtful the lightening bugs had been to enchant the garden. I half expected to see Puck fall out from behind a bush, quote a snatch of Shakespeare and disappear again into the briar.

(Kyle'd do just about anything just to hear me laugh.)

2011-06-14T21:00:00.003-04:00

Watershed.

Exhausting the possibilities is fun.

Every once in a while I put out a bit of the dictionary from the ongoing work Hanzon and I are building. Here I go again.

• ready-fire-aim; The ability to start before you are altogether ready in order to initiate a beginning.

• perfection; Something that needn’t be determined in a concrete way. Something met with that is distracting.

• orphan / widow;

A word left alone, set at the top of the page on a line by itself. Lonely, confused and about to jump off. A typography term.

• dance; Code word for big argument about to happen over here. -e.g. “I’m cutting in on this one. I will take this dance.”

• mock-up; A quickly built idea in 3D to see if it is a feasible design.

• mustard & shrimp; A color story.

• working designer, a working artist – and in order to keep the “working” part of the title in the equation an artist must work. A lot. That means there is little time for the stars to align and the majestic creative muse to descend with gifts of glorious expressions of great art. No, it is more like hurling yourself in to the creative flux at a moment’s notice. It is necessary to turn on creativity at almost anytime and produce work.

• sticks; A gimmick learned for the Hong Kong episode. This skit had been organized and rehearsed numerous times, but whenever we were called upon to perform the ditty it seemed always to be changed into something none of us had ever heard of. -e.g. An inner circle joke became to compose a bewildering look in a confusing situation and ask, “Sticks?”

• scope creep; What happens when a project grows in scope silently and uncontrollably.

• left field; A proverbial place that you end up preceded by either putting your foot in your mouth, failing to impress a peer, or not paying attention to what is going on at the board meeting. -e.g. “It’s a hit! The idea ball is floating over into left field and everyone at the table is scrambling after, trying to figure it out.

Lonnie falling during the 1535 days.

2011-06-07T23:26:00.004-04:00

Who then is the father of time? The detritus mess from which we came from. He is the one who keeps everything from happening at once, twice. The problem of which there’s too little. He is past the age that he feels he is obliged to like something and for this reason carries a scythe.

Gone, gone beyond, gone beyond

The sister of mercy is obligation. When she kicks in she will forever after have worry as a distraction. However, distraction is sometimes an inoculation against depression.

Gone, gone beyond, gone beyond

The brother of love’s favorite tools are mental telepathy and leverage. A verbal taser gun is often useful, but not mandatory. He is the cartoon character looking both ways before crossing the street, seeing it safe, puts a foot out and immediately gets flattened by oncoming traffic.

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond

The second cousin of scatology is creative disruptiveness. Involuntary, consistent, and memorable. Faithfully and continuously changing the scrip to a new genre between dark & iffy. Branded a Grapheme because as a child he complained of fuchsia headaches and mentioned the letter A wanted to be red. He had been unaware his experiences were unusual until another pointed out others did not have them.

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond

The mother of reinvention states that what mother said at one time is destined to be said again. The biological function she offers speaks and has listeners, but not of the understanding sort. Like being served before you order; being forced to eat before you are hungry.

The voices spoke inside her head more clearly than she had heard when they were alive. The now disembodied words circle inside the mental haunted house. They wager and scold with a verbal finger-wag.

Light up the smudge stick and hand it over.

The human condition is such this.

Saying what we are trying to mean and answering what we don't want anyone to hear.

All the while hoping we won’t carry any regrets and others will read between the lines.

She has lived long enough to be moved into top place.

Now misunderstood gets its first-hand chance.

2011-06-03T17:03:00.008-04:00

Food for thought only.

Walking in an art gallery today I crossed a mandala of sorts, a loosely painted target on a perforated board. There were holes left where arrows had flown in and shot through.

I froze for a moment too long, petrified, and was tossed back into the inexpressible. Akin to the overwhelming grief of not seeing someone ever again. The tug of dread unexplainable. The idea of always and consistently missing the mark. However, so perfectly deliberate in missing, that it seems by mere calculation one should recognize the pattern and surely catch on and achieve the point.

A ring tone blares behind me, from inside my pack, jolting me to reality. That’s what damn cell phones are good for. After the brief call, I look again at the artwork. The painting was simply a piece of cheap pegboard the painter had cleaned brushes off onto.

Let smirking scholars writhe in their favorite bondage

And hold you plaintiff to the charge of art…

…your ghost pervades

staged-up like falstaff or the wild welsh rimbaud

You'd laugh to see the monograms they make of you

Oh, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomas,

Why don't we feel whatever we're supposed to feel

Oh, Mr. Thomas let us ramble through the midnight

Let us throw bottles at the ferris wheel

Let us paint library on the library let us raid the moonlight

Let us steal whatever we're supposed to steal

For Mr. Thomas — Robin Williamson original / Van Morrison

2011-06-01T22:52:00.009-04:00

A Simple Helm of Darkness

I want one of these — and when you want something

bad enough you can talk yourself into needing it.

2011-05-30T23:26:00.000-04:00

This contact sheet is a mess.

Anyone out there remember this one?

Must have been during a white out. -J

2011-05-27T21:56:00.001-04:00

(A book to be folded, given away, unfolded, cut apart and scattered)

No Title / Is It

2011-05-25T17:51:00.004-04:00

(This one is of me, in the long black skirt blurring, whirling the dervish on a Viennese bridge.

Illuminating light in photo by: just-before-dawn.)

He sent his man's-man out to the store to buy the nights dinner only to return empty handed.

The evening’s entertainment was spent projecting movies on clean beige china.

.......................................

The morning began as the type of day when one does not know what time it is until the evenings dim sets in to darken the mandatory list that is randomly crossed off.

Last were the rifles. As objects of significance, they were to be cleaned justly, done directly and at point blank.

When they were shot worthy, the artillery came in handy as the dogs barked incessantly, so instead of throwing them hush puppies he shot them.

He breathed in the aroma of blood and smoke and from his mouth flew the purple ravens spoken of in mythos.

For a few seconds he was full with complete expansion if the air around him, leaving no room for other egos. The darkness was quiet, close and suffocating.

Brown?

Looking through the color of rot was not his favorite paradigm.

As his mind chased through, scratching and trying to rid itself of the tragic hue, he saw memories numbered out of order. Those memories organized and queued in line-up vying for his attention.

The one most interesting happened to be absent. Perhaps a drunken blackout memory that someone else owns and is not sharing.

.......................................

He adjusted his mask and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The sun shone his shadow, exposing him as a ridiculous and fictitious character. His ears were the likes of George Bailey widening his palms to show the length of a suitcase.

Wrongly, he remembered his list and went to collect water but he forgot what it was for.

The postage stamp screen on his taskmaster devise suggested no-such-thing.

He doubted the physical world.

Not using a hand signal is rude and dangerously idealistic.

As is putting glass plates in the juicer.

Life is a zero sum equation.

And it only gets darker.

Well, okay, then.

Do I get to vote?

2011-05-17T20:47:00.005-04:00

We may be Slow, but we’re Expensive.

One of my favorite unrealized tee shirts.

Honestly, I have those horrifying moments while driving,
I completely and absolutely do not know where I am. Intellectually I know it will only last a moment, but emotionality that moment lasts an eternity.

I feel like savoring the feeling of being ahead of whatever game I’m playing.

Everything on my do-to list is to-done. I know it’s a scrim illusion, all an ongoing relentless process. But hey, throw me a bone here.

Moreover, while I’ve spent these few minutes hunting and pecking I’ve probably lost my edge, so it was all a moot point.
I’ll mash print anyhow.

Someone turn on the radio, it is mostly way too noisy in here.

2011-05-07T10:09:00.001-04:00

Missing Pieces

2011-05-04T22:03:00.003-04:00

Equilibrium didn’t, so he sank to sitting with arms akimbo.

His mind’s eye witnessed the interior wind as a hue of insulting pink.

Mentally circling the area didn’t earn the satisfaction of curiosity.

Close in, his name was whispered with British ascent, via the clip of the tongue that makes Eric sound somewhere near attic. From the far side his mother called out her Indian name for him. Too-stubborn-to-put-on-a-coat.

This nickname hit something unyielding and ricocheted back out. Mind clenched as his fists hardened. His mouth opened in silent combativeness, then thought twice, capturing the first syllable.

Looming encapsulated, he shuttered and accepted entrapment and exposure. Steps away from void, stepped in from another form of void. Hermetically sealed in a Fabergé egg. Cracked with windows called eyes. He sensed aura of life dodging about him and talking in vibration. Darting and fetching, stalling and proceeding.

Thoughts tumbled in rapid fire, one after another, but he refused to ignite each one. Every one smothered in turn before it had been identified.

Looking deeper inside revealed an empty room filled with intangibles able to squirm through to the other side out.

Tight shut eyes relaxed to envision sparks flying. A queue of bubbles rose from his mouth heading to the surface. A last bit of breath released above the surface of the mere.

2011-04-24T16:38:00.002-04:00

The countryside was an inferno, the Dutch were nuzzling the shores, and a suspended dagger swung loosely a meter above the king’s head as he lay down to sleep.

“Get that rabble of a cat out of this room.

He stares at me while I’m asleep and messes with my dreams.”

Why he, a harmless necessary cat.

“Nevertheless. Remove him, or I’ll do it from here.”

2011-04-22T08:36:00.005-04:00

He made decisions based on what he wanted to happen, not on reality.

He was told he wrote as though he had just gotten out of jail. He didn’t understand why, he just believed them and figured it was a good thing.

2011-04-17T08:50:00.005-04:00

Bear was a white guy, with green eyes on the red path.

Counting Crows happened to be in the air at the shop and I remembered the evening of the concert. The street around Bimbo’s in SF was packed as we neared the club. Searching for a parking spot he began a mantra, “…she stomps out of the diner… her runs after her… she says take me home angrily… he stomps off to the car…he revved the engine…. they pull out... there is still two bucks on the meter…” Inside a circus. A curious blond mop of hair eats the microphone. It had a great beat and you could dance I to it. I sat rolling cigarettes poorly, but still smokeable, wondering if the show on or off the stage was best.

I tend to personify everything.

Everything from lint to car engines.

A bit like listening to a foreign language and pulling out what sounds like English to understand it.

Not interested in drawing unless the subject breathes. I am no background story boarder. Another one of those, if I wake and am it, great. However, I would not want to study for years to be it.

The truth is in plain contradiction.

Like chasing a phantom, yeah,

So seemingly random, yeah.
The truth is not easily handled.
-Todd R

Too bad.
Not enough time.
Messages found written in the unfinished.

Honestly, is there any difference in a costumer and a bag lady?

Remember Jayne, do not get dead lining mixed with flat lining. -LH

2011-03-21T22:10:00.005-04:00

I am not worried. I am not overly concerned.

The rock paper scissor gods get their way in taking turns at playing umpire.

A great equalizer of a game, however, you must adhere to the rules.

At times it seems obvious where they are betting. The cliché of a sword in hand forming the gaming board in the sky. The fickle hand swerving, the blade’s edge pointing downward, directing the luck we tremble to witness. Every province is in the queuing with a future moment to be reckoned with.

Them, us, Chad or one of the Stan countries.
No one has been missed. No one will be excused.

Who has not their hand in conveying the future?

I am not worried. I am not overly concerned.

Sensationalize as a commodity. Who needs a fortuneteller without a performance to look forward to? The dull-witted ever needs direction in matter of tangents and direction to give shape to drama.

He remained in the soapbox position tolerating and persuading the passers by to see along with him the forerunners and warnings and to interpret the signs that were so very obvious to him. Causes are assigned through the movement of the sky, the direction of the wind, and placement of fallen leaves. That’s why it happened. This is what will happen now. The crier carried ideas with the seriousness some caught, others could not. These ordinary influences made the common person apprehensive of calamity, doom, and a wasted Akeldama ahead. By using the power of suggestion the foretelling comes about.

Have you ever had the experience when someone is being obviously rude, and when you point it out to him or her; they become twice as rude being angry that you noticed they are being rude?

I am not worried. I am not overly concerned.

It is difficult for me to mimic. If it is not felt, it is not played out.

Having a think on A journal of a Plague Year by Daniel Defoe.

Research reading for a play … not a fun read … but engrossing.

Above: 100 Paintings in 100 Hours / Hazon / HarHar

2011-03-14T23:18:00.002-04:00

2011-03-07T21:26:00.003-05:00

She envisioned St. Dominic at a very tender age.

“Are you not going to light stix in the middle of every
village to burn all heretics, sinners and infidels?”

At first repulsed by the idea, after time she
embraced it wholeheartedly.

No, it never crossed my mind, but now that you mention it,
it sounds like a way to pass some time.

The plan immediately shattered her soul.

Suddenly everything seemed so fragile.

2011-03-06T20:35:00.001-05:00

There once were too few players

To dodge trap doors and stairs,

Each needed to be many

The skills required uncanny,

And so very comprehensive to settle affairs.

A camo team nic-named ‘talking heap’

& a quartet of undergarments shown rather cheap, (bless their hearts)

Three smitten with destruction

Two bullies with plan for abduction,

And the foley guy at the ready with ‘bleeps’.

Complications from underdress to redress,

Break a Leg impossible w/o understudy convalesce,

Collective professionalism had gone-wrong

A play for voices was re-decided on,

Mel Blank they all became with finesse.

We each are so many. --- I'm thinking, usually, it's way too much.

Keep the faith and see you at the hanging. -Rooster Cogburn

2011-02-26T21:36:00.008-05:00

Rando-mize:

This surfaced and was too good not to share.

Circa: 1993 Here we are. What a day, and we look like wrecks.

And what of it?

I was art directing. We had stopped for a ‘buddy’ shot during the
plexi-painting photo. From left, someone-you-know, Ann Cunningham, Terry Koepsel and Lonnie Hanzon, looking as though he is trying to talk the photographer out of this one.

Any monkey can do what I do…

“Well, that may be true, but do you realize how
long it would take to train a monkey?” -L

‘Drew is listening to the song One More Day from Les Miz (colloq.) when his sister comes in asking hurried questions about this and that.

He raises his eyes to heaven in mock disgust,

“The moment is ruined! START IT AGAIN!”

He cracks me up.

The only part of costuming I do not like is taking time opening safety pins.

Where there are possibilities of too many double letters in one word, I usually get the spelling wrong.

And another thing, the ‘i e’ rule doesn’t.

Matching furniture is a clue to adulthood.

I’m wonder about things ... not in the least is, when did my generation get use to listening to mini sound speekers instead of the steady boom of a Klipsh Belle?

Lonnie has a visual parade happening over at his place...!

2011-02-21T21:08:00.007-05:00

River of Mnemosyne

10th Daughter of Memory
muse 7 8 9

Muse 7

Well, well, well.

I would have lost that three-penny bet. Your grand escape. I will mash the reset button on this meander and now believe you work by installment.

Linear stories are tedious, why should lives hook up to parallel?

Your riff on this theme will be getting tedious soon.

Make it exciting or else.

Is ‘mob’ psych what makes folks look at something interesting and miss the obvious?

Moving on from to,

Wheeze

Muse 8

After breaking into your abandoned attic apartment I pulled aside the heavy Victorian drape to view the painting, expecting some Dorianesque nightmare to be revealed. However, it was simply an empty frame. The prize had been removed.

Animal debris was all over and about.

There, on the roll top, was a to-do list of mundane wants and needs. Some were ticked off, others scribbled over as if importance had asked priority to change its mind. The other things not left were all the books of cruelty she had never written. Noticeable because of her absence. Because of your weighty absence, too.

Whatever you find ‘there’ at the moment, and being careful what you wish for here, it becomes comical when realized it matters not where you are.

All moves forward together.

Being here is not being there, so how should I know?

Till I decide otherwise,

Muse 9

Once again, my dear, Repillee Scooter’,

Catching is like chasing a phantom, yes. Moreover, phantoms are often

self-imposed, self-promoted and self-capitalizing. This seems random.

Just don’t get your percocet and pudding mixed up. They do opposite things to the body.

A linear story rambles off my pen and changing history would mean I could change the story, and that’s not going to happen. Truth is not a new situation.

But the truth is not easily handed.

Not having found it does not make up for needing to.

I’ll be summing it all up, somewhere and I’m sticking to it.

With a nod to Dylan’s tarantula & with your leave,

I still am,

Teansie Wheeze

2011-02-17T20:44:00.008-05:00

River of Mnemosyne
10th Daughter of Memory
muse 4 5 6

Muse 4

(note to myself)

Finding my favorite stoop, I sat to retrieve the letter. The swashed bugs on the open page proved a your letter was written En Plein Air and confirmed you are still on-the-lam.
Like so many other possibilities, I have committed it to memory.

‘My dear friend,

What is it called when you dream of wildfire and awake to flood?

When you invent something so intriguing in your dreams, but cannot bring it to the light of day?

What is it called when you have the pen and paper but not enough light?

What is it called when you can finish it in an evening or you could finish it in a night and what you really want to do is never finish it at all?

What is it called when someone purchases a better something but the other wanted something they thought lesser?

What does it feel like to be thinking-of-nothing and write a book?

When you realize you are outside of realism?

I may/not be her.

I am. And will be.

Repillee Scooter’

Yet another device. The old diversionary tactic. Logic will be of no use on this one, so let it go into percolation mode. It stutters a click of a breath, sputters two words like a candle going out and retreats to touch the back of the stage wall til the encore.

Not liking math closes doors and eventually seals them shut, as I have noticed. (Teansie me)

Muse 5

Okay,

Instead of eating the letter I added it to a Borofsky exhibition down in SoHo. Jonathan would never notice because of all the garbage covering the floor in his installation. Artful trash is another story for another time.

All that now remains is the faint odor, just a trace of ambergris on my palms and cuffs from the stationary. I will not accuse, though weren’t you in the wake as she entered with that perfume wafting behind her. That, before she told the reporter she was vegan. This morning? Or later. Depending which continent you're sitting on.
Which side of the road you are driving on and where you put your accents.

I will continue this process when I figure out the sequence.

Again,
TW

Muse 6

Repillee,

I DID recognize her picture in this mornings paper even though it was 150dpi black and white. The story did not read as a space Iliad. However it is epic in its confusion. A light force expelled her. The release was printed before your letter and am assuming you are not on the ship. But then again the 'finger' prose wasn’t delivered by you, so no tellin. Squinting my eyes and at the appropriate distance from the photo I recognized the ring on her right hand near the jet window. How strange it looked like your knuckles. As if knuckles could be unique.

It was in the New York Times. God and everyone else knows that demands belief, as evidence that paper is taken seriously as a bloodhound.

Looking for the jump. The page was ripped. Literally.

Wheeze

7 8 9

2011-02-07T09:06:00.012-05:00

River of Mnemosyne
10th Daughter of Memory

Muse 0 1 2 3

muse 0
Greetings to you my acquiescence,

Regarding your last communication.

Yes, she had walked into the room and a minor chord went off in my head.

Regarded as a threat. Respected as a possible ally.

With this sound of doom impending I was already backed up against a wall so I had nowhere to go when she marched up to me, held out a hooked finger close to the corner of her eye,

“GOTTA LIGHT?”

I didn’t cotton she was asking for an idea. At first I reckoned she wanted to shoot up carbonated water, then thought better.

In addition, yea, I saw a cliché the other dream. It was you kneeling in the silver light.

I need to know what you will tell the police when they come around. You know, collaboration and all that.

Never forget there are entire books written without using the word gypsy,

See you in the ones I love.

I’m glad this is not a telegram or I could not afford it.

Don’t get up when there’s not a place to sit down,

Probably sooner then later.

Yer buddy in the alleyway and byways,

Teansie Wheeze

Muse 1:

Hey,

Your arrogance appalling and your loudly ignoring my correspondence, annoying. Transmit word to me, via post or send a gram. Either way it will be too late. To my advantage, I will be notifying the authorities of your ‘specialty' out in the street.

You must know that putting strangers into the deep sleep and sending them into deep space puts you indeed into deep … Well, you get the picture.

If the road up ahead bends to the right and keeps I’ll be seeing her black leather and purple lipstick soon, just not counting on it. As you are three steps ahead of her and she is two ahead of me that makes… well, just know I have lost sight of her and the entourage. They appear and disa in the most precise way, seemingly a herd of zebras skewing into camouflage at the right moments.

Quite unnerving.

Don’t answer the door if you’re not sure who it is, and only eat out of a can.

Yours,

Weazie

Muse 2:
Even I will admit that putting Gavroche into a theater seat so when he gets shot onstage later it seems much more real, that he was’ just here’. The urchin did not wear noticeable armor and he was tragically mortal. However, all devices don’t go so smoothly. Some Burma-shave have gotten hit and may be pointing the in the wrong direction And any way the boy was simply a toothless angel in rags with his hands in his pockets and toes curled under at the edge of the stage compared to what prize you’ll receive.
The Dada like messages require Dada like packaging if they are to float.
The rub is not always coherent at times.
It’s not over,
TW, just another reluctant Titan.
Or perhaps T. V. Titian?
The brushes are wet, not sure of the subject, we’ll see before too long.

Muse 3:

Okay so I received your message. It was delivered in the Café Lutroo. The waiter placed it in front of my water glass and raised an eyebrow in expectation. The small envelope had been folded into the ‘finger’ suggesting the universal insult.

This bit of clever origami surprised me. Certainly not by the mundane message, but how clever you could be. The way the stamp was placed as the fingernail pointing up. I was not angered, but finished my victuals before handling the work. By that time there were a few inquires and zappers looking over my shoulder. Not wanting to disappoint any one but keeping within a spirit I put it in my jumper and skedaddled.

Gotta literally go,

Your Weazer

2011-01-16T00:05:00.006-05:00

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same,
knowing she has wings.

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

-Victor Hugo 3X

2011-01-15T22:50:00.002-05:00

Once a princess had a rambling birthmark in a rather tender space,

That a tattoo artist would have paid her to meander into place.

Generals traveled to her rear end as a sign-nee

Hoping to hold the squeaker that marked the X on her hinny.

As they planed an attacked on her stern with a bag over her head.

Blotting the atlas with red circles the soon to be dead.

Since the map creased and rose in a most particular latergy,

Consequently, the battle makers screwed the strategy.

The resignation sign hangs for a lost war rucked-up,

Not to worry because on the other side it says she ducked-up.

Therefore, never let it be said royalty does not do their duty,

This was a service of honor, not of looty.

mused from 10th Daughter of Memory

2011-01-10T10:15:00.002-05:00

Ironic.

I’ve always found lewd voyeurism beyond my threshold of adventure. Opting instead for the comfort zone of vicarious. I had worn my best oblique hobo suit in disguise, so I would not be noticed. Alone one can pretend by imagining-fitting-in until you go out and try. I was pulled out of line anyway and put on the road to cavalry.

We fall to collective pieces in being reminded that we were put here to undo each other. The mantra so ingrained that is has been forgotten, and simply carried out.

My vision is wall-eyed, confusing like a double exposure. So, I’m never sure if that tall one is stepping on the toddler or if the bright lipstick is stuck onto the glass. I see a perpetual faux draught landscape to the left. Flies have come and gone for years being duped by the low tangle of brush promising shade. My other eye looks forward and slightly down focused on an angry railing meant to separate.

My peripheral vision spies a group of 3^rd graders. They drink liquid that makes them pucker as the first half is downed. The most worrisome two-legged are the ones that leave debris, offering papers, and used band aids. They lunge and back away. They shield their eyes from the glare, and try again to peer in toward me.

I was shot out, tagged the cold wall of heaven, and then ricocheted back down exploding into this catatonic hulk. What’s left is confined in thermo plastic muscle, rubber sinew and synthetic fur.

I have a drip of sweat that has been itchy for years.

I had been a train wreck of a financier. Now trapped behind glass, stuck inside this Rhino, on display in hell.

2010-12-26T15:08:00.005-05:00

Moment of reprieve...

How quickly things can change in little or no time and the devastating/wonderful consequences that can result from those changes.

You want to know what I feel is one of the coolest things about life?

That you can figure and plan to the unth, but usually what happens is something you never counted on or dreamed of.

2010-12-13T11:30:00.001-05:00

2010-12-05T15:43:00.007-05:00

It is one thing to have a bolt of inspiration, quite another to have a sharp pencil to wrangle the story.
Jeff over at his Irre(2x) blog seems to have both quite often.

A while ago I offered him a choice of inmates from a WIP, Asylum Notes, asking to lend his voice as character vignettes.

Being up for play, he chose all three.

Find his first hit, The Hidden Conversation: In Concrete, here.

What I’ve pulled below is from Jeff's forthcoming, The Hidden Conversation: In Abstract, a different angle on the same illustrations. Up on his blog mid-December.

Just go with it. Like a river. Life's a river. Why fight it? The currents only stop when there's a need to.

Until some engineer invented the dam.

Creations, creator. Sort of a banal combination of words. Repetition sucks, but such is life. We are doomed to repeat history.

Then again, some good things happened in history. Does repeating those constitute doom?

Why be picky? It all winds up in the same place.

The toilet.

Or maybe the dirt. Or, heck, the pavement. Depending on if anyone's looking. Funny how manners are dictated by who else is around. Isn't anyone well-behaved for their own sakes these days?

2010-12-02T13:16:00.005-05:00

STONE is what it’s made of.

We found St. Peter’s square to be a rock growing out of the water, settling on grand, but undecided as whether or not to fully emerge.

The Carnival trip was designed around shooting long exposure shots dressed as dark whirling Dervish on top of a canal bridge.

Pause for a blur of ingenious riot of costumes.

We awoke on a stone bench in the morning mist lost on the island of St. Peter’s. Carnivale was over. KB looked great in long johns and a tux shirt with the collar up and the french cuffs down to accommodate his lengthy arms. He carried himself like a dancer and when he stopped he looked as though he were posing.

Those images are vividly burned into my mind because the film had not advanced.

There isn’t proof any of it ever happening.

2010-11-28T09:45:00.002-05:00

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. -Victor Hugo

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose. -Charlie Chaplin

…If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line

as a man of culture rare,

You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms,

and plant them ev'rywhere.

You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases

of your complicated state of mind,

The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter

of a transcendental kind... –Bunthorne in Patience /Gilbert & Sullivan

In temple today, sitting zazen, no one notices (good) that I smuggled a small book for notes of the thoughts that fly by to be wrangled momentarily, and then knocked aside so that I can attempt to see the clear void.

Sometimes Buddha, some times the other guys.

2010-11-26T22:41:00.001-05:00

It is truly amazing what the mind jumps to, what it remembers, what it can not let go of. With compassion and grace we accept some souls we know only a fleeting time, and, that others are here to stay. It is interesting that the fleeting stay with us in memory longer than anyone else. It is hard to let go of the physical form and even harder to let go of the memory that remains.

2010-11-24T19:26:00.004-05:00

My task is to fit together model plastic brains.

There are numerous sets, but each missing different parts. I am not aloud to mix pieces around from different sets to make a few perfect, and so, each is missing some part of its own brains. The saving grace is that all the skulls are complete, so once they are placed over the deficient brains no one will know they are lacking.

2010-11-22T05:07:00.002-05:00

Below a high window harsh daylight tumbles down shaft-like mixing with dust rising, she pauses to enter the slipstream before diving into the daimonion. Her silhouette sets off a harsh, abrupt shadow. She secures a promise by commencing to dance.
In this transparent essence, she madly spins with the intensity and reverence of a Dervish. Her head is thrown back to belie ecstasy and invite delusion. With one hand to the small of the back, the other to her chin she sends the brief chiffon flailing, flying into a luminous smoke blur and sends black fluid shapes onto the rammed floor following her every course. She glances in and out of the spotlight unknowing if her shadow follows or leads her. Perhaps it does both. The jealous shadow pulls her repeatedly into the focusing light as if needing to be seen.

Her feet scrape the dirt and then seem to hover. She hides her face and then bares teeth. Bucking and writhing with the allure of a feral cat.

The dance becomes her.

She’ll continue till they forget what she wants or she is ready to receive what she has asked for.

As natural light dims and gloom begins to take over, the tiny flames that have burned continuously now draw attention as they slowly grow in proxy, their intensity becoming the brightest glow in the room.

The moon peeks into the clerestory window, nods its head with apology, and, sinks again below the grease smeared marble ledge.

She divides the room. Her facing aspect lit up by a nervous flickering wall of candles. Her dark side lost in the cast of skipping, shrill, wild apparitions skimming the stone wall. The chamber is enhanced with the illusion that she is many, and, lends a potency of impending bizarre.

Shape shifting, yet ever constant.

On and on lost in the dance as dawn awakens.

Her shadow fades, pulling at her like the tug of sleep. Her expression satiated, the apostrophe of the night wanes.

She no longer knows or cares if it's she who’s in trouble, or those around her.

Attendees notice the conversation piece. A hand wrought pewter serving platter with a chiseled pattern of chaos within its symmetrical border. As mesmerizing as a mandala, and awaiting the prize.

2010-11-18T05:31:00.003-05:00

7/8

He stirred his oatmeal, stubbed his toe, and had a nagging feeling of missing an appointment... years ago.

You can watch and wait for water to boil, it will only take time. You will need 3.10 minutes. Below is a recipe for ‘no time for breakfast.’

0 eggs

0 olive oil

1. Do not turn on an oiled pan to medium heat.

2. Do not scramble egg till frothy and pour into pan.

3. Do not flip over sink in case of error.

4. Do not fold in half.

5. Finished.

To turn a situation into a happy ending you may have to look at it a long time. Walk all the way around it. A big problem could mean a very long walk. Try it on without expecting it to fit. Throw it out and see how it lands. If it will only be just what it is, stubborn and unchangeable, then let it go. Sometimes there is not a happy ending.

from Parallel Line Tend to Neglect

2010-11-17T16:55:00.000-05:00

2010-11-12T09:54:00.002-05:00

In the dead of night Maine winter air is held completely crisp and still. Until unexpectedly, a startling subatomic rumble would echo through the dark, ending by clutching the inside of your throat.

A rabbit cries for its life and loses. When all is quiet again the silence is ten times as deep and opaque. In forest blackness there lurks a claustrophobic dread.

The field stones that were sled over years ago became the low walls that are boundaries, trails and points. With the right aerial view some gigantic cryptic message would show itself. Wouldn’t it be keen if through some higher power a mystery could be solved by backing away and beholding an epiphany in the simple stone lines created by the walls.

Unafraid, I’d go on full moon treks for half the night. The bright light echoed through the bare trees and the snow turned silver under the spherical spotlight. One could easily make out the white flowers and birch. Some stuff was plunged into the inky blackness. I could easily imagine each soul down to the tiniest critter opening one eye as my shoe popped and crunched passed. Then, feeling no threat, closing again slowly.

I became mindful of the night sky while living in Damariscotta. The northern lights are big theater. The planets and stars shifted into their familiar winter pattern. Knowing where they’d be early evening was a relief to someone without much stability. Sitting still long enough and you were certain to be rewarded with a shooting star. Space trash was never so beautiful.

And what a prize at the end of the day when one can feel complete by just lying down, looking up, and get lost in the vertigo.

When your choices are limited completeness is simple.

2010-11-06T00:03:00.003-04:00

65/66

He had cats.

This sounds as though he had a disease, an inability to reason.

He simply preferred felines as pets.

Believing the novel idea that you begin to look like the pet you live with,

she hadn’t decided on what type she wanted to epitomize.

But, had narrowed it down to mammals.

From Parallel Chances Tend to Neglect

2010-11-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

An open mouth bleeds

Trick/ling down from branch to branch

Drumming out all time

The pale blue cloth turns deep plum

Blank shape, sanguine edged

Outline where a hand removed

From a white stomach

Still clutches a maché boat

Just as very well

Bleached fabric smells as though

It will explode any moment

One cannot bleed forever

2010-11-03T22:38:00.004-04:00

Perhaps notes on moving. And momentum.

I’m wondering, for someone who so very rarely sits down, how have I managed to collect so many chairs.
Books; examine (once again) how many books you want to move the rest of your life.

Getting a/head of ones self. I have altered moments when I’m driving and do not know what coast I’m on. Or, the license plate in front of me belies a foreign county.

Travel is good for the perspective, yes?

I love the act of packing up AND LEAVING.

GETTING THERE AND UNPACKING, not so much.

I saw Salvador Dali coming out of the laundromat. He walked past (a very pale) Bud Cort who was sitting on the curb.
Ct. Kangaroo was in the car next to me as Fidel Castro drove a Dolly Madison truck through the red light. He was eating a package of donuts that had ‘accidentally’ broke open.

Dave Van Ronk was walking his dog. Actually I see Dave a lot, so he’s not even worth the surprise of mentioning, but it's always nice.

Tune in, turn off, drop out, drop in, switch off,

switch on and explode.

–Mr. Kite / Across the Universe

2010-11-01T11:48:00.003-04:00

More from the ongoing WIP/graphic work collab with Lonnie.

I will post a picture-page or so now and again.

Just not this now. (I forgot to ask permission.)

• Houndstooth Check; A twill weave construction in which a broken check is produced by a variation in the pattern of interlacing yarns, utilizing at least two different colored threads. This is the weave that hides stains real well.

• mistake; Also called Spontaneous Expressions, and, they add uniqueness and expense to the work.

• now; As in The Now. The very now gets very old very fast and starting from scratch can be old news to begin with. So begin with something that is already on the designated design path that will get you there sooner than now so you can say you’ve been there later.

• hypomnemata; A material memory. A copybook, a notebook. A written permanent relationship between self and self. Memorandum, quotations, fragments of works, examples, actions witnessed or read, reflections and reasoning heard or have come to mind. An accumulated treasure for rereading and later meditation. Also, raw material for writing more formal work.

• Toshiro Mifune;

A line left blank in his honor.

p.s. - In the early movies they had to wear their own clothing.

2010-10-28T06:23:00.001-04:00

2010-10-26T11:53:00.001-04:00

These are two details from-

When Sword Swallowing Does not impress.

Together with the unrealized inventions of man Vol. II

With notes on the impatience of man though out written history.

I show these to remind me of them after they have been covered,

sense (see the two ‘s’?) they will be. Mostly.

It’s the type of visual subtext I love.

Title with subtitles always get my attention.

Telescoped writing, is the next best interesting thing.

I have had questions, so the answer is.

The first volume was never finished.

(ha)

2010-10-21T01:28:00.009-04:00

Dream; I am riding on a train that is in a perpetual right turn. I realize it’s on a wheel, of sorts, caught in going circles. I end up on my doorstep at a suburban sprawl house. As I reach for the door knob my ‘male’ springs out of the door, pacing, totting in place,

“Do you want to go running?”

“No, I want to go eat.”

I have had white-outs, (ok, people do not remind me) but I never lost a decade. If I have worked through layers and layers of emotional mud, I didn’t know about it. Thankfully, the upheavals I must expect lay dormant through denial and have gone undetected.

It’s curious how things were, how they are, how they could be. People in our lives that aren’t there anymore. The way time travels. Simple twists of fate. Some times they happen in an afternoon,
YOU CAN SEE THEM HAPPENING.
Another time it takes years to pull your attention full circle.

At some point you’ve lived long enough to recognize the cycles in life. What folds back upon itself. What wheels around again, and again. It’s interesting to see the circles we chose to close, which are left open, what ones filled up and frozen up with memories.

Yet, we really never know what the next day will drop in front of us.

I see a full circle, your circle.

There is a dismal attempt to put pieces back together again. I know that it is impossible.

One of those wicked deja vu days.

I wrote a lot more than I got down on paper.

You know how things take flight and circle, spiral up again and again so high up there that they become unimportant or evaporate until the next time around.

2010-10-20T12:46:00.000-04:00

2010-10-18T10:28:00.004-04:00

Chloe-ism.

(Hah … ‘doesn’t’ is spelled wrong … the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.)

Chloe is running from clock to clock in every room trying to account for the lost minutes.

While ‘Drew is listening to a loop of the intro credits to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, staring into the you tube box figuring out how it was done pre-cg.

For three men the civil war wasn’t hell, it was practice.

IT”S *-** SO COOL.

Oh, I mean, it’s a well done movie, sure.

Remember, when you have lost your patience, stop, and wait a few breaths longer.

2010-10-13T18:00:00.004-04:00

This unfinished title page

is a perfect example of the name of this work-in-progress and what lies herein.

2010-10-12T22:14:00.032-04:00

I thought Chloe was trying her hand at Beat poetry...
until she told me this was her spelling list.

Same concept, different scene.

By all accounts I have spent most of my life in a reverie, of sorts. Somewhere between vague wake and sleep. I catch myself checking if I’m on the right side of the yellow line or glancing at the clock just in time to do something I’ve promised.

I reckon it is just my disposition. The slipstream is not a bad place to be, better than some. I'm not spacey as I have a trail of work to prove manifestation and a career to track. None the less, (hear that L?), it would be nice to have the chance to choose.

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time. -Marcel Proust

Just got off deadline with the Magic Flute, the only opera you’ll not find me crying-over in the wings. Near the pit door was a free zone of sorts. I recognize it, having first met a free zone while living in the Vulcan Foundry in Oakland. People placed gently or dumped things they no longer wanted. Of course it was all art and production genre goods: stretchers, sample clothing, used canvas … This pile by the back stage door was of a different nature and mostly unidentifiable, accepting, an empty pizza box, Bose speakers with a nest of wire, half full Listerine bottle. Nothing I would pick up and carry home. Just saying.

I know all of you know this, ...but that operatic scatting has a formal name. Mellisma. Said with an Italian accent. It’s what the Queen of the Night does in Act II. I always thought that was a happy little song, but what she is doing is arguing her daughter into murder.

Have I mentioned the use of panic to calm hysteria?

2010-10-07T20:56:00.006-04:00

This is theater no one sees. I perform my task, coloring walls with a stream of sweat and consciousness. Or, a river of consciousness. Some days are green. All green. Monochromatic within the subtleness of every corner of that hue. The edges try to creep into blue or spread into an olivey yellow smear. But I wrangle it, keeping it within the circle of my minds eye. It is a game I play with the chalk color. They have inherent needs to become something that I may not want, and I reserve the choice to let them rule my thumb or keep them under it.

You have to learn the rules of the game.

And then you have to play better than anyone else.

-Albert Einstein

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward;

they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe