He really was so very nice to sit and chat with. You’d never know he was a sociopath, and was ever so slowly climbing the 18 rungs of the Painted Ladder (do not sit), having to restart over again three times, like a charm.

-Some of My Best Friends

A random memory just flew by.
Years ago i knew a woman selling fabric goods at a hip store named Poppies in Berkeley. She had this conversation w/ her roommate one night that;

Geee it was busy, we sold so many notions today.

You sell Notions?

Why yes, we do.

Notions.

Yea.

Wow... you... sell....Notions...

Obviously he was thinking on the lines of Sometimes a Great...

+ why yes, it is a burden to carry other people memories.

Okay, so here's what i wanted to ask.

Am i the only one who saw the film Where the Wild Things Are, + turned it into an Ingmar Bergman film? It really was not that big of a jump.

So, i read into things. It’s one of my faults. It’s not as though i shoot smack.

i introduced the kids to Limelight. Synopsis: A young ballerina is a mess because she can’t get her career started. Cavalero, an aging train wreck of a vaudevillian, is at the end of his. Every line seems to have weight to it, reading as Chaplin’s essay on how to live without regrets. It is an autobiographical bittersweet film spoken in a lyrical voice.

The kids had seen it three years ago but understood more this time around.  

The coming of age as a blooming metaphoric understanding. The year you realized that the scarecrow, tin man and lion ARE the farm hands. (Sorry if I just blew that for some of you.) It happens to every single child (in us all) + there is a proverbial line drawn at that time. This instance becomes a gateway drugs to harder symbolism.

At the end, + as an aside: Chaplin was awarded an Academy Award for composing the theme from Limelight in 1972, twenty years after its first outing. The boycott against Chaplin in the US by his right-wing political enemies was so successful that his film never played the required two weeks in a Los Angeles theater to be eligible for consideration at the time of its release in 1952. He was banished, his theme song was not. Even today people who never knew who Chaplin was, still recognize its haunting theme melody.

-Chloe + Drew quickly tracing as the writing comes up. 

For the sake of shedding a bit of light on the numbered plates from
Minotaur: There is the Shadow of a Monster on the Front Porch

The Minotaur is used as the device in this work. Mythos’ son is mentally readying himself for the Athenian youths destined on their tribute trek into his home labyrinth to view his art work installation. We find him part victim, part inmate + part monster who will always cast a dark shadow on our psyche - but he is innocent of all these pre judgments. His dreams, hopes + experiments are self chronicled for his light amusement.

Since this is built as a graphic novel, in 37 plates, it stands as it is. This work will seem less random to some of you. It is stream of consciousness, yes, + some free-style association, but not haphazard when read strung along, as it should. Sequential can be a good thing.

Minotaur plate #11

Somewhere...There must be an exchange program for inmates.

How nice.

But I would much rather be a toll taker subject to transfer.

My marvelous pictures would be chalk drawings of Buonarroti masterpieces on the marble sidewalk for loose change. I would not scare the pedestrians. I would not look up.

Prison tattoos - I invented them.

As a pedigree that is obsolete, let me be quoted in saying that shape shifting can be learned if you are willing to chance it.

Pygmalion quickly unscultped the female nude
that was coming to life...


















...what he really needed was a fast horse.

My apologies to Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones.

When snow is part of a memory.

... You’d remember the night. That day, the snow had started falling, + by the time we finished our design work to begin our city walkabout, it had built up to our ankles. All was quiet as we headed down toward Soho around midnight. Pink snow danced from the sky as hushed magic filled the city air. i don't know how long we lost ourselves in the sharp turning streets of lower Manhattan but hours later we were numb from the wet cold + exhausted from walking + talking. We headed toward home as the street lights began to fade into morning gold. Ahead of us, an underground bakery door opened miraculously. Out came a long belt conveying beautiful golden loafs into the back of a delivery truck. As we neared, the warm savor hit our noses + triggered the saliva thingie. 

Breaking the silence we heard a compassionate voice w/ a new york accent holler up from bellow to the driver,
Do they want wheat or white?

It is a mystery, that somehow the patience department has gotten compartmentalized.

We may have patience for teaching kids, but not for threading a needle ... patience to cook for 20 guests, + none left to talk to them ... patience to read a novel, but none for any learning curve...

I’m too impatient to do it right, but too stubborn not to have it be perfect. -kb.

My uncommitted understanding of being a twelfth house sun sets me adrift near the knowing just enough to be dangerous category. 

Everyday occurrences can become much too much to process. There is a constant need to disappear. Fortunately, my dearest friends accept my habit of excusing myself from social to-dos to be left to function with/ my own mental climate. Since i dislike common small talk, is not my forté. i do enjoy living vicariously, though, + since one can’t know everything, that must be what friends are for. You may have figured, there just HAD to be a reason. 

Maybe not.

i had finally made it, + there was KB, smoking violently + leaning up against the wall. He saw me coming. Stomping out his cigarette, he rolled his eyes + asked,
What took you so long? we pushed open the pearly gates + entered together.

i am hoping, of course, that the line of questioning is to our general advantage. How much we enable others... not what we gleaned + garnered for ourselves. How wonderful a friend we were ... not how many we had. How much we gave away ... not how much we ended up w/.

The good samaritan makes to-do lists for escapism. When the chances arise they need to be ready for any level of miracle. Leave expensive jewelry at rest stop in impoverished areas. Pay the toll boother one hundred dollars for you + the next ninety-nine cars. Store priceless marble statues in the trunk of a stranger’s car for ballast.

Contemplating on the meaningful takes much longer. i fall asleep wondering if i’ve done all i can do ... The favor is returned w/an uncomfortable dream. i am lying on a rug + friends are encircling me taking turns w/ a talking stick. Passing the token, each verbally digs at what they really think of me. Even in this dream state i know their reasons didn’t rest on bedrock, but i still became emotionally stripped. i awoke thinking this dream was so hurtful it must satisfy one of the prerequisites of the twelve steps.

A friend not only tells the truth, but leaves unsaid the obvious at an opportune moment.

It’s been a day of allegories.
Some better than others.