i saw Ginny's car today. She almost hit me. i’m left trying to figure out what the heads up was about. Do you believe in that strange displaced channeling, when someone passing by says something off hand to you + it goes in deep? Or, vice versa, you just have to say something to a stranger as if someone else inside your head is forcing you? Bypass brave or cordial, you message what this person needs to know, needs to hear.
Well, i do.

“What type of animal is that?”
Ginny was a triple scorpio. The only one i’ve met so far. Known her + knew it, anyway. A breed that would be hard to miss. As it happened our determination took us to see prints from the John Lennon archive that were being sold at a posh gallery downtown. We headed out to take a long lunch break in the name of art. Simply beautiful drawings + lithos had been collected. Eventually, we came to a closed portfolio on a wood rack w/ a sign warning of the erotic material w/in. Always interested in the hidden, Ginny raised an eyebrow cocked her head, looked around + said, “This, we have to see.”

As soon as she cracked open the large folio six people zapped over like magnets to peer over our shoulders. i guess they were waiting for a Ginny to oblige their fear + interest. She flipped through w/ a running commentary.
“Okay ... not offended ... yet ... got it ... i could have done better ... what type of animal is that?”

Who would the Minotaur Apologize to? 

This is a memory circa '90 put down in ... Script for a Practicing Artist and an Unfinished Life. i read this thinking how judgmental it is, which isn't really me. Add too, i'm fairly skittish, + scare easily. But wondering, now, what was really going on then. 

You could live at the Vulcan for a long while, then all of a sudden someone you’d never seen nor ever want to meet would surface. A friend of a friend wanted to introduce us to someone's painting. i believe a false word had got around that we had lots of work for all that asked. Little did they know. + little did they know how picky we were about who we worked w/. Though always eager to cheer someone on, i walked by Lonnie’s side to the other end of the complex w/ an open heart + beginners mind. We entered through the creaking garage door, jumping (with fight or flight) as it slammed closing us in. My thoughts were as murky as the cavernous space. Eyes adjusted, i looked into the rambling studio set up like an art show. We walked past the art w/ wide eyed poker faces. The work was colorless, abstract, sans expressionism + expression. When the dreaded artist pointed saying, “The good stuff is in here.” i mouthed words to Lonnie, ‘I’m not going in there!’ He rolled his eyes to let me know this too will pass so lets get it over w/ sooner than later. We walked into the artist’s private chamber like we were doomed. +, as it turned out, we had good reason. 

Sometimes i suspect we were all left here to unravel each other. Art is subjective, + this fellow is probably a celeb now. It has become a standard joke between us that when you start talking about the size of a piece of artwork, you don’t think highly of it. If the best compliment you can come up w/ is ‘that's a great size for a poster’ then you must think the work isn’t worth looking at any closer. Just too scary. 

When the scene is a Victorian mansion, you should know it’s going to be a horror movie. i tend to carry that backdrop around in my head so it’s accessible at appropriate moments.

Plead as you might - she will not bite.

She will pick up a wiggly worm + feign to eat it,
+ down milk to hear her tummy slosh for chuckles,
She will digest a worrisome quasi-candy,
Even throw a slobbery Frisbee for her dog Knuckles.

Of all this there is not a woe,
Unless, of course, you serve her a wrinkled potato.

(photo: any resemblance to a messiah, is purely accidental)

Disinherit Praise 

Cultivate stamina. 

i believe in a spider check before bedtime. i believe in the music so loud you can feel it. i believe in the drama on the stage. i believe in the colors of a wavelength. i believe that experimenting in other mediums gives energy in your primary work. i believe in stepping out of the usual color box. Again + again. 

 Cease trying to work out everything w/in your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition + inspiration + let your whole life be revelation.

-Eileen Caddy

When you have ghosts you see them everywhere.

Just because something walks behind you doesn't mean it has trouble keeping up.

detail from-
Minotaur: There is a Shadow of a Monster on the Front Porch

Did someone loose a lawnmower?

Mysteriously, we have all lost things and found other’s stuff.
i do not like this universal swapping thingie.
i’d like to have back the things i have lost over the years before i get too old to remember of what use + in what designated project.

Jaw of a horse. i lost Bucky three or four moves ago.

A roll of fabric, that was a heavy canvas weave + the warp was a fine gauge wire copper. So when the cotton was burned out, what was left behind was an incredible apocalyptic looking cloth.

A very old charcoal drawing, executed on gray paper of the head of a young girl copied from one of the old masters.

Isn't it weird how we find things lost?

i excel at pretending i’m somewhere else.
No biggie.
Just sayin'.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. 

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. 

 If at first you don't succeed, try again. After that, give up. No sense making a fool of yourself. 

 If there is an easier way, way bother? 

 -Mark Twain  (at different moments.)

Fodder for thought. i do not necessarily agree with it all, even though he does look real sharp in his robe.  -J

Unfinished pages from:
When Sword Swallowing does not Impress
Queued up, out the door, down the hall,
painfully waiting to be worked on.

Ahm just saying...

Everyone wanting to make their mark aside...

If you are treading the fine between artist you may hear yourself droning,

Hey, that’s been done ... that’s not original, hey!

In contrast, as a designer, your inner voice may cheer on w/ a license to beg, borrow or steal.

HEY, I REALLY NEED THAT IDEA!

A compliment to the last manipulator, really.

Oh, he just stole from me, I steal from everybody. -Woody Guthrie

Plagiarism is basic to all cultures. -Seeger Sr.

Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. -Pablo Picasso (oh yes, even him.)