i’m okay w/ people not knowing my side of the story. i don’t feel the need to prove anything. But all things being equal … 

i just had what i believe to be an identity crisis. Of the worst irrational sorts.

That my entire life had been in-waiting as an imposter. i’m the understudy + the lead has never broken a leg. 

Nothing stuck. i can blame it on moving around often, i could blame it on not focusing on one thing + get brilliant w/ it, i can blame it on always looking for the next thing, the next bright shinny thing. Choices have been a big deal in my life. More directly, having many options at any given time has always been important.

Everything comes back to me. i made those decisions, every decision. i’m not the forever kind.

So in this morning mopping up after an identity crisis — sadly, all i could think of was to work harder.

i close my eyes + remember i'm inside the human condition.

It does become so much easier to run when we believe something is chasing us. But is that more important than waiting for the present to catch up? i’d rather hide behind my work than talk about myself.

Foot the bill + then pay for life as a side project. 

That side project will be a change of mind on the morrow.

Recently an old friend forward this: That's me, below, during art school days. Tied to a NYC bank pillar. Early pirate phase, though i did not know it because the mass pirate phase had not caught up + named it yet. 

This seems appropriate to add just before hitting send + publishing.

Random thoughts and spills. 

But first, a quote from Joey:

The hero is the champion of things becoming, not of things become, because he is. Before Abraham was, I AM. He does not mistake apparent changelessness in time for the permanence of Being, nor is he fearful of the next moment, as destroying the permanent with its change. Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there’s nothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form. Thus the next moment is permitted to come to pass.  

Observations:

#399 My self imposed to-do list is once again, at the moment, manageable. Sending projects on their way w/ little lives of their own. On the other hand; if it’s not going to be finished, this is the week it won’t get done.

What i learned today:

• Security is confidence in leaving an environment + knowing you can come back to it. Constance is comfort. At home it is easy to assume + feel on top of things. When traveling we plunge into uncertainty. We are reminded of this everywhere we turn, everywhere we go. This venture of uncertainty is exciting. Also, de-habilitating. Knowledge gives out, lights go dim. There is a need to be more attentive, do more interpreting, be more intuitive about emirate surroundings.

IDEA: 

Having an emergency at the Emergency 1/4 Mile sign. 

  

Queue to remember memories. 

Memory chained to physical forms.

Rules vs. Expectations

trinket + trick = tricket 

Going upstairs helping an elderly person get to a landing i can't back down. i turn to egress as the escape hatch gets smaller when i move toward the opening. The same landing the next night in the same dream the room turned elevator turned cage turned trapped into a barred coffin.

Cross-training keeps us growing.

Circa '94 - Caught cross-training, bewildered 
somewhere in Hong Kong... 

Fire-ready-aim; go ahead. 

inscribe an epic poem with a burned carrot

smear your favorite cookbook with marinara

scribble your heart on your sleeve with your new pen knife

forgo supper for a marathon dancing onto wet paint

go ester williams swimming within 30 minutes of eating a huge meal 

Who said that? i tend to blame the devil on surrealist’s influences. They had way too much time on their hands. Pretend you do, too.

... with these folks.

Is art-form a learning, amuse/ment, or escape? Why is it important to have fun or forget all this worldly world. And, really, should we? The compassionate response is so fleeting, when there is so much to be done. How large does a hole need to be to crawl into it? Meher Baba was silent for 40 years — until his death. He believed there had been enough talk, it was time to live it. Thinking this is only impressive if you make that decision, + then live for 40 more years. Would it have been so great if he had taken the vow of silence + then got hit by a truck two days later?  Oh wow, he didn't talk for two days before he died!

May be Bushido training is what we all need. 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing. 

-Macbeth - through Shakespeare

Kind of like:

The moon in the water; 
Broken and broken again, 
Still it is there. 

~ Choshu. 

My eyes are squeezed shut, blinking inwardly. What am i doing? 
Shhh, i'm researching.

Has it become thus - when someone needs to be either a harasser, or a victim to get attention?

Bashō … Later that year he left Edo on the first of four major wanderings. What a wonderful way to separate the chapters of a life. The meander separating chapters can be tissue thin.

At some point, we need to stop looking for invisible scars, + take our freedom. 

i do not know where this stuff comes from. It comes to me + i report. Wether i believe it or not, is of no consequence.

Remembering Regrets: 

i do not remember changing the oil in my car in my 20s. 

Meaningless forced social interaction.

Rhythm grammer.

Appreciation / care / gratitude.

i believe in the practice, the ebb + flow that is working w/in the heart of kindness, there is an easy give + take.

i need to be aware of the compassionate moment to be kind + helpful.

Because of fear, rejection, pick any human condition on this side of the scale. i look away, steer away — instead of walking into someone's life for that moment of need. 

When asked, How are you?

We simply shrug off the kindness by saying, I’m okay. When it is obvious to both that something is at hand.

i read a poem a few days ago about how we are so disconnected, that currently compliments + saying god-bless-you are now a tribal glue, since we no longer hang out around the fire pit + chew bones.

Rest on that.

 
A simple note in my apologetic conversation remorse way. 
Chopped up + spread over a page w/out much notice.

unable to refuse

you wait

til re-fuse

dead-eye

fire

IDEA: 

There is fascination with the sacred; even when it is someone else’s.

i do believe there is an aesthetic difference in essence art + personality art. The unknown always seems more mysterious than it needs to be. When it is not on my mind, it's not mysterious at all.

Yes, that is the mood of the day. It will, as ever, make for interesting conversation.

Time is short, even though one can seem to get a lifetime of work done in an afternoon. The lifetimes, real or imagined, stack up in the corner of my desk. It is hard to be one person when we each are so many. Funny how that time thingy expands + contracts.

Yay, for Non-Descript Robes Gender Neutral Color Bland.

A teacher in yoga-wear crashes the party in my dream. Gaining everyones attention, he begins to show us dance steps.

Soon, he becomes exasperated and angry, Don't you know this by now?

You haven't taught us this, so don't expect us to be off-book.

Then i realize he doesn't belong, and i told him so.

You are in the wrong dream, go down stairs + see if you belong there.

Angle primary. Costumer thinking single directive.

Walking down the street i cant help my mind. It just goes there. Lengthen for X-long sleeve there — hem up a half inch — long waisted / adjust pattern — tilt hat froward.

Settle everything by throwing it all away.  -Alan Watts

While dangling from a glacier, mapping her way up in to the clouds, she dropped a treasured trinket into the void of chasm. Her mind calmed, she would always know where it would be.

Rest on that.

Finding a logic that feels like trust.

N. Gaiman walks in + has a sit. After thinking for a bit he councils me.

You can’t do sentimental, and you definitely can’t do horror. So don't reinvent the wheel; do your drawing-words gimmick.

Literary devices, or, when projects list themselves;

• Non-sequitur - write a story of a man flip booking through a encyclopedia or switching the screen from channel to channel at jiffy speed.  

• Build a trilogy that goes together kicking + screaming.

• Arrange for someone to be in the next room trying to get all the attention. My attention.

Random thoughts are misgivings.
Did you hear?

It all seems miles away.  

Life changes fast. Life changes fast.  Life changes fast. 

When it comes to date + time, close enough if often okay with me.

Sometimes, i do not think people need tattoos on their faces. A face is busy enough w/ what’s already going on. Sometimes i do.

i’m hoping to have focus + something planned by the time the sugar spikes.

It becomes harder + harder to speak without a pencil + paper in hand.

Un-pragmatic + non-linear. i do that real well.

So, how far have i ever been able to throw myself?

i feel the pull of retreat, every time, this time of year. Not that i’ve been much out + about - but more or less. The shorter days call me indoors - to have longer sits + write meandering sentences with bigger words. 

… i’ve done a lot of installation work. i’ve been inspired by the work of great sculptors + their huge crafty ingenious works … then mentally backing up, remembering … i’m wanting to make something nice + smooth w/ the smell of ink. i’m hankering to make an object i can pick up easily + read w/out getting splinters. The dream is to simply allow myself to call up a moment, sit down at the same time everyday w/ a beautiful blank book. W/out hesitation i will draw an inspiration + write something profound. Too often i’m writing while driving, scraping into the dust, or drawing hits w/ only a bad pen on a ripped receipt.

i echo here...

Art is an elaborate dance around something that can’t be made. 

+ the audible muffled boom echos the ring of smoke ballooning up form the bottom of the cartoon canyon. 

Pie? Who cares about pie, when there is Russia? -DV

Burrowing into what matters. Or, what i learned today:

• Not much gets accomplished at 3am when you’ve already been awake for 72 hours.

• A tiny brush holds very little  paint.

• Bad things happen when you are trying to be very, very quiet.

• Making pancakes is much easier than how i make it look.

We were oowing & ahhhing over an acquaintance’s book of poetry that had been begrudgingly lent + was now being carefully handled. KB set it down on the papered work table near our 8th floor open window. In one very foolish elbow move, by me, it disappeared. There was a cursing of bad luck in twain. In our mournful anguish we looked out the window expecting to see the book free falling eight stories w/ the binding bowed + pages stretching wide, liberating themselves, fluttering as to say I’m this free. Down, down to the pavement + crushed underfoot by a New Yorker who was sipping hot expresso making a guest list as he hurried to secure a newspaper + check into the weather for this weekend family holiday on his estate out on Montauk ... We focused nearer + saw that the volume had landed in the plastic flower pot in the window apartment just below us, 7D. Being less petrified by whomever lived there, than what would happen to us if we reported the lost book, (yes, stolen!) we ran down + stood there, before the door, listening intently to the quiet + what lie beyond thinking; who would have a plastic flower pot on Union Square?

• Oh yea, + setting something on the floor so it won't spill — is not always a good idea.

Having a cryptomnesia moment: 

i can always find fault w/ a decision made, because every quandary starts off w/ many angles. Outcome + go. + over time the woven memories of cause + effect have proven to be a graceful acceptance of it all. 

Even dystopian fiction has a very bright future.

The fullness is often overwhelming ... life coming + leaving in a myriad of ways. The drifting, shifting, meandering, forcing of it all. + here I stay … sitting + making marks on a piece of paper ... listening to what they say between the lines + in the shifting of colors. Taking meaning of my sometime random + racing imagination. Finding solace again in the fact that after thinking out all the scenarios i can possibly come up with, i then remember; what WILL happen is something i had not even thought of.

W/ all of the time that has been + will be i find it strange that we are anything anywhere at any time. Synchronicity trips along the path + we call it dancing.

The dance goes on.

Endless possibilities are. 

Racing past each blank moment. Each idea waving wildly to entice. + most, in turn, being loudly thwarted. Each then retreats, lowering itself into the pit of ideas that lie-in-wait, until someones comes along to animate.

i’m not a big fan of time. Neither do i believe in physics. So it follows that i wouldn't be into capitalistic ideas. Nothing exists w/out impermanence - so i wait a few.

For the moment, i am off deadline. Exhaustion creeps in when i sit. It's then i feel everything is happening in the next room. There is a fuzzy wall between my energy + the thing that is happening in front of me. Things are happening in front on me. i simply step into it. i am reminded of how easy Nijinsky made it sound — when asked why his grand jete looks like levitation — I simply step up and stand in the air. 

i don’t really remember if i’ve ever believed in the notion that we are all in the same boat. Perhaps in the same slip stream. Mostly, i am alone paddling, constantly going back for a second look at my dreaded conversation remorse, avoiding the unpredictable waterfall or spinning around + around just for fun. 

The magicians silk is draped over the prize; covering what we think we know. But when revealed we are sorry we ever tried.

Art is the sensuous expression of ideas. Hegel said something close.

Open a can of worms, what do you see? 

i mean, besides worms.

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, 

till the Devil whispered behind the leaves 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'

- Rudyard Kipling.

I am still learning.

- Michelangelo

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

- Ray Bradbury

Beauty and the devil are the same thing.

- Robert Mapplethorpe