She had done horrible things to every pet she had ever owned.

And she would do horrible things to you, too.

Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.  - Gilda Radner

NEVER trust a talking bug. - Chloe Mae

When fear steps in, there are no boundaries.

a few Random / Thoughts 

We need to release all of the marginally insane.

four kinds of adults
-the kind that were teased as kids.
-the kind that were not teased as kids.
-the kind that teased.
-the kind that did not tease.

Being EFFORTLESS. i've been reading articles about Zen to Houdini, all of them emphasizing the need to be effortless in your work. Regardless of the hard work you put into your writing, the reader must sense it's easy for you. Is this idea important?

Star Wars: There is a war going on for chrisake, why doesn't anyone lock up the flight machines? Everyone seems to be taking off in whatever vehicle is the most convenient.

Never wear your Bulgari or Prada to a charity meeting.

When in a museum, when you know from the map that as you round the next corner there will be a Rembrandt ... does your head trumpet, Ta Ta Ta Dahhh.

lood i palms... ? 
i reckon i write to get down ideas, not to be able to read it later.

Traffic conditions.
Conditions for traffic.
You need a lot of cars.
You need too little road.
You need loss of time.
You need a driver fishing for a cd on the floor of the truck, someone opening a pack of Fig Nutons, someone who can‘t put down a book, or a cell phone, etc...
You need at least three thoughts, not on driving, for each behind the wheeler.

21
Driving to me is about watching things go by, not necessarily about watching where I’m going.
Chloe notices that, The blue mountains are closest to the sky. As we do because we can, on another level i was thinking of how painterly the clouds seem. But if painted this haphazard on canvas it would look contrived.

...And thinking about when to paint the return. What if the return is already painted another color + thus the returns begin to argue over which is the real return? Return to forever? Return from where? This implies that we got there safely. After tagging the wall do we turn + head back?

...And, also regretting not being able to write something down, since I was already reading while I was driving.

‘Drew’s voice wafts into the front seat. He heralds seriously to Chloe how it is going to be.
Well, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that the Earth is going to blow up. The good news is that we’re all going to be gone.
Always eager to up the wager, Chloe responds, Yea, well, I learned how to speak Spanish today. I can say corn! Cornalito!
I am so over you, Chloe! ‘Drew blasted, frustrated at her lack of obeisance.

She hailed a cab by using obscure hand gestures.

She sits in the back as the cabbie zooms by a costume shop named Just Decide. A restaurant called Food. A leather place run by Hell’s Angels that touted a teetering lineup of hogs on the front sidewalk. Tiny, the tallest Angel, wore boots covered w/ retablos, buckles + buttons. Scraps scavenged from the shoes he repaired. This layer, in turn, was covered w/ the dust of his exploits. She saw memories in every shop, on every corner, every greasy spoon offered a fleeting tease of an image, color, or conversation, until the collective experiences blurred + flew by as a giddy roller coaster in suspended animation.

A painted tin votive rested on her kitchen altar. It was her attempt at visual gratitude to those who have interceded on her behalf. When she half prayed, she also half wondered if this ex-votos stuff was effective.

This was indeed a traffic meander, but it’s what I do.

-from a WIP book image, above: Chance Neglected

Heroes do not mistake apparent changlessness in time for the permanence of being. Nor is he fearful of the next moment, as destroying the permanence with it's change.  -Joey C.

-Pheonix

Inner drafts + outer climates.

...Food went in, art came out.
Usually austere in the face of her Saturnine humors, when she felt them creeping up she could be bitterly sarcastic, giving way to a melancholy that left her wondering if the black bile came from one’s mind, not gut.

The images in the corners of the intellect remain.
I never flinch at what is produced in the cryptic dissolve of my mind.

In isolation she met with psychosis, from time to time, which led to intense hallucinations.
Complex, intricate and intense. The deranged mind is sitting inside a howling cyclone. Turn the music up to calm thoughts and focus.
They say very articulate things, very strangely.

Apparent horror vacui. A suffocating atmosphere and clutter are shown by filling every space with drawn imagery. Yet, every sheet contained an empty hole known to her as eggs. Open for spirit’s escape. She entered into the art through the same device. Ghost signing her name with a 8H pencil. Progressing herself by transforming from a child to Knight to Emperor and finally to Saint.

Life planned as escape. I can’t die yet, I haven’t painted my Danaë.

She had been busy for years backing into a corner nest. Hatching escape plans and not getting caught, yet. Nor freed.

The stress of not moving only exaggerated her minds eye flying out over the fabric of the earth.

Purely decorative images held deep iconoclastic and idiosyncratic meaning.
Of course she was usually the only one looking.
Go ahead, ignore me...

from -THE PAPER DOLL STORIES: life profiles & confessions

from Book of Days

174
Glancing back to photos from this time i looked poetic.

It certain chapters of my life it has helped me to turn the page by exiting the country. i do love packing up + leaving. There isn’t a better remedy than seeing my puny life on the other side of the world to put things into perspective. Long distance vision will anchor on what is amuck.

i broke the bit this time by going to Central America. First leg of the trip included a white knuckle flight from San Francisco to New Orleans. The pilot announced that we were in the eye of the storm + would he turn the plane around + have another try at heading it off. The pilgrims were getting drunk in their seats w/ the complimented hospitality that says give ’em free booze + they won’t realize what's happening. Every time the plane pitched + hawed the clients whooped yah-hoo as though they were riding the most exciting roller coaster EVER. In sober distraught my silent mantra went on uninterrupted. We are all going to die.

For me, air travel is too close to astral flight. i spin out easily, so i ground myself at the first feeling of deliverance. When sentenced to a mandatory air transit i  usually end up thinking, The pilot is going extremely too fast!

No dare devil me in the sky at this time or ever.

i have thought, though, being a trapeze artist would be a real kick. It would be fun to wake up one morning + be on a flying team. But i’m certainly not willing to train for years + years to be able to do it.

175
Layover in the Nicaraguan wilderness.

We were waiting for the six seater to drift over the hills + collect the next group to be flown into Costa Rica. Fuselage lined both sides of the rough short rural landing strip. i remember looking hard + imagining that THAT piece of metal was still smoking! We were several people w/ diverse accents. Someone casually mentioned the most beautiful beach in the world. Then each in turn told of their sanctuary. Very specific places, on the other side of the world, on the fifty-five degree parallel, south of Bombay, second sand arch on the left. People pulled out paper pads + took down obscure directions to hideaways as though they were going to travel there next week. The scene had all the flavor of a group of Dead Heads scribbling down concert notes.

Travel is a bug that, once bitten, becomes an addiction.

from -Metta / Loving-Kindness illuminated

-One Head, Two Necks + Three Hands

Reject reality + substitute your own. 

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.  -Lao Tzu

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.  -John Lennon

Reality is a sliding door.  -R. Waldo Emerson

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.  -Albert Einstein

Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.   -It figures that Picasso said that.

Turn on the inspiration.
As a designer you don’t always have the luxury to wait around for this nicety. Yup, it is great to be able to sit + veg out in your cavernous studio aimlessly looking about + have a body of work fall on your imagination + in your lap in its entire form all ready to be realized + manifested into unth detail.

Of course, this is the MUST-DO art work of it all, not the quick hysterical stuff; but the true quiet profound excitement stuff.

i’m in consintratio.
That’s a component to the alchemic recipe, i reckon, in my world.

The installation-cavalier-conceptual artist Ann Hamilton talks about Making a Condition for something to happen. The 4th dimension. Inclusive of the visitor, indeed depended on the voyeur for the outcome.

Again ... i do the best i can ... the yen is to, by not getting in my own way, without hesitation, draw an inspiration and write something enigmatic. Too often i’m writing while driving, scraping into the dust, or drawing hits w/only a bad pen on a ripped receipt.

Art, then, sometimes seems an elaborate dance around something you can’t make.

Add a muffled boom + a ring of smoke appearing at the bottom of the cartoon canyon.

Yes, she thought she was something else. But never figuring out what. Neither did her attendants, who tried every type of elixir in her drink. She was impervious to change.

Somewhat like an evolving roach resisting DDT.

-Some of My Best Friends

This is not Sisyphus.

He’s not pushing something heavy. But i figure, he’s carrying around something heavy, + that counts.

Over The Hill
First, let us talk of being at the top. There needs to be a conscious pausing at the crest of each hill. You can see the most from up there + judge the total veranda of where you’ve been + grasp choice of paths leading you down. Repeat.

Stopping to think + forgetting to start again. Beginner's mind, as Buddhists say — we all will say.

The bear went over the mountain, the mountain, the mountain. The bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see. He saw another mountain, a mountain, a mountain...

Sisyphus was the son of a Thessalian king. He was a street thug who passed the time robbing + murdering travelers. He even betrayed secrets of the gods, which is never a good thing. He chained up Thanatos, aka demon of death, so that no human needed to die. Hades, god of the underworld found out + got POed.

Sisyphus’ punishment is legendary. He was forced to roll a boulder up a mountain, when he reaches the top, the stone tumbled back down. + that’s what he’s doing right now.

Camus reckoned Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death, + is condemned to a meaningless task.
Lets just take that w/ a grain of salt, shall we?

-from the triptych / 100 into 3

A whirring rhythm slowed down to a recognizable slapping of playing cards stuck in bike spokes, + then stopped at the studio door. 

'Drew's head pears around,
I need one of those puppets on strings of an old man that I can make walk + close one eye to wink, + I need him dressed in black, w/ big funny clown shoes on. Do you have one of those?

“No, but i have a Chinese dog parade head w/ closing eye lids + a yak beard.”

Oh, that will be perfect!

Dexterity or Deceptiveness.
Sleight of Hand is often used in close-up magic. It makes use of simple everyday props, such as cards + coins. The guiding principle is be natural. A well-performed sleight looks like an ordinary, natural + completely innocent gesture.

The hand is quicker than the eye is usually not the case. Along w/ manual dexterity, sleight-of-hand depends on the use of psychology, misdirection, + natural choreography to accomplish a magical effect. Misdirection is perhaps the most important component to the art of sleight-of-hand. The magician choreographs his actions so that the spectator will look where he wants them to. More importantly, they do not look where the performer does not wish them to look.

Two types of misdirection are time + movement.

Time is simple; by allowing a small amount of time to pass after an action, events are skewed in the viewer's mind.

Movement is a little more complicated. A phrase often used is a larger action covers a smaller action. Careful not to make the larger action so big that it becomes suspicious.
This is worth more study...

-I'm Going to Act Like I Don't Know What's Going On.