Returning to Blake now + again, is re-entering the slipstream. i’m remembering part of the Four Zoas written by Willi Blake, but i need to find it … i am good at drawing, also at drawing blanks. 

William Blake 

 The Four Zoas 

-excerpt

"What is the price of Experience? 

Do men buy it for a song?

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price

Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,

And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain. It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun

And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,

To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,

To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season

When the red blood is fill'd with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,

To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;

To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;

To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies' house;

To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers.

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,

And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field

When the shatter'd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:

Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me."

Read this as a confession + an apology. 

It is poetry, it is telescoped, this is only a teensy of the work.

She stared out the window minute by minute, hour to hour, day by day watching the sun rise, traveling up out of the window for an entire life time. Never questioning where it had gone when it was temporarily out of sight.

She must have known.  -Some of my Best Friends

Working without the right tool and what-ever-you-need is bad timing in a black hole....
-Acquaintance (who only worked with the correct toy for any given chore.)

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say "I don't know."  -Somerset Maugham

5
i m late to class again.
Running into the room i hear an announcement of the ‘pillow test.'
“Today you will either sleep or take the test. But sooner or later you will have to take the test.”
Presently, the bell rings + everyone leaves as a new group of students queue up to file in - some wanting the test, others wanting pillows.  -jahh / Script

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.  -Jean-Paul Sartre

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.  -Mark Twain

random miscellaneous

My advice is...no longer insult the feelings of an exasperated people.  -Samuel Adams 

Admit something and there’s nowhere a critic can go. If you run and hide, they will follow.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more. 
-Mark Twain / 2x

The common left-in-the-lurch nightmare when there is a huge installation deadline: In this dream we were all ready. Everything was staged for the big install the day before opening night. i went very early in the morning to meet everyone on site. i found a note in the green room. A note saying everyone had signed up for a group vacation to Hawaii.  -jahh

If this be treason, then make the most of it!  -Patrick Henry.

Puppet are happy to be puppets if the puppeteer is a good puppeteer.  -Fellini

It has been said, many times, by me, that the future isn’t what it use to be, and furthermore it never was.  

-Lee Hayes.

Random tag notes:

Swatting the shadow of a moving fan above my head.
There is a disease for every profession.

Critics have a hard time digging up dirt if you hand it to them.

... She stepped from the cab onto the pavement, adjusted her muffler under her chin, threw her stub cigarette onto the pavement and viciously stomped it out. She proceeded toward the bright blue awning where the dandy held the open door.
Those who say something cannot be done should never interrupt the person doing it.

Leading a charmed life, being everywhere and everything to everyone at the turning point of their lives. She had launched a thousand careers, some of them her own. She had been the one with the right label, correct recipe, or spot of money to get things rolling. This left most of the world in her debt in some quiet, desperate, blackmailing way.

Do you remember a time when payoff was not rampant?
She imagined some real, some imaginary faults.
Is it raining in here or is that my energy field?
It was apparent she loved RED.
I want this place to look like a garden, but a garden in hell.

This was a woman whom could simplify most abstract and hard-to-cotton ideas. For instance, she believed the only Deadly Sin was the 8th, which was bringing to list the other 7.

When spotted on the street, fellow New Yorkers wondered what dynasty she was from. Preserved, or, conserved. Which adjective to use? The consistency of her appearance over the decades helped make her an instantly recognized figure, and hid her age.

I went blind from looking at so many beautiful things.  -Diana Vreeland

-THE PAPER DOLL STORIES: life profiles & confessions
A peek into Cabinet of Curiosities, current installation at MOA Denver.

3 

The tide had just gone out. Walking down to the shore i noticed a gorgeous, colossal sand castle someone was obviously living in. Taking a self guided tour i found it had been designed + outfitted by sculpting sand complete w/ overhead lights down to the tile + fixtures in the bathroom. The designer was dashing about rearranging sand that had drooped + shifted from the ocean seeping in. i asked her why the place was so heavily decorated, when the tide moves + removes things daily. She explained that the owners wanted to learn the art of letting go, only slowly.

i hiked under a full moon along the beach, + lay down for a nap near the sandy villa at dawn. The sun was awhile above the horizon when the tide awoke me by sloshing my toes. i looked over in time to see the great mound of sand crumble nobly into the sea. A moment later the face of the woman appeared behind the huge pile, as she raised a shovel + prepared to rebuild.

You’d have to know me better, but this dream seems appropriate just now.

-Retreating Angel

from: The Truth is Still Being Made Up / triptych

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