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 drug to harder symbolism.

-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 hollered from bellow up 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.

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.