oh I wish

Thelma would sit on my books and my watercolors. If I was reading or painting, she would hop up and plant herself right on what I was working on.

mostly my blog is facebook reposts now - a simple way to archive

more ruminations, notably ideas for official portraits that distill the personage down to a gray memory, a phantom in his (usually) robes - though a reminder that an institution's past included well fed individuals with sometimes odd facial hair. Detachable collars ; attachable glasses ; hair affixed ; buttons emblazoned ; nasal passaged ; root canaled - time pieces throbbing away in their pantaloons : their last hours, heaving in a hot dark room on a damp soft bed, while a parson intones bromides of salvation and the familial mass ululates multiform incantations of the numinous as they finger a mint in their pockets.

More photos from the Cayman Islands: Collier Beach. I could just live here. Maybe not forever but I would like to experiment for a month. There is a little hotel resort just up the road but an air bnb could work as well. I know my friends would put up with us for a while - but a month would be too much. I wish I could bring my oils and canvases down. Just to see how long it would take to get bored with this place - or if that were possible.

When I think about it. I would like to be out here painting under a canopy (can't get too burned and there are rains); taking an occasional snorkle - practice getting better, being in the water over my head. My neck, four months post surgery and after three months physical therapy, is much better. I'm stronger there than in some time. And PT along with yoga has my body moving in more correct ways.  Is it possible the rest of my life could be about unloosening all the things that the last 35 years have be tightening. Yes, I'm not counting years before age 20.

from sept 16, 2015

So I'm at the neurologist's yesterday and he's showing me this MRI of my neck - a wonderful amalgam of grays and darks, so detailed as to be grizzly - and he says, "see that bit of white tube there and that bit of white tube there - they're supposed to be connected." I have an arthritic neck pinching my spinal cord. That's why I have always have a dull ache in my neck and my shoulders and neck are always tense. (this is also why my fingers have begun tingling - the nerve test showing no damage in my arms or hands) I'm irritable because I'm physiologically in a constant state of irritation - it's not the guy driving to slowly in the left lane after all.

The photo is from the last full day on Grand Cayman Island - starfish beach

two memories from the timeline, posted oct 2015

part of the nature of memory is that we forget - and if we are without paper the remembering is doubly impinged. I don't know why I say doubly when triple might suffice as well. I have worked so diligently and intensely to do well in some classes that the particulars of plate tectonics, cell wall transposition, and German's subjunctive 1 and 2 remain clear in my mind thirty years on. I have never had to work so hard though on this: my grievances - slights and hurts that have withstood the test of time; they remain as fresh as when they occurred 40 and 50 years ago. And even more so, the slights and predations reported by my parents and relatives exist in my memory also. I suspect even, that some theologies exist simply to inject even more distant slights and injuries into people. I think there is something on our psyches that is like velcro that needs constant smoothing, an ardent peeling off of the foreign objects that hook onto our souls - that too easily flood memory without much work at all. There is no sense being remembered for your grievances - there is no love in them.

when I was in weight watchers, there was an exercise that worked like this: write you goal - list the steps you need to take toward that goal - and it was presented in the form of a story board where you had individual squares for depicting what those steps might look like. Well, my goal was and is always "Nirvana" - and the first stage in my journey toward that goal is always a chance occurrence, probably at a bar but also in a check out line; a lost map is discovered or something like that; at some point a discussion with people in suits occurs - which is pivotal [although variations include taking the wrong exit to such a meeting and encountering a hobo billionaire at a Denny's] - the last panel is almost always finding shoes that fit and look good, having a good cup of tea [ennui cuppa], or having someone be on time for an appointment

The photos are from Ten Sail on Grand Cayman - where Mark, Sherrie, Jami and I stopped (among other places) on our visit to the island, in February 2016.

obstacles along life's way

When I was in first grade I got this message : don't use stick figures, don't copy, use your imagination to make things you know are there but can't see-- I was reminded of that this morning. I'm sure it's helped through the years - giving me a counterweight to the (what I had then when I was small) intense drive to mimic and fit in. Now of course I mimic to parody and fit in (if at all) with a sense of dis-ease - that is, I don't fit in, even when playing by the rules. At some point, I figure everything out - I just do, which usually irritates the people in charge of the rules.
There's a parable in the synoptics, which speaks of the pharisees (the people in charge of the rules) as standing in the way: they don't go in themselves and are obstacles to others who want to go in. I think of it as people who get in the passing lane but don't go any faster - with some sense that perhaps they're enforcing the speed limit for everyone else.
When possible, go where you're going, dispensing with the gatekeepers when possible. The law always is at the service of gatekeepers ; grace, not so much.

halloween musing

and just like that we're almost to Halloween : this year I'm a skeleton covered with an arrangement of carbon-based compounds forming organs out of cells - circulating blood and evacuating waste, consuming oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. Though composed of carbon like a vein of coal or a decaying tree trunk, I am animated - almost like one of those speaking stones the Gospels refer to (or those dancing rocks on Galaxy Quest). Walking past me, you may be startled as if a granite obelisk or field of flowers spoke to you. What horror is humanity, you might gasp - we emerge from inside our females, and, after a while, burrow our way into the ground - as if all a magical prank.

image : lapsidasical

new year's eve prattle - I thought 'pallivar' was a word akin to gibberish, but I was mistaken

I defer speaking about anything - my life's work is in my drawings and paintings - and so much has taken time to mature ; I feel at times my words were taken away from me by teachers and pastors, friends and non-friends. I think when Agnes Martin says that she paints with her back to the world, she means she's cutting off the demand, the desire, of the other. I was once stumped by an interviewer's question - what do I want? He was not satisfied with any answer I gave - in fact, was pretty rude about it. Lacan would say it's a trick question in that my questioner didn't know what he wanted either.

my watercolor homage to man ray's prayer 

prayer in the lower case

a recent facebook post that explains some things about my anxiety and desire

I get riled sometimes, as I am sure we all do. For me some comments just trigger memories of bullying and abuse from when I was younger. Sure, why don't I just get over it? But it is never so easy - or I should say that I wonder at people for whom such "getting over it" is easy. Most of my experiences of church and school are negative - so when I see people championing the conventional, conservative, authoritarian institutions and structures that symbolize society and family, I see special pleading for abusers and a delight in snuffing out creativity. What I see is real - not something made up. For me, there is no "golden age" to get back to - there are no fundamentals or absolutes that don't contain the message "shut up and do as you're told" - the mantra of people holding onto power whose own impotence halos them in irony.

my writing analyzed by watson via npr which had a program on this recently

Summary

You are unconventional.

You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are proud: you hold yourself in high regard, satisfied with who you are. And you are calm-seeking: you prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe.

You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of well-being.

You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

The NPR segment

watson-pi-demo.mybluemix.netwatson's writing analysis

Seems like me : I had to cobble together 4503 words to get a strong analysis. Initially I put in 3000 words and got a decent analysis - but the extra words didn't so much change the findings as add a bit - that I am unconventional and unconcerned with tradition. Lacan identified writing with the real; certainly our writing speaks about who we are. My conflicts come from trying to be someone else - trying to be traditional, for instance.

a facebook post on annie get your gun's effect on my development

I mostly cut and paste here from my facebook timeline. It seems more fruitful that way.

when I was 4, my parents took me to the Newton High senior class play - Annie Get Your Gun. I remember this play because I had a world class melt down - I'm sure I melted down several other times, but this is the one that sticks in my memory: I really believed that I should be on the stage - "hey, I'm supposed to be up there!" Where'd I get that Idea? I even remember the reason for my melt down and it was perfectly logical to me - though befuddling to my parents. I also remember seeing the play and hearing the songs - so I must have gotten it together. All these years Annie Get Your Gun has been a touchstone for me. It's the story of a girl, Annie, who leaves her gun at home, while going on a duck hunting field trip with her classmates. No one wants to loan her or share their gun with her - she as to go back and get her own gun - hopefully returning in time for the duck hunting finals. Along the way she visits the emperor of China (disguised as a dance hall bouncer); wins a pie eating contest; befriends an orphan (who grows up to become James Garfield, our greatest president) - when she finally gets home she discovers that she hadn't forgotten her gun at all. So she hurries back, via balloon, to the duck hunting finale, where an outpouring of charity bestows on her five more guns - which she fires simultaneously to bring home the Mallard Medal. The musical ends with "
Any farce you can make, I can make broader".

my neck surgery

On Oct 26 I had neck surgery. The surgeon added some titanium shims between the c3 and c6  vertebrae and took out some bone. This allows my spinal cord to fill out. It's pinched and my right hand was experiencing numbness. It is a matter of time if waiting to see how much of my nerves in my right arm and hand recover. I'm glad I did this when I noticed it, instead of toughing it out. Although I had perhaps toughened it out a few months more than I should have. I had noticed this happening back in June and only talked with my physician about it in August. I thought it was like something I'd had 5 years earlier in Durham, where they provided me with a splint on my left wrist to ease the pressure on my left ulnar nerve. 

some color

Recent watercolors: I believe that I'm getting better - whatever that might mean; much as I think better and speak better. Lately, I'm taking care of my body better. I discovered that much of my neck strain is from over using large muscles. I am learning how to engage the smaller muscles, to use them instead of bunching up around my neck. This feels wonderful. It's like getting the smartest kid in class to be quiet and let the other students answer. 

holiday vignettes, 2015

reading lacan's "anxiety"

For the holidays, I try to incorporate popular themes into my drawings. This particularly dense sketchbook drawing began as a modest reflection on Christmas: Santa eats a turkey leg carved by an apron wearing elf; I made the composition balanced on the next page with a ham slice eating pilgrim. Before I knew it, I had included other elements: a hare jumping over a jagged horizon as a clock strikes midnight; dogs and cats; a dice playing lobster; mid century locomotives on a collision course; and Lacan's graph of desire. In fact, one table is labeled with the matheme for fantasy and the other with the matheme for drive. The floor decoration refers to Lacan's various topologies for the subject's connection to the real, the imaginary and the symbolic. Topping it off, I am bothered by the hymn Harvest Home (an annoyance I've elaborated in other recent drawings). Perhaps the drawing is an attempt at saying, "use the holidays to traverse the fantasy and ride the drive." - so it brings a message of hope for everyone.

returning to oil paints after 15 years using acrylic paints

One thing about being 55: at times I say to myself, "5 years ago I was 50" - and I feel elevated; other times I think to myself, "in 5 years I'll be 60." Thirty-five years ago I was 20, in 35 more years I'll be 90. 2050 - what a time that will be: vase galactic empires, computers the size of paramecia containing human consciousnesses and blotting out nebulae in vast swarms, the arrival of the eschaton - not as you think, but in the form of some unknown kindness.

pre-halloween rumination

and just like that we're almost to Halloween : this year I'm a skeleton covered with an arrangement of carbon-based compounds forming organs out of cells - circulating blood and evacuating waste, consuming oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. Though composed of carbon like a vein of coal or a decaying tree trunk, I am animated - almost like one of those speaking stones the Gospels refer to (or those dancing rocks on Galaxy Quest). Walking past me, you may be startled as if a granite obelisk or field of flowers spoke to you. What horror is humanity, you might gasp - we emerge from inside our females, and, after a while, burrow our way into the ground - as if all a magical prank.