The White Cafe

Hypnos

2012-02-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

kingdom of limbs
deep of golden sand
respite respite
from the sad errors
of sky and hand

watching the procession
of animals in their golden coats
from the celestial view
of the waterfront bar
all my lives came true

the elusive repository
unmasks its players

a dense poetry
fills the air

good-bye sweet soldier
of the dawn

my fierce love for you will always prosper

Hardcore Zen

2012-01-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

Parking Lot Bouquet, Summer, 2010

“The problem with our self-image is that we don’t see it for what it really is: a useful fiction. The idea that our self-image is something permanent and substantial is so basic to us that we would probably never even think to question it.”

“The truth comes when you can see that your self-image is just a convenient reference point and nothing more, and that you as you had imagined yourself do not exist.”

“That one bubble we watched will never appear again.”

“Sort out your misunderstanding of time and all your problems go away. Just like that.”

“We harbor some inexplicable fear that if we start to enjoy everything about life without picking and choosing we might cease to exist.”

“World peace happens when no one fires guns at anyone anymore.”

“You create the cause and you experience the effect.”

“To cause another living being pain isn’t evil – it’s just stupid. Because that being is you.”

“The degree of your delusion determines how long it takes to notice the effects you’ve created.”

“Stop the racist, gay-bashing Nazis from going to war to club baby seals in the burning South American rainforests if you want – but also clean your room.”

“That’s the easiest way to tell the real teachers from the phonies: a phony will take your authority and a real teacher will give it back.”

“It’s a frightening thing to be truly honest with yourself. It means you have no one left to turn to anymore, no one to blame, and no one to look to for salvation. You have to give up any possibility that there will ever be any refuge for you. You have to accept the reality that you are truly and finally on your own. The best thing you can hope for in life is to meet a teacher who will smash all of your dreams, dash all of your hopes, tear your teddy-bear beliefs out of your arms and fling them over a cliff.”

“Believe only in the universe as it is right now. See the world and yourself for what they are. Don’t be deceived by your imagination no matter how beautiful it is.”

“You can transform your life, and it is imperative that you do it. Because only you can do it. No guru can make your life right. No Zen master can show you the way. Only you have the power to make this place you’re living in right now a realm so beautiful even God himself couldn’t dream of anything better. And doing this will transform the universe.”

“And our ordinary, boring, pointless lives are incredibly, amazingly, astoundingly, relentlessly, mercilessly joyful.”

“Your life is yours alone, and to miss your life is the most tragic thing that could happen.”

Quotes from
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality
By Brad Warner

The Ghost Bridge Series

2011-12-30T10:42:00.001-08:00

The Ghost Bridge waits hazy and immersed

At the edge of thought

Sharp rim of travel

Soft bone of jaw

Limned by nerve and muscle

Black skeleton dressed in richest brine

Of salt and gasoline

Washed in mixes of blue lilac orange rose

The cool burn of moon

Dizzying spine leading to the descent

Into flowers

Winter Elegy

2011-12-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

beautiful citadel of lights,
how could I have refused you

and your spangled tiaras
foggy distances
antlered arteries
piney whispers

was it your shyness
guiles or guises

or

the round smiles
lacking in your laughter

enthroned as a last chance
your heart the harp
on which we played
dollars and bones

phantasmagoric you
love is less than some ideal

it is nature roaring into view
and slipping just as ravenously

out of sight

in spooling balls of cool delight

The Longest Night of the Year

2011-12-21T17:48:00.000-08:00

Celebrating the Winter Solstice is part of an ancient tradition, a profound acknowledgement of nature's cycles and the importance of the return of the light.

A few years ago, I was fortunate to find an annual celebration at a local Universalist Unitarian church that is an evocative, spiritual, and symbolic gathering. Last year I went with my friend Jill, who was eight months pregnant. This year we went again, this time with her new daughter Aela.

The evening, as before, was filled with poetry, music and quiet drama. The darkened hallways were lined with LCD tea-light candles in paper bags punctured by delicate star formations, creating a quiet tone.

The night began with an hypnotic second century melody called "Hymn to the Sun," followed by "First Winter," a poem by Mark Evan Chimsky.

In the first section of the celebration, called "Knowing the Twilight," the song "Sure on This Shining Night" by Samuel Barber was followed by a hymn: "Dark of Winter" by Shelley Jackson Denman. Then a figure in a sparkling dark cloak, wearing a dark mask, entered and lit an enormous ice chalice in the center of the darkened room. The audience sat in concentric rows with four aisles. One by one, elaborately costumed and masked figures came from each direction, North, South, East and West, carrying candles which they set into the ice chalice. A musical meditation called "Orion" followed. The music was exquisite, featuring singers and live musicians playing piano, shuttle pipes, violins, a singing bowl, flute, and clarinet.

The next section, "Embracing the Dark" opened with a Rilke Poem, "On Darkness."

This translation by David Whyte is, I think, similar to what we heard:

"You darkness from which I come,

I love you more than all the fires
that fence out the world,
for the fire makes a circle
for everyone
so that no one sees you anymore.
But darkness holds it all:
the shape and the flame,
the animal and myself,
how it holds them,
all powers, all sight —

and it is possible: its great strength
is breaking into my body.
I have faith in the night."

A reading ("To Know the Dark" by Wendell Berry) was followed by "Epitaph," by Sarah Williams and Joseph Haydn, sung in voices. A silent meditation plumbed the depths of the communal reverie.

"The Light Returns" started with a reading of "The Spiral Dance" by Starhawk and a chant ("Goddess of Light") followed by "Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver:

"Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness."

The most dramatic part of the program was when The Sun, dressed in glittering robes of orange and yellow, bearing a goblet glowing with a candle, and wearing a golden mask, entered and, as the lights came up, danced gracefully through the room before settling on a golden throne.

The final section, "Sharing the Light," contained more readings and the entrance of The Green Man, dressed in a green mask, his arms entwined with green vines.

The gathering sang the hymn "We Are One" and after parting words about the solstice, closed with "The Solstice Carol."

This divine celebration was, once again, a potent acknowledgement of the forces of darkness and light, a sharing of the gifts of spirit and life, a way to share reflections on the past while casting forth renewed energy and hope for the coming year.

To Know The Dark
by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Galatea

2011-12-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, oil on canvas, c. 1890
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

“Art lies by its own artifice.” -- Ovid

He is the sculptor;
I am the bone.

The drills and the needles
Are just the beginning of the drone.

Circling and speeding
Beneath his hand,

I have no home
He does not carve into.

In inches, the day eclipses,
Sobbing its way

To the pine-encircled dusk
From which I must form

A center.

If we are at all pure
It is due to the animals we mask.

He has made me catoptrophobic
And all eyes are mirrors.

What will I be after?
Forever someone’s other.

Spring

2011-05-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

After a week of foggy, rainy wet weather during which nary a ray of sun was to be seen, today the alien fog bank lifted, at least for awhile. . . the gray weather that brought out the rich myriad greens and poignantly muted the colors had been a prelude to the cantata of sunlight that illuminated the flora like miniature cathedrals. . .

s

John Keats Weather

2011-05-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

rain globe
long red worms
graze the soil

startling bright green haze
creeps from frozen brown
drought

water sloshes in the lungs
and heart, thermostat plunging
from childish fever to hellish chills

hot sun
beckons through weeks of rain
from hallucinated islands

spores fire
weed and bud
ferment the meridians

of dark brick corners
coal midnights
a ceaseless windy plash

soft unimaginable petals
burgeon
the richest desire

the outset of the walk was
through lush catastrophe and we
slept in a sodden sullen church

hovering in the dense
cheap sick room
the living bacteria flumed

in the quay submerged
rhythms of forest and
maroon

complicate
arpeggios of
rocks in the chest

wheels of geometric
patterns
lush sensual and set

foggy breaths
clink music
a cat licks its lips

hoary poppy
leaves pierce
black loam

two crows toy
and drop
the bone

ribboning cove
bronchial tide
veins of muddy brine

time unfurls
the heat cruelly
explodes the farm

you both
kiss the wall
covering it with whispers

spectral fairies prance
over harsh
oaken moss

red ribbon of flame
haunts the
alabaster neck

a purple dress
sails through
the heath of health

you were correct
to fear the scansions of love
without which

the verse would not
burn
nor the world uncurl

yet still time? to
set things right
put the house in order

sweep out the larks
ashes beetles
mortar

though a moist
chaos infiltrates
the book

________

so one goes on
perhaps even marries
settling into the stitch

it’s nothing like
marrying the sea though
is it?

(May, 2011)

Winter Haiku

2011-02-05T12:47:00.001-08:00

after the storm
pearl city, snow
smitten by apricot gold

tin night air
corner brick restaurant
burning windows

heart of January:
soaring cello
probes the sky

susurration of snow
lilac shell light
the foghorn’s cry

under streetlamps
swarms of bee shadows:
flying snow

rich movie details
as the fairy tale flakes
glitter down

snowsnowsnow
snowsnowsnowsound
ofalonecrow

adrift
in the snow globe
of the city

deep freeze
the snow speaking
underfoot

frigid indigo night:
hot bath:
reincarnation

Moon looking upon
frozen streets
rolls her eye

imagining a bird’s
heartbeat on this
crystalline night

Orion pulls the moon
through the star sea
fuming smoke

frozen embraces
carved in dark glitter
haunted passageways

cat dusk
white temples of snow
in the violet cold

melting houses
write the libretto for
a winter’s tale

pre-dawn indigo
squirrels thread
tapestry trees

Winter's Charm

2011-01-02T15:25:00.000-08:00

cold cold sliver of light
your harvests have ruined us with delight
then brought us to this gold drought

now again the season of lights
strives to quench the inky chills

sharpened by memories of slate and moss
dusted by lace and delicate frost

whole thimblefulls of color
sketch the brine

quickly in the night sky
pieces of our white bodies appear

glittering from an unspoken past

the sun's gyre deepening from cosmos to bone,
as the cycles leap through hair

and are written into our hands

the dark branches
mapped by leaves matter

so does the elfin sea

we take these homeopathic doses
of cold silver

to enter the flame

ribbons bite the black and talk back

the crystal world reverses
the hum of summer amazing the dark queen in her red throne

hideous wrecks march along the bricks
dragon-haired madchens fade into dusk

keep the cold out or let it in
either way it spins
all real all illusion all real

entering now the mannequin stillness of
death's statuary we thought we knew too well

in the wild dark blue
an orange hallucination blossoms

and we run as water
sluicing into patterns

within the vast geometries
that pin us like Orion

yet open us
and let us go

Magical Feather Table

2010-09-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

I had an old feather pillow that had gotten quite stained on the outside and was no longer functional, so I took the feathers out and brought them to Maine College of Art, assuming someone there would have a use for them. Sure enough! Last semester MECA student Jonathan Greydanus made this BEAUTIFUL table in the Woodworking and Furniture Department and used the feathers under the glass top. He said it was just what he was looking for! Recycling at its best!

The Garden Chronicle Continues

2010-07-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Bayside Community Garden continues to flourish in perfect summer garden weather: bright sun followed by bursts of occasional rain.

This photo of my garden bed shows Foxglove (left -- flowering), catnip (front), bee balm (right), mint (in the colored containers) and towering Feverfew.

A drawing of the Foxglove blossoms.

The bee balm, which I originally thought had not wintered over, proved me wrong with these gorgeous red blossoms.

A sketch of Bee Balm.

A view of flowering Soapwort (ugly name -- gorgeous flowers). Soapwort leaves have been used as soap since the Renaissance.
Soapwort blossoms will surprise you with their delicate perfume.

First-year gardener Michel grew some fine irises this year.

A bouquet of Feverfew.

My neighbor Susan's herb garden.

Shannon's colorful creative patch.

Garden Gloves

Jon's Buddha, appropriate for the Garden Guru.

Small apples from a little apple tree Jon planted.

The New Library

2010-06-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

Johannes started noticing something odd when the new library opened. The old square building with its heavy granite layers, gloomy cave-like courtyard and iron-gated entranceway had been expanded and transformed into an open piazza of light and air. The front façade was now almost entirely made of slightly tinted sea-green glass and a café had been arranged under delicate white ceiling lamps that reminded him of astral blossoms. The metamorphosis was stunning, brilliant even. One could sit there and look out over the historic square with its businesses, offices and shops, in the center of which stood a Neoclassical statue of Minerva, goddess of wisdom and war, immortalized in bronze, flanked below by a triad of Civil War soldiers. One could easily imagine sitting inside that glass wall in the rain or the snow, gazing out at the traffic and people outside as one might gaze out from heaven onto the mortal straits below.

But the new odd thing was not something within the library – at least that’s what Johannes thought at first. A subdued, soft-spoken man in his early sixties, he had lived in some of the world’s greatest cities – Berlin, London, Singapore, New York. The only child of a wealthy couple, he had attended private schools. The three of them lived off the income of a successful furrier business. He had traveled extensively with his parents and never felt the rancor or rebelliousness many children in circumstances similar to his had harbored. He loved them deeply and when they grew older he had spared no expense in prolonging their lives, first in retirement communities, then in assistant living facilities. The business had long since been sold, and it cost what remained of their entire fortune to provide them with the best care throughout their extended old ages. Now he lived hand-to-mouth, working as a security guard at a hospital where he earned barely enough to maintain his minimal expenses and the cheap studio apartment he rented over a downtown coffee shop. He was neither bitter nor happy, but was resigned.

One of his greatest pleasures was the library. Its storehouse of books, computers, music, newspapers and magazines – all for free – represented an enormous treasure to him and he had suffered during the time it was temporarily downsized for a year and then closed for over a month during renovations and expansion. It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that as far as he was concerned, if for some unthinkable reason the library had closed for good, it would have meant the end of his existence.

The first time he sat in the luminous glass atrium under the uncanny lamps in that lofty space, he was so overwhelmed he couldn’t focus on the sections of the old New York Times he collected at work, but found himself sipping coffee and simply absorbing the refined atmosphere, watching the people who drifted past like bright fish in an aquarium, letting his mind drift in fabulous directions. The splashing sound of the newly restored Little Water Girl fountain in the entranceway outside was most hypnotic. During his second visit he managed to read a bit more (collected stories of Maupassant this time), but was still so entranced that he found himself drifting into a meditative sense of complete comfort and well-being. The third time he sat in the café, he read more steadily, growing accustomed to his new haven. But this was when he first noticed something odd.

He had been sitting and reading, sipping coffee, gazing occasionally at the dark-red Victorian brick facades across the street. He had strolled past those buildings hundreds of times and had never realized that rows of small, mullioned windows of colored glass glittered in the sun on some of the upper floors. In fact he was quite sure they were new. Yet how could that be? He had never noticed them before. He shrugged it off as one of the many self-deceptive tricks of aging. Perhaps he had just never studied them from this angle. In subsequent visits, however, he noticed other changes across the street – since when had there been a blue awning over the coffee shop, for example? And on the second floor of the public market, which had recently withstood its own renovations, he could clearly see windows crammed with trees and flowers, when he knew for a fact there were only lots of tables up there lined on the interior by a pizzeria and other vendors.

The next day, before he went to the library, he stopped at the market house, mounted the long wooden staircase to the second floor, and found it to be exactly as he had known – an open room with tables, chairs, and stalls with clever names such as Kamasouptra, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, the Pie in the Sky Pizza and Rock City Coffee Roasters. No plants, trees or flowers in sight. Well, perhaps there had been some sort of special event, he reasoned. The city was constantly transfiguring itself in that way.

He was immersed in the tail end of one of the French tales and was feeling rather sleepy, despite the dark roast he was imbibing. When he looked up a sort of carnival in the square had commenced – people dressed in bright festive clothes were strolling about and children – a multitude of children – were playing some sort of game with large green balls and hoops. There was music too – an accordion player and a guitarist and a singer and ladies dressed in fancy dresses were dancing, swinging to and fro, accompanied by men in striped shirts. How completely odd this was. Some sort of Society of Creative Anachronism, he supposed. But it looked positively Parisian – a far cry from medieval jousting or Civil War skirmishes. Excitedly he grabbed his book and went inside to the circulation desk where he approached Babette, the former dancer. “Look,” he gasped breathlessly, “In the square. Over there. What’s going on?”
Babette looked up from her pile of books. She gazed past him and then looked up. “Mr. Kappel,” she said mildly, “That’s nothing but some kind of protest going on. Nothing that unusual. Are you feeling yourself today?” Her look of confusion turned to one of apprehension, and then concern. “Perhaps you’d like to sit down.”
“Oh, no, no, quite all right. I just dozed off for a moment, I’m afraid,” he muttered and staggered off, out the door and onto the sidewalk where he could clearly see that yes, indeed, there was a scraggly mob of people with picket signs, protesting health care reform or the incessant wars or excessive taxation. There were no musicians or costumes or children playing with hoops. He immediately went home, called in sick to his evening shift at the hospital, and lay down in the dark with an ice pack on his forehead. He feared he might be losing his mind.

He didn’t venture back to the library for several days. He took brisk walks, bought expensive salads he couldn’t afford and sat in the coffee shop below his apartment. But everything was as usual, the same buildings, the same sorts of people, everything in its place. No sudden changes or manifestations or hallucinations. Perhaps he had fallen asleep that day. The more he walked and the more spinach he ate, the more he was convinced that was the case.

Still, he felt apprehensive the next time he entered the new archway and walked past the newly restored statue of the young girl with the bare feet, an endless spray of water pouring from a bowl in her hands to the basin below. He returned the Bowles, smiled broadly at the librarians and took his time selecting a book from the special section of books recommended by the library staff – The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald, a novel he had always meant to read. He signed it out, carried it into the bright café, took off his heavy wool coat and gloves and sat down at his table. It was late April and unseasonably chilly outside.

Casually he sat down, crossed his legs and commenced reading about life in England: “At the end of September 1970, shortly before I took up my position in Norwich, I drove out to Hingham with Clara in search of somewhere to live. For some 25 kilometres the road runs amdist fields and hedgerows, beneath spreading oak trees, past a few scattered hamlets, till at length Hingham appears, its asymmetrical gables, church tower and treetops barely rising above the flatland. The market place, broad and lined with silent facades, was deserted, but still it did not take us long to find the house the agents had described.” He pretended to be absorbed in the narrative, though the truth was he filled with trepidation, afraid to look over at the square. Afraid of what? Afraid that things would have changed, or that they might be the same? The second he considered the latter possibility he immediately raised his woolly, silver head.

The changes were vast this time. It was a new city, grown from within the old. The square itself had become a park with tall flowering chestnut trees that looked to be at least 100 years old. And the people – he could see immediately they were European. The bleak old Victorian buildings had given way to lovely, colorful houses painted in blues and greens and yellows with slanting rooftops and window-boxes.

This time Johann didn’t even consider sharing his vision with any of the other patrons or the staff. No, now he was quite content to sit and watch the transmogrification of the past, present and future as it unrolled before his eyes – a miracle of time and space that defied all reason and yet, he realized, made perfect and absolute sense. He turned back and gazed around the cafe. The other patrons, a mixture of young, middle-aged and elderly Portlanders, including two Somalis, and one Cambodian, were all immersed in their own separate journeys through time.

The Art of Gardening and Garden Art

2010-06-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Bayside Community Gardens are flourishing. My garden has garlic, chives, cilantro and onions (from seed!), spearmint, peppermint, foxglove, Sweet Annie, chamomile, hyssop, dill, Siberian Iris, Bat Face flowers, lupine, three apple trees, fennel, oregano, thyme, feverfew, lavender, rosemary, basil, lemonbalm, and a big mystery plant!

Here are some drawings I made of some of the BCG garden plants:

Graywolf: A Romance

2010-02-28T07:39:00.000-08:00

Graywolf and I walk around the cove, along the boulevard. It is brisk and windy and he has his woolen hood up. Not that anyone can see him anyway, except me. Lots of children have invisible friends. Then they grow up. I guess I didn’t. Grow up, that is, in that way. Graywolf has been with me since my earliest memories. We have been together for decades now. And it suits me fine.

There are two other people who can see him. One is Grady, the old man who lives next to the community garden where I grow herbs and flowers. He can see him as well as I can, and he talks to him. This is reassuring, in a way. It’s how I know I’m not insane. I mean, I know I’m not, anyway. But still, it’s an added proof. The other person is Bessie, a homeless woman who lives out of a shopping cart and talks about celebrities like they’re her friends. “That Tom Cruise, he’s a humdinger, we had crew-sants at Dunkin’ Donuts,” she says. I buy her coffee. She turns and says “thank you” to me and then turns and says “thank you” to Graywolf. He bows and kisses her hand. She giggles like a teenager.

Graywolf likes to curl up in the closet or on the bed at my feet. And he vanishes sometimes, when he senses I need some real alone time. But he always comes back. He goes when I need him to, and he comes back when I need him to. It’s quite the perfect arrangement. You think I’m lying. But it is the truth.

I’m no prude, I’ve been with men. The one who lasted the longest was Spice, a prep cook at a restaurant, DJ on the side. He was just a kid, with pale vampire skin and a mop of tousled black hair. Friend of a friend. Graywolf didn’t approve. Graywolf thought he was a “rotter.” He’s English, Graywolf.

One morning Spice and I were lying there in my bed and he was still asleep – wild coal hair splayed on the pillow next to me, mouth slightly open, like a baby, his scent of tobacco and kitchen and sweat mingling with the freshly laundered cotton sheets. I was awake, watching a little woodpecker circling the tree trunk outside my window and suddenly it occurred to me Graywolf was right. Spice was a loser who ultimately cared not a whit for me, nor I for him really, though we had our fun.

I saw through the whole situation in an instant, like fogged lenses growing clear. I dumped Spice. And it was the right thing to do. After all, I have the extreme privilege of not needing anyone.

Graywolf is about six feet tall, give or take. He wears mustard yellow pants and a green shirt. Also a gray velvet cape with a hood that clasps at the neck with a brass clasp that has an interwoven Celtic design on it. I’ve asked him a thousand times what it stands for, what it means. “Nothing,” he says, but I know that he’s lying, that it stands for something important and essential and if I knew what it was I would unlock his secret and perhaps that would be the end. So I don’t press it too hard. We all need our secrets.

I work in an insurance office, processing claims on a computer. I do research, make phone calls, fill out endless data on endless computer forms. It’s boring but it’s a job. While I work, Graywolf prowls around the office or wanders around the city. At night he tells me stories about the curious things he’s seen and I write them down in a sketchbook with cream pages and a black cover.

I wanted to be an actress. But I didn’t have the right look, or so I was always told. Too plain, too unremarkable, too nondescript. I blended in too well. OK, not talented enough, either, I guess. I’m willing to admit it. The closest I ever came to local fame was being an understudy to Carolyn Lonhurst, who played Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter at the Rivertown Theater Company. Perhaps you saw it? But it was awful, like being a shadow and I hated it. I was so close to The Stage, it was tantalizing, yet it was just out of reach, anguishing. After that I gave up on my dream. I still help out painting scenery and sewing costumes because I like the color and frenzy of opening night. Graywolf and I stay late sometimes and dress up in the costumes. I like watching the plays and knowing my invisible work is contained in the tiny stitches and the acrylic backdrops.

Graywolf has long shaggy fur the color of twilight with all its shades and gradations. His coat is unbelievably soft. He wears his pants long and he walks with a swagger, which is amusing, because he’s not aware of it. He has green eyes, the color of jade from a distant time, from deep within a mountain or a story. When the light hits them they are iridescent and supernatural, like a dark place being illumined. His hearing is acute. He can hear a hawk circling in the bay three miles away.

He has his own quirky personality but he rarely gets on my nerves. He is deep and flat, a bottomless well, a picture card that moves. Quiet as fog, quick as a tongue. Soft spoken. A creature of few words. His form ranges from opaque to transparent. When the sun shines through him he looks like a hologram. Yet he can also achieve full solidity. I stroke his fur, which smells like cardamom.

He was born, perhaps, from a fairy tale. As if the wish became so strong it emerged into reality, fully clothed, gentle, fur-clad and unmasked.

I love him the way you would love a cat or a dog – simply and wholly, in a way it seems impossible to love another human. Sometimes I wonder what will happen when I meet someone I want to stay with forever. How could I tell him about Graywolf? How could I not tell him about Graywolf? It would be a challenge to have a marriage containing three, especially when one of them is invisible. I admit the possibility that Graywolf is the reason I am still “alone.” On the other hand, I suppose it keeps me from falling into something that isn’t real, as so many people do, out of fear or loneliness or a bizarre sense of purpose.

I was not an only child like you might have assumed. I have two younger brothers, Isaac and Michael, athletic types, one in college, one just finished. Our parents are not divorced. My mother is a teacher’s aide and my father is an optometrist, which means I own an assortment of glasses in all kinds of fancy frames. I like gauzy skirts, fancy feather pillows, spiderwebs, dark chocolate, warm rainy days, napping during rainstorms, film noir, pasta, the moon, beeswax candles, Loretta Lynn and Jane Austen. I like hanging around with the Goths sometimes, though I wouldn’t consider myself one, though I keep one front long streak of my short black hair dyed either bright red or dark purple, depending on my mood. I pin it back when I work in the office and no one seems to care. Half of them have piercings and tattoos anyway. What is unique eventually become mainstream.

Graywolf and I walk along the quay in a warm autumn drizzle. It is my favorite time of year, soft and vivid, confetti leaves drifting down from the passionate trees. Scarlet and copper. Still, warm, humid. His soft paw clasps my hand. There aren’t many people about except for a few indomitable joggers, a couple of bicycles whirring past. The day passes into dusk and the new faux old-fashioned black streetlamps come on and the colored lights sparkle in the black water. The sky clears a bit and Venus peeps out from behind the clouds, white on gray. It is a dream. Even though I am an insurance claims clerk and a failed actress, I have never felt ordinary. Nor have I ever experienced true loneliness. Some sadness and some gaps perhaps, but never the piercing kind of absence I think most everyone in the world feels at some time or another.

What is Graywolf? Is he a spirit, a phantom conjured by my own imagination? Yet two other people are able to see him, perhaps more I haven’t met yet. Did you ever read the poem “The Tables Turned” by Wordsworth?

“Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things--
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art,
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.”

My theory is this: there are portals in this world that connect us to other worlds we know nothing about. Occasionally we glimpse these other worlds, even in science, but because our methods are inherently flawed, because our thoughts are inherently flawed, we dismiss them. We deny. We do not see. Once in a blue moon one of these portals slips open, something passes through, and someone is born with the ability to see it, to feel it, to know it. When we get older, “reason” takes over and the portal closes. I am blessed. For whatever reasons, this particular portal has never yet closed.

It is Saturday morning and we go to brunch at Humdingers, the vegetarian restaurant on Temple Street. The irony that I am bringing a wolf to a vegetarian eatery is not lost on me. But of course Graywolf doesn’t actually eat. I love this place. It is crowded today but we manage to get a tiny table by the window, a table for two. I slide the other chair out with my foot so Graywolf can sit down.

I order coffee and a spinach and mushroom omelet with rye toast and home fries. I wonder why they are called home fries. Humdingers consists of a large room with red booths and tables, potted plants and huge seashells from tropical seas lining the window sills. The walls are bright yellow with pumpkin trim. It is bright and chaotic. There are striking new paintings on display today, a series of small 10” x 10” acrylics in pale birch frames. They are landscapes and cityscapes with one element in common – there is a small red fox in each one.

I sip my coffee and scribble in my sketchbook, designs for an opera about Graywolf’s imagined childhood and transformation into a “spirit guide,” for I’ve decided spirit guide describes him more accurately than wolf.

A flash of orange-red. Baroque. The smell of burning food. The ruddy waitress with a large tattoo of a spider on her upper arm, her blonde hair pinned in a turvy on her head, rhinestone nose ring aglitter, scuttles over, bearing my steaming turquoise plate. “Who did these paintings?” I ask. She nods towards the kitchen. “Dishwasher. Busboy. Jarrod.” She vanishes back into the steaming kitchen. I eat my heavenly eggs laced with fresh fungi and spinach doused with ketchup, staring at the small painting over the table of downtown buildings and passersby, including one red fox dressed in an old-fashioned black suit. I am in love with this painting.

We start going to the Humdingers for brunch on Sundays, though it is an added expense I can scarce afford. We spot Jarrod, the dishwasher/busboy. He is medium-height, thin and lanky with a shock of black hair that flips over his eyes, which are dark, darting and intelligent. Pale skin, rose almost girlish lips, delicate nose, something shy and jittery yet affable in his manner. He glances at me, I glance at him. I guess you could say we are flirting. Graywolf stays mum, stroking his beardish chin fur and humming along with the pop tune on the radio. A flash of red from the kitchen, the smell of burning toast.

We’ve been brunching for about a month and a half and it’s winter now, approaching Christmas. The streets are lit with lights in the shape of tangerines, lemons and limes. The store windows are filled with driftwood trees, red ribboned rocking horses, negligees and calendars. Humdingers is packed. Jarrod is running around bussing tables and helping set them up. His paintings have come down and been replaced by photographs of indigenous Guatemalan children dressed in bright woven clothing. I am sitting at my regular table, my crumb-and-ketchup strewn yellow plate empty, sketching in my sketchbook. There’s a line outside the door on this overcast Sunday, but I’m taking my own sweet time. I’ve earned my spot.
Jarrod approaches the table, whisks away my plate.

“Wait!” I command and he stops, stands still, waits. I’m at a loss what to say next.

“I like your paintings,” I say. “Do you have a studio?”

He nods.

“Can I come visit sometime, see more?”

He nods, looks down, looks to the left, toward the clattering kitchen. Then he moves quickly, bearing his heavy plastic bin of plates and silverware. I sit frozen, staring into my empty cup. I don’t dare look up at Graywolf. I can feel the blood in my face. Suddenly Jarrod reappears. He is standing there in his splotched apron, his black sneakers. He hands me a wrinkled card from the restaurant. I turn it over. There is a time, a place. I nod and he is gone.

Next Saturday afternoon Graywolf and I walk through a freezing drizzle to a grim brick building behind a faltering white Church of God. The front door is unlocked and we slip inside and go up the wooden stairs to the third floor, a varnished hallway lined with doors. We go to the last one and I pause until my heart slows to a somewhat normal rate, then knock lightly. The door swings opens. A tea kettle whistles on a hot plate. Jarrod walks over, ushers me in. “Hello,” he says, his face brighter today, not so pale. “Welcome,” he says to Graywolf, shaking his paw and grinning. It dawns on me that he has been able to see Graywolf all along, throughout those many brunches.

The room is dim, but in the corner I immediately notice something curled up in an old green armchair -- a red fox in an old-fashioned black suit, its piercing black eyes glittering like mica.

Reindeer

2010-01-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

Photo by Steve Hillebrand, courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library

I rode Apostol, the tame reindeer, along the trail that had been packed by sleds through the woods to the village. It was very late, past one o’clock in the morning. Blackie-Olek was dying, and I was a coward. Clumps of snow sparkled in the firs. I felt like a ghost riding through stars.

The village was asleep in the snow-filled valley, awash in a moonlit fog. Feral cats darted through the pine tree grove in the cemetery. A gang of crows squalled in their roost in the nearby woods. The sky was an eerie lavender color, heavy with prayers of snow. Shards of moonlight streamed across the endless white fields.

I hitched Postol to the railing of St. Michael’s, the little white church that looked as if it had grown out of the snow banks, its green onion dome topped by its gold painted wooden cross. I crept inside and took off my boots, using the flint and steel from the wood box to light some char, and lit a beeswax candle on the altar. I knelt and prayed a poem of my own making to an invisible god in the silent frozen room with its yellow pine floor and walls like an empty beehive.

Afterwards I led Postol around the side and put him in the crooked barn. Felt my way into the small house that smelled of wood smoke, trout and rosemary, crawled into bed next to Lassi and fell asleep until noon the following day.

When Lassi got back from fishing the next day and I’d finally woken, we ate fresh baked honey bread and smoked salmon with his mother, a gaunt woman with a disapproving mouth and a nose like a hook. Lassi went fishing with his father and brothers every day of the year as long as there wasn’t a blizzard or a hurricane.

Lassi and I decided to take Postol to the river. I was fourteen and small and my reindeer had a saddle. I had the freedom to come and go as I pleased. My grandfather didn’t care where I went, what I did. He said I was a wise soul, he trusted me, I should do what I wanted. What harm could come to me in the woods or the village? I could not get lost in my own home, could I?

It was another long winter filled with endless snow and frigid winds. Lassi and I walked down the path to the river, through the wide corridor richly festooned with fresh chandeliers, lamps, candelabras and antlers of snow and ice. The most gorgeous palace you’d ever see. Lassi’s blonde hair peeked out from under his red knit fur-lined hat. I didn’t mention Blackie-Olek, who had slept with me in my bed since I was three.

As we walked, Postols knees clicked and his hooves cut the snow. We should have brought snowshoes, but we floundered along, falling and laughing in the white frozen meadow that glittered like crystal and mica when the sun finally came out.

Then we heard it –thunder -- and a huge herd swept into view instantly, surrounding us, crashing through the snow and the pines, huge liquid eyes and steaming breaths topped by crowns of antlers. Take off his saddle, Lassi said, he wants to go. He won’t be able to live, I said, he’s used to eating from my hand. Do it, said Lassi, uncinching the saddle and taking off the bridle with swift motions I barely saw. Postol shook his huge head and gazed at the reindeer who had slowed down to paw the snow and graze, ignoring all of us. He turned and looked me in the eye and a flint-like spark of wildness shot up through his brown orbs and entered me, travelling through my bones. A distant shot and the herd panicked and fled, gone in a mad rush of hooves, dung and fur. Postol went too, I couldn’t even pick him out from the herd. I felt a burden lift, replaced by a spreading sensation of air, light and infinite forest. Life would be worthless without magic, I whispered.

Seventy years later I can still see myself in my fur coat and hat standing on the riverbank next to Lassi, who died the next autumn in that very river. He never was a strong swimmer like me. And I certainly never saw Postol again, nor any other reindeer for that matter. It was the last year they came that far south. Things change quickly. It only took a few years before no one believed there had ever been any reindeer at all.

Autumn Photograph Album

2009-11-15T06:01:00.001-08:00

Gardening Adventures

2009-10-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

In July, I was granted a garden plot in the Bayside Community Garden. I hadn't gardened since I was a teenager, at my Aunt's house in Belgrade, where I planted seeds, weeded, shoveled chicken and horse manure and helped to harvest corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables, along with boxes of strawberries and raspberries from a large raspberry patch. My father did a lot more of the work than I did.

So it was both exciting and nostalgic for me to tear up the weed-ridden bed and get to work. There were already three apple seedlings and some "volunteer" tomato plants. One of my fellow gardeners dug up a huge catnip plant he didn't want and delivered it to my newly tilled soil. My sister Jane gave me an abundance of herbs and flowers from her gorgeous front lawn garden: Sweet Annie, peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, feverfew, echinacea, bee balm, iris, day lilies and foxglove. These were safe to put in -- the resident woodchucks didn't seem very interested in my herbs. I supplemented these with some purple basil, oregano. French lavender and a strange plant with brilliant red flowers called "bat face," that I got at the farmer's market. Once I managed to get stakes and a chicken-wire fence in, I put in some lettuce and spinach. I made a common beginner's mistake with the spinach -- I was so excited when it grew, that I couldn't bear to thin it out. Nonetheless I got quite a bit of tender lettuce and baby spinach.

The small amount of gardening I did so late in the year was very pleasing. I'd forgotten what wet dirt smells like, or the delight of seeing fat earthworms wiggling in the ground, aerating the soil. The minute I set the catnip in the ground a multitude of bees landed on it. The herbs all grew well and I soon had fresh basil, lemon balm and oregano to cook with. I brought home peppermint, Sweet Annie, lavender and catnip, tied it in bunches with yarn and hung it from my kitchen window. My tiny apartment kitchen soon looked like a witch's hut. Whatever I couldn't use fresh, I dried. Did I knew what I was doing? Despite my teenage gardening experiences, not really. And I soon realized that, like many things, it's possible to wing it.

I can't wait to see what gardening adventures next year brings. . . here are some pictures from this year. . .

"Harry Houdini," one of the resident woodchucks, patrolling the garden from under the tool shed.

Huge bunch of Sweet Annie drying in the kitchen.

My neighbor's corn patch.

Sweet Annie, Feverfew blossoms and "Bat Face" flowers in the window.

Fresh lettuce and spinach!

Homegrown salad!

A bowl of herbs and lettuce.

"Bat Face," Purple Basil and Sweet Annie

"Bat Face" flowers, tomatos (they tend to ripen better inside) and Feverfew flowers.

The gardens.

My garden: lilies in the left corner (hopefully they'll bloom next year), tomatoes in the right corner, rows of spinach and lettuce and herbs.

The herbs flourished and will hopefully come back next year.

It's just the right size garden for me.

Some of my neighbor's gardens were so beautiful. I really enjoyed the sunflowers.

First planting of herbs, still lots of weeding to do in the upper half, back in early August.

Excerpts

2009-08-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from
Nine Gates, Entering the Mind of Poetry,
Essays
by
Jane Hirschfield

This is a charming book of essays on the aesthetics and forms of poetry, using source material from Greek, Western and Japanese influences. This book contains many gems.

"Behind each jewel are 3,000 sweating horses." -- Zen proverb

Here she quotes the Mountain & Rivers Sutra by Eihei Dogen:

"All beings do not see mountains and rivers in the same way. Some beings see water as a jeweled ornament, but they do not see jeweled ornaments as water. What in the human realm corresponds to their water? We only see their jeweled ornaments as water. . . Thus the views of all beings are not the same. You should question this matter now. Are there many ways to see one thing, or is it a mistake to see many forms as one thing?. . .

It is not only that there is water in the world, but there is a world in water. . . When you investigate the flowing of a handful of water and the not-flowing of it, full mastery of all things is instantly present.

And there are mountains hidden in treasures. There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky. There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding. Therefore, investigate mountains thoroughly. When you investigate mountains thoroughly, this is the work of the mountains. Such mountains and rivers of themselves become sages and teachers."

Fujiwara no Shunzei, 12th Century Japanese poet on the priciple of "yugen":

"A good poem will possess a kind of atmosphere that is distinct from its words and their configuration and yet accompanies them. The atmosphere hovers over the poem like the haze that trails over the cherry blossoms in spring, like the cry of the deer heard against the autumn moon, like the fragrance of spring in the flowering plum by the garden fence, like the autumn drizzle that drifts down upon the crimson foliage on some mountain peak."

Japanese poet Komachi:

" How invisble
it changes color
in this world,
the flower
of the huma heart."

Dogen:

" This very body, with all its passions, is itself the body of freedom."

Jane Hirschfield:

"Only when looked at from a place of asideness and exile does the life of the world step fully forward."

"Journey far enough in the terrain of language and the heart will begin to speak"

"There are things we can possess only by following them into the realm of disguise. There, we may be given a quarry altered, more pungent and wilder and stranger than we have surmised."

Wallace Stevens:

"The rivers still roar, the mountains still crash, the winds still shatter. Man is an affair of cities. His gardens and orchards and fields are mere scrapings. Somehow, however, he has managed to shut out the face of the giant from his windows. But the giant is there, nevertheless."

Jane Hirschfield:

"A savage spirit raging in the dark does not sit lightly and easily through Thanksgiving dinners; it refuses to charm, to acquiesce, to go to bed at a reasonable hour, to bend to the ways of the world."

"In Catholic mysticism there is a path known as the via negativa -- the practice of emptying the self of its own will, desires, and even knowledge, in order that the soul may be filled with God. Poetry offers a similar path."

Hakuin, from the Song of Zazen:

"In this moment, what is there to look for?
This very place is the Lotus Land.
This very body is the body of the Buddha."

Streetlamps and Rooftops

2009-06-06T17:15:00.000-07:00

Trismegistus

2009-06-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

This poem by Richard Wilbur reminds me of the John Crowley books I read this winter. . .

Trismegistus

O Egypt, Egypt--so the great lament
Of thrice-great Hermes went--
Nothing of thy religion shall remain

His grieving eye foresaw
The world's bright fabric overthrown
Which married star to stone
And charged all things with awe.

And what, in that dismantled world, could be
More fabulous than he?
Had he existed? Was he but a name
Tacked on to forgeries which pressed the claim
Of every ancient quack--
That one could from a smoky cell
By talisman or spell
Coerce the Zodiac?

Still, still we summon him at midnight hour
To Milton's pensive tower,
And hear him tell again how, then and now,
Creation is a house of mirrors, how
Each herb that sips the dew
Dazzles the eye with many small
Reflections of the All--
Which, after all, is true.

-- Richard Wilbur

The Rain Box

2009-05-21T15:58:00.001-07:00

On my way to Paul's Food Center after work I swung by the Good Cause Thrift Store, one of my favorite haunts. It was seven minutes to closing time. I wanted to look at a book I'd seen in the window. I never would have noticed the Rain Box except that after I had found a pair of brand new black cotton shorts for $6 and looked at the book, which I decided I didn't want, the sweet ladies at the counter were busy tallying a mount of children's clothes for a family. So I wandered a bit more.

Then I saw it. An odd wooden box with a handmade paper sign that said "Rain Box, $25." One of the sisters (Good Cause is run by nuns) told me how to use it. You tip it over and some of the tiny ball bearings stick to the top and gradually ran down onto the small cymbals inside. I was stricken with a fierce wonder. I needed this. More than anything. Twenty-five dollars was a bit steep for me, but with three minutes to closing I made an impulsive decision and bought the thing. I brought it home. I love it. It's like windchimes, only better. After you turn it, the small metal balls keep occasionally pinging. They make a sweet, musical noise that is silvery and beautiful. I've never seen anything quite like this. It was a find.

The World Through View-Master

2009-05-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

Aside from my fluctuating collection of clothes and books from thrift stores and yard sales, I collect View-Master 3-D stereoscopic reels. I own two original black Bakelite View-Master viewers and have collected many reels over the years at flea markets. They don't turn up very often, but recently Tristan, at the Fun Box Monster Emporium, had an influx of reels. Needless to say I expanded my collection. Wanting to share some of my favorite images, I discovered I could take pictures of them with my digital camera by holding the zoomed lens up to one of the eye-holes and holding the viewer and camera very still while aimed at the light.

The View-Master was invented by organist and photographer William Gruber, who lived in Portland, Oregon, and was introduced to the world at the 1939 New York World's Fair. It was a huge hit and billions of reels were produced. Over time, the reels devolved into mostly kid's cartoons. Some of the ones using real stages and puppets are interesting, but I favor the original ones, mostly produced throughout the 1940s and 1950s, devoted to capturing scenes around the globe.

There are a spew of sites devoted to the View-Master, and Stereo Cameras (so you can make your own reels!) There is even a site that will make custom stereoscopic reels from your won digital images. The View-Master is very retro these days, with only a handful of reels now being produced by Fisher-Price. But 3-D technology remains popular. There are even a few artists such as Roger Ferragallo and Jack Bice who use stereoscopic imagery as their medium.

Here are some favorite images from my collection, taken with my Canon Powershot of the original images.

Yellowstone National Park

This is what happens when the camera settings are screwy.

Sweden

A Swedish Girl from the Sweden Packet

Another Great One From the Sweden Packet

Sweden

Laplander with Reindeer

Silver Springs, Florida

Rainier National Park

Quebec City Aerial

Another Quebec Aerial

Quebec City Shot

Performing Chimpanzees

People of Other Lands: India

People of Other Lands: The Alps

People of Other Lands: Venice

Parrot Jungle

Paris: The City of Romance
(This is one of my favorite reels. This shot of winos is pretty strange.)

Paris: City of Romance

Paris: City of Splendor

Palm Springs

The Painted Desert, Arizona

Indian Tribal Ceremonies

Paris, City of Romance, Notre Dame

Maine!

New York: The Lower East Side

Maine, Log Jam

New York World's Fair '89, The British Pavilion

Acadia, Maine: The Thunderhole

Acadia Lake

The Sculptures of Marilyn Lucey

2009-04-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

Marilyn Lucey is a nontraditional sculpture major at Maine College of Art. Here are some pieces from her upcoming thesis show. Amazing!

Marilyn used to make toys for a living.

A vision of moral turpitude, cast in bronze.

He is a fallen being, set on the floor so you have to look down on him.

Cloven hoofs!

Spring Sprang Sprung

2009-04-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ebune, the Procession of the Ram, 2009

2009-04-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Ebune, the annual Procession of the Ram (and celebration of spring) parade took place once again Sunday on April 5, 2009. After a solid week of cloudy skies, fog and rain, the skies cleared for this portentous harbinger of spring. The 6th annual parade was led again by Oscar Mokeme, director of Portland's Museum of African Culture.

Endless Things

2009-03-31T15:35:00.001-07:00

Last fall, September or maybe October or early November, I started reading a book called The Solitudes I had picked up on the library sale shelf for two or three dollars. I was quickly hooked by the meandering mystic tale of protagonist Pierce Moffett, a historian who plumbs various depths of history, astrology and love in his travels outward from the Faraway Hills to Europe and in his travels inward through the depths of his own mind, heart and soul.

The novel, written by John Crowley, is potent fiction, interwoven with a rich variety of histories, fictions and occasional appearances by Shakespeare, Giordano Bruno and John Dee, among others. There are also witches and werewolves, spirits who live in a crystal globe and a Christian religious cult. I soon ordered Love and Sleep and then Daemonomania and finally Endless Things from my local bookstore.

Last night I finished Endless Things, the final book in the visionary quartet known as the Aegpyt Cycle. It was a long journey of reading and pondering that brought me through another Maine winter and distracted me through a relocation in December. Long as this journey is for the reader, the novels were twenty years in the writing and thirty years in the planning and pondering for the writer.

At the end of the last page of Endless Things I felt adrift. Wasn't there yet another book waiting for me at Longfellow Books, a continuation of Pierce Moffett's quixotic life? Yet in the end I felt satisfied to finish where it ended, quenched. Of course, such books are truly endless things.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the 1,787 pages I just read:

From The Solitudes:

"Rosie had begun to feel a little odd. It's all true. As though the actors in a play were to drop their roles, and then turn out to be in fact the characters they played, and turn to face their audience for real."

"Angels, linked in sequence like the weave of a garment, hand to hand, mouth to ear, eye to eye to eye, ascending and descending forever on the world's business with a sort of taffeta rustle that can be heard, if you stand silent enough, in the most silent places of the earth, or in the depths of a coiled shell."

"Translate your intentions into a speaking bird, and let the bird speak of your intentions; encode your message in a book on automata, and the automaton when built will trace the message with a clockwork hand. Write (as Abbot Trithemius had done) a book on how to call down angels, and if you do so correctly, you will instruct the angels how to write the Abbot's book themselves, in a tongue of their own, which when used will translate into works, miracles, sciences, peace on earth."

"Mind, at the center of all, contains within it all that it is the center of, a circle whose circumference is nowhere, stretching out infinitely in every direction he could look in or think about, at every instant."

"That year she walked continually in her life carrying another life, the one inside books, the one that engaged her the more intimately; her living was divided in two, reading and not reading, as completely and necessarily as it was divided into sleeping and being awake."

"For one kingdom is all kingdoms: a hill, a road, a dark wood; a castle to come to; a perilous bridge to cross."

"He thought: Is the universe one thing? And is the whole of it contained in every part?"

"Only this extraordinary colored toy theater of unhistory."

"He thought: there is not only more than one history of the world, one for each of us who studies it; there is more than one for each of us, there are as many as we want or need, as many as our heads and wanting hearts can make."

"The mind makes itself visible in the act of thinking, just as God makes himself visible in the act of creating."

"It was as though when he read Copernicus's placements of the planets, he felt the same planets in the heavens he kept within him (and their tutelary gods and spirits) open their eyes, and move to their proper places. And then the earth moving, too, and all its contents."

" 'A hero sets out,' Barr said, not turning back to his students but facing the sparkling quad and the air. 'To find a treasure, or to free his beloved, or to capture a castle or find a garden. Every incident, every adventure that befalls him as he searches, is the treasure or the beloved, the castle or the garden, repeated in different forms, like a set of nesting boxes--each of them however just as large, or no smaller, than all the others. The interpolated stories he is made to listen to only tell him his own story in another form.' "

". . . for it if was infinite outside, then it must be infinite inside as well."

"You made yourself equal to the stars by knowing your mother Earth was a star as well; you rose up through the spheres not by leaving the earth but by sailing it: by knowing that it sailed."

From Love & Sleep:

"One way magic really could be said to work, bad magic, was in convincing others that physical laws were bendable, even breakable, and that you knew how to do it, when you didn't at all."

"O pitiless chaste eyes regarding him, she whom no god as touched. Actaeon senses the soul within him, satisfied and ravenous at once, leap from his own eyes to dissolve in hers, even as her gaze pierces him. He has already lost his own form, unwanted anyway, and grown another. He feels the heavy horns like a crown spring from his fortunate brow. And the hounds that once coursed for him turn on him, knowing their duty, and set upon him to rend him. For Actaeon has become what he pursued."

"She offered him her hand in its figured glove (black kid, worked with small flowers: strawberry, pansy, violet, almost too small to see, only when her hand was kissed did the eye come close enough to perceive the gilded fly, pismire, polished beetle in amid the thicket, where the jewels of her rings were cast away)."

"Her forepart was worked with a forest, fountains, stubs of dead trees, moss of deep velvet pile; a forest fire too, astonishing, animals fleeing it, ermine, squirrel, fox and hart. Water earth air and fire."

"Love in God is endless fecundity, the continual, generous, unstinting production of things; love in Man is the endless hunger for the products of Infinity, never satisfied."

"Magic is love: nothing but the power of love in the heart of the operator can move the souls of others; nothing but love can command the intelligences of the air. Without love even the simplest Art of Memory could not operate; without attraction and revulsion, what attaches the soul to images?"

"But every Mass [he came with elation to see, it was years ago now, the stern Asturian mountains] was the whole History of the World as well, not simply pictured or rehearsed but having in its center precisely the same miracle, repeated daily throughout the churches of Christendom: Creation Fall Incarnation Passion Resurrection. Acts. End of the World."

"Every rising moment contains every older moment within it, contains them all even as it is itself contained in the next to arise."

From Daemonomania:

". . . the autumn darkness within him. . . "

"The dandelion is the sun's child. Pierce pointed out one that had come out by mistake in her brief shabby lawn, dazed by the weirdly warm October. Look at its golden head, a sunburst--which is a lion's mane too, and the lion, golden and noble, is the sun-beast above all. And the green leaves, dentate, fierce, dent-de-lion. Now cut its stem and see the sun's sign, which places it for sure among the sun's things, with the lion, and gold, and the goat and the honeycomb and the heliotrope and a thousand other things great and small. Read a book of such signatures and commit them to memory and you can use them for making medicines, say, or telling small futures; imagine the signatures in your heart, discover new ones, and open a way upward for yourself toward the heavens and the gods."

"Up in his vast castle on the hill above the silted river the black-clothed Emperor Rudolf had immured himself, King Saturn on his throne; around him in his galleries and closets and Kunstkammern was the rest of the world in small, earth air fire and water: precious stones heating the fires of distant planets in their tiny bodies; waterworks and clepsydras, pneumatic statues, hubble-bubbles that sang; the skins of birds and animals and fish, all in their orders and ranks; monsters too, snails found with jewels embedded in their shells or the names of saints or demons written on them, the skin of the little bear that a Jewish woman of Prague once gave birth to, which 'ran around the room and scratched itself behind the ear and died,' says the chronicler."

"Rudolf loved tiny things, worlds sculpted on cherrystones, clockwork insects, the life inside diamonds."

"What was odd was that as their neural fibers fire and grow warm and the parts that are most crowded with them enlarge even further, their eyes adjust the rest in proportion, though never quite catching up; so they both grow gigantic, as measured by the details of their largest parts, the flocked and dark and blood-rich parts: the purple-brown lips filmed with shining liquid, the tender eye-corner where the great globular tear forms, the drop of clear syrup in the blind cyclops eye of."

"Love is magic, Giordano Bruno said; magic is love. The magician and the lover are both venatores animarum, hunters of souls; by emblems and by arts, the magician draws down into his heart the powers of heaven, that is the star-persons through whom the whole of nature and the spirits of men and women are ordered, and have their meaning. He ranges these powers within him and asks: teach me to bind, with bonds, like love's the things of this world and the hearts of others. And they do, they can. And thus we become like gods."

"Using tricks he had neglected so long he had to knock on his brow to recall how to do them--tricks the common people thought devilish, but which were natural, natural--John Dee passed out of the tower room at evening, arm in arm with his wolf, and down and out. . . "

"For a moment they jostled; then without a word Dee whirled twice around widdershins, and Bruno cried out, for he faced not an elderly Englishman but a tall pillar of adamant.
But in a moment Brono, fired by fear and need, had changed himself to a jug of red wine, and poured himself out and around the pillar's base.
But the pillar became a flopping marble dolphin that drank the wine."

From Endless Things:

"Right now, this moment, he'd said, and he sat up and stretched out his arms and closed his eyes: just now, as I open my eyes. all time and history, all my own history, too, right up to the very memory I have just now closing my eyes--it all never existed before, and would all, right now, come into being.
Now. And he opened his eyes on her."

"What he hadn't known, and would never learn later, was that by then the thing lost had already been found. It had been found by him and others, and redeemed from the place where it was hidden and at threat, and restored to the place it should possess; and this even, small and unimportant though it seemed, had stopped the decline of the whole world toward dissolution, toward frozen inanition and repetition such as Pierce had experienced in the cold halls and hot rooms of Rose. The world--"the world," all this, day and night, self and others, things and other things, inside and out--had been coasting to a stop, and just in time had been put back in a forward gear again. And then it could continue, and would, until all traces of that moment of redemption were erased from all hears and memories. . . New-wakened Adam would then open his eyes again, the beautiful circle would close, and roll on forever into the future and the past at once."

" 'So then I'd consider how such other worlds are made or were made,' he said. 'How does one world turn into another, become the next. How are they, you know, cast.'
"Cosmoporia,' said Barr. 'World-making.'
"Um yes.'
"That poria being the root of our word poetry, of course. Poets being makers. Makers of poems, and of the worlds in them.' "

"Beau Brachman once told him. . . that there is no history. The world, he said, is like a hologram: break apart the photographic plate on which a hologram has been printed, and you can show that every part of it contains the whole image, if you look at it with laser light. Every part of every part, down to the smallest resolvable crumb. In the same way (Beau said) our original situation is present in every divisible moment of all succeeding situations, but (he said and smiled that smile) you need a special light to see it."

"Fellowes Kraft liked empires that were so old, and grown so complex, that they could be named, and belonged to, and traveled in, but not controlled: that had frontiers, but inside were limitless."

"Nothing, in fact, is finite except as it is perceived by the limiting categories of the mind."

"For what was being told was not so much a story as a situation, a circumstance endlessly elaborating itself without ever unfolding any further, like an infinite carpet in which the central figure is surrounded by the same figure in a larger size, and that by the same figure in a still larger size, over and over.
And all those figures, Dr. Pons taught him, earthly and heavenly and above the heavens, are wrapped around a single infinitesimal spark of light at the center of being, like the layers and layers of pearl with which an oyster coats the grain of sand that irritates him so. That grain of light, irreducible, eternal, infinite even in being infinitesimal, is simply the cetermost point of your heart."

". . . that it is not unreasonable after all to believe that one's own subjectivity is bound up in the nature of things; that really we have no independent evidence of how the world is; that if our consciousness contributes to making the world, then our consciousness can alter it."

"No one could read the words, though, for a great dead calm prevailed, as still and clear as glass, here and elsewhere; in the light of dawn the opposing army seemed suddenly shockingly close to them, as though they saw themselves in an unexpected mirror at the turning of a corridor."

". . . the infinitesimals that composed them, in their transmigration across the infinite universe, will form other beings just as strange and plain and wonderful."

". . . we call them gods because they are within us, because they made our bodies and our minds for us too, because we recognize their faces from long ago, because we love and need and fear them, every one."

"With Bruno's refusal. . . all the gods, angels, monsters, powers, and principalities of that age began their retreat into the subsidiary realms where they reside today, harmless and unmoving, most of them anyway, for most of us most of the time."

"When the Labyrinth of the World comes disguised as the Paradise of the Heart, that's when it becomes terrible."

". . . Pierce's own Golden City as it was everyone's; the best city, toward which we all strive and which we never reach, because it is the city only of the past and of the future, where the labyrinth of the world is exactly coextensive with the paradise of the heart, and how then could it ever be traveled to?"

"He had always known the secret of those stories in which heroes set out in search of precious hidden things; everybody knows it. The journey is itself what brings the jewel or the stone or the treasure or the prize into being; the act of seeking is the condition by which the thing sought comes to be. In fact the search isn't different from the thing sought."

"It was as though the sources of certain events lay not in their antecedent causes but in mirror or shadow events that lay far in the past or in the future; as though by chance a secret lever on a clockwork could be pressed that made it go after being long still, or as though a wind blowing up in one age could tear leaves from trees and bring down steeples in another."

"So the way to defeat power is to propose new laws, laws conceived in the secrecy of the heart and enacted by the will's fiat: laws of desire and hope, which are not fixed but endlessly mutable, and unimposable on anyone else. They are the lawas of another history of the world, one's own."

"For readers, time in a novel goes only one way: the past told of int he turned pages is fixed, and the future inexistent till read. But actually the writer, like God, stands outside of time, and can begin his creation at any moment in it. All the past and all the future are present in his conception at once, nothing fixed until all of it's fixed. Then he keeps this secret from the reader, as God might keep his secret from us: that the world is as though written, and erasable, and rewritable. Not once but more than once: time and again."

"Jesus seemed to grow less sure of himself the nearer the agony came. Just a frightened human after all. What have I done."

". . . and the wood did seem to be gazing on her or looking away from her with that unsettling indifference that accumulates in wild places as marks of human habitation get left behind. . . "

". . . she had in fact gone through to where the same things occurred in a different place and that was the place she now was."

"The two profoundest words there are: remember and her brother forget."

"Life is dreams, checked by physics."

"Mercy. Because there is an end to justice and to fairness, when everything is paid out, and all accounts are settled: but there's no end to mercy."

"The eye is the mouth of the heart."

"Just another day," Pierce said, loading his car, the Festina wagon. "Another day of living and striving in the fields of the actual and the possible."

"And for the first time he had seen where he stood, and that he might go on by turning around, by turning back: might find, on his own, an exit from the labyrinth of the heart, his heart, and a way out into the paradise of the world: the fragile, sorrowing, inadequate, endless paradise of the world, the only one he or anyone could ever know."

"You knew what harmonies were possible because of how you strung the instrument, but not what harmonies you'd get."

Two Great Films

2009-03-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of watching two great films.

Wendy and Lucy, by Kelly Reichhardt, is the story of a young girl on her way to seek her fortunes working at a cannery in Alaska. Her car breaks down and a variety of troubles ensue. It is a delicate, emotional film, a snapshot of frailty and strength, sorrow and determination.

I saw it at Frontier Cafe, a stunning movie theater and restaurant located in an rehabbed old mill. Frontier is a huge open space with panoramic views of a dam, waterfalls and a bridge. The food is healthy and delicious. It has vast ceilings, large tables and a little comfy living room area with sofas. The movie theater has long tables in front of the seats so you can eat while you watch eclectic movies. When I was there I had Vietnamese Pho soup with soba noodles, onions, snow peas, and other vegetables. The movie theater has long tables in front of the seats so you can eat while you watch movies.

The second great movie I saw was the documentary, The Genius of Lenny Breau, a movie produced by Emily Hughes, the daughter who barely knew him.

Lenny Breau (1941-1984) was a prodigal genius, a jazz guitar player who at the age of 14 was fronting his parents' band. His mom and dad toured Canada as Lone Pine and Betty Cody, playing country western tunes. Lenny eventually shifted into a unique jazz sound that combined flamenco, classical, and country. He was good friends with Chet Atkins, whose fingerpicking style influenced him tremendously. Lenny was also a drug addict, with a tenacious habit that often sent him home to his mom's place in Auburn, Maine, to dry out. He died in mysterious circumstances in 1984, though clean at the time.

The movie has some amateurish touches, with occasional lapses into schmaltz, but it's a great overview of Lenny and his work, with wonderful archival footage and interviews with an eccentric cast of characters, including Chet Atkins, Randy Bachman, Pat Metheny, Andy Summers, music critic, teacher and performer Ted Greene, George Benson and more.

There are excerpts from the movie and other videos of Lenny performing available on You Tube, such as this one, which demonstrates Lenny's incredible versatility and style.

"The sound of silence is intense." -- Lenny Breau

Spring Equinox Sights

2009-03-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ryder

Faces in Belfast

How to Tie Knots in Belfast

The Belfast Co-op (Best Co-Op in Maine!)

An Oil Tank Disguised As Giant Watermelon in Camden

Christmas Boat in Camden

The Mystery Book Shop

Collapsed Bicycle

Beauty Wreath

Edna St. Vincent Millay's Home Town

Mount Battie

Giant Anchor

Face in the Window

Walnut Cream Pie at Moody's Diner: WOW

Bach Cello Concertos by Yo-Yo Ma

2009-03-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

On February 26 I had the great fortune to attend a solo cello performance by the master Yo-Yo-Ma at Merrill Auditorium, presented by the Portland Concert Association's Great Performances series. The program was Suite No. 1 in G Major, Suite No. 5 in C Minor and Suite No. 3 in C Major, three cello concertos by J.S. Bach. Yo-Yo Ma slipped in a couple of surprises, including Mark O'Connor's "Appalachian Waltz" and "Partita for Solo Cello" by the late Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun. Some audience members expressed their disappointment that he had changed the program in reviews and blogs after the concert. I didn't at all mind his innovative, eclectic selections and admire a master who can spontaneously add some surprises to a rigid program.

The cello is my favorite instrument and to hear this musical prodigy perform solo pieces was an absolute dream come true. It was a transportive, otherworldly spiritual experience for me and I was enraptured by every single note which opened up entire worlds through the intricate and difficult passages of Bach's complex landscapes.

I had purchased tickets last fall when I first heard about the concert, and they were expensive for my budget, but the experience was priceless. An added bonus was experiencing Ma's friendly, down-to-earth rappor with the audience.

For the encore he played a mysterious and haunting piece by Ennio Morricone, from the soundtrack to The Mission. I didn't recognize this piece and was surprised and amused to hear what it was.

All in all, this concert was a once in a lifetime experience for me. I can only hope I get to hear him play live again someday.

I would love to hear the upcoming Toumani Diabaté and the Symmetric Orchestra in May.

Winter

2009-02-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

Winter Storm, February 23, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

the "heart bandits" strike again!

Treasure Hunting at the Local Library

2009-02-14T11:54:00.000-08:00

Like I need more books. I should be donating them books, not buying them. Still, I couldn't resist and even left work early to go to the latest Portland Public Library book sale, held a few times a year in the auditorium. I tend not to go right at the opening because in past years the line used to go out the door and the frenzy when everyone stormed into the library was overwhelming. The book dealers would be flipping through the books, tossing the good ones in boxes, like they were trying to pick fruit with a tornado bearing down on them.

The powers that be have made the sale earlier in the day and by the time I got there there was still a sense of delirium in the air, but the first rush was already in the checkout line.

I used to come home from these sales with a mountain of books, including hardcover treasures I planned to cut up for collages. Although I did make some collages out of them, I've tried to cut back on this compulsion, especially after the time I moved apartments and found myself dragging along these big heavy cardboard boxes of old magazines and collage books. I've also gotten pretty selective about what I buy. The library does a good job at labeling the sections, i.e. Fiction, Biography, Poetry/Literature, Social Issues, Art, etc. Sometimes books get mixed up, though so you might find an unusual poetry book you want in, say, the health section. It all makes for great treasure hunting.

For $13.50 I garnered the treasures pictured here, along with two CDs: Rain Forests, Oceans, and Other Themes by John Fahey (recorded in Portland, Oregon, our sister city) and Mirrorball, a live CD by Sarah McLachlan. John Fahey is a legendary master of the wooden guitar and Sarah's songs send me into an emotional vortex in a good way.

Kitsch (The World of Bad Taste) by Gillo Dorfles, with contributions and essays by a variety of art critics and provocateurs, is pretty amazing, as you can tell by the cover (top image). Out of print, published in 1968, I found a reference to a collectible version of the book on Amazon that says the First Edition, published by Bell Publishing Company, is worth around $100. Amazing. Unfortunately, mine is a second edition, which is worth about $10 in the used book market. Other hardcover reprints are available for as little as $3 on the Internet. It was the first book I picked it up, floating around on the art table. It didn't look that excited (except for that irresistable gaudy cover), until you looked inside and saw the variety of commentary and reproductions in the book, which is really a critical compedieum of history, art criticism and social commentary. Amazing illustrations include a series of postcards, each representing an episode of Napoleon's life, which when put together form a complete figure of Napoleon; a souvenir from Venice featuring a plastic version of Jesus' crucifixion on colored seashells; a still from the film about van Gogh Lust for Life; a photo of lacquered tree trunk photographs; a photo of a swastika coffee cup; and so much more. Another reader blogged about it here in more detail.

sleep (bedtime reading) by Robert Peacock (folk art collector, author and curator) and Roger Gorman (designer) is a handsomely printed and designed hardcover book that features an odd assortment of work by such photographers as William Wegman, Nan Goldin, Sandy Skoglund and Duane Michals and an even odder assortment of writing by Laurie Anderson, Fran Lebowitz, Richard Hell, Lou Reed, Paul Auster and John Updike among others. It has a very urban, New York feel to it.

Nude in Tub, Stories of Quillifarkeag, Maine by G.K. Wuori is a great book by an Illinois writer I suspect for obvious reasons has spent some time in Maine. I had read these stories before in a hardcover version (from the library) and was very impressed. I had considered buying the hardcover version new, but don't spend a lot of money on new books. Years later, here it was. I couldn't resist. These quirky stories are divided into sections called "Land," "Love," "Law," "Learning," "Loss" and "Life." They are funny but savage. One story, called simply "Family" opens:

"It was an educated crew -- that family -- that went wild outside of Quilli, the man starting out as a professor at the tiny state university in town, his wife and four kids wanting to live out somewhere, way out, an old way in a new time.
'This is Maine,' they said, and listed it all: heavy coats, woodstoves, lakes and rivers frozen by Christmas, moose, wolves, even eagles. The wife said, 'I'm going to relearn French.' The children went Pow! Pow! Pow!"

This little book, Come Climb My Hill by Winston O. Abbott, with illustrations by Leon Tebbetts, is a gem. It's a small out of print hardcover, published in 1947 by Falmouth Publishing House, a small book press run by Tebbetts, who used to run a legendery tiny used bookstore in Hallowell, Maine. That bookstore was crammed to the rafters and had many small cul de sacs. Leon was there well into his 80s and I remember meeting him. This book is hardcover, with the original jacket and charming color drawings, printed on creamy yellow pages that were handcut. It's worth about $20 on the antiquarian market.

"To me there is something deeply inspiring about a tree, a tree with its branches flung heavenward twoard the fathomless blue of the sky and its groping roots anchored security in the good earth beneath. I suppose that a tree could not be said to have a personality, and yet trees are possessed of as great a variety of characteristics as people. And though I am an admirer of hemlock and maple, elm and pine, I look with especial favor upon the oak. For the oak is to me a symbol of rugged strength and enduring courage and tenacity of purpose."

The Soul's Book of Answers by Carol Bolt (author of The Book of Answers, Love's Book of Answers, and The Literary Book of Answers) is a very silly book, though a clever idea. Using "bibliomancy," the idea is to ask a question, riffle the pages of the book and find an answer. At least it won't break, like those silly "eight ball" oracles of the 70s. I got a first edition, which makes it worth $16 (it's original price) in theory (by a bookseller on Amazon), though I can't imagine why anyone would pay that much. I got it for an "office present" for one of my co-workers birthdays. The soft fuzzy blue covering is a bonus.

Here, let's test it. I asked it, "Will I find success as a writer?" The answer? "This dewlike life [will] fade away; avoid involvement in superfluous things." Hmmm. That's interesting. Why the brackets? is a more burning question.

Advanced Cinematherapy (The Girl's Guide to Finding Happiness One Movie At a Time) by Nancy Peke and Beverly West (authors of Cinematherapy: The Girl's Guide to Movies For Every Mood, Meditations for Med Who Do Nothing (and Would Like to Do Even Less) and How to Satisfy a Woman Every Time on Five Dollars a Day) is another fun bit of silliness that originally retailed for $13.95. Another office gift. It's actually pretty good, with chapters like "I'm Not Waving, I'm Drowning: Rescue Fantasy Movies" and " 'Oh Her? She's My Sister': Trust Issues Movies." It's fun to read the descriptions, the sprinkling of quotations, actor profiles (Gabriel Byrne's "Top Drool Pics" are listed in The Handy Hunk Chart). There's fluff like "Women We Wish We Could Go for a Beer With" (Christina Ricci, Jean Harlow, Parker Posey. . . ) and "Freudian Slipups" (On Casablanca: "Until we women rewrite our internal scripts for romance, we guess Hollywood will just keep stoking the fire of our dysfunction.") Quasi-feminist, but mostly a great gimmick (hmmmm, there seems to be money in these gimmicky books), it has some recipes too!

Last but not least, I got a copy of the book Art & Fear, Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles & Ted Orland, two working artists. This was recommended to me once upon a time by an art teacher, I got it from a library, and I have long wanted a copy of my own. It's a short practical treatise that undercuts the damning voices of self-sabotage, such as "I'm not an artist -- I'm a phony" and "Other people are better than I am." It's a book for visual artists, per se, but the basic advice can be applied to pretty much any creative endeavor.

"Artmaking involves skills that can be learned. The conventional wisdom here is that while 'craft' can be taught, 'art' remains a magical gift bestowed only by the gods. Not so. In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive. . . "

More Robins!

2009-02-14T11:51:00.001-08:00

The robins were back last week. They don't seem to mind the cold. A colleague at work said these subspecies of robin do indeed from Canada and go north when it gets warmer. Reverse migration.

The Canadian Robins

2009-02-05T15:46:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, in mid January, I saw the biggest robin I had ever seen. Here he was in this urban neighborhood in the middle of the snow and cold. Am I going crazy? I thought. That was a robin, right?

On Monday there were over 30 of them flying around the trees, eating berries. I couldn't believe they were robins, but I looked on the Web and couldn't find any other birds that looked remotely like them. Then a co-worker described the same sighting out in a more rural area.

Turns out they are Canadian robins who come here in February. They're larger than the regular robins. Robins roost in groups of hundreds at night. I did not know that. They are migratory songbirds of the thrush family, known typically as Turdus migratorius, with several subspecies. There are a number of legends about the robin. One is that a robin fanned the embers in the barn where Christ was born, in order to keep Mary and the baby warm, scorching his feathers a red color in the process. Another, told by Charles Dickens, tells the tale of how Dame Nature told the robin about the fires of hell. The robin was so moved he put a drop of water in his beak and flew there to try to extinguish the flames. His feathers were scorched in the process. Robins are often associated with charity and it is considered bad luck to kill them. The Welsh call them "Breast-burnt" or "Bron-rhuddyn."

The Native American Chippeways have a legend that a powerful hunter urged his son to fast as long as possible during the son's coming of age fast. The son became a robin, but told his father not to mourn the transformation, that he would be happier as a robin than a man and would be a friend to humans and live around their dwellings.

Lately temperatures have plunged back into the Arctic zone. At 5 p.m. today it was fourteen degrees with a stiff wind that made it feel more like five. Four below is the predicted low. More cold tomorrow and then it's supposed to warm up into the tropical 40s on the weekend. Then it's going to get cold again. The robins are pretty. I hope they survive.

There's some better pictures on another blog here.

Blood Tea and Red String

2009-02-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

My friend Lunden lent me this DVD, which is a handmade stop-animation movie that took the director, Christiane Cegavske, thirteen years to make. It is a wondrous adult fairy tale with a hauntingly sweet soundtrack. There are no voices, but the creatures in it make noises that are better than speech in this context. It is full of charming tableaus and scenes, with a riveting plot during which the Aristocratic White Mice steal a doll made by the Rustic Creatures Who Live Under the Oak. Three of the four Rustic Creatures set out to find the doll, getting lost in a labyrinth where they come to a garden, eat hallucinagenic fruit and are waylaid by large body-snatching leaf pods. They are rescued by the King Frog, who cooks them dinner and feeds them berries. There is also a Spiderwoman who captures a Bird Woman that the doll gives birth to and scenes of the Aristocratic White Mice drinking their blood tea and dancing with their skull-crow companion.

The link to Christiane's website above contains some of her paintings and illustrations as well as her costume designs. There's a preview on You Tube you can watch here that shows the unique flavor of this incredible work.

She also has a My Space page, which is worth checking out, just to see her friends. . .

Okbari

2009-01-25T09:35:00.001-08:00

Photo courtesy of Northeast Indie and Okbari.

Last night I had the immense pleasure of attending a concert by Okbari Middle Eastern Ensemble, which presented an evening of Turkish Fasil music. A longtime duo, last night they unveiled their latest line-up of a new ensemble, which features Amos Libby on ud and vocals, Eric LaPerna on percussion, Carl Dimow on flutes and Mike Gallant on violin.

It was a frigid cold night, but not windy, so I didn't mind walking to the yoga studio where the concert was being held. I met my friend Amy there and we sat on a long wooden bench in the back row. It was a packed house in an intimate setting, a studio that contained remnants from the Shoestring Puppet Theater next door, such as two giant female puppet masks and a row of puppets on a high wall that were like a second, mysterious audience.

The music, with its complex, meditative rhythms, made me want to dance, and the musicians, all virtuosos in their fields, played one long set, unbroken by any intermissions, which made for a unified tranced experience.

Some of the songs were poignant, such as Unutturmaz Seni Hic Bir Sey by Ekrem Guyer: "Nothing can make me forget you, even if I am forgotten. My soul is a cloudy Autumn without you, you are everything, I am speechless."

And even the happy, celebratory melodies have a touch of ancient melancholy, which stirs the heart and leads one's thoughts into a deep mosque of the soul. The last part of the program featured dancer Katy McCann, who presented fluid and betwitching gyrations in an exotic costume, enhanced by a gauzy scarf and finger cymbals.

The middle eastern oud (Turkish ud) is an ancient fretless instrument that usually has eleven strings. To me it evokes images of gypsies, deserts and generations of people dancing in cities, around fires and in cafes. Walking home, the churned snow underneath my feet was reminiscent of thick sand.

Okbari has another website here.

Un coeur en hiver

2009-01-23T17:51:00.001-08:00

Winter in Maine requires forbearance. It is beautiful, but often cold, gray and windy and it lasts well into March and even April. The forecast says we'll be back in the sub-zero temperatures by the end of this weekend. These photos of State Street were taken last weekend after a big storm dropped over seven inches.

Even Longfellow was enshrouded.

It's not the best time of year for bicycling.

Without books, music and movies, I for one would go mad. I moved to a new apartment in December, which was traumatic, but it's nice to be in a cozy warm apartment that does not leak or have a bar downstairs. Plus I have a nice view:

Haven't been doing too much artwork, but I've been reading and working on a big writing project. One thing I'm reading is a set of four books called "The Aegypt Cycle" by John Crowley. There are four books in the cycle: The Solitudes, Love and Sleep (I'm halfway through this one), Demonomania and Endless Things. I got the first volume for a couple of dollars at The Portland Public Library book cart and ordered the second from a local bookstore, determined to read the entire quartet. The books are dense and intriguing. They center around an historian named Pierce, with a narrative that shifts back and forth in time. Pierce Moffett lives in New York but has moved to the country, where an author named Fellowes Kraft lived. Excerpts from Kraft's novels about Shakespeare, the Shakespearean doctor John Dee, and a visionary Italian monk/astrologer named Giordano Bruno are woven throughout the books, which are also about magic, lost worlds and the ways in which childhood becomes translated into the adult world. I'm not usually obsessive enough to read four dense volumes by one writer, but I got hooked by passages like this:

"He told her how, in Kraft's scheme, between the old world of things as they used to be, and the new world of things as they would be instead, there has always fallen a sort of passage time, a chaos of unformed possibility in which all sorts of manifestations could be witnessed. Then safe old theurgies and charms have suddenly turned on their practitioners and destroyed them; then huge celestial beings have been formed, born out of the assembling of smaller ones, who became the larger ones' parts and organs; then great Aegypt has been revealed again, and her children have recognized one another, by signs no one before understand."

And there's plenty of colorful narrative to hold all this together.

Speaking of the Portland Public Library, it's the greatest. Just today I picked up a free New Yorker from last fall on the free shelf outside the inner doors, a copy of The Prestige, a DVD I heard was very good that I ordered from another library branch, and a mystery novel. I don't usually read those, but am doing research and some of them aren't too bad. Perfect for winter. All that bounty for free.

Another thing that helps with the forbearance of winter are animal friends.

Rickey is sixteen.

Lord Byron is an astonishing twenty years old!

Happy New Year

2009-01-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

Paper Mache sun by Nance Parker.

Paintings & Poetry

2008-11-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Ekphrasis refers to an artistic device whereby one form of art is used to describe another. These poems were inspired by the abstract paintings of Francine Schrock. Their titles match her titles. More of her work can be found at www.francineschrock.com

Abstract Poems by Annie Seikonia
Inspired by the Abstract Paintings of Francine Schrock

blossom

yellow peach-red
furnace fire
in the essence of flower,
beach dawning
metal twisting
in the floating foreground
of a candling night

mud & jewel

craggy prints
amongst primrose pine –
dark palette of a
sapphire dirge

inkleined

rusty echoes of
the room behind the periwinkle
room sing,
strings quiver up from
a covert place behind
traces of skin,
knicks and wrinkles
of ghostly gloved hands

hierarchy

lemon and orange duet
in a tropical patio
coerced by green

beguiling knife edges smooth
shadows of days
ladders of stars

hearkening the red magic

more inkleined

neon indigo peacock Parish blue
and sky breath blue
remembering the scenic precision
of pastel balustrades
and ochre walls:
ceilings and beaches
now buried in flowers
saturated by violet tones
smothered in late sea
singing the frameless square

crimson

the boards of the red palace
ghost building, a nocturnal capture,
glinting now in the daylight of the café,
quietly absorbing the gossip and runes,
the ladders and mines, in their
violet looms

breeze

an Arctic geometry
sings through the shattering
windows of sleet.
the whisper of the ancient blue plain
beneath the scree
escapes even here, now,
from the painting

The Annual Shoestring Puppet Theatre Halloween Parade

2008-11-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Although it's already November, memories of Halloween are still resonant. Every year the Shoestring Puppet Theater hosts a Halloween Parade featuring drums and horns and puppets of various sizes. There's even a stiltwalker. People line the streets of the West End to see the little carnival go by and it's always great fun. This year was a gorgeous balmy evening with the usual consort of incredible costumes (including a zebra woman and an elaborately dressed Viking). I foisted a huge crow puppet with wings that flapped up and down as we walked along the leaf-strewn darkened streets. I forget from year to year how heavy and unwieldy the puppets can be, especially by the time the parade snakes from Pine Street to Emery Street to Taylor Street to Tyng Street and eventually up Brackett Street back to the puppet theatre. But we still had energy to do a wild puppet dance to the beat of accelerating drums in the parking lot at the end of the parade. Exhilarating, celebratory and great community fun, it's one of the highlights of the fall season.

Two Expansive Movies

2008-09-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

One great film I saw recently was Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008), a lyrical documentary about French high wire walker Phillipe Petit, who stunned the world at age 24 with his death-defying walk between the World Trade Center Towers on August 7, 1974. A death-defying film as well, this absorbing movie is unforgettable. Between the back story of the complex plan that went into the stunt, the counter story of Petit's relationship with his girlfriend, Annie, and, most of all, the vertiginous and miraculous images of the walk, this film has instantly become one of my all time favorites. He crossed the wire eight times and even lay down on it. The story is inspiring; it proves that even the craziest dreams are attainable and may indeed result in works of great genius. Though it would seem self-destructive, Petit insists his walks are not reckless ventures and are planned in great detail, a result of years of training. Rather than being depressing (due to extensive footage of The Towers) the film remains light and buoyant, and by not mentioning the Towers destruction or Petit's reaction to that event, becomes a graceful and appropriate memorial.

Petit, who is almost sixty years old now, has survived his many walks on the high wire (including 500 arrests, mostly for street juggling). He lives outside Woodstock, New York, where he has been working on a hand-built performance barn for roughly 15 years, using 18th century tools. He is also the author of the autobiography, To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers.

Perhaps it's not surprising that Petit is a friend of Werner Herzog's, which brings me to great film number two: Encounters At The End of the World (2008) by the master himself. The tag line "Off the Map, Things Get Strange," is not suprising to those of us familiar with Herzog's films, which tend to veer off into strange territories (both literally and figuratively). This one is set at the Arctic's McMurdo Research Station, where Herzong interviews everyone from volcanists to plumbers (finding a fair number of offbeat personalities along the way). Herzog's usual pessimism about the world doesn't for a second ruin the supernatural, otherworldly footage of this outpost, which is tempered by his considerate, accented narration and sense of humor. A feast for the eyes and for the brain, this latest foray into unusual territory, Herzog-style, is a mind-expanding journey to the center of nowhere and everywhere.

I am a huge Herzog fan. Born in Munich, shortly before World War II, he shared a house with his friend and nemesis Klaus Kinski (their love-hate relationship is documented in the great movie, My Best Fiend) when he was only 13 and even then was confident he would become a film director. Herzog has worked in a Mexican rodeo and welded steel to finance his movies. His quality of tenacious obsessiveness is evident throughout his best movies, especially Fitzcarraldo, a film that created its own story during the making of that story and featured a lunatic playing a lunatic. (During Fitzcarraldo, he moved a 320-ton steamship over a mountain without using special effects -- see Burden of Dreams, a documentary about the film). Aguirre, the Wrath of God, is another scenic journey into madness, with Klaus Kinski revelling in an outrageous role he may or may not have been acting. My least favorite film (and there are plenty I haven't even seen) was the satiric comedy Incident at Loch Ness, which I found just plain silly, but rather than veering off into art house obscurity, his vision has flowered, resulting in the picturesque The White Diamond, the quirky Grizzly Man (probably his most "mainstream" entree) and now a plumed trip to the innermost workings of the cosmos itself -- expect a royal Mayan ancestor and neutrinos, among other wonders.

In August 2008, Esquire Magazine interviewed Petit and Herzog together ("Werner Herzog Walks the Rope"), which is good for a laugh.

Common Ground Fair 2008

2008-09-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

Common Ground Fair, held by The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardiner Association in mid-September, is an annual extravaganza of animals, food, crafts, demos, music and more. Heralded as a celebration of rural living, it features hundreds of vendors and events that range from sheepdog demos to lectures on composting, with everything in between, including "Burma -- A Time for Change," "Raising Goats 101," "International Folk Dance & Baltic Women's Choir," "Cigar Box Guitars" and "Monolithic Heated Slab Foundations." It's huge, it's three days and it's all stunning.

This year, gorgeous weather graced the fair. The only huge drawback was the traffic, which gets worse every year. We got a late start on Saturday and, after a stop for breakfast and to drop our dog off with my sister, arrived at the 3.5-mile road that leads to the fair around 1 p.m. It was a slow crawl along that road -- an hour journey from the intersection to the fair parking lot, which was so crowded we wound up squeezing into a space at the bottom of the south lot, virtually in the campground area. A pleasant stroll through a demo forest led to the fair. The vendors shut down around 6 p.m. so our plan was to leave by 5:30 p.m. to beat the crowd. Of course we dawdled on the way out and reached our car at 6:00 p.m. From there we sat for a solid hour, engine off, waiting for the cars to inch up the hill and out onto the road, about a quarter mile away. At last we began to make creeping progress. In all we wound up spending about an hour and forty-five minutes in the parking lot, because cars in the rapidly emptying parking lots kept cutting into our lane from the rows, which prevented the cars trapped in the bottom parking lot from moving at all. Eventually passengers walked up to cars in the cross rows and stood in front of them to keep them from cutting in, in order to let the trapped cars move out. Some of the drivers were none too friendly or pleased, which didn't exactly make for common ground. The drivers that got stuck included volunteers and a woman with a young baby.

Sadly, a drive that should have taken roughly three hours round-trip took six hours round-trip, with only four hours spent at the fair. Not sure what the solution is -- enforced carpooling? There was a satellite lot you could bike in from, but we had a small car with no bike rack. Just too many people wanting to partake in a great Maine event. Nonetheless, we got to eat some great food, watch sheepdogs in action, visit lots of beautiful animals, hear some amazing music and spend an afternoon in a halcyon gathering with colorful people.

More pictures can be viewed on Flickr.

The Shimmering City

2008-09-06T18:22:00.001-07:00

Here's some samples of the work I've been doing for my latest project, a book of Portland haiku with illustrations. I started it as part of an excellent class I took recently on illustrating picture books for children and adults.

under the
full August moon
slicing carrots

reflections dance
in the world
below this world

blossoming branch --
exotic monasteries
cling to fragile life

the city’s sparkling
white jewelry disappears
in spring rain

invisible crows
speak from within the
Fairy Tale Kingdom

Icarus

2008-09-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

Update! I called Sparks Arks, where the seagull went for rehabilitation and David Sparks told me he was fine and going to be released soon!

Photo Credit:US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Free Photo Accessed Through Gimp.Savvy

Last week I was involved in an intense seagull rescue. On my way back to work with a cup of coffee, walking downtown, I noticed people staring at something. That something turned out to be a juvenile (you can tell by the gray feathers) seagull that had something caught in its beak and was attempting to fly but going in half circles in the middle of traffic in a busy downtown area. I went into the street, stopped traffic (which resulted in much honking of horns and general road rage) and after several futile attempts (more honking of horns) managed to herd the creature towards the curb. Once there it cowered and I yelled, "Does anyone have a blanket?" A kind woman had a blanket in her car and brought it over. I wrapped the seagull in the blanket as a crowd gathered.

Officer Dan, a bicycle cop, arrived. He dialed up animal control only to find out the person didn't come on duty until noon. Meanwhile the person parked right by the seagull had to leave. I hoisted the seagull up onto the sidewalk. The bird was relatively calm and not struggling very much. A pair of pliers and some wire cutters were procured and I held the seagull and held its beak while a brave man attempted to pull a three-pronged fishing lure hook out of its mouth. It was quite a process and very difficult but he finally did it. After that I got him to bend back the hooks and then someone else used the wire cutters to cut the entire hook structure off, so the bird wouldn't get hooked again. Unfortunately the large fish-shaped lure had a lower hook that was stuck in his side. After some probing we agreed it was best to wait for animal control at that point. It wasn't stuck in deep nor was it bleeding, but it was really stuck. Although the seagull had thrashed a bit during the hook removal from its beak, overall it was amazingly subdued. One bystander thought it had been hit by a car, but when I was herding it I noticed both wings were out and looked functional and it didn't seem to have any major problems other than the hooks.

After we removed the hook, it's bill began to bleed a bit and another bystander said it would choke on its blood and die, but the bleeding didn't seem heavy. I asked if anyone could find a box and someone found a nice large box with flaps, so I lowered the seagull-in-a-blanket into the box and moved him near some storefronts away from the street. Eventually everyone wandered off except for an art student and I. We kept vigil while we waiting for Animal Control. The beak stopped bleeding and the seagull seemed alert and responsive and fairly calm. A couple of times he started to move around and then we talked to him and held the flaps in place. Most of the time, though, he just sat in the box without us having to hold him in there and after awhile he settled down into it like it was a nest. Beth, the student, and I sang songs to him and talked to him. We named him "Icarus." It was very hot and I figured he was thirsty and hungry but didn't dare give him anything to eat or drink in case it wasn't the right thing to do. Finally, after an hour, the Animal Control woman arrived and put him in her van. She was going to drive him to a wildlife rehabilitation center in the country, run by a couple who rehabilitate animals and provide educational workshops to local schools. She told me they had a whole pen full of one-winged seagulls. This one seemed like it had a better chance.

Usually I agree it is best to let nature take its course, particularly with regard to baby wild animals, which will usually die without constant expert care, or may be waiting for their mother to retrieve them. In this case, though, it seemed possible to save its life and spontaneous action led to its (hopeful) survival. Of course, many people will scoff at the idea of saving a seagull or a pigeon, but even these creatures have brains and nerves and living, beating hearts. These cases can often pose ethical dilemmas. If it had indeed been hit by a car the best thing to do probably would have been to just let it get run over by another car, putting a swift end to its misery. Even so, if it had died after we rescued it, at least it would have died more naturally, in a warm place without a fishing lure stuck in its beak.

In any case, hopefully Icarus will survive and be able to fly the ocean skies once again.

One thing I couldn't figure out was how it wound up downtown in the street with a fishing lure in its mouth. A friend of mine and I came up with the theory that it probably had the hook stuck in its beak and was flying away from the waterfront, when, near the downtown area, the second hook became stuck in its side, making it impossible for the bird to navigate or fly.

One lucky bird. One very long coffee break.

Photo Credit:US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Free Photo Accessed Through Gimp.Savvy

Lammas Celestial Poetry Evening

2008-08-02T12:35:00.001-07:00

[Photo credit: www.freedigitalphotos.net]

Thanks to my dear friend, Lunden, I attended the Lammas Celestial Poetry Evening at Southworth Planetarium last night. It was cosmic, to say the least. Sitting in reclining chairs in the celestial dark, illuminated by a facsimile of the night sky overhead, as well as occasional shots of the sun, moon and various astronomical events, we were treated to readings of poetry by Robert Frost, Shakespeare, Nanao Sakaki, Rabidranath Tagore and a number of local poets, by a number of local poets. There was even a song, sung in a plaintive lunary voice with accompaniment on a resonant parlor guitar.

The evening was divided into "Canto I: Earth and Sky," "Canto II, Moon and Worlds," "Canto III: Stars and Space" and "Canto IV: Cosmos." During the intermission we were treated to granola, cookies and delicious bread and butter, compliments of Big Sky Bakery. The evening wrapped up with a stunning performance/poem entitled "Micro-Macrocosm," that encouraged the listeners to follow a meditation paralleling the microcosms of the body with the macrocosms of the skies. COSMIC!

According to Wikipedia, "Lammas is a neopagan holiday, being a cross-quarter holiday between the Summer Solstice (Litha) and Fall Equinox (Mabon). It is opposite Candlemas or Imbolc, in early February. Lammas takes place with the Sun near the midpoint of Leo." "Loaf-mass" Day is also a celebration of the first wheat harvest of the year in olden times, back when we all had wheat harvests to celebrate. Apparently (also according to my friend, Wikipedia), "neopaganism" is any one of a variety of religious movements influenced by pre-Christian "pagan" religions. I think, at this moment in history, that being a neopagan, or at least celebrating a neopagan holiday, is not a bad thing by any means.

During the intermission my friend and I got to explore other cool things at the planetarium, including a holographic "ghost" whose head will turn to follow your movements, a portrait of the Mrs. Southworth who inspired the planetarium in memory of her husband (she looks like she's wearing a copper hat ), a machine that will give you a measurement of your weight on other planets and a bunch of cool old maps.

Remember: "lunatic," or "lunatik" in Middle English or "lunatique" in Old French, comes from the Latin lūnāticus, meaning moonstruck.

Stonington

2008-07-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

driving
bright orange moon
dream roads

Friday morning
on an island
no cubicles

two larch trees
part of the harbor's
intricate music

meadow of sighs
rich forest scents
crows above

sun tastes
wild meadow
blueberries

such loud silence
to city ears -- lone
fog horn

summer rain
garden snails inch
the dusk

Thunderstorm Over Lake Saint George

2008-07-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whitely

2008-06-27T11:19:00.001-07:00

My friend Lunden lent me the book The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whitely by Opal Stanley Whitely and Benjamin Hoff. It is amazing. Born in 1897, she lived in an Oregon logging camp, where she started composing a diary at the age of six. The diary chronicled her adventures with various animals (such as William Shakespeare the horse, Peter Paul Rubens the pig, Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus the wood rat and Brave Horatius the dog) as well as flowers and trees, which she also imaginatively named. She established an animal and plant nursery in the forest, where she planted flowers, cared for sick mice and birds and held services in the forest "cathedral," where she would say prayers and sing. Unfortunately, this behavior garnered more punishment than praise from her mother, who was not generally impressed with Opal's shenanigans and explorations. Filled with sweetness and occasional tragedy, her diary is utterly unique.

"All those trees are my friends. I call them by names I have given to them. I call them Hugh Capet, and Saint Louise, and Good King Edward I--and the tallest one of all is Charlemagne, and the one around where the little flowers talk most is William Wordsworth; and there are Byron, and Keats, and Shelley."

"Aphrodite [a pig] has got a nice blue ribbon all her very own, to wear when we go walking down the lane, and to services in the cathedral. . . On yesterday, when I was coming my way home from school, I did meet with Sadie McKibben [a person]. It was nice to see her freckles, and the smiles in her eyes. She did have me to shut my eyes, and she did lay in my hand the new blue ribbon for Aphrodite that the man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice did have her to get. I felt glad feels over. I gave her all our thanks. I did have knowing all my animal friends would be glad for the remembers of the needs of Aphrodite for a blue ribbon."

"I ran a quick run to the pig-pen, to show it to Aphrodite. I gave her little pats on the nose, and long rubs on the ears, and I did tell her all about it. I did hold it close to her eyes, so she could have well seeing of its beautiful blues, like the blues of the sky."

"When I did have her a nice bed for bracken fern, and some more all about her, I went goes to get the other folks. back with me came Brace Horatius [the dog], and Lars Porsena of Clusium [a pet crow], and Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus [a velvety wood rat], and Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil [a toad], and Felix Mendelssohn [a pet mouse], and Louis II le Grand Conde [a pet mouse]. When we were all come, I did climb into the pig-pen and I did tie on Aphrodite's new ribbon, so they all might have seeing of its blues like the sky. I sang a little thank song, and we had prayers, and I gave Aphrodite little scratches on the back with a little stick, like she does so like to have me do. . .
"Now teacher is looking very straight looks at me. She says, 'Opal, put that away.' I so do."

As an adult, an edited version of the diary was published by The Atlantic and garnered accolades, followed by criticism, as reporters and critics questioned whether or not the diary was actually written by a child or Opal as an adult. Opal eventually traveled to England and India, but suffered from a mental illness (probably schizophrenia,) which grew worse as she grew older. She spent nearly the last 50 years of her life in an asylum in England. Benjamin Hoff has done a remarkable job of researching Opal's life and his book of her diary also includes rich historical background and photographs. This is a book I will never forget.

More info on Opal can be found at the Opal Whitely Memorial website and the Cottage Grove, Oregon website.

Sadly, Benjamin Hoff (he is also the author of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet) had less than inspiring experiences with the multinational corporations who now own a large chunk of the publishing world. His essay, explaining why he decided to leave the book-writing profession, is quite interesting.

Rilke's Letters on Cézanne

2008-06-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters on Cézanne, aptly translated by Joel Agee, is a treatise on seeing that manages to remain startling. Rilke lived in the late 1800 and early 1900s and the letters, devoted largely to responses to Rilke's viewings of Cézanne's work at the Salon D'Automne in Paris in 1907, comprise a strange meandering essay that reflects Rilke's own unique brand of spirtual aesthetics refracted through a prism of meditations on Paris and the painting process.

Rilke's writing style is both old-fashioned and timeless. Above all there is a sense of intellectual acuity and innate innocence combined with a sense of adventurousness that it would be all but impossible to recapture in our overexposed, oversaturated, cynical times. Although at times the theme linking the letters together seems a tad too strained to engender a unified book, the letters create a fascinating window into another mind in another time that is worth cohabiting.

Some excerpts:

"Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger,of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further."

". . . all the summer flowers, the dahlia and the tall gladiolas and the long rows of geraniums shot the contradiction of their red into the mist."

"Perhaps one has to have a clearer insight into the nature of one's 'task,' get a more tangible hold on it, recognize it in a hundred details."

"If only one had nothing but work memories from the beginning: how firm the ground would be under one's feet, one would stand. But this way, there isn't a moment when one isn't sinking in somewhere. That it's this way inside, too: double world -- that's the worst thing of all."

". . . with this disposition, which was completely developed now, thanks to his strangeness and insularity, he turned to nature and knew how to swallow back his love for every apple and put it to rest in the painted apple forever. Can you imagine what that is like, and what it' like to experience this through him?"

"Although one of his idiosyncrasies is to use pure chrome yellow and burning lacquer red in his lemons and apples, he knows how to contain their loudness within the picture: cast into a listening blue, as if into an ear, it receives a silent response from within, so that no one outside needs to think himself addressed or accosted."

"To achieve the conviction and substantiality of things, a reality intensified and potentiated to the point of indestructibility by his experience of the object, this seemed to himto be the purpose of his innermost work. . . "

". . . it was Balzac who had foreseen or forefelt that in painting you can suddenly come upon something so huge that no one can deal with it."

"Landscapes, very light pencil outlines and, here and there, as if just for emphasis and confirmation, there's an accidental scattering of color, a row of spots, wonderfully arranged and with a security of touch: as if mirroring a melody --."

"The night cafe [by Van Gogh] I already wrote about; but a lot more could be said about its artificial wakefulness in wine red, lamp yellow, deep and utterly shallow green, with three mirrors, each of which contains a different emptiness. "

"Just as in the mouth of a dog various secretions will gather in anticipation at the approach of various things -- consenting ones for drawing out nutrients, and correcting ones to neutralize poisions: in the same way, various intensifications and dilutions take place in the core of every color, helping it to survive contact with others."

Post Mortem: I bought the hardcover volume for $2.00 at an annual local library booksale. The library does not retain a copy of the book. It was lightly marked with some pencil and probably hadn't been checked out in years. It is an excellent library, which I use all the time. Still, I wonder about the lack of a replacement copy and the decision to exile it in the first place.

Polaroid Archive

2008-05-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Tournesols

Indian Summer

Viola

Autumn Beguiles the Fatalist

Winter Zazzle

The Ice King

Recherche de le temps perdu

La Bicyclette

On February 8, 2008, Poloraid announced it would discontinue production of all instant film by August, 2009.

Space Auction May Also Serve As a Swan Song.

Trees Series: #4

2008-05-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

Drawing With Imagination

2008-05-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

I find it a challenge to draw from imagination, though I want to develop that ability. Illustrations and graphic novels are very appealing to me, and I would like to write and illustrate a graphic novel some day. I've perused countless drawing and creativity books. Most of them look interesting on the surface, but either present daunting schedules and exercises or long philosophical diatribes about "how to be creative" that leave me feeling more inept and unmotivated that before. Ironic that books about creative motivation should have that result. Most of the "how-to" books don't appeal to me either -- the technical approaches are often illustrated by the highly stylized artwork of one author and/or are technically dazzling but emotionally sterile.

Last year, however, I stumbled across a marvelous book called Keys to Drawing with Imagination, "strategies and exercises for gaining confidence and enhancing your creativity" by Bert Dodson. I found out about it from the lines and colors blog, my favorite art blog, which is filled with intriguing entries on fine art, drawing, illustration and more.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination is beautifully designed with a hard-cover wrapped around a spiral bending, so you can keep easily keep it open for reference. Best of all, though it contains delightful observations and insights, it isn't drowning in advice, but is mainly focused on fun, free-ranging exercises that plunge you straight into a world of creative experimentation. Besides featuring Dodson's lively illustrations , it also features examples by other artists (Steven Guarnaccia, Michael Mitchell, Zelme Loseke, R. Crumb and others) so you dont get stuck in one particular vision.

I've been working on "Doodling Algorithms," part of the "Doodling and Noodling" chapter. Though they sound silly, for me these are very liberating and instructive exercises.

Speaking of alogirthms, math is other thing I'm fascinated by but not very good at. An algorithm is basically a list of well-defined instructions that yields a result. Sounds simple. But they can be very complex. Also known as "calculation method," the term comes from a mis-translation of the name of the Persian astronomer and mathematician Al-Khwarizmi. What's even better is that no formal definition of an algorithm even exists! Algorithms are closely related to computer programming, flow charts and mechanical automation. Generative Art is a genre referring to art constructed by automated or programmed computer algorithms.

Dodson's algorithmic exercises utilize structured patterns, constructed in simple steps, such as waves, ropes, geometrics and shape clusters.

Another of his approaches, "building blocks," is reminiscent of fractals, patterns created through fragemented shapes composed of miniature repetitions of the whole. Naturally occuring fractal-like forms include lightning bolts, snowflakes, clouds and ferns.

Soon I'll be taking a class on creating picture books for children and adults, which covers everything from pocket art books to graphic novels, where I hope to put some of the ideas garnered from Dodson's excellent book into practice.

Henna

2008-05-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

Genevieve Levin (http://www.remarkableblackbird.com/) made this beautiful henna design at Space Gallery's flea market event Friday night. She put glitter on top for the paste; the actual henna tattoo will stay on for a few weeks!

Tree Series: New Drawing

2008-04-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

Drawing portraits of trees is similar to drawing portraits of people. One can read history and character from branches, lines and contours.

Art & Fear

2008-04-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

Art

Writing and drawing/art-making are my passions, yet I often feel like Sisyphus rolling his huge boulder up the mountain every time I embark on an artistic endeavor. Why should this be? I'm not sure, but I know it has to do with at least two things: time and faith.

Time

What writing and art require more than anything else is time. Time to contemplate, revel, see, think and work. When you have to budget your time due to jobs, household duties and other obligations, it is a challange to budget creative time, which always seems the most expendible, the first thing to get lobbed off at the knees. Even when you do budgt for creative time, it's hard to guarantee you won't be exhausted or overwhelmed when you're supposed to be energetic and inspired. Forget the myth of the creative bolt of lightning. Having the will to create is all it takes to be creative. Still, that will can be easily eroded.

Faith

Will and faith are interconnected. Lack of faith is crippling to having the will tor work on that poem or to start that daunting sketch (and every sketch is daunting). Here are a few thoughts that get in the way:

The world is filled with art and writing. There's just so MUCH of it allready. Why bother?

My work isn't any good. I'm never satisifed and I'm not really an artist.

I'm just an amateur. I don't want my work to be amateur.

The counterarguments go like this:

So what? The means ARE the end. The true triumph of creating lies within creating itself -- the act matters more than the result. The creation of art is a revolutionary act, a defiance of complacence, an emphatic declaration of the vital, immortal persistance of the human spirit.

Drawing isn't about "being great." It's about drawing. It's about a meditative serendipitous task that is filled with frustration, delight and, most of all, surprise. It isn't really about the drawing -- it is all about the artist.

By the way, the best book I've read on the subject of how artists struggle with art-making is a book called Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It's a psychological gem that demystifies alot of "art drama."

The Drawing

I wanted to draw a particular Copper Beach tree. I took photos (sometimes considered a "no-no") and one day got as far as finding the right piece of paper I wanted to draw on. Then I lost steam. Unmotivated and deflated, I lacked the mental enthusiasm and acuity I needed to start. So I put the paper awa and left it for another day.

Several weeks later, having gotten a jump on the endless round of household chores that weekend, I decided to start fairly early in the day, before I got too sidetracked or worn out. I got my paper, my pencils, took a deep breath, and dove in.

I was afraid the drawing wouldn't go well, but I tried to put all those kinds of thoughts out of my head and started. This was the key moment. I completely focused on drawing, trying not to worry about the outcome. After the initial sketch, I started doing light shading, mapping out areas, skipping from one area to another. For hours I worked, doing my best to capture what I wanted to capture -- the strength, beauty and mystery of the tree. I was occasionally niggled by thoughts of the dirty floors I had yet to sweep, the dust clinging to the furniture everywhere in sight and the dirty clothes I needed to wash for the next work week, but for the most part I was able to resist those evil saboteurs.

Artistically, one of the biggest frustrations I face is with myself. I long for my style to be freer, looser, more gestural, less controlled. Generally I think my style is too tight, too anal, too literal. On the other hand, part of me revels in the illustrative quality of my work and I don't think it is spiritless or passionless. Just awfully compulsive.

I love doing it and I resist doing it.

Next comes the evaluation stage. Time to take a break, stand back, move around and give the work some distance. Does it need more shading? Which areas need more work? Should the background be left white? My instinct was to lay in some nice blue color with colored pencils. Or would that be overboard? Would it look amateurish? Screw it. I'm doing it anyway.

This all takes patience. Like most people I want instant gratification with the least possible effort. Though the effort feels good -- true, real and validating -- it's also work and it's occasionally a big risk. What if I invest all this time and energy and I hate the results? Well, that's the hard part. But none of it is ever wasted, because creative work is active and instructive. Every failed effort as value, sometimes even more than what we think of as "the successes."

The real trick is to forget about time as a commodity, an investment, or a means to an end. In other words, the best thing is to forget everything society ever taught you. Then it's all pure bliss.

I love the tension, the conflict, the challenge of making, deciding, adding, changing, trying to find resolution and balance without going to far, without overworking the think and ruining it. It also drives me nuts and is exhausting. But it's the most inspiring kind of exhaustion in the world.

Hours later, after leaving it for awhile, doing errands, coming back, I think it looks great. It's one of the best drawings I've ever done! Except for that flat part. How can I fix that? And what about the balance of darks and light. I think it needs to be touched up a bit. I think it needs work. Maybe it's not so great. Maybe it's even "bad." No, overall, I feel good about it. That's what counts. And I made something! I chose to wrestle. I didn't just lie down. I triumphed over lethargy and inertia. At least for now.

Finale

Is it done?

No.

Will it ever be done?

No.

But therein lies the real beauty. In the open doorway, the constant sky, the twirling cosmos, the undanceable danceable dance.

Ebune, The Procession of the Ram

2008-04-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

Ebune: The 5th Annual Parade of masks, puppets and music in celebration of spring. The Ram is a symbol of fertility and renewal. The cross-cultural procession includes West African, astrological, Greek, Egyptian and Judeo-Christian elements. It is led by Oscar Mokeme, director of the Museum of African Culture, in collaboration with A Company of Girls.

Postcards From the Subconscious

2008-04-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

This week I went to an Adult Ed "Past Life Regression" workshop with my friend J.L. I was very excited about it just because it was something new and different and utilized hypnotherapy. I didn't have any great expectations or prejudices to begin with, especially because I already knew that the state of hypnosis is not as obscure or romanticized as most people think from watching movies. I knew that daydreaming or being "lost" in your work are both light forms of hypnosis; that any trance state is, in fact, known as being in a hypnotic state.

I had also had some experiences with hypnosis in the past, having read hypnosis scripts and having hypnotized myself on occasion, resulting in extremely vivid experiences. As the teacher said later, "You will only see things you are ready to see. . . "

The class took place in a rather bleak classroom at an arts and technology high school. It had gray walls and old tables and chairs, but did feature an anamolous bright green carpet resembling astroturf. There were about 16 women and one man, primarily in their '40s and '50s, though a couple looked like they could be in their '30s. I wasn't surprised by the age group attracted to this topic -- as you start to age, you start to wonder more specifically about past and future lives.

The teacher, a Clinical Hypnotherapist, began by telling us about her background and how she was introduced to hypnotherapy and talked about some theories of reincarnation. She gave us the names of several authors to read, such as Brian Weiss, whom she had studied with, and Ian Stevenson and Michael Talbot. I had never heard of them or their books, though I thought I might look up some of their books at the library, just to see what they were like. Also on the handout sheet were some nifty quotes by authors like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who wrote, "As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again, you are merely a vague guest on a dark Earth." As a student of Tibetan Buddhism, I tend to agree.

The teacher talked some more about hypnotism and reincarnation and gave us some hints as to what was to come. Finally, after a bathroom break, we were ready to begin.

I lay down on the floor, on the mat I had brought, head-to-head with my friend J.L. and made myself comfortable by wrapping up in a blanket and resting my head on the pillow I'd brought. I was very comfy in no time. The teacher dimmed the lights and put on some nice New Age-y music and led us in a long relaxation exercise, from head to toe, during which we were instructed to let go of our fears and worries, breath deeply, and allow each section of our bodies to become more and more relaxed. I had a slight resistance, having had a database snafu at work just before I came to class, which had made me anxious, but I soon forgot about the database, work, and everything else, and became sleepy and warm in my blanket-womb. I felt somewhat like an insect in a warm pod. As the teacher spoke, I visualized my body wrapped in a purple-blue colored gauzy energy that sparkled.

Then she led us in a guided hypnotic session, which I will recount as I experienced it. . .

I went down some stairs and came to an opening outside, with a path amongst many birch trees. On either side of the trees were fields and it was bright green and sunny with an azure blue sky. I felt intensely happy there and warm, with the sun beating down on me in a summertime climate. There were birds and the air was golden and pure. I walked down the path and came to a temple (see Postcard #1 above) that was oddly shaped and made out of large olive-green stones. It had some Asian features to it, but the most striking part to me were the large green stones. I went up to the door and went inside into a room that was lit by the sunlight streaming in from windows. There was an oldish man there, with ruddy cheeks and a white beard. He was friendly and smiling. This was my Spirit Guide. I don't remember him speaking to me.

We sat down in the room across from a low table and drank fragrant tea out of square stone cups that matched a square stone teapot. After awhile, we arose and my Guide led me out of the room. He showed me another room, where there was a large sunken area of water, with blue dolphins painted above. Then we went down a hallway where there were many different doors, with doorknobs made of different kinds of gemstones such as lapis lazuli and agate.

I opened one of the doors and stepped into another world. . .

My bare feet were in soft warm golden sand and I was standing on the shore of a large sea. I am not sure if it was an island or a coast, but it was Greece in the 1950s. There were colorful boats in the distance and trees and birds and the water was blue-green. My name was Barbara (the teacher cued us to try to remember places, years and names) and I was wearing a robe-like dress and had long blonde hair piled on my head. I was in my late 30s I believe. Then I realized there were other footprints and other people in the distance. I saw a man a little ways away, standing next to a huge piece of driftwood. He had black hair and a beard and his name was Michael or Michel.

I knew Michael and recognized him as untrustworthy. I began walking, meaning to walk up to him, but instead I smiled and walked past him. Once I walked past I felt a great weight lifted, and was filled with a sense of independence and freedom. I enjoyed the vibrant scenery and sea air and realized I was wearing a pendant around my neck.

Then I stepped back through the door and into the hallway. I selected another room and put my hand on another of the gemstone doorknobs and entered yet another world. . .

This time I was a Japanese woman dressed in a beautiful kimono. I was standing against a breathtaking backdrop of rock, waterfall and mist-laden heights. I was modeling for a painting that an older man was painting of me. It was the 1700s and the painter was my master. I guess I was his concubine. My name was Kyoto or Kyoko. He was very kind and good to me and treated me extremely well. The two emotional conflicts I felt were that I was somewhat proud of my beauty, and though I had a good heart, I knew that this pride would cost me a certain price. The other emotion I sensed was loneliness because I had been taken from my family when I was young, so I had very few memories of them and was haunted by this absence. I was happy while modeling, however, because I loved my master. He signalled me over to him to take a break and have a drink of something. The scenery was pristine and magnificent.

Then I went back into the hallway, where the Guide was waiting. All the other doors were doorways to other scenes or lives I could come revisit at any time. He smiled and led me to a library that was outfitted with dark mahogany furniture and deep plush couches and a thick soft patterened rug. There were many old books on dark, well-built shelves and there was also a TV and DVD player and coffee (!). I picked out one of the books, which was bound in rich leather and had a white moon on the cover, and looked through it. There were rich three-dimensional colored pictures of sea-life in it.

Then I chose a DVD and put it in the DVD player and watched some footage that was a black-and-white movie about myself as a woman in in autumn in New England. There was an old car and a house on a suburban street. There was the sense of a tragic family life. I knew that my life would be short.

I opened another book and saw myself living in a village in Mongolia. I was in a village square, watching. All the women wore black shawls and long dresses and there was a yak in the middle of the square, which a woman was milking. The village was poor yet pretty and though it was a gray day, there was a sense of insular harmony and satisfaction. Or rather, the absence of "dissatisfaction." I sensed there was little leisure time in this village and that living here meant a lifetime of hard and constant work.

Then the teacher led us out of the library and back out of the temple and back along the path and instructed us to awaken.

I felt wonderful and groggy. My primary anxiety was to write down everything I had just experienced, knowing I would forget some details. As I scribbled frantically in my journal book, the others began to sit up and stretch, like animals emerging from hibernation or insects emerging from chrysalis.

There wasn't much time left to talk about our experiences -- just time for a few quick questions. Some of the women had been afraid to enter the doorways. I felt sad they hadn't had the kind of experiences I had.

In the end, I don't know if the scenes I entered were from past lives or not. I know I could have gone on exploring them, and may go back again to do so. In any case, these "postcards from the subconscious" were definitely a creative vacation from my waking life. . .

Note: After I did the drawings for this post, I noticed a recurring lunar theme posited in the shapes of the temple roof, the boats and the horns of the yak. I wondered if this was a subconscious reflection of the moon literature I had been reading (see previous post)or if it was connected to my current lifetime birthday in late August, during the waning moon. . .

Earth Hour

2008-03-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Earth Hour Day across the globe. It started in Sydney, Australia, and coincides with National Dark Sky Week in the U.S. It only requires turning off electric lights and other nonessential appliances from 8 to 9 p.m. on March 29.

We turned off everything except the coffeemaker (essential appliance) and ate dinner by candlelight. It was strange and refreshing not to have any light or noise, to hear the city pulsating in the background and navigate the dark rooms with candles, as in an emergency or blackout.

By candlelight I read Moon Lore, a handsomely designed hardcover book that is part of The Moon Box, published by Chronicle Books. Moon Lore is one of four volumes; the other three are The Were-Wolf, The Moon Goddess and Somnium. Edited by John Miller and Tim Smith, the books are richly illustrated with small blue images from sources ranging from Assyrian times to old French texts and Sicilian coins. The Moon Lore volume includes folktales from South Africa and Tibet, as well as poems by Denise Levertov, Erica Jong and William Blake, fiction by Italo Calvino, and "Moon Gardening of the Pennsylvania Dutch" among other lunology. I got this for a steal at $4 at Strange Maine. (By the way, there's a great unrelated blog of the same name written by a remarkable local artist and lorist.)

I love the anonymous moon haiku included in the book:

The moon's in mid-heaven;
I wander
Through poor streets.

The summer moon shines
On transient dreams
In the octopus pot.

The next morning I had vivid dreams. In one of them I was rowing a small boat, using a spatula for an oar, which actually worked. Later I listened to "Star-Child" and "Mundus Canis" from George Crumb's Birthday Album ad Amnesiac by Radiohead. I drew the picture you see here and wrote the following poem:

Moon Lore

bitter bright unyielding
heart tome

silver spell trove
frozen sleigh bells

fine white ropes
from root to vein

old fear bones
and marigold scars

ocean dusk wine brine
sea horse skies

magic lantern
of demigods

March Haiku

2008-03-02T10:33:00.001-08:00

city dressed in sparkling
white jewelry disappearing
in spring rain

[Photo and haiku March 1, 2008]

Seen, Heard, Read

2008-03-02T09:56:00.001-08:00

Stay Close by Death Vessel (CD)
Amazing folk-rock songs with fanciful lyrics written and sung by a striking male tenor (Joel Thimbadeau) with help from his Philadelphia friends. www.deathvessel.com

Ivan's Childhood by Andrei Tarkovsky (DVD)
Tarkovsky's first film. Disturbing, touching, reverberating tale of a child soldier

The Quiet Child by Peter Hoeg (Novel)
Difficult tumbling tale by the Dutch master about gifted children with extra-sensory powers and the circus clown hired to track them down. A tough read, but worth it for sentences like this: "He lost consciousness again, slowly, like a young girl strolling downtown." And "A person must be careful when answering the telephone -- someday it could be one of the great clowns calling."

Ooga Booga by Frederic Seidel (Poetry)
One of the most amazing books of poetry I've read in the last few years, by a true virtuoso.

The Hill Bachelors by William Trevor (Stories)
Haunting stories with rich characters delicately described by the Irish master.

Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources by Claude Berri (DVD)
Tragic tale of fate, cruelty and love set in French Provence in the 1920s. The cinematography is lucid and riveting and the performances, especially by Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil, are supurb.

Burning Chrome by William Gibson (Stories)
I hate science fiction except for books by William Gibson, which I love for the imagery, style and visual descriptiveness. Since I've been doing a lot of database work, I especially liked reading "Johnny Mneumonic." Though his characters can be a bit stiff, there is a theatricality to his writing that is quite remarkable.

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (DVD)
This documentary of Pete Seeger is absorbing and inspiring. Folk music as agent for social change and community -- what an idea!

Nature, Poems Old and New by May Swenson (Poetry)

Camoufleur

Walked in the swamp His cheek vermilion
A dazzling prince
Neck-band white Cape he trailed
Metallic mottled
Over rain-rotted leaves Wet mud reflected
Waded olive water
His opulent gear Pillars of the reeds
Parted the strawgold
Brilliance Made him disappear

Folk Songs by Trio Mediaeval (CD)
Traditional songs from Norway arranged for voices and percussion. Celestial.

Saint Morrissey (A Portrait of This Charming Man by An Alarming Fan) by Mark Simpson (non-fiction)
I found this one at the library sale shelf for $3 and it's somewhat entertaining. At times repetitive and irritating, this is not so much a biography of Morrissey as a psychoanalysis of his music, which, as the author notes at the start, pretty much speaks for itself. Nonetheless it's chock full of quirky details about the quirky pop star. Simpson even coins a neologism: "melanalgia" to describe Morrissey's trademark: melancholia mixed with nostalgia.

Pandora

2008-03-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

After hearing about Pandora (music from the Radio Genome Project) I finally tried it on day and was instantly hooked. Best of all it's FREE!

The way it works, is you can easily and quickly custom design your own radio station to play all your favorite songs, and songs that you will most likely love. I quickly designed my own radio station to play a rotating mix of Pentangle, Dead Can Dance, Depeche Mode, Philip Glass, Elvis Costello, The Smiths, Bjork, Sigur Ros, The Cure, Toots & The Maytals, Star Sailor and others. It also analyzes your choices to play a wide range of "similar" musical styles. This is hit or miss, but you can easily tell it you like the selection or ban it from your radio station with a click of the mouse. I've even trained it to play a narrow and particular type of "bad" genre '80s radio music. I've also been introduced to some new artists I like such as Wizz Jones.

In the words of Pandora.com: "It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it so and it will get better for you.

The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help you connect with the music YOU like."

Gnarled

2007-12-02T17:20:00.001-08:00

Weekend

2007-12-02T17:16:00.001-08:00

or the obliteration of 9 to 5

island of mirth
tyranny of dishes
aged wilderness
pushed back and forth
trembling in the cracks
footholds and stones

silent aircraft
cushioned by warmth
sandwiched by cold blasts
from the icy furnace

lost ways
that begin to ravel
just in time for Monday's
senseless debacle

Metamorphosis: A Journey of Dolls

2007-07-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing exhibit at the drawing room of dolls who were collaborated on by three groups of artists: Alex Rheault, Marina Post, Martha Miller, Debra Milman, Marti McGinnis, jackie Kazarian, Barbara Loring, Cynthia Atwood, Sue Beauchemin, Jen Davis, Jennifer Gingras, Kirsten Gingras and Jo Goiran. The dolls are very elaborate and come with detailed books of the creative process behind each doll, containing sketches, diaries, stories, poems, photographs and more.

The Shimmering City: Portland Haiku

2007-07-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Some Excerpts:

worn gray
buildings tilt in ocean
cell phone ring

yellow claw
digging up the city
from its roots

water view
reflections dancing below
this world

birds play
around the great crane's
iron sail

silver glints
seagulls picnic outside
the fish market

giant crane
digging hole where
the red sumac sang

the catch arrives
boats float on
green-blue clouds

castle clouds
summer city adrift
above the city

waterfront deck
The Doppelganger sails into
the rising harbor

blue businessman
shiny shoes
hole in black sock

sunmmer day
colored harbor: cell phones
glitter in sun

echoes of wings and ghosts
remain vibrant
in memory park

a million greens
and blues live here
in sunlit pines

three pine trees:
the summer city
listens

Inspiration

2007-07-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Recently Read:

The Hide by Barry Unsworth
The Partnership by Barry Unsworth
Night Train by Martin Amis
Miniatures by Barbara Guest
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
In the Dutch Mountains by Cees Nooteboom
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill by Mark Bittner
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Recently Seen:

Pan's Labyrinth
The Illusionist
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Recently Heard:

The Silver Tree by Lisa Gerrard
The Break In by Ari Hest
White Blood Cells by White Stripes

Damariscotta

2007-07-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

Gilsland Farm Sculpture Show

2007-07-15T09:34:00.001-07:00

Maine Audubon

A Sculpture Show by a Variety of Artists Presented by June Lacombe

Prout's Neck

2007-06-03T12:18:00.001-07:00

Pine Tree State Arboretum

2007-06-03T12:14:00.001-07:00

Tulips

2007-05-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Crow Sculpture

2007-05-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Kaya and Tulips

2007-05-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

Royalty

2007-05-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

bergamot haze
images flutter and fold
card tricks in a
pine grove of sleep
tiny gold crowns
buried in the leaves
sparkle through ash and charcoal
the seaport is festooned with dragons
the brick pavilions are filled with paper
instructors hands are filled with dogma
the painter on the roof
is named August he is
harvesting spirals
the fishermans says Ah
the black and white dog is prince
of the sea

April

2007-05-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

across from the white cemetery
an espresso bubble
the plain speak is turgid relief
pallid blue the speech
of memory

she wore a green gown
and waded hem-soaked into
an ocean of sand
ran across the tressel singing

the black and white pages have turned
into color
an essential parachute has collapsed
tiny spiders
rule the Earth

Ebune, Celebration of the Ram

2007-04-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

April 1 Spring Parade

After the Solstice

2006-12-31T11:43:00.000-08:00

What is he thinking
As he watches the snow fall now
Outside the sky-like window
Of the exotic bakery?

It is past the solstice now:
The abnormal days of rain
Swept behind us; part of the tunnel's memory,
Part of the inflatables

And the three swinging snowmen,
Mechanical electric deer,
Heaped plates and platters, desserts and promises,
Mountains of bright paper, boxes and bows.

We drove headlong into the dark sea,
Guided by the rushing world, oblivious to war
And carnage, wrapped in our
Excelsior thoughts.

Unimaginable foreign lives
Passed like insects, their unique fates
Flickering like common miracles
Glimpsed through a yawn.

There is a stonecutter nearby
Who built a solstice cave of stone.
For one week only, and only on immaculate days
Blue as pearls

Could one sit and watch the light
Enter the carved bird's mouth,
Sound the note of rebirth, until the lengthening bar
Resumed the shape of a human form.

September

2006-09-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

This World of Dew

2006-09-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

this world of dew
is only a world of dew --
and yet

Issa

Ocean Window

2006-09-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

shimmering window
on this hazy August day
in the studio

Annie Seikonia

Vegetable World

2006-09-10T06:50:00.000-07:00

the vegetable world
has its own color
vocabulary

Annie Seikonia

Come Out to View

2006-09-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

come out to view
the truth of flowers blooming
in poverty

Basho

Grisaille Study

2006-07-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

This is a homework assignment from the Colored Pencil Class in which we practice the "grisaille" technique. "Grisaille" is French for grey or shadow, and refers typically to a drawing or painting done all in tones of gray. Our assignment was to create a grisaille drawing and then add one color to it.