let's talk about love!

the terrible temptation? the great need? whatever we say will sound true to someone.

the desire to have your back rubbed, (sex), the house full of physical warmth when you come home from work (a reason to work). something to keep our life off-balance. the unexpected. the expected.

personally, i've always been miserable when depending on someone else for my happiness. (last night, ran into an old friend. he looks a lot less depressed after his second divorce. maybe artists should never marry.)

on the other hand, the warm, fuzzy feelings, where will you get them? a friend maintains they all come from your own kids. but with these extra parts of your nervous system running about beyond your control, what then?

i've consulted the goddess herself, and this is what she has to say on the subject: www.pbase.com/wwp/aphrodite maybe a word of wisdom will help you through the treacherous whirlpools of love.

woody allen meets ingmar bergmann

at least one can hope! i can't think of how to describe my first play - 'the wedding of love and death' - to be done at the blue room theater, years ago. the wedding dress made of toilet paper was probably the highlight.

the only time i've proposed was by mail to a woman ten thousand miles away and from another culture (japan). wisely, she turned me down.

still, what if?

www.pbase.com/wwp/wedding

creating your own worlds

friends have said a number of wise things about me. one: you want everybody talking about you, but you don't want to be there. two: you keep a toe in reality so you can live the rest in fantasy.

what an incredible invention the computer is! when i got my first laptop five years ago, i had to try everything, spent hours and hours with different programs. this was my only venture in 3d with bryce 5 (now of daz productions.) it was fun just to explore and experiment. i've posted a few samples: www.pbase.com/wwp/dreamscapes

if you've had to work hard all your life, this would be the perfect toy on your deathbed, providing your spirit with possibilities for the next time around.

the 1st replacement

it's embarassing! going through eleven collections of aphorisms, i realized i'd posted the very worst one - 'the enigma variations' - seduced by its title. that group full of commonplaces and worse, bad moods, bitter thoughts. so, i've dumped it. it's gone. (sorry if you liked it!)

only three of the aphoristic endeavours seem worth repeating. i've posted one: 'unified field theory.' i've been fascinated that einstein could never prove his intuition, "god does not play dice." frankly, i'm skeptical of his statement. however, when events like the invention of photography appear in several places at once, i'm left wondering.

true, you can muster the facts to prove any paradigm, especially ones opposing each other: the world is round, the world is flat. thus, i say, believe whatever you want, as long as you don't force it on anyone else. the world remains a mystery.

here's the theoretical post: www.pbase.com/wwp/unified

if you'd like a quick rundown and access of recent posts, go to: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/root&view=recent

now for something completely different!

by now my lifelong interest in zen is obvious. when i was 17, i cut my teeth wandering among the beatniks. san francisco. north beach. the co-existence bagel shop. mike's place. i listened to the likes of gary snyder and gregory corso read poetry. loitered in city lights bookstore. absorbing the time and place, though nobody noticed me.

being a lookout may have come out of this, though i visited my first lookout, cone peak in pinnacles national monument, at age 11 and discovered years later i could see this lookout from my cradle in solidad, california. perhaps i once stood on the towers of sparta, waiting for the fiery message from the troops at troy. who knows? stranger things have happened.

anyway, zen. finally made it to japan (twice) and when i came back in 2000, i got the bug to draw pictures and write fake japanese captions. here they are: www.pbase.com/wwp/koans a koan, you remember, is a meditation puzzle: 'what is the sound of one-hand clapping?' that stumps the mind until it gives up and lives in the present.

hope you enjoy them. please let me know if i unconsciously, accidently wrote something meaningful in japanese!

a marriage of true minds

today's post is a gift to heather barnett and joe minner, married yesterday in livermore california. (you can see pictures of heather at www.pbase.com/wwp/heather i've known her since she was knee-high to a grasshopper). many good wishes to both of them.

i put this anthology together some years ago. whatever we wish to create, we must love to see, read, experience, celebrate. this was my way. and i pass it on to the new couple. www.pbase.com/wwp/eros

Your eyes are glowing

With the red wine:

How shall I extinguish their glow?

- Only by drinking from them both

With kisses

One and one after the other -

Then you fill them up again

With the yellow wine

Which I love the most.

Gunner Ekelof, translated by W.H. Auden and Leif Sjoberg

sew that shadow back on, peter pan

as mentioned, one summer above the casinos at lake tahoe, i read 44 books by and about Jung. i dipped into my shadow, attempting to recover the lost energy wrapped up in my denials. hard to do without becoming someone you don't like! and then your friends, what about them? can they swallow the change? (when he started crossing his legs like a girl, she had a fit. where was the macho man she married?) not everybody appreciates our dark side.

to advance myself - in honor of Jung or as a parody of - i wrote a collection of self-revelatory poems called 'the alchemist'.

Greta Garbo

slipped into my dream

last night.

"My, my," I said, "aren't you

a little old,

or am I young?

Your hands are cold."

Greta Garbo

opened her eyes last night

and invited me in.

I said,

"Greta, my dear,

I'm but a child,

anything else were sin."

Greta Garbo

drew blood last night,

her teeth upon my throat.

"Greta, dear Greta,"

I said,

"I have done so little of note."

come to think of it, just the other day i was thinking of 'the imposter syndrome'. do we always think we're faking it?

read and weep: www.pbase.com/wwp/alchemist

and i keep adding pictures to my summer diary: www.pbase.com/wwp/summer