maybe this has been my greatest weakness? hah, with so many flaws how can you give one pride of place? okay, okay, just for this morning let me enjoy this particular error.
and as i was saying, i love process more than finale, i'd rather see a dress rehearsal than the full-blown show, then i'm part of the creation. often i prefer a reading of a play to an actual production, left to my own imagination.
here's the beginning and end of a poem by juan ramon jimenez:
Among the clouds the moon is
A shepherdess of silver
Who, through a pathway of stars
Drives her white gleaming flocks.
...........
The moon goes by slowly,
Naked, lovely, in ecstasy
Singing to an unknown earth
Along her highways of dawn.
in between she finds 'smooth-worn cattlepaths' and 'backwaters of eternity'. i'm given nothing but a progress, and i begin dreaming aloud.
that's it, of course, my whole life one long day-dream. i'm the kid who sat in class looking out the window and who found a way to do this for a living for fifty years. if a smoke comes up, it sets off an inner alarm. i leap to the firefinder without knowing it, the microphone in my hand, no fire the last, just a step to the next.
very entertaining, yes, i've been entertained by the whole show, a permanent tourist, a born buddhist, sighing a times for the transitory, yet indulging it as much as i can. this means imperfect creations, faulty poems, off-kilter songs, unproduced dramas. even if i've directed a few, performed a few, the main audience has been myself, hoping a bystander might get a laugh or shed a tear.
a friend, director/choreographer sue pate once pointed this out. she goes for the finished product, usually with beautiful results. 'you like the process too much,' she said. alas, i have to agree. even today i feel what i do in this moment is all that exists, the rest is fantasy and theory. to quote steve hagan, We've formed many a theory and belief, but as we look about the human world, it is clear that nobody actually knows what's going on. i suspect this is the only "conclusion" i will ever come to.
a new set of doodles, crime scenes: www.pbase.com/wwp/crimes
more of matisse look-alikes: www.pbase.com/wwp/matisse
and an endless parade of shadowy androids: www.pbase.com/wwp/android
yesterday, a young mother acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter. the outrage on twitter amazing. the public, for the most part, wished her hanged. it must go back to the days of the guillotine. the convicted rumbling through the crowd on the back of a cart. catcalls from the audience. a sigh of wonder as the blade falls and the heads drop into the basket. as one twitteree wrote on the present acquittal: the only good thing the jury did to keep their own names hidden.
actually, this kept the story from ending as expected, a boon for the newspapers. endless razzmatazz follows. long ago, after reading the classic the image by daniel boorstin, former head of the library of congress, i couldn't even watch the evening news on national public television. boorstin right, 80% of what we call news "speculation" about what might happen now. in other words it's all fortunetelling foisted on an unknowing public. and i have to say, professional experts from universities most often wrong, while writers of books tend to be the most reliable.
all this brings back childhood revelations. a movie called the big carnival (ace in the hole) which i watched in 1951 at age 11. a seedy newspaperman exploits the tragedy of a man trapped down a mine, creating a whirlwind media feast at the scene. the man dies, the reporter stabbed by the dead man's wife. - i'm a kid raised on film noir! - and a couple years earlier i remember listening breathlessly to radio accounts of a three year old girl trapped in a well. alas, she died too. the recent Chilean miners luckier and the news hopping up and down with delight.
all this comes to mind reading the latest rolling stone account of the amanda knox trial in italy: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-neverending-nightmare-of-amanda-knox-20110627 what's so sad about it, it reads like a henry james novel. the young naive american girl goes to europe, expecting the best of everyone, and gets taken for a ride by a devious european lover and society. try wings of the dove, a moving story on this theme. in amanda's case a prosecutor raised on films like halloween 3 at first concocted a savage sex ritual, setting the tone for international coverage. unfortunately for her, the judges in italy like to keep on good terms with each other and it's "speculated" she'll get a reduced sentence like the actual murderer, rudy guede, of 16 years instead of 26.
every hot story should be labeled: THE RUSH TO JUDGEMENT. yes, drama triumphs over truth every time. we've got more than one war to show for it.
what is the difference between a friend alive and a friend dead? for some reason i always end up asking obvious questions! i mean, the answer has to be their missing laugh, their gorgeous smile and contemptuous upper lip. they can't help me with my homework or interrupt my thought.
actually, those not true. i've memories that sometimes crack me up. i've photographs, videos, recorded conversations. the magical discoveries and inventions should bring that person alive, yet they do not. part of it is unpredictability. i never quite knew what bill or randy, for example, would say or do. little twitches and squeaks could modify a usual expression. and some people we miss more than others. i never thought the one person i would miss the most bert gardner, my traveling companion. i realized after she died, neither of us trespassed on our inner turf, quietness emanated from berta, she listened a lot more than she talked.
a few public figures liven up our world in such a way that when they pass my world is not the same. picasso one such, t.s. eliot another, and when steve jobs leaves, my universe will be a less interesting place. only a few resonate this way. diana never affected me, but, boy, she sure did a lot of other people.
last fall my sister cricket called me. out of a job, behind on her rent, i could hear the fear in voice: i'm about to be a bag lady. for the first time in my life i leaped in with money (i'm basically a tightwad), not to pay her rent, rather to buy her a laptop. 57, she'd never had a computer. i figured if i could get her on facebook she'd connect with many friends from her life. and that's what happened. she'd been a part of the sixties, seventies, and eighties music scene, traveling around with groups like asleep at the wheel, drinking their whiskey, going outside to puke so she could drink more and keep up with the boys.
the important part of the story for me: what made her delightful to so many of these folks. as i got her online, a phone with unlimited calling, paying the gas and electricity (she still lives without heat cause she doesn't have the money), i understood. a dedicated supporter of beautiful singing and beatful musicians, a passionate lover of dogs, a funny friend, she shares herself in a way with them that makes their life fuller and livelier.
of course, she's not sugar and spice and everything nice. depressed and grumpy, irritated and anxious, she's as annoying as the rest of us. however, these don't last long, she's careful to pay her share and usually very thankful and considerate. a lightbulb flashed in my head: presence, that's all i have to give. all that really matters is what i'm doing right now. yes, doing. i've always been suspicious of advice be here now. no, i'm doing here now, damnit, even if i'm meditating, watching a movie, or sleeping.
thanks, cricket. you've really been the one to help me. never a father, i at least had the experience of a little adopted girl. no wonder parents put up with everything that comes later!
you can see more pictures of cricket here:http://www.pbase.com/wwp/cricket
damn, it's happened again. when will i every learn? i've always been a miniaturist when it comes to gadgets, cars, and women. yet i tend to believe bigger is better, fancier is finer.
for example, this winter, bored with snapping photos, i decided to get up to speed in another area: music. i bought several elegant programs for composing computer music, five ukuleles, one electric guitar, two amps, and twenty-five books, researching the delta blues again. all this quite exiting, and expensive. i purchased off amazon, returned, acquired more. and in the end what did it come down too?
that beautiful, incredibly heavy electric ax barely picked up and never played. the littlest uke of solid wood the one i can't resist. all the how-to books molder on the shelf, for i'm an eternal improviser, not a real musician. the tiniest amp hooked on my belt works best for the blue uke and the banjo, while the best amp rests in a corner, gathering dust. as for the computer programs, i played with them for awhile and they've been buttoned up for months.
this happened with photography too. over a period of eight years i squandered at least twenty thousand dollars. dozens of lenses, eighteen cameras big and small, carrying cases, tripods, on and on. at thirteen i decided to become a writer instead of an artist cause all it took for the first was a pencil and paper, for the second i'd need god knows what (and now i know what). true, at the moment i'm drawing on a seven inch android tablet with my fingers, just like in the second grade, this after millenniums of corel painter and photoshop.
as for the ladies, i can't handle one over five feet two and even that is problematical. a big woman blows me away. not that i've been able to succeed in that department, but at least i've learned a limitation needed, plus others i've never practiced, to my shame and doom.
oh, and i ended up loving one simple camera, the sigma dp2s, fixed lens, nothing complicated.
posted a new series of drawings: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/matisse
and added more discoveries to the androids: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/android
Rudy Giscombe
i guess what i'm asking myself is, if i've got thirty more years, do i really want them? that doesn't seem an idle question. if i haven't succeeded in realizing my childhood dreams, extra time may just be more of the same failure, with diminishing physical resources. not a matter of aging, rather of being productive to the end.
admittedly, i'm now addicted to the TED talks - they can be watched anywhere in the world, that's the good; they're given by people with a lot of vitality, education, and excellent health, that's what makes me think: if i haven't got it now, will i ever? and as i've said before, it becomes very obvious i can't do it alone.
take the case of steve jobs, apple atlas. he gave a speech a couple years at stanford, all the more poignant for the fact his cancer has re-arrived and he may not be with us long. http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html he's resurrected himself before, i hope he can do it again. i say this though i'm a pc guy and always felt mac's over-rated and expensive. beautiful designs though and part of why told in this talk.
he doesn't seem to fit the mold of the older folks studied in this talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html they all live in old-time faith-based communities. however, once his autobiography comes out, and i hope he's writing one as we speak, it may be his community connections what have sustained him. ah, and he'll more than likely go at the age i am now. that's a sad story.
another community fellow just died in my home town, you can read his story here: http://www.newsreview.com/chico/remembering-rudy/content?oid=2412884h
i'll always remember his warmth and smile when he'd say hello. he's somebody everybody in town misses at the moment. if he gets his own artist bench downtown, we'll be reminded of him for a long time, these seats an important local tradition. and maybe where he sat in the park will have a brass plaque: rudy played his saxophone here.
lots of questions, only a few good answers. so far no pill will enhance my chances. here's from a cartoon by hugh mccleod: you've been dead only a few hours and already nobody cares. check hugh out at http://www.gapingvoid.com/ you'll be glad you did.
mortality's never made much sense to me. i mean, why have i got a time-clock beating in me instead of a heart? however, i did read about what to do immediately upon feeling an attack: cough like hell. evidently this can restore the heart's rhythm. i've got approximately twenty seconds.
as for stroke, i got up at 2 a.m. to take a leak and suddenly keeled sideways. i recovered before hitting the floor, grabbing onto a shelf of books - ah, so those tomes good for something! i felt so weird, i thought, did i have a stroke? i performed a couple of simple tests. did my tongue come out pointing to the left? no. could i speak a coherent sentence? as sleep drugged as i was, i could say now is the time for all good men. i could smile without sagging lopsided, and my arms raised over my head equally. okay, no brain damage likely.
when i woke in the sunlight, i considered the fact the brain cells can't feel. no wonder so many cultures felt we think with our hearts. i wonder why the inner noggin so protected? no answer came to mind. of course, other facts i learned this week made me shout, eureka, so that's why we die!!
consider it: i've 10 trillion cells and 98% of them replicate every year. damn, must be easy to interfere with that process: smoking, drinking, car accidents, falls off a ladder. little kids recover more quickly cause their cells a booming business, working overtime. at 95 i suspect the rate much slower. it doesn't take a brain-surgeon to tell me i'd better drink more water, take a nap, and run around the block.
also, i need to listen to my heart, not just in the physical sense. follow a path with a heart, said casteneda's don juan. in other words, the flow of my blood must depend on the flow of my emotions, and vice-versa. when the veins get damned up, not only can't i think straight, i can't stand up.
here's a remarkable video on brain research: http://www.ted.com/talks/aditi_shankardass_a_second_opinion_on_learning_disorders.html as my friend jeff once said, it's a matter of our technology staying ahead of our stupidity.
that's incredibly alarming! no wonder i desperately hold onto opinions, memories, my hats and socks, pretending i own things, that i can be as solid as a statue. alas, the facts belie my desires.
during my lifetime, my body generates more than 1000 pounds of red blood cells. my blood travels over 50,000 miles a day through arteries, arterioles, and capillaries, and back through the veins. it only takes seven pounds of pressure to rip off my ear.
no wonder i turn my eyes from those horrible videos my dentist shows in the waiting area: gum rot, broken teeth, money down the drain (speaking of flow). nothing stands still inside me or outside me. when i'm conscious of the earth's rotation, i develop bouts of vertigo. the waning of the moon actually painful.
from the age of thirty my body began shrinking. keeping me alive, my heart only weighs ten ounces. yet, combining all the muscles in the system i could be a huge force of 2000 pounds. and at least my tongue print as individual as those on my fingers. guess i don't need to get a distinguishing tattoo, after all.
and the hardest thing to swallow, 98% of my molecules replaced every year. hmm, lots of room for error in that process, ten trillion cells in my walking corpse. and most alarming, my eyes have stayed the same size but my nose has kept growing. my blood is really blue, my brain hasn't grown since age eighteen and it has no feeling! and i once spent half an hour as a single cell.
given all this, how can i possibly make a cup of coffee, tie my shoelaces, and climb into a car, much less drive one? obviously, i'm occupied by a divine force which will one day decide to leave me.
see what's coming in medicine: http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kraft_medicine_s_future.html is immortality just around around the corner and if i'm there, will i know it's me?
