have you tried hypnosis?

once i listened to a tape of milton erikson hypnotizing someone. spooky. compelling. then i got his book, 'my voice will go with you' and read it a couple of times. sometime later i found a copy of transcripts from his monologues. they reminded me of poetry, so i wrote some of my own: www.pbase.com/wwp/trances

reading more about hypnosis (and being hypnotized once by a therapist friend), it dawned on me: we're hypnotizing ourselves all the time. first thing in the morning on waking, we have to recover our personality: i'm so and so, living in such and such a place, that's my purse/wallet, now let me find my face in the mirror. we re-create ourselves every day.

and of course, there are times when we've been jolted awake, no time to put on our habits or remember our address. (the chinese say you're blessed if you have a bad memory.) if only we thought to change aspects of our character/looks at such a moment. ah, it's too terrifying. we assume the old rags of identity as quickly as we can.

some days

i wake up feeling: "it's all over. i've had my chance. blown it." that's the depressive phase. i'll do whatever helps me survive the mood, take a twenty minute nap, go for a walk, look at an art book, watch a movie, call a friend. then somehow the mood switches to the manic phase. i've never felt better, more optomistic. this seems to be the path of those living outside the mainstream, by their wits, trying to create from whatever they find around them.

mostly i like artists who make work from their everyday lives. nan goldin takes pictures of her friends, her drug and love crashes. francis bacon painted people he knew well and when isolated, painted self-portraits. david hockney documents his private life as though it were a graphic novel.

my favorite books of my friends are 'gentle vengeance' by charles lebaron, based on his first year at harvard med. 'poemcrazy' by susan wooldridge, how to survive through words. 'my sister from the black lagoon' by laurie fox, growing up in a mad family and using fantasy to become an adult!

tales of overcoming adversity by creating works of art. perhaps we need them in a mass society where we seem to be drifting monads, no one more important than another.

www.pbase.com/wwp/son

www.pbase.com/wwp

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!