books can illuminate your life

i put it that way, rather than change your life because to do that you must do something differently, or as ramana maharshi sad, 'put one thing in practice.' to merely understand is not enough.

one book did change the way i behaved, or so i thought:

when helping you is hurting me: escaping the messiah trap by carmen renee berry

ever since i can remember i've been sensitive to the emotional disturbances of young women. it's no secret why: my mother ill much of the time when i was young, or as a therapist told me, 'your mother and sister trained you well to take care of women.'

ach, a sword in my side. i tried so many times! and ultimately experienced enormous frustration. berry's book showed me how that probably happened, my mother used me as a confidant from a young age. this overwhelms the child with the desire to resolve a situation in which he/she powerless.

great, i stopped, or so i thought, until eva caught me offguard by the psychic upheavals caused by her mother's death. (thank heavens, she's dived into therapy with professionals and taken the burden off me.) yet, i am not incapable of helping when i can do so practically. my youngest sister called last week with her woes, mostly physical, the arthritis in her thumbs so bad everything she does painful. not only that, a cop set her up with a false dui and losing her license, she hasn't been able to make a living.

well, brother messiah kicked in. she said she couldn't do all the things she likes to do: write, cook, play the guitar, or sew. hmm, i thought, a bit of money will solve that. i've sent her a bunch of new stuff: a laptop and accessories, a dulcimer with music and a book how to play it (look, ma, no thumbs), a pair of electric scissors and an electric knife. i also did research on thumb-splints and found dozens made for her situation.

yes, i did do some legal research. unfortunately, legal aid can't deal with the department of motor vehicles, an empire onto itself. disability turned her down the first time, but the doctor adamant about her need and going after it again. she's behind in rent. i'm hoping assembling all her friends (she has hundreds) on facebook and writing blogs on the dmv will get her help.

am i a sucker or not? i don't think so. trying to motivate a person to take care of herself is one thing, giving tools to a motivated person another. my sister ultimately very feisty. i'm sure she'll succeed. i'll host a blog or two from her when she gets round to it.

other books i definitely recommend: the doors of perception by aldous huxley. he answers why people crave drugs. mescalin is his answer to alcohol. we harbor the extreme desire to really experience the presence about us in all its glory.

flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. this book will give you the means to happiness, how being absorbed in a task can transport you. lots and lots of examples.

and one i revisited a little while ago: doctor Zhivago by boris pasternak, as i browsed at barnes & noble. a new translation out and i spent time comparing it to the first and ended up hating the new one, its choppy, unpoetic style. you can see pictures of my visit to pasternak's house with two russian poets beginning here:

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/image/119814588

i'd sequestered vodka and three glasses in my pack. as we sat in the snow by pasternak's grave, i pulled them out. we drank a toast to the poet and i asked them to recite a couple of his poems in russian. one of my favorites:

"A candle burned on the table,

A candle burned on the table..."

his book turned me to poetry and i've never gotten over the passion.

retro abend (we never see things the same way twice)

god is in the details. i suppose that says almost everything. alas, i'm coming to fire season's end tomorrow. at least a hundred days up here and now many of them seem the same. that's how life becomes dust!

i do know how to slow myself down. one of the ways is to read haiku. absurd? here's one by buson:

In the aging house

the crooked door being straightened,

a spring-like summer day.

i swear if you read these for half an hour, you'll look up and notice little things in the room as if they were significant. not only that, you will have relaxed and slowed down. here's one by the joker issa:

Seen

through a telescope:

ten cents worth of fog.

another way of possibly becoming present is photographing. here's what my favorite photographer bill brandt says:

"It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveller who enters a strange country."

of course, there's the joke about tourists who snap, snap, and snap, saying "I'll see the country and people when I get home." one mustn't be too eager to stop the present. after all, a photograph one split-second in the continuum of change.

ah, and then stopping to smell the flowers. everytime i go to the university rose garden and bend over a yellow beauty, i'm transported to the present. (the yellow seem to have the most magnificent smell.)

and what slows me down most of all? a walk on the beach, waves crashing, wind howling, and the gulls crying. i'll do that as soon as i can. i've grown too used to the mountain-top, the shock of recognition gone.

i have taken a few more photos. the retro abend: www.pbase.com/wwp/abend

and a last fiery look at my firetower: www.pbase.com/wwp/red

you see how different the same scenes and objects can look.

i've also posted a selected poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems2 i actually feel i'll stand or fall by the poetry.

how to be an artist in a perverse world?

after two years in europe as an army brat, i arrived in the philidelphia train station. the noise overwhelmed me. the hustle and bustle set my nerves on edge. what was this insane place with billboards blinding the eyes?

that was 1956. europe's changed. america's gotten worse. if the artist's job to keep all the pores open, the ears wide, and the eyes piercing, how can he or she survive this cacophony?

van gogh cut off his ear. i suspect here he would have cut off both of them and plugged up his nose with lavender. creative folks have a reputation for madness. now you know why. it's nothing personal.

as you know, i climb to a mountain-top every summer. above the foetid air of the valley, my lungs can recover. of course, i take lots of meds and supplements. L-tyrosine, folic acid, different kinds of fish oil, all boosted by prozac and welbutrin.

why do i have to? this is the land of the dysfunctional family. that means most people by no means equipped to become parents. too young, their tempers fray at having children. every adult becomes a time-bomb when it comes to kids. o sure, we dote on them when they're two and somebody else's. the wise elders realize birthing babies extends their nervous system into an independent body. what hurts it destroys them and they've no control.

these semi-robots absorb sugar like alcohol! they speed up and bounce around the room like atoms gone mad. and my point: these the painters, writers, and photographers to be. high-wired how can they be open to the music of spheres as well as the incessant white noise of the highway?

personally, i sleep with ear-plugs. at least i can hear what inner rhythms i have, though the ringing i have in my ear from being slapped by a girlfriend never leaves. our civilization only values what be can be measured. silence has a weird way of escaping us.

new pictures:

www.pbase.com/wwp/lomoc

www.pbase.com/wwp/masks

a cure for stagefright, or

'paying attention to detail.' that's the conclusion of a book on the subject, both in the preparation - making sure it's thorough - and in the moment of performance.

since we live in an onstage society, this an unrecognized dis-ease, often called shyness. yes, our whole educational system dedicated to drama, as our news broadcasts and sports are.

facing the crowd not a natural situation. after all, ethnic groups of the past very small. you knew everybody. you didn't pass a thousand strangers in the street everyday. i'm listening to a book called cowboy & wills, the story of parents raising a high-performing autistic child. only the arrival of a dog finally allows the boy the make friends and perform in front of the class. his inclination: to take refuge in concrete schedules and literal interpretations of the world. obviously, he's overwhelmed by the input of the modern cacophony.

and the author of the stagecraft book wrote, 'when you feel yourself getting shaky, focus on a narrow circle of objects around you. once you settle a bit, expand that world.' the famous actor lawrence olivier could have used this advice. for six years in his fifties, he experienced a terrifying self-consciousness when walking onstage. arriving suddenly, this unexpected state made him say to himself, 'either i walk off and never act again, or i fight it.' and struggle through the terror he did, until it disappeared of its own accord.

as the end of fire season approaches, you can imagine my own concern. i've had months of quiet and solitude (a slow season) and soon i'll be back in town. my room assumes the place of a mountain-top. i seldom entertain and prefer to go out for my socializing. yes, a certain fear of overload prevails. still, i need people and the stimulation of the city. a counselor once told me i needed to commute, the country for quiet, the urban blast to revive my energy. and damned if that isn't what i've done.

a few new photos taken with my droid x camera-phone:

www.pbase.com/wwp/wings

www.pbase.com/wwp/truck

www.pbase.com/wwp/glories

the examined life can wear you out

i mean, i know what socrates meant, however didn't he really ask too many questions? he could have left the young men alone. oh no, he didn't do it. i suspect he never looked at his own mud-pie face in the mirror. and as for his wife, xanthippe made sure he never forgot she did him a favor (marrying him).

gees, imagine being married to the socratic method. did he have any kids? i suspect he avoided them this way, drinking all night with aristophanes and that crowd, discussing how love and tragedy were the same. here comes all the french philosophy of the 20th century. i exist, therefor what a shame.

okay, i admit it, i scrape over the cold coals of my life day after day, trying to revive the damp fire. true, eva begins to resurrect me, not an easy task. most of the time we joke around. and now she's gone to sit on another mountain. i tell her, "you just rode up this mountain to get away from a job you hated. the tower instilled me with a certain manna." hah, now we'll find out the truth, providing the internet works on her volcano. yes, she'll be waiting for that sleeping giant to awake starting tomorrow.

not only did eva leave, yesterday i visited my dying friend randy in the hospital. he opened his eyes when i spoke with him - and many people tell me those in a coma can hear - however he seemed to look right through me, focused on the pathway he'll be taking in a day or two. he's certainly one of the best human beings i've known. for years i've remembered his phone number and found his voice reassuring. today i felt a flash of survivor guilt. now i know what the people of wwII camps felt, leaving so many behind.

these events actually stun me, and i don't want to ask if my life has served any purpose, done anybody any good, or even if it's been rewarding for me. socrates drank the cup with a quip. unlikely i'll ever do the same.

many new photos taken with my droid x camera phone. this reduces all the mechanical to the most basic. maybe i'll sell my fancy equipment and pay for my ashes to be dumped over the ocean like my friend paula.

www.pbase.com/wwp/retro

www.pbase.com/wwp/pen

www.pbase.com/wwp/hamm

www.pbase.com/wwp/realm

www.pbase.com/wwp/lomo

www.pbase.com/wwp/altars

a taste for nitty-gritty mating

no wonder it doesn't come to me easily. look at my favorite movies on the subject: mifune, the warrior & the princess, and the secret in their eyes. all of them drag their lovers over the coals before the bond can be complete.

in mifune, for example, a rising business guy about to marry the big-city boss's daughter. his father dies and he has to go take care of his crazy brother on a broken-down country property. in parallel, a lively copenhagen prostitute gets into deep trouble. she reads the ad for a nanny and takes a bus to the very same farm. all the problems ensue, including the hero bound on the kitchen table and tortured by the prostitute's friends.

the warrior & the princess a wonderfully brutal and tortuous and telling tale of a girl who gets hit by a truck. a petty thief, running from the law, dives under the truck and gives her a tracheotomy with a pen-knife. she hides him out in the psych ward where she works. a foiled bank-robbery throws them together in the end.

and if you like the agony of postponed love, the secret in their eyes is for you. an older DA assistant loves the new, young, beautiful DA but feels he's too old and of another class. he retires to write a novel about a murder case they had together early on. a young man's beautiful fiance savagely raped and killed. her man can't give up the search for the killer. going to the gorgeous DA years later to get records of the case, the writer revives their early memories. the ending lovely.

if it's easy it's meaningless, that must be my underlying attitude. yet i'm the one who coined the phrase, 'put the drama into your art and not into your life.' as whitman said, 'i contradict myself, therefore i contradict myself', love only gained through multiple misunderstandings and outstanding inner obstacles can last. the heroes and heroines help each other conquer the fear.

EGGS

The games of love

are like baking a cake,

you can't cheat on

the ingredients. Trust,

for example, how can

you leave it out,

and as for humor, you

need to make the dough

rise. Never in a million

years can you reach

the heavenly destination

without cracking a few

eggs. As for the icing,

sweets go to the sweet.

If you wish to win

at the lottery of desire,

you must venture all

you ever hope to have.

What you get is what

you give, and in love

expect nothing less.

new photos at www.pbase.com/wwp/remains

www.pbase.com/wwp/pen

www.pbase.com/wwp/arson

going crazy in the land of opportunity

the poet william everson stated, "this is the land of opportunity and we're always looking for something better." all too true. we seek forever to be, do, and have something more, seldom satisfied with ourselves. this is not only the way to madness, but constantly unsettling, confusing. we play a computer game with our passions, hoping one will win.

i'm as dumb as they come, so how did i make some choices and stick to them? writing for example. at 13 i said to myself, 'you can either be a writer or an artist.' having been a bookworm since the summer after the 3rd grade, reading two books a day, i decided this the better course. alas, i couldn't draw anything realistically, though walking through the louvre as a teenager, i felt chills go up and down my spine as i watched a girl draw in pencil a picture of a greek statue.

so much for art, though it's been a passion from the day i read picture books. (alice, "what good is a book without pictures or conversations?") and i've haunted museums like a ghost of van gogh my whole life. writing it was to be and i pursued it for forty years, from high school sports editor to learning poetry from jack gilbert and josephine miles at berkeley. i decided to go to mexico at 20, taking all f's in my college classes to assemble a collection of american indian songs in the immense east bay library. (later indian lit became a big deal. not in 1960.)

damn, i toted a huge suitcase of books on the bus to mexico city - and back after 2 weeks, as i got homesick and transferred to san francisco state. there i used every assignment in class as a writing exercise, going in two years from probation to the dean's list. with one unit to graduate, i had a lookout job fall in my lap and i waited four more years before finishing.

on the lookout i read and read, wrote and wrote. after four seasons i absconded to europe for two years: a greek island, a berlin basement, an oxford rented room. forced to come back by the coast guard reserve, i resumed firetower work and haven't had a summer off since. yes, i decided this the best job for me. choice number 2, stabilizing my life. i'd already decided to not watch television at 17 (it was either be a couch potato or do something else with your life), nor would i buy a house or have kids.

decisions, decisions, decisions. when george bush got elected, i felt using words useless, nobody listening or reading. suddenly, digital cameras came on the scene. i'd always taken pictures, however this was something new. i dropped writing like a hot potato, going back to age 13 to pick up the other path of art. and i've been a lot happier the past eight years. people will look at photographs, even if they only glance at them for a moment. it's most satisfying.

it's a mystery to me how i made choices and stuck with them, especially from such an early age. those who grow weary because they can't pick a path and stick to it, how do they manage in this free-fall society?

a few new pics at www.pbase.com/wwp/droid i love my new phone. finally i have a communication device that will do everything.