MR. CLEAN

I just came across this photograph of Mr. Clean.........autographed to a friend of mine who likes things clean....if a bit messy....Interestingly enough, after spending hours cleaning my kitchen yesterday, I had a dream in which Gerald Gerrish, the "General" and chief of the summer camp that I attended during summers, as a youth , and who examined our fingernails for dirt...every morning....with a flashlight held beneath our "claws"............appeared to inspect my kitchen....his white glove examination found bags of trash and debris.....I awakened with sweat on my brow.....The impact of the events of our youth should not be taken lightly..........

SAN FRANCISCO

I found a stack of pics from our trip to S.F. Gumps was being remodelled that year and it's buyers were on hiatus. A sophisticated lady and her erutite son were there to sell inherited Orientalia that had been lanquishing in their attic for almost a hundred years......I was there, however, and a valuable connection was established for my antique store back in Atlanta.......Also, a major dept. store was closing its doors that week....another unplanned opportunity arose in that. We got to tour Alcatraz and I stood in the "Birdman"'s cell, from which he escaped....Friends, Jon and Gary were living there at the time.....another boon.....Reis and I took good pictures and Rebecca got some much needed R&R..... This photograph brought it all back to me.....the wonders of nostalgia......

FRANK ZAPPA

I WAS LISTENING TO ZAPPA CONDUCTING ZAPPA LAST NIGHT AND REALIZED THAT THIS WEEK IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS UNTIMELY DEATH.........HIS WORKS ARE STILL BEING ARCHIVED AND PERFORMED BY HIS SON....I AM SO GRATEFUL!

photo by Greg Norman, c. 1993

THANKSGIVING..

Dry Fig Trees by Gerard Satamian

REALLY OVERWHELMING!

A LIST OF 'KIDS' THAT I GREW UP WITH.....WHO ARE DEAD NOW! THE LIST IS NOW 2 YEARS OLD.......AND I CAN'T BEAR TO UPDATE IT!

Butch Anderson, Shelley Cotton, Larry Fretwell, Sandra Myers, Charles Shannon,George Apostolos, Mary Dodgen, Fulda Charmion Hanson, Eddie Monks,
Wanda Stewart, Lesley Ayers, Lyndon Faulkenberry, Burt Hanvey,
Thomas Payne, Billy Stevens, Linda Barksdale, Jerry Franklin,
Carolyn Herring, Mike Rothe, Charles Taylor,
Larry Beach, Jerry Fretwell, Sally Hill,
Hartwig Schulze, Chloe Walling,
Walter Bennett, Linda Craver,
John Kinzer, Dian Broadway,
Craft Wood

birthdays, theatre and visiting

Hans was here for a day to see Anneke in a wonderful play, HOMINIDS, written by a fellow Dutchman on the faculty at Emory.......We were celebrating Anneke's birthday, and Lilli's...belatedly.....at a nearby feeding hole......In the background.....Lottie Belinda Gibbs, 1st wife of Steven Dearmoun...with her daughter, Megan, whom I have not seen since she was an infant.....Bird, was here for the day also.....

Everyone was very upbeat on this most beautiful Fall afternoon......

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.'

sometimes i just don't know what the hell is going on.

halloween as henry....

 

THE MAP IS IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER

I do not think that it is in anyone's best interest that I decipher my intricate maps of the garden of the forking paths, for they are but maps that I have annotated in my own travels. And it is these maps that have pre-destined my future excursions. The HANDCUFF sign, as provocative as it is, leads to shallow water and steep hills. The CASHMERE GLOVE sign, seemingly soft and gentle, leads to the land of the Sybarites, who cannot be trusted for good advice. Walk a little further until you see the sign of the OPEN HAND, exercising caution that you do not mistake the crossroad sign, THE GAUNTLET, for it. Only one is bare and plain, the other--jeweled and precious. Without vision, things are not what they seem, and with it....i reckon that they are exactly as they are....

Translucent by hands upon black earth

THE QUEST FOR BAMBILAND

I have returned from a calm and introspective retreat at the mountain cabin, where the space and time for clear sight is presented as a reward for a short drive across ever familiar winding roads, forests and rivers--to a place of Reis' and my own device. After illuminating the cabin by destroying the remnants of spiders' work and redirecting the paths of large, bi-colored ants indigenous to the immediate perimeter of the stone foundation, I felt that order had been re-established within the microcosm there. Of course, within hours, nature had supplanted my emerging bambi-vision of the peaceable kingdom as the ants returned to scale the hairs of my legs and the spiders, having moved their webs to my bedding, reminded me that they, like the wind and the waves, will do as they please--regardless of my efforts to share a space with them--a space that, after all, they had lived and bred in for countless generations, each lived with the most subtle and unthinking variation. Frustrated, I crushed a black widow beneath the rubber of a spider-decorated flip-flop and wept at my inability to communicate a more collaborative state of existence between us. Maybe I acted from fear, an emotion that wise men meditate upon, rendering it evanescent and thereby enabling Bambi-world. Then I remembered what a rough life Bambi had before emerging on the great mountain rock cliff in charge of his life and destiny.

PSYCHOBABBLE

who knows how "it" works.....i was at a noisy birthday party last night....the extremely loud Turkish belly dancing music, playing at 100db, transformed into even louder disco inferno pounding, to which the veins in my temples pulsed in ever-increasing pain, my eardrums doubling in agony.....the louder the music, the more senselessly involved the party participants became, and.....actually to my surprise.....the inter-relatedness and synchronicity of unconscious longings seemed to prevail...even more than in a relaxed atmosphere! At some levels, individuals, couples and groups sought some kind of mass and hysterical type of sensory union in the mosh pit vortex of pulsing rhythms; as the peak of this frenzy approached, i jumped from my chair and bolted through the door to the relative peaceful isolation of a deck, crowded with cigarette and pot smokers, drinkers and others, like myself, who were simply overwhelmed by sensation, and nerves on edge, sought the refuge of silence......later, as I re-emerged into the chaotic frenzy of mass belly dancing and, for the less creative, an encompassing circle of structured line-dancers attempting to senslessly duplicate exacting patterns of Jewish/Greekish swooping and sweeping about the mass of jumping, expressive children high on youth and middle-aged women, encouraged by alcohol and exhibitionism, flirting and cavorting with total strangers......as the music reduced to simply, regular and even louder pounding, massively configured men began to dance and romp, jumping and shouting......A riot of communal enthusiasm which filled me with a panicky sense of out-of-controlness and exasperative and delusional mass participation.......i had a vision of great apes, fiercely shaking tree limbs, then joining a pack to devour the offspring of neighboring groups of benobos......then, it was over......my mind shut down, the music was masked by my unwillingness to delve further into this collective chaos, as deafened, I departed into the calm, black night, devoid of sounds.....the ringing in my ears separating me from the rest of the Cosmos.......In the black sky, the stars, twinkled......silently.....

8 seconds, both hands

crazed by the basement flooding, blue pen in one hand and black in the other, i scribbled my rage and frustration......pretty scary!
much calmer today, maybe I'll sketch Bunnie with my left foot........

Visconti Phase.....1980,,,,,

"jeweler to rich artists......".

altered dispositions

"the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." karl jung

we are attracted to our complimentary component......those who feel deficient are attracted to more, since their sense of inadequacy places them into a void into which everything rushes as to a vacuum or a black hole......

 

Already the sight, little by little, becomes detached
from its mounts which are left;
and my eyes, delayed by the fresh mountains, 

scour the liked ground, my heart, retained 

in the context of its wounds,
after all the ground has disappeared.

I see, finally, the near-distant sea and sky......

Lucidity by Beth Quist

"the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." karl jung

we are attracted to our complementary component......those who feel deficient are attracted to more, since their sense of inadequacy places them into a void into which everything rushes as to a vacuum or a black hole......

Already the sight, little by little,
becomes detached from its mounts which are left;
and my eyes, delayed by the fresh mountains, scour the liked ground,
My heart, retained in the context of its wounds,
after all the ground has disappeared.
I see, finally, only the sea and sky......

THE TIGHT WIRE ACT BEHIND THE CURTAINS

i thought you'd like some dark ditty grace jones video, but nyet!~ watch your balance....alkan/chopin....lewenthal/rubenstein...get my drift?.....the dark side possesses powerful polarities and dangerous juju...how fucking polonial of me...but i'm not lurking behind a velvet curtain...."whups!"....he says, slipping on the magic carpet......and flipping the interdimensional coin to the obverse.......caligula/K'ang Hsi ...let's get some pics of fluffy kittens and easter chicks.........how about some "tweety bird and sylvester" anime? i have a supportive hand....i know about the highwire......having suffered much damage in falls....once you've taken away the net, you're on...

Selplnig

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

MIGRAINE

16 hours and counting........nothing seems to phase it.
i had to stop the pendulum, the a/c blower.....i feel
captive in the House of Usher! Aargh! My pulse feels
like a torrent raging across nerves ripped from their casings.











Cyst by The Wretch

extremes of Rebecca

Urban, on the left at Sonya's annual xmas dinner, ages ago; on the right, the chilled-out after a week in Viecas; in the center the two of us posing aboard our rented Morgan, piloted by Janice and captained by Ken.....I wish I could squeeze into that fabulous bathing suit...I think Rebecca's antique suit, which looked just fine until it got wet and the old, rotting elastic fell apart (pictured here..) thereby restyling the suit, was abandoned soon thereafter........

Backup & Resuscitation

I listened to a speech given by Eleanor Roosevelt, this morning on NPR......it was about her rethinking of the dogmatic principles that she had, as a child, taken for granted...as the truth;
her subsequent re-integration of the basic ideologies at play and the re-emergence of these principles, reformatted to conform to her needs as a more conscious and enlightened human being; then, her application of this incipient philosophy to her works in the real world of ordinary thinking. This renewed my confidence in the evolution of human spirituality without the context of religion or theism, but within the context of thoughtful, humanitarianism.





CD1 - Bach - The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Lara St John

Finally, Bird's being cooperative......sorta'.....

Like my own mother, it has taken 86 year old Bird a trip and fall and the consequent fractured leg to get her to Atlanta and assisted living, I hope, at Budd Terrace, just a few blocks from me and very near JAP........I'm so happy for her! Yea!

And, news of today: Bird is actually exercising, or so she claims....at least.......she is, nevertheless, sitting up and prepared to journey in a walker, as soon as that is possible, to avoid the indignity of having her "diaper" changed by another or the debilitating effects of remaining on her back, sleeping most of the time.......Today, she was witty, more alert and has an optimistic tone to her peculiar Atlanta accent......She has expressed a willingness to begin a new staging of her mature years at Wesley Woods......It is a great place, for I had several customers and friends who lived there quite contentedly until their demises....Keep it simple, Bird.....and she hasn't smoked in 10 days.........whooray! At least a dash for the finish line rather than a hapless decline into oblivion.

The Almanac by Shira Kammen

fishbrain

The Gandhi Memorial Concert by

JAKE HEGGIE

Jake Heggie - To Hell and Back by Philharmonia Baroque

THE INTELLECTUALIZATION OF EMOTION

Totally exhausted from trying to comprehend my emotional condition and move to a more transcendental plane of thought and feelings, I've been trying to develop a Optical Qualified New Input Mail Language through solution-uncovering button modifying initialism, transparently, when i discovered Pre-Binary Yttrium-Oriented Interface Services....Wow, was i surprised, especially when i realized that the Y-value Common Zero-Input Object Storage co-efficient had been incorrect, all along! So, when I consulted with the "i" Interactive Virtual eXchangable Header Overlay Service, i was instructed to replace the Balanced Common Hierarchical Logic Service Router with a Virtual eXtended Interchange Enhanced Telecommunications Sequence.....how delightfully simple and logical! Now my life will be a breeze, for this was the cause of all my anxiety and despair! And I avoided the intellectualization of my neurosis by quickly and diligently digging for the correct analysis and solution.......Life is so much simpler now and the view from my padded cell is quite spectacular......




Beat Generation Mad Trick by Emmas Mini

THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS IN A DARKENED ROOM

When there no longer exists with any surety a definitive point of reference, be it religious, philosophical, or even aesthetic; and, as conjecture displaces the self-certainty of the subject, existential anxiety produces ego-centric theories of conspiracy that tend to ground the fearful, confidentless and isolated individuals in a world with some seemingly rational realm of devious plotting wherein paranoia drives this psychology of suspicion, fueling, in turn, the desperate searches for structure as a grand narrative of meaningfulness to superimpose upon the chaotic disorder and incomprehensibility of the human condition....Now in my middle 60's, the existential despair seems to build, relentlessly, upon my own inability to shred the tissue of lies that covers personal interactions and amasses, through willing collaborations, to enshroud any potential for clarity and openness, like a poisoned and paralyzed butterfly, trapped within the spider's cocoon of silky vapors that floats from the moors of dark imaginings.........

Ambiencellist Part II by Claire Fitch

Mozaic by Ruben van Rompaey

WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

 

depends on how we are taught and how we learn to interpret, against the background chatter of our internalized egocentric preconceptions of what we think we comprehend; thus, our idea of what the outside is becomes but a representation of how we are taught to tag and process, comparing ever more complex data to the simple sets of constructs that we utilize in order to categorize unknowns and place them into tidy prejudicial formats to avoid feeling completely lost and incompetent....Ironically, the less one comprehends and understands, the more this process becomes necessary, inevitable, futile and stultifyingly meaningless.....

it is not possible to see without prejudice, since this is how the brain has learned to interpolate and avoid confusion, while simultaneously ignoring the paths of wisdom; consequently, rendering the entire process virtually retrogressive and pre-telencephalonal.......

Karooshi Porn by Bjorn Fogelberg

VOLATILITY OF EMOTIONS

exhausted, oscillating between hopelessness and fury
i cannot assuage either,
angry that things are not the way they ought,
and sad to know the way of the world;
for now, that is the landscape of my emotions,
and I cannot change the past
and cannot let it go.

ABLATIVE CONJURING THE WITHIN

Transcendental - Transcriptions by Brahms and Godowsky by Ivan Ilic






Gravity by Artemis

champagne brunch

 

someone, please remind me to drink coffee, if anything, while I'm preparing a complex feast....
pickled kumquats and brandied cranberrys, anyone?

SARGASSO SEA

 

after a long period of confusion which has denied even the clarity of nothingness, i can see the blackness of calm, beyond the electrical storm that ravages, with helter-skelter images gathered willy-nilly from the crevices, corners and convoluted conundrums, tangles, cobwebs and conscious confabulations of necessity.......the gripping rings of constriction loosen to view possibilities beyond fixations and retention......

Bestiary by Robert Rich

ALMOST SEEING THROUGH CLOUDED MEMORY

Trances-Drones CD2 by Robert Rich

FIERCEGRIEF