Tribe of Cain

Nudes

2012-02-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

Nudity is nice,

but nudes are for prudes.

The draped nymph and the lounging odalisque are the puritan’simpropriety.

Naked is what the aesthetic eye craves.

I found this beauty on Cayo Hueso.

(29)

Reason Rationalized

2012-02-19T15:35:00.000-08:00

You ask me my method. It is deeper than geographical strata

and more complex than the square root of infinity.

I have designed within patterns,

patterned within arrangements

arranged within organizations

organized into one great scheme.

(28)

Heuristic and Hirsute

2012-02-19T15:30:00.000-08:00

A questionable hairiness or a hairy question? It is something I suppose. I think my moustache is admirable, but bywhat critical standard or scientific method can such a qualitative remark beverified. The mirror renders itbackwards and the judgments of others are susceptible to the same perceptualwarp as my own.

(27)

Wood Sculpture

2012-02-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

Great sculpture can be seen everywhere. On a hike in the woods near the ghost town ofKerr, I found this old twisted stump of wood not far from an EasternDiamondback’s carcass. There was notmuch of a trail although there was an old cemetery maybe a quarter of a mileaway. I wonder how many other people hadan opportunity to take in the sculpture. I walked around it a few times taking not to step too far into the tallgrass.

(26)

Faux Art and Art

2012-02-19T06:26:00.000-08:00

The worst teachers in the world will ask, “What does a poemmean?” The worst critics in the worldwill ask, “What is the point of the play?” The worst art historian will ask,“What is the significance of the painting?”

The hacks of the world will answer such questions with aneasy mendacity. They invent codedlanguage and twisted theories to justify their lies.

The truth is that poems do not mean anything. Plays do not have points. Paintings do not have significance.

My brother is such a hack in the trade. His pathetic postures and sonorous gibberishare monuments to the world’s faux artistry. The public fawns over him. Thecritics scrawl out the most fatuous puffery in praise of his hackneyedperformances. They do so because hedispenses the snake oil and soporifics of a pretended cure. He eases nothing but boredom and changesnothing but venues.

An artist wants to take you by the spine and shake you outof the stupor, the sleeping death in which the great mass of humanitydissipates their lives. An artist wantsto intervene in the plodding history of existence and either claim or kill amoment in time. The artist deals not inwords and symbols but in acts and deeds.

(25)

Eye

2012-02-18T11:51:00.004-08:00

Eye see you.

Do you see me?

One and one’s not two

but three.

(24)

John Brown

2012-02-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

As far as I can tell, John Brown was the first citizen ofthe United States to have the label terrorist attached to him. A hero to the radical abolitionists and avillain to the pro-slavery forces, Brown firmly believed that God was directinghim and that he was an instrument of the divine will.

That to me is what makes him frightening. I am all about arming the downtroddenunderclasses and fomenting revolution against the greed heads and disciples ofmammon. It is when the terrorist believesthat a supreme being whispers his designs into the ear of the terrorist alonethat things begin to get dicey.

At that point, what is to prevent the terrorist from nextinvoking the sentence of death upon the eaters of spinach salads, beekeepers,and next dog groomers?

(23)

Bosses Part II

2012-02-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

If you are in search of the most witless turd in theuniverse, you would not have to look any further than the nearest boss.

I have the opportunity to look through a lot of wastebasketsand the most revealing are those of bosses.

Bosses have a fanatical belief that they are about the businessof managing people, a task at which even the Lord God Jehovah has been a miserablefailure since he created my father and mother in the Garden of Eden.

In the circular filing cabinets of the misruling class, youwill find Fred Pryor Brochures, Inhuman Resource Manuals, and countlessinvitations to expensive conferences all guaranteeing the boss that he or shewill be able to improve their managing of people.

People cannot be managed. They can be persuaded or coerced; they can be convinced or bullied; theycan be cajoled or beaten; but more often than not they will do whatever their desiresdictate of them.

If a boss is fortunate, he or she will have a collection oftalented individuals whose individual pursuits will make the boss look competent,but the boss who thinks that he or she is managing a species of animal that havefrustrated the Almighty into suicidal despair are possessed of a greater hubristhan Sophocles’ Thebans.

(22)

Actors

2012-02-18T07:55:00.001-08:00

Actors can be a loathsome lot. They congregate at one of the institutions atwhich I work. I hear them gathered todiscuss their high art. They will gas onand on about the deep mysteries at which they are masters. While having make-up applied by other experts and donning superbly crafted costumes made by other crafts people they will brag toeach other about the multiple skills required to accomplish what all childrenby the age of five are able to do quite convincing with a couple of sticks as rapiers and daggers and oldpillow cases as tunics and capes.

It is all just pretending. Every human animal on the planet pretends. Every person from the Queen of England to thesweat shop servant dons the mask, and yet actors will strut about as if theyhave discovered the secret to life eternal.

It is especially hysterical to hear them congratulate eachother about how well they have crafted their characters, and if they can findno fawning fellow thespian to praise them, they will praise themselves.

“My character is so deeply emotional.” “My character has desires hidden below hisstillness.” “My character grew up in an abusivehousehold.”

I squelch the impulse to scream: “YOUR CHARACTER???”

If you are in KING LEAR then you have the great fortune andhonor to be playing one of SHAKESPEARE’S characters. An actor no more creates a character than Ibuild the floors I sweep.

The arrogance of actors is without parallel in the artisticworld. After a performance of Beethoven’smagnificent Choral Ninth, the timpani player who exclaimed how wonderful he wasin HIS symphony would be howled out of the room with derisive laughter. And yet, an adoring public will often participatein the ruse and coo to an actress about her wonderful Cordelia.

In addition to all of the other indictments against them actorsare responsible for ONE FOURTH of all presidential assassinations.

As a matter of public safety, I think they should all becaged in sound proof cells until just before the curtain and herded right backinto their cages after the final bow.

(21)

Bosses

2012-02-18T07:00:00.002-08:00

The world has become full of bosses. You will scarcely find leaders, and heroeshave become as rare as Alban truffles.

Bosses rule by fear and intimidation and demand fealty;leaders operate through trust and service and engender loyalty.

(20)

Migraine

2012-02-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

I have been experiencing chain migraines since last night,which makes mopping, scouring toilet bowls, and washing windows challenging, For at least thirty minutes every two orthree hours all I see when I open my eyes is the ocular aura. They are hard to describe, but imaginelooking at the picture above for thirty minutes while trying to work.

(19)

Fear

2012-02-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

The institution for which I labor is one where the chiefatmospheric condition is fear. Fear of harassment,fear of disciplinary action, fear of reprisal, fear of suspension, fear oftermination. I am sure it is the samethrough much of the country now. Indesperate economic times the monsters crawl out of their wormholes to occupythe seats of power.

The observation for the day is that living in Nod where thechief weather is intimidation and fear can be debilitating. There are many coping mechanisms: fear can beswallowed, fear can be inhaled, fear can be sweated out, fear can be soporific,but fear cannot simply be ignored. Nodis a dangerous and vicious place. Toignore fear is to be intensely foolish.

Courage has never been the absence of fear; it has alwaysbeen the way described in the words of The Duke

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

(18)

Messenger

2012-02-12T20:41:00.000-08:00

This is the hawk who perches in the tree in mybackyard. When he is here, I listen and can create. I am sure he is a messenger. WhenI set off to drive to my work he swoops down and soars for a bit just beforethe car, then banks to the north to take messages to another.

(17)

Observed and Observer

2012-02-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

When you read, do you ever imagine that the author islooking at you from the page? When you gaze at a painting or photograph do youever imagine that you are being observed?

Art does not happen in the painting or the page; it happensin the space between.

(16)

Front Stoop

2012-02-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

To my thinking there is no better place from where to watchthe world spin by than a wide front stoop. From this sort of perch lazily rocking in a porch swing the river spillsin comely rapids towards the railway trestle to the left, the view only interruptedby the occasional Amtrak train and the more common long rows of coal carsrumbling through.

There are those who cannot abide the sound of railway traffic,but because it was the lullaby of my childhood I find the screech of metalwheels on the rails, the chug of diesel engines, and the clack of their passingas smooth a melody as a body could find. I especially enjoy the diapason of the horns and the deep throatedblasts of warning as they fade into the distance.

The cacophony of rail traffic is a sweet sonata that singsof destination.

(15)

The Steeple

2012-02-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

I knew the old fellow Wilbur, who was caretaker at EbenezerChapel, He was a comrade in the trade from whom I learned much, The church isnear Elizabethtown and over the years a city grew up around it Now along theKanawha River a highway has been built up so that the steeple sits at eye levelto the cars passing by.

Wilbur had always had a notion to travel although to myknowledge he never stirred further than the county line. After the highway was built Wilbur used toclimb a ladder and poke his head into the steeple to watch the vehicles pass byat night. He did this after hours and sohis peeping place was never discovered until after he had passed away in 1993.

The replacement caretaker discovered it while doing routine maintenancea few days after Wilbur was buried. The discovery was so astonishing that hecalled the preacher right away, who years later told me the story. The preacherallowed that the wood planking in the floor of the steeple was more finallysanded and polished than the aisle ways of the church. The steeple’s interior was distinguished byits remarkable absence of cobwebs and dust. The air up there was not musty but was thick with Pine Sol. There were wax candles stuffed in a corner invarious stages of melt. Most remarkableof all were a pile of crumpled spiral notebooks that seemed to have been boughtat second hand stores. They had picturesof brightly colored ponies, television cartoon characters, and wistful kittensand puppies. There seemed to be no designin the collection. The yellowed pages onthe inside were covered with long lists of ciphers, numbers that seemed to makeneither rhyme nor reason.

The preacher showed them to me, and although I could spotwhat seemed to be license plate numbers scattered throughout the long series ofsymbols I could not divine what else might be hidden in the thousands ofcharacters.

Maybe while peering out of the steeple grate Wilbur traveledalong with the cars and semi-trailer trucks speeding along the interstate. As best I could tell, it was his way of makingthe journey,

(14)

A Clean and Poorly Lighted Place

2012-02-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

With apologies to Papa this is the basement where themopping up takes place at the second job. It is great fun to sing down here andrecite poetry aloud. It is in an areawhere basements are rare and something of a nuisance with the high water table. It floods often and the air is thick withmold.

It is a splendid place to me alone with thoughts and towrite aloud. The emptiness beckons.

(13)

Live Oak Tree

2012-02-12T17:59:00.000-08:00

This live oak is at least 230 years old and has a canopywhose limbs droop down like the arms of a carnival caterpillar ride. It is notfar from the second job and is a place of remembrance. With the Senator gone it has an even morespecial significance.

(12)

Yo Yo 間

2012-02-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

The Song and the Cello by Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1921)

間 is alsopresent in music. Among my hundreds ofvinyl record albums is an old set of The Bach Cello Suites performed by PabloCasals.

Below you can hear Yo YoMa perform the Prelude to Suite 3 with dancers carving space to the music.

Prelude to Cello Suite 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach

There is space not onlyin the pockets of silence, but also between the notes more prevalently in thedeep bowing of the bass line.

The principle of spaceis also at work in the painting by Thomas Wilmer Dewing.

(11)

Symbols

2012-02-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

The world is full of symbols and many of them are elegantlydesigned. The everyday eye takes them inmindlessly for their meaning alone. Often even the meaning is lost and so stop signs are run, exits aremissed, and people slip on wet floors.

This particular symbol adorns the side of my mopbucket. I love the contrast between redand yellow and the mottled brown and gray splatter of a thousand dirty floors. The ideogram itself is clever, a synthesis ofdanger and comedy.

When I travel in other countries where I do not speak thelanguage, the extraordinary eye converts the everyday ideograms into mysteriousicons, marvels of design, and works of art

(10)

Blue Light

2012-02-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

This is a location in my second job when the lights are outa blue light replaces the normal illumination.

The way light changes the landscapes I encounter is afascinating phenomenon. What is familiarbecomes new and because it is new fascinating. The trick to finding beauty is so keep the extraordinary eyes during theeveryday. To see things in a new lightis a cliché that like all such worn expressions contain discovered truths thatare hidden by our familiarity with them.

(9)

間 Hasegawa Tohaku

2012-02-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

間 is exemplified in the works ofHasegawa Tohaku.

Monkeys in a Wither Tree

Crows and Herons

In art we are taught of negative space, and yet in the worksof Hasegawa Tohaku space is not so limited. As the silent pause is to form of music,space is the pocket in which form rests. As the dancer fills a vacuum withmotion; the void is as important to the eye as the brush strokes.

(8)

Bottoms Down

2012-02-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

The next time you settle down to a spotless bathroom respite, you might consider that the pores of your bottom are absorbing a chemical not only useful for a sanitary toilet but that is also used in the cooking of meth.

The lean and hungry look of some in the trade is not necessarily caused by ambition.

(7)

Keeping the Sabbath Day Clean

2012-02-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

Sabbath by Marc Chagall 1910

The Sabbath

I must take a break from my catching up to get ready forwork. Yes, those whose labor is to keepthe place clean like clergy and artists and others of our ilk are the onlypeople compelled to work upon the Sabbath. I suppose that falls in the category of remembering and keeping it holy.

(6)

2012-02-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

In one of the storage closets I found boxes of sprinklerheads, which lead me to two conclusions: one, the institution has littleconcern about the fiery demise of its workers; two, that sprinkler heads are awonderful brush for abstract expressionism.

(5)

Break Time

2012-02-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

If bosses only knew what their janitors do. By mastering the swivel hip dance of the mopand bucket, the empty storage space basement can be done in half the time. Timefor a cigarette break. This entireground floor is my canvas. The tools of mytrade can be arranged upon the soapy cement with discarded construction wood,spare electrical wire, a twist connector for Proust’s splash of yellow tocreate an ideogram worthy of Rothko. Later when the floor dries, I will put things back neatly in the closet andonly you and I will have seen the art.

(4)

Dance

2012-02-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

A dancer sculpts space, 間. She carves a bridge between herself and theobserver.

(3)

間

2012-02-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

In art a principle of design is space. I have always preferred the Japanesecharacter for the concept because it is more experiential. Artists in the Western tradition tend to be solipsistic– not all – but many. Certainly the waythat art is taught in the West mangles the process in the solipsisticdirection.

Ma is more universal, similar to a universal field theoryfor the arts. It is as applicable to theworld of sound, to the world of touch, to the world of motion, to the world ofstillness, to the world of taste, to the world of scent, as it is to the worldof sight.

(2)

Bullet Point

2012-02-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

Since the Senator’s assassination my second night job hasgotten intense. Putting in a combinationfourteen hour day with about six hours of sleep a night has cut into my goal ofstaining the silence at least once a day. In order to keep that self-promise I’ll catch up with 27 bullets

(1)

The Senator

2012-01-16T07:38:00.000-08:00

I imagine that there is a bit of the druid about me. There is little that affects me asemotionally as the coming down of a tree. When the largest laurel oak in my yard had to be taken down because ofstorm damage, I wept for days. I willsometimes grieve for a tree as much as I should grieve for the loss of a pet oran acquaintance.

I tell you this to explain how depressed and sorrowful I amtoday that a tree with whom I have spent many an afternoon in the past is gone.

TheSenator has died at the age of 3,500. It is hard to imagine that this greatsoul who predates Homer is no longer breathing. Over the years what molecules of breath must have passed through his leaves:the shared breaths of Calusa and Conquistador, of slave and slave owner, ofnative and transplant? Having stoodunder this living cathedral and experienced the same awe as I felt in theSistine Chapel, it will be weeks before I process the loss.

Someday I will go through old travel photos and show youmore of him.

Tebowing

2012-01-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

Apparently the latest craze is “tebowing.” You can go herewhere the domain name has been set up to learn all about it.

In the meme and viral world such phenomenon are as plentifulas they are imbecilic, and I doubt the proper good shellacking delivered to theBroncos by the Patriots will deal this self-celebratory and indulgent practicethe euthanizing is so richly deserves. Euthanizing is often a misunderstood process because while it is oftencompassionately thought of as putting another out of his or her misery, thereare instances where the practice is to alleviate our suffering.

Tim Tebow seems like a decent enough fellow and if theadoption of a pose and the belief that an invisible friend aids him in athleticcompetition rather than a wonderful concoction of genetic materials, training,practice, and innate ability, well, it is silly to argue with someone else’stooth fairy.

Whatever gets one through the dark night, and to be sure thestillness of the posture is much more preferable to the histrionic gyrationsthat professional footballers have been want to exhibit for the mere sacking ofa quarterback, gaining of a first down, or catching a pass. Note to all defensive line men, runningbacks, and wide receivers: you are supposed to sack the quarterback, run theball, and catch the pass; it is your job. Anymore it seems as if all sportshave taken on the ethos of Big Time Wrestling and Roller Derby Slams.

I am sure it is all me. I come from a culture where praise came rarely and exuberant celebrationfor doing your job was considered unseemly. The demi-god Jim Brown never so much asspiked the ball after a touchdown. Thesilky Paul Warfield, whose patterns were ballet, did not break into a rhumba afterevery reception.

More to the point having been raised a fundamentalistcompelled me to read the bible and commit much of it to memory. A firm commandment alleged to have been givenby Jesus comes down fairly clearly on the issue of public piety: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be asthe hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in thecorners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you,They have their reward.” You can readthe whole sermon on presentational piety here. Matthew Chapter 6Verses 1 through 6.

None of this is what I set out to write about Tebowing. Among the tools of my trade is a study ofgesture both as rhetoric and as symbol.

As I said at the outset, it is the new viral craze. Other sports figures are doing it;

childrenare doing it;

hell, even bronze statues aredoing it.

Although the marked difference between T-Bowing and TheThinker is the vast difference between religion and reason. Public pietists tilt their heads down andclose their eyes. The Thinker rests his headweighty with reason upon his fist and has his eyes open.

More about this I am sure in some later post.

Sandhill Cranes

2012-01-14T18:05:00.000-08:00

I have an affinity for these freaks of the bird world. At the sweat shop where I work theycongregate all over the grounds. A smallflock of four to eight is usually at the back door of my building to greet mein the morning, but they stalk me to whichever building I happen to enter orexit.

They do a fantastic hopping dance with their wings stretchedout to full length. It is an impressivesight. They trumpet while they do it andI stop whatever work I am at to step outside when I hear the calls.

I recognize them and they recognize me. Word has gotten around and I am usually ableto step close enough to touch one if I were so rude as to do so.

They are freaks but royal freaks and have distinct protocolabout such familiarity. Like the Queen,she may approach you and extend a hand but you are never permitted to profferfirst.

Multiculturalism

2012-01-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

I indulged in an act of multiculturalism today by gettingsome cajun boiled peanuts to eat during the Liverpool versus Stoke City soccermatch. The peanuts were delicious asalways; the match was a draw. I expecteda better showing at Anfield, but the disappointment was ameliorated by the twoscoops of southern caviar.

2012-01-12T20:07:00.000-08:00

My childhood home lay near the tracks of a loadingyard. Because of that the sounds oftrains have always been as comforting to me as a lullaby. They have always been a symbol of being free,of getting lost, and of coming home.

This is a picture of an Old Baltimore and Ohio caboose. Riding the rails is always the best way to travelif you want to see the country. Thebacksides of America moon the passing trains. There is no show or hiding from the eyes in a caboose. The façades face the highways; the nakedposteriors expose themselves to the rails.

Keeping Both Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground

2012-01-11T06:22:00.000-08:00

This phrase is intended to be an invocation to practicalityand reason. The sage individual will berooted like a tree: immovable, unchanging, inflexible. Being planted seems to me to be incrediblyinhuman and counter to reason. To havethe feet ever nimble, in motion, indeed to dance seems to be the more practicaland reasonable advice. In Irish dancethe phrase “feet of fire, body of ice” typifies the aesthetic of the firm upperbody, the stillness of the head and mind, while the feet fly. An old text on dancing from the East definesthat art form as: “The act of running while remaining perfectly still.”

Although it makes for a seemingly mixed metaphor, the bettercliché might be to keep one’s head firmly planted on the ground, and to keepthe feet free in the air.

Perhaps the world would be a better place if we walked onour heads.

That is today’s dharma gate: more motion of foot, morestillness of mind.

Catching Up

2012-01-11T06:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday’s episode in the sweat shop started at 7:00 AM andended at 11:00 PM. I want today to makea double entry to keep the count. Besidesthe mops and brooms, I am engaged in a project that involves some explorationof the origin of languages. Unique amongthe theories is one that I am familiar with from a passage from a play byStrindberg. In the play a characterstates that languages originated in the need of one tribal group to hide itssecrets from another tribal group. Thus languagesoriginated in the need to conceal rather than to reveal. When a writer sets out to “tell the truth” heor she will be instantly frustrated by language’s inherent quality of dissimulation. In telling the truth we lie, or as Beckettput it, we create “one more stain upon the silence.”

Does that mean that silence is truth and that utterance is alie? If so, why do we persist? Lunacy? Habit? Or is the urge to utter a distinctivelyhuman disease that spreads to pandemic proportions?

It is morning and in the silence there is some truth.

Observing an Artist at Work

2012-01-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

I observe the observer whose trained eye can translate theworld into two dimensions. I see thearchitecture in its full form as she renders it into another. It is a gift I lack and so I admire it allthe more. At work I will sometimes stopby the studios where clay is molded, where paints are applied, where charcoalmeets the parchment. It is alchemy to meas I suppose the construction of symbols into shape is alchemy for another.

In my lifetime I have been fortunate enough to participate in allof the performing arts from orchestras to ballet, from live theatre to jazzimprovisation. The ephemeral arts Iunderstand like a second language learned from birth.

The plastic arts on the other hand are foreign to me. It is like when I travel in a foreign country;everyone sounds like a genius because I cannot understand what is beingsaid. It creates mystery where more thanlikely there is banality. It makes exoticismsand I cast a spell upon myself certain that there is magic in the everyday.

Somewhere there is light and day and an eye taking in themoment and translating experience into something new.

Death's Head

2012-01-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

Pretty little maids all in a row.

In puritan graveyards the message was alwaysstark and straightforward. Look upondeath; this is you. The death’s head is perhaps the first image of Americansculpture, which is here narrowly defined as the Anglo-European American.

This preoccupation with death explains a lotabout the culture this strain of Americanism engendered: the judgment, the endof times, the certainty of hell, and bare hope of heavy. If the puritans were anything they werecertain.

It is a vile, evil, and life-denying ideology. The sweatshop at which I work and to which Ireturn tomorrow is run by such holy degenerates. Their certainties allow them the liberty tocommit the most heinous crimes against individuals with a smile and thetightened sphincter of self-righteousness.

They are the sort who commits genocides and book burnings,purges and witch hunts, interrogations and torture,

and always done with the death head’s smile.

Mist by Nakazawa Hiromitsu 1907

2012-01-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

In an honor of the foggy night, here is a painting byNakazawa Hiromitsu entitled Mist and created in 1907.

The weather has remained cool and blankets of fog arise slumberlyout of the creeks and ponds, ditches and retention ponds to toss and turn upon thebanks restless and half asleep upon the road. I take a pause from work which must be done to turn to workthat ought to be done. There is not much else save the comforting dark and thewoman dressed in mist.

Fishing

2012-01-06T18:02:00.000-08:00

Among my many indulgent sins is deep sea fishing. I most often fish not far from the spot whereHart Crane made his final plunge. Thejoy of fishing is that one can spend an entire day at sea and at rest whileseemingly engaged in a useful occupation. If one actually catches a fish that is icing on the cake. If one fishes one is a fisherman.

I have often advised artists of the same thing. If one writes, one is a writer. If one paints, one is a painter. I think too many artists are stymied by theproduct. They think that if there is noreader they haven’t written. If no oneputs the painting in a gallery to be seen they have not painted.

Such thinking is defeatist and misses the joy ofdoing. My brother and I are both fairlycompetent anglers. He takes one side ofthe boat; I take the other. We arebasically fishing the same spot, but sometimes he catches a fish while I donot. Sometimes I catch a fish, and hedoes not. Sometimes we both catch afish. Sometimes we are bothskunked. The point being that a lot ofthe actual catching of the fish is blind luck.

So too is success in the arts. Beingread, seen, or heard is often a matter of chance. If you are after the fool’s gold of fame thattoo is a thunderbolt. You may be struck;you may not.

Doing is what is important. While people wax poetically about poetry – the Greek word from which it isderived merely means "making." If you makesomething then you are a maker. Do notlet the reception of others define you.

Climbing Jacob's Ladder

2012-01-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder

There are certain things that happen to a person that dramatically change the way in which others interact with that person, for example contracting leprosy. I know that you may think that leprosy is a rarity in these modern times, but you would be mistaken. Firstly, armadillos in my part of the world can spread the disease to humans and do so more frequently than before. Secondly, there are many varieties of leprosy: physical, psychological, economic, social, political, and situational.

We are climbing Jacob's ladder
We are climbing Jacob's ladder
We are climbing Jacob's ladder
Children of the world

Every round goes higher

Every round goes higher higher

Children, listen now

Love will lift us higher higher

Children of the world

This is the song we were taught in Sunday school. Thus are children indoctrinated with a sick and demented vision of the world that only a drooling simpleton would accept at face value. Indeed, the version we were taught is so distant from the darker original version born in slavery and sung during the American Civil War that you might suspect the Sunday school teacher of being a malicious liar. And you would be right. Not only is the song itself bowdlerized, it is neither biblical nor in keeping with any of the Hebraic traditions of interpretation of the dream.

Don’t take my word for it. Go read the original in the Book of Genesis Chapter 28 Verses 10 to 22

The angels on the ladder are not climbing higher and higher. The angels are not being lifted by love. The angels are ascending and descending. Ladders go both ways. In Hebraic tradition, a Midrash interpretation speaks to exile where one angel ascends seventy steps and then is cast down.

As for contracting leprosy, at the sweatshop I have recently been cast down after ascending at least three-quarters of the way up the ladder. When I was younger I might have started ascending again, but I am old and a fall from such I height aggravates the arthritis and sciatica. I shuffle about and notice that those who were once close to me avoid me as if they too may contract the disease and go tumbling down the ladder. The other day I was sitting with a co-worker, who when she noticed a supervisor coming down the hall way jumped up and scurried off as fast as her legs would take her.

“I must not be seen speaking with you.” I suppose were her thoughts.

I am not writing this out of any urge for sympathy or pity. I am writing to make a record. “We all got it coming, Kid,” says William Munny in my favorite Western “Unforgiven.” I cannot be other than I am and that comes with its own genetic baggage of consequences.

In the storage room where the tools of my trade are kept, one of the ladders hangs in the rafters right by the exit. Looking up after another day of mind numbing beatings I was reminded of Jacob’s Ladder. You may prefer Williams Blake’s version, a watercolor form around 1800. I do.

The Exit

2012-01-04T04:05:00.000-08:00

I arrive at the sweat shop before everyone else. It is especially cold. There is ice on the orange trees. It is winter and always still night when Iarrive. They call anything aftermidnight morning, but we all know differently. This building is haunted. I do not like walking through any part of itin the dark, so I have a carefully designed path for entering and exiting sothat I am never in the dark. Rightbefore the exit, I can unlock the door, reach in, and flick off the light as Islam the door shut. Right before theentrance there is an exterior spot in the pool of an outdoor light that shedsjust enough warmth into the abyss of black that I can stand with my toes uponthe ellipse on the floor and reach out to quickly turn on the overhead lights. You may think me overly cautiously, butnothing bad has happened yet. Let therebe no demons is a perfectly rational prayer.

In the moment before the dark, in the moment before thelight, there is a perfect dharma gate.

Holy Cow

2012-01-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

Holy cow. The sweatshop wherein I work is run by a gang that matches with scalpel like precision avile mean-spiritedness with an ungodly incompetence. So that today not one of the new softwareprograms installed during the winter break worked. Not one. The heat in the building was not in service so that one could store cadaversin every office and closet. After a few hours of frustration a dharma gateopened. This was an invitation to takeanother day off. I went to my boss andsaid that although I was ready to work apparently the institution was not. So, I packed up my mops, brooms, brushes, andwent home.

This year I mean to find more such dharma gates.

Mermaids in the Boil

2012-01-02T06:19:00.000-08:00

It has finally chilled enough to prompt the mermaids to swiminto the boil. At the water’s edge croucheddown among the laurel oak saplings and wild potato vines, I counted at least adozen at play.

The Janitor

2012-01-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

One can hardly expect this year to be any less miserablethan the last.

That slack jawed, two-faced janitor you see in the corner leaningon his mop handle is mouthing all kinds of secret curses. You can’t trust him. No one knows it or more likely is willing toadmit it, but he really runs this place. The earth needs janitors. That is why there is only a single Bach bornevery half millennium or so. . It takes one billion geniuses just to keep theplace clean.

From what does an artist protect the world? Boredom?

Janitors protect you from cholera.

There is a particular genius in the heft of a 32 ouncesaddle mop head soused in soapy water. The handle notched in the cleft of the hip to swing it up and over tosplash a wet slap on the floor. The jingleof the thumb wheel and the clatter of the side gate and clamp rattle like agypsy tambourine. Then shift to theopposite hip cleft, and swing, rattle, slap, splash. The counterpoint of cotton arcs in continual figureeights, the swing of the hips, the seamless dance, all combine to carve out ofmidnight’s stillness the music of making things clean.

The geniuses of the world want little from you. Our work is paid; we have a spare roomsomewhere; there is food in the fridge and water from the tap.

Perhaps a little homage would do.

The next midnight you are passing through the cities of theworld on elevated expressways peering into the few lighted windows at nightgive notice to the oblivious dancer in the amber frame. I am the keeper of portals and archways, entrancesand exits, floors and ceilings, openings and closings, and you may notparticipate in any of the earthly activities or delights without my invitation.

I keep the place clean.