prickly

We had our first snow.  It was white and delicious for about 6 hours.  We didn't have a sale this weekend and so I had a weekend off -- first in a zillion years.  I seemed to have slept a large percentage of it away and now I feel like I have a horrible hangover (never mind my eyes and sinuses are puffy).  The Patriots won no no no let me rephrase that -- Baltimore lost their AFC Championship game.  Even I feel bad for Cundiff -- he looked like a little altar boy in that press conference.  I love football and my team -- but even I feel a bit guilty about going to the Super Bowl.  Such is football -- penalties, turnovers and a little luck.  Or magic.  Or faith -- depending what sect you pay your dues to.

I did manage to bake a pineapple upside down cake this weekend as well.  And cooked a kick ass stir-fry.  I used to love to cook but just don't seem to have the same verve for it right now.  Noot won.  Can you believe it?  I don't think he'll be the nominee but man it sure makes the primaries fun -- well maybe fun isn't exactly the right word.  I was chatting with a friend last night and she said she misses Rick Perry -- he is some dumb he's hard not to kind of love.  If not be utterly frightened of I suppose.

I wrote a poem kind of thing the other day.  It is horrible but at least it was something.  I need to get going on the poem that is due for the exhibit next month.  Sigh.  I don't know why I say yes to those things.  I started to watch, in the middle of the night, a movie called Tom & Viv.  Willem Dafoe playing T.S. Eliot and Miranda Richardson his wife.  I need to watch it when I'm not coming down from a wicked buzz.  I fell asleep though the cigarette smoke alone was intense.   There are several films I want to see this winter now that football season is almost over.   One winter all we watched were movies about painters.  I don't know if there is a theme this year yet.

I've got things to mail.  Why is it so difficult for me to get to the post office I wonder.  I think it is parking and the line and the forms.  I know there is a way to do it from home but I'm too lazy to figure that out as well.  I fear my children have inherited my intense procrastination gene.  Oh and I seemed to have wrenched my left shoulder.   I feel a bit prickly today.  I'm hitting save...

redemption in the USA

Noot was banging someone other than his then-wife while trying to impeach Slick Willie for lying about not having sexual relations with some young intern.  Noot says his affair was basically because of his love of country.  Willy basically said "who cares about what I do with my cigars -- it's the Economy Stupid."  Christians were freaking out -- Character means Everything.

President Obama is, by all accounts, a dedicated family man.  A man full of good, clean character.

The folks on the Right say President Obama and the Dems hang out with "Intelligent, Elitists"

Mitt's named after the dude that owns Marriot hotels -- a good friend (best really) of his downtrodden Pop who was CEO of American Motors.  Mitt is worth billions.  But -- he's obviously not elite.  His money needs that sunlight to grow in the Caymans.

Of course, evangelical Christians love them some Noot and the Corporations are salivating for a confused Mitt who can't keep his opinions straight, like his teeth -- it's the battle, the need to get that horrible guy out of zee Should Always Be Very White, White House.

art snobbery

I have a friend who grew up in Woodstock, NY in the 60's and 70's.  He has incredible stories about Dylan and Joplin and those nutty 60's artists who lived in the colonies up there.  I'd like to tell some here.  He has art he bought or traded for done by artists who now have fairly successful sales records.  His mother recently bought a Larry Rivers at  a garage sale and his parents house is full to the brim with "really, good art."  

I'm angling to get one of his John Ernst's watercolors.   My friend bought a trash bag full of Ernst's rolled up watercolors when John had fallen on hard times and could be found selling his stuff on the streets of Woodstock for cigarette money.  They are crazy looking.

I love getting stoned and listening to his stories and rummaging through his attic and basement -- he has a photograph by Mapplethorpe that he mustered out of a basement in Provincetown twenty years ago among massive stacks of stuff he's traded for, collected over the years.   I ask him for the story behind every thing he shows me.  I sometimes think the story makes the art that much better.

Last night I traded him a 19th C still life exhibited at the World's Columbine Exhibition in 1893 for some local modern art by Victor Candell, an unsigned but authenticated Matisse litho, an Edward Gorey Mystery Theater Poster (Sweeney Todd) from 1982 (for my son) an unbelievably gorgeous Nantucket basket and two original oils by other local, now deceased artists.   There's another I want to trade for -- he just dug it out last night but I have to come up with some goods.  It's really_good.

I am becoming a bit of an art snob.  I think.  Soon I will want to take down anything hanging in the house that isn't "good."  I will be a jerk about it all.  And people will start to think I'm stealing from my clients.  But I almost never exchange money in my gathering up of these treasures.  The world of stuff is weird.  The world of art stuff maybe weirder.  I plan to put all the stories down and in envelopes so that when I'm gone my kids will have the provenance of these things.  Will it matter to them?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Maybe they'll just want the stuff from their grandparents -- those old dutch paintings, the maritime paintings, the portrait of their great-grandfather painted by a Dutchess.  Will their husbands/wives allow them to hang the outlandish modern art in their homes?  What about the growing nude collection and will the even bother to fight over the still life supposedly painted by a kid who new Van Gogh and brought to the states by a serviceman?

Am I an art snob if I don't pay money for the stuff?  I would hate to think I am an art snob.  I can't ever be a real art snob probably.  I don't even have a pension or paid vacation.  I don't have golden handcuffs or a trust fund.

I tell my Woodstock friend it is really all about karma -- give good and get good back.

I was up all night.  Too much stuff laying on my brain.  Going to have a nap.  I hope I dream something good to give.

Demons

Edward Gorey said this -- "Ideally, if anything was any good, it would be indescribable."

pretty much sums it up doesn't it?

Politics Anonymous

Politics are bringing me way down (again).  I need to put them away somewhere.  I can't bear the thought of Romney/Christie -- I can't bear the thought of all those young kids being brainwashed by Ron Paul (doesn't he understand there is a Congress?).

Did anyone see that in Georgia they used slavery references in math word problems?  The teachers thought it was a good mixing of disciplines as they were studying slavery in social studies.  Did you see those math questions?  Fuck.  My kids went to a charter school where they did that sort of thing successfully -- we never had math problems that asked how many beatings a person might  get in a day.... Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.

I need a political hiatus.

I think it is Elvis Presley's birthday -- or nearabouts.  Elvis reminds me of my Pop.  I dreamed about him the other day-- my Pop that is.  It was so real.   In the dream I was lost (though the street in the dream was where I grew up).  He pulled up next to me in a car and rolled down the window -- and smiled and smiled like he did.  He didn't need to say a word.  He was rescuing me.

When I tried to talk about it with my mother -- I cried.   I don't talk about him too much.  It makes me too sad.   I think that's the reason.  

There are lots of Elvis songs I love. I love young black leather clad Elvis and I love portly white jump suit Elvis.

I've got one of these

Poppy

No no no no...not heroin. 

My mac got sick and had to take it to the shop to get fixed.  While at the mac shop I bought an iPad. I think I had a sudden spell of CafeSelavyious.   Then I went to the nearest post office (not a PO I normally frequent) -- while there mailing late Christmas presents I adopted a puppy.  I said "adorable dog -- she said do you want her?"  I said yes.

SOPA, the new Ghosts & Visions of Johanna

I need to keep up on this SOPA stuff.  It bends the brain a bit (at least mine).   I tried to catch up a little on the subject tonight.

Who likes this idea?  What journalists support it?  I can't really find any. Yet I've read the pro-SOPA lobby is is led by various media companies.  The new Ghosts.

"Corporations are people my friends."  Mitt Romney.

"The bank is something more than men, I tell you.  It's the monster.  Men made it, but they can't control it."

John Steinbeck, The Grape of Wrath.




And so when my head hurts, I go here  for a different sort of pain.  Complete with album scratch.  Join me if you care.

art by my son's roommate.  Matt.  He needed money.  I bought it for forty bucks.

Smoking Kids

I dunno...my son is home from college and was using my computer.  I came home and this link was up. It does have a strange effect doesn't it.

From this website

WTF

I mean really....

starry starry night...

The Magi

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,   

In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones   

Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky   

With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,   

And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,   

And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,   

Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,   

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Happy Christmas to all who happen across these words.

Freedom in Amerika?

"Andrew March, a Yale University professor who testified for the defense as an expert witness, said the verdict sends the message to Muslim Americans that they do not have free speech.

"I do what he did almost every single day at Yale University. I teach Islamic law, I study Islamic law. I translate things about al-Qaida. I teach people to debate," March said. "Because I'm not a Muslim and because of what my name is, I have no problem doing it. But if my name were Tarek Mehanna, I would have everything being tapped, and that should worry every single one of us."

freetarek.com 

The new store is doing tremendously well.  Our customers can't seem to say enough about how much they love the look and feel of the place.  It's sure encouraging.  We had our best day yesterday -- over 700 dollars in sales.  We're seeing the same people come in over and over and we've only been open 3 weeks.  And only 4 days a week.  It is a good sign all around I think.

The best part, well there are many best parts but it is really cool to be able to be supporting local artists.  And word is getting around because more and more are coming in with their wares.  Before we opened, people were giving us such negative vibes about our location ... there had been several different types of stores in this building that didn't make it but still ... anyway it is fun to be,so far, proving them incorrect. Or better, just making the energy positive on our little corner in Cotuit.  

This post is light and unimportant in the scheme of things.  But I never pledged that every day would be a serious undertaking or earth shattering.  Just sharing.  Here is a photo of some of the deliciously smelling organic, made in the USA soaps we are carrying.  The orange is citrus lavender and just yum.

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad..."

No.  Not Philip Larkin ... of course not.  First off, he's dead.  And when he was alive, he was British.  It's the US Poet Laureate, Philip Levine I saw an article about this morning.

But wouldn't it have been fun to have Philip Larkin as US Poet Laureate.

I didn't even know Philip Levine was Poet Laureate.  I haven't much kept up with modern poetry.  Except with the poet folks I hang around with.  I'm not sure why -- no that's a lie -- I know precisely why I haven't kept up:

A:  The Professor hates most poems written today (no more he says they aren't Poetry and does try to encourage by being critical) and of course I have followed him like a faithful student does.  Picking apart modern poetry like a turkey vulture on roadkill.

Jealousy is a very horrible trait.  For many years I worked to eradicate the "j" word from my life.  I did pretty good -- it remains, however, lurking inside me with regard to two specific areas:

1. Brilliant poems written by young women.

2.  The drug addict with the perfect ass the Professor had in his life (for 5 years) who didn't love him worth a damn but drove him to ridiculous lengths to keep her in his bed.  AND for whom he wrote smoldering poetry about.

I think it is coming a long way to be able to point out specifics like that.  Don't you agree?

Where was I?  Oh.  Philip Levine.  I couldn't finish reading his poem "Drum" this morning.  I found my mind wandering ... I wasn't compelled to keep reading.  I wasn't drawn in.  Once, I wrote a poem in which the first line is  "your mind is a sun-fucked sea..."  I wasn't attempting to be a shockjock poet, I was thinking of when a sun ray shoots down into the ocean.  How an idea can pierce the mind --

I stole sun-fucked from a dear dear old poet -- well I didn't steal it -- she said I could have it.  She used it to describe a story of her and a lover being on the beach.  Sun-fucked.  I love it.   Anyway,  I'm not sure poets should be normal people.  Maybe that is the problem with some of the poet laureates we've had in the USA lately -- they are so "normal."  Why wasn't Mr. Ferlinghetti ever named Poet Laureate?  Or Allen Ginsberg?

They seem very normal to me.  Don't you love Mr. Ferlinghetti's "her hair was rainy, her breasts were breathless..."

Random brain scrapes & tablescapes

I saw a headline today about Michael Jackson's hair being made into a roulette ball.   It wasn't on one of those "most outrageous" headlines site either.  That's just fucked up innit?

Do you still write out Christmas cards?  I hope you do.  Even if it is just to a few people.  Imagine -- the post office is going down the shitter -- I'll probably have to explain to my grandchildren what Christmas cards were.  It is odd.  I don't feel old.  I read a blog of a guy who is just 2 or 3 years younger than I am and he is preparing for the birth of his first baby.  And my babies are 20 & 15.  It's strange.

Someone told me the other day that there is truth to the notion that time goes faster the older you get.  Something about hormones ... I think that is what she said.  I'll do some research and report back.  Remember when you were a kid?  It seemed like it took forever for Christmas to arrive and now were are heading into the End of Times (2012 and all).

The sports radio guys can't stop talking about Tim Teebow.  It is better than Jerry Sandusky I guess.  All of the sudden they are protecting him like he really is an Angel sent from Heaven.

Hey!  Maybe it will be the end of the world with Gingerich being President.

I dunno.  I do love the smell of gasoline & leather.  Do you know that Dankso advertises "Vegan Shoes?"   I guess all the trendy companies do.  I have stacks of things to do.  I'm not going to do any of them this evening.  I've got the hot tub heating up.  I'm going to sky watch and relax.  Maybe smoke a little bone then write some Christmas cards.

This blogging stuff is something.

Mother Nature

Is this the beginning of something?  or the last of something ancient?  And I don't mean the "being served at restaurants" part.

I'm no scientist so maybe this stuff isn't even that interesting to anyone.  Maybe it's just old news.  But  I just love when new species are discovered.  We read so much of the species that disappear -- it makes me even the slight bit optimistic about the planet Earth when I read "deep in the green jungles of Vietnam this lizard was discovered in 2010...."  And I just can't help but think of those campy B movies where a village of super powerful women are discovered.  I'd miss men though, for sure.

There was a snow ring around the moon last night.  It was quite lovely.  I think I might even be ready for the first real snow.  Something quiet -- snow that begins falling at dusk and full of sparkle.  We went for the Christmas trees last night.  Now comes the decorating.  I'm doing the upstairs tree in all birds.  I have a funky purple owl for the top.  She's already up there waiting for the rest to arrive.  Hannah will decorate other tree with all the "traditional" ornaments we've accumulated during the lives of her and her brother.  We love to pull them out and laugh at the ones they made in nursery school.  Some full of scribble & haste but still garnering the perfect spot on the tree.   If only the holidays were that easy....

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field, Mary Oliver 

Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings — five feet apart —
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow —
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought:
maybe death isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us —

as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.

Discombobulate

Do you know Anselm Kiefer?  I didn't (until I read this article on huff post this morning).  So much I don't know.  It is a prideful thing -- to think one "knows" a lot.  I want to know a lot.    

Europe is another planet isn't it?  Like Asia.  Australia doesn't seem so other worldly though.  Perhaps it is the barrier of language.  I don't know.

At one time in my life I investigated purchasing a light house.  I got the list of the light houses for sale east of the Mississippi.  I got the bid forms.  I was going to apply as an educational organization.  I dreamed I could some how combine my love of the sea with my passion for poetry in some tangible way.  It would be a place poets could come and stay -- have sabbaticals.  Or something.  I realized when trying to fill out the proposal forms I hadn't really given it enough thought.   I couldn't explain to the government why I should have a lighthouse for poetic reasons.

I gave up that dream when I realized my corporate job wasn't going to let me "hit it big." When a giant deal I was working on with a company focused on usury didn't come to fruition after almost a full year of being tethered to that hope -- I quit that rat race shortly after that.  Well after going almost broke because I had put all my eggs in that basket I guess.  I am one of the most hopeful folks on the planet I'm sure.  I can see hope in the blackest of despair.  Until I fall in of course.

A Libra should not allow themselves to suffer such highs and lows.  "Grab the balance stick in front of you and hold on..." a Yogi who I studied with for over a year taught me.

Is this post swinging all over the map?  I am an expert in that type of writing,   I think.

Monday's are my weekends.  Today I will do many mundane things.  Grocery shop, clean, go to the post office.  I will also find a few minutes to go to the local thrift stores and dig for treasures.  Tonight Hannah and I will get a Christmas tree.  I tried to talk her into a beautiful artificial one -- she said no.  The Black Swan had a very successful weekend of the Nutcracker.  I can't believe how she is progressing.  Her boyfriend attend the same show as I did -- he picked her up and swung her around when she came flitting out in her last costume.  I was standing there with two bouquets of flowers and she told me to "go away now...".   Motherhood.  One must be awful tough to endeavor that occupation that's for sure.

Where was I?  Oh oh oh...

Anselm Kiefer.  "Art is difficult, it is not entertainment."

Saturday ....

It's been a super busy Saturday ... two sales, the Nutcracker, the new shop.  I'm spent but didn't sleep much last night.  Stayed up till 4AM to watch the American Masters on Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary of being a band.  The first time I went to see them I had an infant under 1 and the second time I was pregnant with my second.  The second time was 11th row and everyone was nervous about people moshing on me with a fetus in utero (I wonder what Cobain would be doing if he was alive).

The Nutcracker performance tonight was lovely.  Hannah is certainly amazing -- but it is not good to brag about ones own child too much.  There were some three year olds that slayed of course, they always do.  Matinee tomorrow.

Just came in from soaking outside.   Cold -- about 35 degrees but the water was up to 105 by the time I got home from the performance and the night so bright and blue -- that sort of mother's milk blue spilling all over the yard.

I've got nothing to complain or whine about this evening.  Tonight ...let's just dance and kiss under the Blue Moon.

Poll indicates Gingerich is the "true conservative."

Well.  Now that we have that out of the way.  True conservative... really?

Really?

These are mad mad times.  But not the good mad ... where art & intellect flourish.  These are no Enlightened times.  Nopey.  This is like Mad Max Goes Right Wing Christian or something.  And I've already expressed my "those right wing Christians don't know nuttin bout Jesus" opinion.

But at least the folks who have been masking their racist attitude toward our President are coming out of the closet.  "Food Stamp President.."  "Soul Train Initiative.." what else have I heard over the past few days ... oh "poor kids have no idea what a working role model looks like." "Gay people shouldn't openly serve in the military" ... oy vey.

As distressed as this stuff makes me feel, I actually wish people would always be that honest and quit couching their real feelings in innuendos.  Just say ... "I really am afraid of those black folks getting more power."  or "White people should always be in charge."  At least then we'd have somewhere to go.  It wouldn't necessarily be a good place but at least it would be honest.   The bubbling lava under the surface is making my feet hot while walking around this country.

And let's not even talk about the Town Dictators taking over 5 or 6 cities in Michigan thereby making the citizens of those towns votes null and void.  WHAT?

If I spend too much time reading and listening to this "news" I feel too depressed to get up and go out.    If I don't pay attention and try to talk about it I feel like I'm being irresponsible.  But I have to stop getting into arguments with people I guess.  I have been hit with several anti-union folks lately.  As if unions are the cause of all our problems.  I'm learning to smile and just not engage anymore.  What good will it do to argue with these strangers?  I'm not going to change their minds.

I'm depressed and I've not started my day.  I have a big estate sale today and tomorrow (two this weekend with one being a benefit for the Boys & Girls Club of Cape Cod).   I need to smile and be cheerful for the next two days.  

I need to be a lover ....

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy
absentminded.  Someone sober will worry about
things going badly.  Let the lover be.

Rumi

The Week of Nutcracker ...

Homework on the run.  Hair in a bun.  False eye-lashes.  Tide-spot stick.  Make-up remover.  Costume changes.  Toe pads.  Pink tights.  Brown hair nets.  Bobby pins.

Not even the polichinelles are cute during dress rehearsal...

My Black Swan.

Sexual Objectification

Apparently if you are a woman and participate on the show Dancing with the Stars, you should not be upset or surprised that a strange man films you naked through your hotel peep door window.   And 10 million dollars is too much money to sue for damages.  And she's an awful reporter.

This is what I heard on the Boston sports radio station I listen to in the morning.  Well, it was something close to that.  Something about Erin Andrews dancing with her "ass up in the air" on Dancing with the Stars and therefore she isn't "really upset or damaged" by the guy who filmed her naked without her knowing it at a Marriott hotel and posted it to the internet.  A Marriott hotel that gave out information about her staying at the location and rented the filmer a room right next door to hers.

The two men radio show hosts said these sort of things.  A few days ago they were asking for the castration of Jerry Sandusky because of the charges being brought up against him.  

Is it just me?  Shit.  I know innocent children and stuff but really?  Are women THAT much below the sexual food chain?

Of course these are the same guys that bash the Occupy Wall Streeters.  Why do I continue to listen?  I may not.  I can get the sports news I want from other sources.  I don't think I want to continue to give those guys ratings.  I know, I know, I'm simply a small fish in the big pond of listeners but it is really the only way I know how to protest.  I did call the station about the Occupy Wall Street bashing -- the woman I was directed to said "Well, I wish they'd talk more about the Patriots and not the Red Sox after all it is football season..."  So I'm not sure how far my complaint got -- but I did at least call.  I simply stated I listen to the station for SPORTS news not POLITICS.  If I wanted to listen to politics I'd turn the dial.

I'm bothered by what I heard yesterday.  In my ears it sounded just like "well if you wear a low cut shirt how could the rapist resist?"  Even a few female callers said "She got famous after the incident in the hotel ... no one knew who she was before that."  So therefore what?   Crimes against her should go unpunished?

I know that is a bit hyperbolic  but listening to those people yesterday made me wonder about the real progression of equality for women.    No not equality necessarily I suppose -- basic respect?  I'm sure 10 million dollars is a ridiculous amount of money for the suit.  But that isn't really the point of this.  (Honestly, I don't know what the point is ... writing into cyberspace).  Sigh.

On a forum at an online site I participate in, I posted something similar about the first Herman Cain accuser and how some of the public were reacting to her accusations.... a man contributed to the thread with a comment close to "Men lust after women it is just the way it is...."

I'm not a hyper feminist -- really.   I'm don't even think I qualify as a feminist.  I'm just a Libra interested in the balancing of scales.  I totally believe if a woman or man wants to be a stripper or a prostitute or pose nude etc. and the deal is on their terms -- more power to them.  

Ah. Never mind.  This is silly.  I'm going to go stare at photos of Tom Brady to make myself feel better.