~ . Winterland . ~

Dale Chihuly
Israel, October 1999

Winter has come to town. Frozen hands and frozen ears. Slow driving. Hot chocolate. Too hot or cold. Lights decorating the zoo and souvenir mugs. Christmas songs (we like and hate) and people eating too much food. Holidays and ringing bells; people having things and others needing things and many loving things and people. Wintertime is here again and long nights foster vivid dreams which may or may not be realized after the turning of a new year. Still, while snow is white there is hope.

~ . Giving Thanks . ~

A Brief List Of
Things To Be Grateful For

- Family
- Friends
- Love poems
- People who make you laugh
- Autumn walks with cold air and warm sun
- Winter car rides with Christmas music
- The first warm days of Spring
- Late Summer nights
- Music

- Food:

- Fresh Baguette
- Sourdough toast
- Cheeses
- Watermelon
- Mango
- Humus
- Falafel
- Good Pizza
- Chips & Salsa

- Beverages:
- Wine
- Cranberry Juice
- Water
- Spiced Cider
- Lemonade
- Iced tea
- McDonald's orange drink

- Art Supplies:
- Adhesives
- Fabrics
- Clay
- Paint
- Paper
- X-acto knives

So many other things, but these are coming to mind right now... I love Thanksgiving! It's a reason to celebrate without retailers pushing products (I guess ag. farmers and grocers get their time to shine) and without religious affiliation. What a tremendous way to trumpet the beginning of Christmas! I can't wait to start my own family and build my own traditions!

p.b. It is amusing/ ironic that I value the fact that Thanksgiving doesn't have a religious affiliation then plaudit its trumpeting of the beginning of Christmas.

~ . Picture Pictorialism . ~

Let's, you and I, go
for a walk by the moonlit
pond in the forest.

Edward Steichen
1904

~ . All I Have To Bring . ~

IT ’S all I have to bring to-day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget,—
Some one the sum could tell,—
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.

Emily Dickinson

~ . Abraham . ~

The day before the election.
The quiet before the storm.
Who will we elect to get us out of this place?

I just read a wonderful article by Russell Bishop on the Huffington Post betitled, "Election Anxiety: Advice from Abraham Lincoln." The article takes quotes from Abraham Lincoln and applies them to the current political environment. The application is alright, but the quotations are true gems that encouraged thinking about life and values. Here are my takes on a few of my favorite quotations.

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

Humans have an inate fascination with conflict: we love competition; we love sporting events; we love war. Why do some watch reality shows for hours? Conflicts between others keep us captivated - we get entangled in the dynamics and seek the relief of resolution. We like having different sides and seeing who the winner is. Sometimes people carry this conflict mentality into their personal lives, which is dangerous.

Competition is good and - indeed - a necesity in some cases. I am rediculously competitive by nature, but sometimes the line that separates competition from conflict becomes blurred. A competitor can easily become an enemy. Many, including me, are guilty of this. It is a destructive process to have and maintain an enemy while it is a constructive process to have a competitor. A competitor encourages us to be better, an enemy forces us to become more violent.

To Conclude:
enemy/conflict/ destructive
competitor/ competition/ constructive

Wouldn't it be wonderful to destroy an enemy by making the world better rather than destroying it? Life is much more fluid and multidimensional than two forces on one field trying to beat eachother; there will never be an unequivical winner, so why have enemies in the first place?

"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better. "

This is what I must try to do. Too often I pass judgements on limited information and completely dismiss people. Everyone can teach you something about life if you're willing to listen.

"He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help."

Criticism should also be constructive. If you grade a poorly written paper it is good to tell them how many mistakes they made - it is wrong to tell them their mistakes in a degrading and belittling manor. He who does not have a heart to help does not have the right to criticize.

I am too critical of people sometimes, as I think everyone is of others at times. It's important to be critical of people, but only if you are critical for the right reasons.

Well, I was going to rave about the brilliance of the subjunctive tense, but I was distracted by the article and found these thoughts more pressing. The subjunctive will have a post all of its own... how wonderful it is!

P.B. (post blog)
How wonderful is the name Abraham?! Commanding yet soft. Outmoded yet somehow timeless. I would like to have a friend named Abraham.

P.B. ad J. (post blog adjunct)
I love the p.b. idea and had to find something to function as a secondary addendum to the post that would be p.b. & j sounding.

~ . Death and High School Theatre . ~

Our lives are sometimes punctuated by strange and unsettling events. Saturday night I experienced one of these moments while attending my cousin's high school production of Clue (the Milton Bradley game/ Jonathan Lynn movie). The play was very cute, and I was very happy to see my family in Cincinnati. The most suspense in the show was created by Ms. Scarlet; she was, as prescribed by the script, dressed as a slut. The tension would rise when she would sit in the front stage couch with her slut skirt covering nothing and her legs slightly spread apart. Perhaps the costumer thought she was dressing her for a burlesque show... or perhaps she thought the skirt wouldn't leave the actresses vagina revealed. This was, to me, extremely funny given that it is a Catholic high school. Also funny was the fairly frequent taking of the lord's name in vain. The show continued with plot, mystery, and people dropping like flies. This is when the melodramatic turned truly dramatic.

It was not the conclusion of the play that brought a climax to the evening, but a little old lady across the isle from me. While the players were thick in plot, I began to hear whispers and talking to my left. "How rude," I thought, with a mean glance in their direction. I continued watching the play with slightly squinted eyes, hoping they would see me and realize that it is rude to talk during live theatre. Well they obviously didn't care at all, as I soon heard a cell phone going off. Since the daggar-throwing stare was not effective I thought I would have to step up my strategy with a half-body-turn and prolonged-scoulding-stare combo. Well I turned towards them with devilish eyes and realized it was not a cell phone ringing, it was a cell phone turning on to call an ambulance. There were three woman huddled around the old woman, who was making muffled sounds and only managing slurred words.

By this time most of playhouse has realized something is happening and people started standing up and leaning in all sorts of directions to see what was happening. So I'm right next to this woman and have no idea what sort of action to take. I have absolutely no emergency training (outside of Red Cross babysitting classes I took in the 7th grade) but feel like someone should be doing something. Luckily a nurse rushed to the woman and laid her on the floor.

While the woman is seemingly dying the play continued. As a former thespian I realize the show must go on, but my goodness! I was seated and wondering what I should be doing if the woman were dying. I thought, "fuck, if I was dying there I would want someone to come and hold my hand and tell me that help is on the way and stroke my hair and CARE! I would not have a happy passing over during a high school show of Clue with dozens of strangers in the dark staring at and whispering about me."

In fact I did not grab her hand. She did not die. I still felt bad.

It turns out the geezer had popped too much Vicodin before coming to the show and her blood pressure dropped. She was fine... I'm sure she was scared but more than fine with all the Vicodin... more than fine. It was an incredibly awkward, sobering, and pathetic situation. Pathetic because it was a drug overdose, because I did not reach for her hand, and because of everyone's reaction. Everyone was drawn in and fascinated, but no one took action. It was as if we were all on the verge of empathy but entirely incapable of actually being human and feeling for her. Half the audience continued watching the play and the other half whispered about the woman and about how weird it would be if someone died in the room during the play.

In conclusion: I give the players props for continuing through the incredible circumstance; I scold the director for not taking an intermission with someone in need of imediate medical attention; and I'm disappointed in myself watching and not doing anything about it.

To end on a lighter note, here is one of my all time favorite film moments: the incomparable Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White with Tim Curry in the 1985 version of Clue

~ . Ekphrasis . ~

For a recent writing assignment I had to create an ekphrastic poem. I had no idea what ekphrasis was, but have since learned and am very excited about it. Ekphrasis is making art about other art...a sculpture about a drawing, a film about a poem, or in my case a poem about a painting. I chose to write about a painting by André Derain of a coastal landscape in l'Estaque. The small fishing town on the Côte d'Azur of Southern France inspired him and many other painters including Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, and Paul Cézanne.

The image that inspired me is here below followed by the poem.

Do you remember that day, André,
That en plein air your rendered
In chromatic splendor the unsung light of l’Estaque?

It was before autumn
and after noon
in the hills
outside of town.

The walk there was long,
and the canvass you carried was heavy for its size.
Your burden pushed your body towards the earth
and each step pressed so hardly against the ground
they formed ephemeral unions,
each ending in divorce of foot from ground
like the unrooting of a producing olive tree.

You enjoyed the walk as I recall,
how your heavy steps crunched crisp, dry grass and how
your skin absorbed the sun’s electric rays
and made you feel alive.

He came to his stopping point
where he discovered his composition.
There, he propped his canvass
and set his pallet in the usual manner.
The air was fragrant with willow and linseed oil.

Taking a moment
to inhale the colors and shapes before you,
you came to realize what your eyes could see
and denounced the lies your mind told you
that you should be seeing.

A soft Azurian breeze came
to hear the sermon you were preaching,
the soft gusts of which made your canvass wobble
from the left
to the right
for a moment.

You pushed the yellow on the canvass first
and found its glowing echoes all around.
Skylight fell like warm water
flooding the kaleidoscopic countryside.

The artist then lost any marriage to the ground.

All weight,
even that of his moving arm,
was pulled away as by a rising tide
into the distance where it drowned.

Everything behind him drowned, too.
And the space above him.
And the space on his right.
And the space on his left.

Only two worlds existed now,
and he was the space between them.
He continued painting
until he was no longer the space between
and all the world was returned anew.

~ . Beaux, Joyeux, Beaujolais . ~

Over the last two evenings I have discovered delightfully lively Beaujolais wine. This evening I had a younger AOC (french certified) Beaujolais that's fairly sassy. Joseph Drouhin 2006 is a racy wine that is crisp and tart with a long lingering mineral aftertaste. It paired very well with a stronger, fruity Italian Taleggio cheese. A sweet strawberry and chocolate dessert would follow this wine well... perhaps some baking is in store for this evening!

Besides the wine, I have also discovered some fun Samba music on Pandora today. One of my favorite songs is "Summer Samba" which has friendly and hauntingly familiar melody. Here are the lovely lyrics that pull me in and let me lose myself in romance:

Someone to hold me tight

that would be very nice.

Someone to love me right

that would be very nice.

Someone to understand

each little dream in me.

Someone to take my hand

and be a team with me.

So nice, life would be so nice

if one day I'd find

someone who would take my hand

and samba through life with me.

Someone to cling with me,

stay with me right or wrong.

Someone to sing to me

some little samba song.

Someone to take my heart

and give his heart to me.

Someone who's ready to

give love a start with me.

Oh yeah, that would be so nice.

I could see you and me, that would be so nice.

Oh yes, that would be so nice!

Shouldn't we, you and me?

I can see it will be nice!

I want that man, who will hold me tight and who will understand all the little dreams in me. Who will be the one to stay with me right or wrong? (Because I can be right and wrong) Ohhh this samba song will keep me warm this Winter, until Spring brings growth and light again.

~ . Begin . ~

And so it begins. This will be a place to organize my thoughts and discoveries during this endless game of nontrivial pursuit. The pursuit of what? We'll find out one day, but the important thing right now is to just keep trying.

The title of my blog comes from the dedicated art critic Waldemar Januszczak. To prepare for an interview with the artist Anselm Kiefer (who used numerous literary and cultural references in his art) Januszczak read opera librettos, epistles, short stories, novels, and the writings of psychoanalysts. He said collecting the information referenced in the paintings was a "kind of marvelously addictive game of Nontrivial Pursuit." (Connoisseur May 1988) What a delightful metaphor, no?! So I stole it.

Speaking of Anselm Kiefer, he falls into the category of creative-types that I have endearingly termed "smart artists." Kiefer creates many works that are centered around WWII, making silent statements about the Nazi's atrocious acts. The image below, "March Heath," is one of many dull landscape paintings Kiefer did of lonely and abandoned pastoral locals in Germany that were once the settings of horrific acts of inhumanity.

The words Märkische Heide are painted into the image. Märkische Heide is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, and is the title of a Nazi marching anthem. To me, this painting is like a sad song with a never ending chorus. While Kiefer's image are muddy and gray, they are also emotional and have a deep, spiritual resonance.

Hopefully many more images and links will be posted on this blog and I look forward to documenting my journey on this endless and sometimes whimsical game of nontrivial pursuit!

I feel obliged to have a lighter finish for my premier post, so here is another painting of a road that is a bit more cheery. This is Charing Cross Bridge (1905) by André Derain, my new favorite Fauvist painter. Derain painted this bridge several times, and the National Gallery in D.C. has a famous painting he did of the bridge one year later.

More on the Fauvists to come. What wild beasts they were! How I love them!