Planetary Colors And The Grail Quest

She has a blue bra she calls ‘Earth blue’
and a scarlet bra she calls ‘Mars red.’
“That one’s ‘clouds of Venus white,’” she said
when I held up a white bra. “I do

have a black bra, ‘space black.’ I’ve no clue
what to get next,” she said. “If I head
to Uranus, Neptune—blue. Busted.
Mercury, Pluto, have no real hue.”

I said, “Jupiter and Saturn each
have their own unique shade of ochre.”
“Yes,” she said, “but would anyone know?”

“Hidden mysteries,” I said, “hide and teach.
No cat always purrs when you stroke her.”
“I’ve learned,” she laughed, “from this cosmic show.”

Beautiful And The Damned, Emo And The Glammed

Photo Beauty gets attention
Then her eye paint’s running down
She’s got a rose in her teeth
And a lampshade crown
One minute she’s so happy
Then she’s crying on someone’s knee
Saying laughing and crying
You know it’s the same release


Joni Mitchell, People’s Parties

One reason to play alternate tunings
on a guitar is to get different chords
out of the same old finger shapes. The hordes
don’t want to bother with tricky new things

if a trivial twist they can do brings
different sounds from the wires on their fretboards.
Maybe their brains are pining for the fjords
but they strum what the glam girl in school sings.

The laughing boys and girls like glamour, too,
perfumes and colognes smell better than sweat.
And the laughing young dudes want to belong.

But they want to fit with a different crew,
a thought, belief, dream, maybe never met.
The laughing kids hear and play a jazz song.

Adventure’s Waiting Just Ahead

In Shanghai Chloe animates
a squirrel dancing to traffic sounds.
In Chicago Alison pounds
drum pads. Her playing syncopates

red lights, green lights, rushes and waits
of drive time cars making the rounds.
Chloe’s key-frames define the bounds
of her squirrel’s dance, how she gyrates.

Alison frowns. Something’s missing.
Chloe frowns. Something’s not quite right.
They hear music but something’s wrong,

something like bad speakers hissing.
They work. What they see is in sight.
They see jazz. They hear a jazz song.







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This is my 1,000th post.


I’m not done yet. I am like Alison and Chloe. I’m frowning. Something’s missing. Something’s not quite right. But I hear music through the hissing and the music sounds cool. I want to hear more. And I’m pretty sure this is the kind of thing that if you want to hear more you have to work at it. I’m going to keep working at it.




Here he comes
Here comes Speed Racer
He’s a demon on wheels
He’s a demon and he’s gonna be chasing after someone

He’s gaining on you so you better look alive
He’s busy revving up the powerful Mach 5

And when the odds are against him
And there’s dangerous work to do
You bet your life Speed Racer
Will see it through

Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go

He’s off and flying as he guns the car around the track
He’s jamming down the pedal like he’s never coming back
Adventure’s waiting just ahead

Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go

Neptune Light

I wish I could see this woman
illuminated by Neptune,
colors as bright as a cartoon
when Chuck Jones made cartoons for fun,

each line defined, artfully done,
each look sure as a stone-carved rune,
each thought expressed, not one too soon,
in Neptune light far from the Sun.

Far away from franchise restaurants,
far away from convenience stores,
far away from telephones, too.

My ship’s cabins our only haunts.
Neptune light, our only light, pours
through all ports, Bugs Bunny grey-blue.

Naming Things

A roll of toilet tissue
and an old wired telephone.
The ladybug trapped alone
flies where it already flew

through the winter house. One shoe
with no laces. The dust blown
at each insect landing zone,
bug marks, the only shapes new.

No aphids to eat inside.
A piano. Brittle books.
No plants outside in the snow.

Eight chairs. All directions tried.
One green scarf, one grey, on hooks.
Naming things. The chance to know.

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A Ladybug Looking Out At Winter

Madonna Di Loreto

Giovanni Baglione said that the unveiling of this painting “caused the common people to make a great cackle over it.” The uproar was not surprising. The Virgin Mary, like her admiring pilgrims, is barefoot. The doorway or niche is not an exalted cumulus or bevy of putti, but a partly decrepit wall of flaking brick is visible. Only the merest halo sanctifies her and the baby. While beautiful, the Virgin Mary could be any woman, emerging from the night shadows. Like many of Caravaggio’s Roman paintings the scene is a moment where everyday common man or woman encounters the divine, whose appearance is also not unlike that of a common man or woman.

paraphrase of Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto Wikipedia entry

There is something more here than photoshopping
away some celebrity’s fat or age lines.
The art of the craft is knowing what defines
ordinary and divine. And not stopping

at the borderline, the edge. And not cropping
away the elements from beyond. Designs
craft never calculates, art never refines,
the hand meets rising, eyes meet without dropping.

Could anyone create this image today?
Could any eyes, I mean any inside eyes,
the eyes of somebody’s mind, somebody’s heart,

meet the divine inside and not drop away?
Could any hand today rise and seize that prize?
We are barefoot in shadows desperate for art.

“Echelon Building Destroyed in Plane Crash”

AUSTIN, TX-A suburban office building containing federal government offices was destroyed Thursday morning by a small airplane that authorities believe intentionally crashed. The seven-story, 65,000-square-foot Echelon I building was struck at approximately 9:30 a.m. local time.

According to various media reports, the building at 9430 Research Blvd housed offices for the Internal Revenue Service and several other federal agencies. The pilot of the Piper Cherokee that flew into the building, identified as Joseph Andrew Stack, reportedly had a long-running dispute with the IRS.

The IRS has stated that 190 employees worked at Echelon I, part of a four-building office park, and that personnel were still being accounted for Thursday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration says it is investigating the incident as a "criminal act" rather than an accidental plane crash.

By Carl Cronan, GlobeSt.com

Echelon is an interesting name!

I’ve known people who would not say that name aloud and would not type those letters on any computer.

For people unfamiliar with tin foil conspiracy theories, “Echelon” is the name used to refer to an alleged global monitoring system that allows the government to monitor, cross-reference and catalogue any and every electronic exchange of data. Phone conversations, e-mails, data transfers—the theory is that everything gets scanned, tagged by key words and stored. (The theory goes that’s how the US had tapes of the KAL-007 disaster.)

Wikipedia says: ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network...

Anyway, this building in Texas apparently is just a low-level government building and not the nerve center of the most advanced global spy apparatus in the world.

But it’s interesting that some nut decided to fly his plane into a building with the same name.

I was actually reading news at Free Republic when a Freeper apparently was the first person to discover the nut’s “manifesto” and send out its location to various new agencies. I checked out the HTML source of the nut’s supposed web site and it looked so neat and clean (the source code, I mean) that I assumed it was an internet prank and not the real deal.

But so far it’s being reported as real.

So today is an interesting day.

I’ve already seen the numerology references: 9+11=20 and 2+18=20 along with 9+1+1=11 and 2+1+8=11

That’s interesting. And the name of the building is interesting. And the amount of damage one little plane caused is interesting.

I’m guessing, however, that this is the kind of interesting stuff that will get more attention on the internet than on TV or in the papers.

The Built World Before The Wrecking Crew

You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons
With the money we’ve got...

...Panic bells it’s red alert
There’s something here
From somewhere else...

...Everyone’s a superhero
Everyone’s a Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify and classify...

...It’s all over and I’m standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
And here is a red balloon
I think of you and let it go

excerpts from Nena and Kevin McAlea

I never would look for a souvenir
of the world around us when you were near.

Walking through wreckage, torn, filthy, blood-stained
I’d kick down any structure that remained.

The patterns of clouds and patterns of stars
always would remind me of what was ours.

Walking through wreckage I would wreck it more.
I tear. I filth. I blood. I wreck. I war.

In the built world before the wrecking crew
the world before did what it did to you.

Squirrels Of Chaos And Delight

I contributed some lyrics last night
to the jazz music the squirrels were playing.
I’m always terrified of displaying
how I’m out of touch and don’t think quite right

and the squirrels’ playing is always so tight
that I’m extra frightened now wondering
what they’ll make of my words, my blundering
narration of their chaos and delight.

But if I didn’t try to contribute
funny words I put together with lust
for a girl and a painting and a grail

I’d feel a loneliness so absolute
I’d stop listening. Terror’s better than rust.
Both don’t sleep. But the squirrels might like my tale.

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Squirrels And The Lost Mountains Of Tibet


Boo!

Editors Comma Having Been Cut Down Comma

RICH: I’m adrift. Help me.

MORE: How?

RICH: Employ me.

MORE: No.

RICH: (Desperately) Employ me!

MORE: No!

RICH: (Moves swiftly to exit; turns) I would be steadfast!

MORE: Richard, you couldn’t answer for yourself even so far as tonight. (RICH exits. All watch him.)

ROPER: Arrest him.

ALICE: Yes!

MORE: For what?

ALICE: He’s dangerous!

ROPER: For libel; he’s a spy.

ALICE: He is! Arrest him!

MARGARET: Father, that man’s bad.

MORE: There is no law against that.

ROPER: There is! God’s law!

MORE: Then God can arrest him.

ROPER: Sophistication upon sophistication!

MORE: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal.

ROPER: Then you set man’s law above God’s!

MORE: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact—I’m not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can’t navigate. I’m no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I’m a forester. I doubt if there’s a man alive who could follow me there, thank God . . . (He says this last to himself)

ALICE: (Exasperated, pointing after RICH) While you talk, he’s gone!

MORE: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

ROPER: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!

MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: (Roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on ROPER) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

ROPER: I have long suspected this; this is the golden calf; the law’s your god.

MORE: (Wearily) Oh, Roper, you’re a fool, God’s my god . . . . (Rather bitterly) But I find him rather too (Very bitterly) subtle . . . I don’t know where he is nor what he wants.

from “A Man For All Seasons”
by Robert Bolt

Goblin Universe Love (2 of 2): Christians

Veiled

I misquoted a poem yesterday.
I didn’t get it too wrong but enough
to make me cringe after I said the stuff
since my heart and brain both wanted their say

and I was frightened, desperate, for a way
to indulge my heart without speaking fluff,
to indulge my brain without sounding rough,
to make time for just one second wait, stay.

I’m sure the person I was talking to
knew exactly which two words I got wrong.
I’ll never know if she thought me a fool

for attempting what I couldn’t quite do,
or was she touched by my zeal to belong.
Between heaven and hell veiled is the rule.

MY life closed twice before its close;
    It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
    A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
    As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
    And all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson

In The Shadow Of The Mouse Ears

My goose is cooked and eaten to the bone.

The chorus didn’t wait for the four knights.
And they saved—ha, ha—twenty-seven days.

The chorus sees through me. I see shadows.


The internet would be a cathedral

if it were left to its own devices
and not subsidized by corporations.

But corporations like a big chorus.


Priest metaphors these days carry baggage

so it’s fitting the chorus carry swords
and a cauldron for the transparent priest.

My goose is cooked and eaten to the bone.

Everybody Knows Who They Are

And everybody knows who they are
In a velvet garden of rhinestone stars
Shining down on me, satin queen,
Overlords of insane scenes
They go dancing across the pages
Of a magazine

Heart, Magazine

“If you want to play the drum pads on that,” Mark said, “we can get you one of those drummer’s microphones. Lots of drummers wear them to sing. And the pads don’t make too much local noise so I bet your voice track would be okay.”

“We could never do this live then,” Alison said.

“Why not?”

“Look,” Alison said. “I have a high hair-line. I’m not going to appear in public playing drums. Wearing a drummer’s microphone. I don’t want to fucking look like Phil Collins.”

Mark laughed. Alison knew it was a sincere laugh because Mark forgot to put his hand in front of his mouth. She knew he thought that helped hide his bad teeth.

“Listen,” Mark said. “If there is one thing you can be absolutely sure of in the whole known universe—and even in the unknown universe, the Goblin Universe—you can be absolutely sure that you don’t ever have to worry about looking like Phil Collins!”

“Yeah, well,” Alison said, “you have your crazies and I have mine.”

The Way Of The Intercepting Fist

A new Steven Seagal movie came out today. This is the Redbox synopsis:

After serving 15 years for a crime he didn't commit, Shane Daniels is released from jail with an apology from the State of Arizona. Within hours of his freedom, he unluckily bears witness to an illegal diamond deal gone wrong. Members of both the Mexican mafia and State Troopers are killed leaving a terrified girl and a bag of money. In this action packed thrill ride, Shane must fight his way through a corrupt town and take the girl to safety.

I haven’t seen this movie (yet) but I’m guessing Steven saves the girl.

Too bad Steven Seagal never met Brittany Murphy. He could have beaten the hell out of Simon Monjack and then Steven and Brittany could have gone off and lived happily ever after.

Does Mischa Barton toss and turn in her bed at night hoping Steven Seagal will save her? When Mischa finally gets to sleep does she dream of Steven Seagal saving her?

Cynthia Rothrock is the gender-swap version of Steven Seagal.

Can Cynthia save me?

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Lost (For Brittany Murphy)


Freedom From The Wild

The Writing On My Hand

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Actually I never write
on myself. And I find
the practice very strange.

I think it says a lot
about the way people
in modern culture,
especially women,
are dehumanized and
objectified even in
their own mind.

Sarah is getting pilloried
for jotting notes on her hand
but the media are out-of-touch.
I’ve known so many women
who write on themselves I did
a post about it:

Women Write On Themselves



Sarah Palin is so odd, and so many
people are investing so much
of their faith in her, that I
wonder if the strange powers
behind-the-scenes of pop culture
are working her:

The Alaska Cauldron

Freedom From The Wild

She’s a pussy cat
and he loves her but
he cannot save her.

They’re in the same room
at the same table
in different worlds.

She tries to save him,
the five-fingered man,
but her world is wild.

There is no science
and no religion
and no salvation.

But there is desire
in him and in her
to save each other.

The wild feels nothing
and offers nothing
about salvation.

The beasts don’t desire
salvation, they don’t
howl and hunt for it.

She’s a pussy cat
and he loves her but
he cannot save her.

She tries to save him,
the five-fingered man,
but her world is wild.

It’s something they share.
Their desire. The need
to save each other.

It unites their worlds,
divides them from beasts,
frees them from the wild.

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“She’s A Pussy Cat”

Adam And Eve And Keith Richards

“There’s only one song, and Adam and Eve wrote it; the rest is a variation on a theme.”

Keith Richards

“My brother’s back at home
With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got off
On that ‘Revolution’ stuff
What a drag
Too many snags”

David Bowie & Ian Hunter

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Things Not Jazz: Ice Cream Sadness


The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History in Marble

The Apocalypse Of Her Yellow Dress

“The little grey men,” she said, “come at night.
They don’t abduct me. They don’t probe my butt.
Or my nose. And my uterus stays shut.
But they paralyze me so I can’t fight

when they take my dress. They leave on the light.
They make me watch. They take my dress then cut
to dawn, bring it back after God knows what.
Paralyzed. Forced to watch. This is my plight.”

I said nothing, but thought: It’s shapes inside.
Inside her dress the shape’s a human-shape.
The grey men take that shape back to their place.

I couldn’t say my thoughts, wanted to hide.
Inside her was more of a monster-shape
than even the grey men from outer space.

Yellow Dress! Yellow Dress!

... Defining the word art is a pointless task, and frankly Webster should have better things to do. Art’s world has made room for controversial figures and kooky ideas, gimmicks and the gross. “Koons, Hirst and the whole development period after Pop, became a business enterprise, in my view,” Thiebaud says. “It dips in and out of the art world in a way, but for me is often terribly misguided in terms of the traditions that I admire and adhere to.” One of Thiebaud’s favorite anecdotes comes from Sir Ernst Gombrich, a writer and psychologist, who penned Art and Illusion in the 1960’s. Gombrich was once asked why he wasn’t interested in contemporary art. His answer was succinct and interesting, “Because it’s too easy to cheat in that environment.” Art’s tradition has soft borders, and like the United States, that has mostly been a good thing, providing freedom and opportunity for the dreamers. But to be a painter, and to create works of such dimension and interest that they grace the most hallowed museum walls, now that’s one of the greatest achievements in his profession.

Wayne Thiebaud has copied from the Masters because he cares that much about the craft. But in the process, he’s added his own icing on the legacy of painting – or at least, added some spit polish to the halo above its angel food cake. “I feel very privileged to be a part of that whole thing, however small,” Thiebaud says humbly. “The capacity of painters to make a world apart from this world will always amaze me. It’s a parallel world, in a way, which offers all sorts of records of human behavior – what we have been, what we are, what we might be. The fact that you take something that is flat, not moving, silent, and produce a world that suggests all of these records and possibilities – and to have learned how to have done that over a 40,000 year period of time – it’s magical. Just look at the light in one small Vermeer painting, and you can feel it. It really borders on the idea of a human miracle.”

Ben Bamsey

writing in ARTWORKS: WAYNE THIEBAUD

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“Betty Jean Thiebaud & Book”

Memories As Sacred As Stained Glass

Wayne Thiebaud Where You Least Expect Him

Dear Angie: Get Well Soon!

The Weird Fact And The Big Romance

Dining At Impossible Kisses

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Sunshine On Breakfast


The only rules
in the Impossible Kisses kitchen
are always to spill the wine
and always to dig that girl. *






--------------------------------------------

* The spoon and fork
have pearl handles.

I know the lyrics really
say “Take that pearl”
but I’m one of those people
who has always heard it
as “Dig that girl”