Africa Stirred Blair’s Conscience. He Still Failed It.
With his passionate denunciation of Africa’s impoverishment in Africa as “a stain on the conscience of the world” right after September 11, 2001, Mr. Blair gave voice to one of the key strains in the global response to those awful attacks. Many were convinced then that despite the trauma and anger unleashed by the terrorists, the United States and its allies would recognize the need to propel the issue of mass poverty and injustice to the top of the international agenda in the interest of a more stable world.
Because Mr. Blair was the Labour party leader, and had followed up on his stirring language with numerous high-level campaigns, including with G8, to get the powerful on board in aid of Africa, he raised real hopes that that he would lead the world in making a difference on the continent.
He did not even come close to succeeding. So weak was the much-fanfared commitment that Blair extracted from the2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles that some of its celebrity mobilizers denounced it as a fraud when 2006 figures released last month showed that rather than expanding substantially, aid to Africa declined. The outlook on trade, which is more important to African fortunes than aid, is even grimmer.
In hindsight, there was never any prospect that a Labourite who presided gleefully over the creation of a huge new British class of the shamelessly rich and put spin and self-image well before action would seek the policies that would match his compassion for the poor. In the six years since Blair first proclaimed his crusade, few Africans have been lifted out of the brutal deprivations and humiliations that mark the daily lives of hundreds of millions on the continent. Ironically, his Conservative predecessor Harold Macmillan’s 1960 speech alluding to the “wind of change” blowing in Africa will be remembered as an infinitely more prescient and determined indication of future action.
In any event, even if the promises from the G8 that Tony Blair had extracted are honoured, they will do little to undercut the mass poverty that he wanted to diminish. That is because inherent in the aid compact that he engineered was an African commitment to continue pursuing neo-liberal policies that the World Bank, the IMF and the donors have advocated for two decades. These policies have created vast amounts of wealth for multinational and national elites but have at best a mixed record in creating or stunting economic growth. For certain, they have singularly failed to diminish the misery of those who live in absolute poverty. The market in Africa will never lift up the poor along with the rich.
One woman’s story from the UN Population Fund’s report released Wednesday captures poverty’s horrors. Sabina of Kibera, Nairobi’s and indeed Africa’s, largest slum (pop. 1,000,000), sells water to those who can afford it, and so herself makes almost nothing. However, her water comes from pipes which frequently suck in excrement as they run through open sewage ditches. There are few toilets in Kibera. Hundreds of thousands in Nairobi slums do without. Toilet paper rolls cost half a dollar each, in an environment when many do not even earn a dollar a day. There are millions in Kenya having to scramble every day to find even food for their families because they are unemployed
“Our people live like beasts,” local government administrator Charity Bokindo candidly told a writer about life in Mathare, Nairobi’s second largest slum (pop. 500,000).
Even the United Nations-inspired Millennium Development Goals, whose 15-year midpoint criteria this year has not been met by a single African country, will not address this poorest of the poor group. Africa, and the world, needs an altogether new drive narrowly focussed on providing those who live in such brutish deprivation with the simplest of essentials.
Eliminating poverty is a complex, long-term operation, but providing toilets and cleaner water in slums in central city locations is not. The responsibility for the provision of such services is squarely Africa’s own, but the rich countries can help make this happen. For the war in Iraq, they have spent about $1,000 billion so far!
That people are condemned to such inhumanity results from the abiding conviction among the well-to-do that the poor have an unlimited capacity to weather their punishing existence. This is no longer true. The macabre beheadings witnessed this month in Kenya of at least a dozen individuals, with severed heads subsequently hoisted on to poles in strategic locations, were the work of the shadowy Mungiki group, which has also killed at least a dozen policemen and called on the poor and landless to rise up against the government. We will be seeing more and more of such mini revolts spread across the continent.
In the political arena, Mr. Blair did have one major political success, in Sierra Leone, where he courageously intervened and ended a vicious civil war early in his tenure. But otherwise, his failures in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and of course Sudan have added rather than healed scars.
In Zimbabwe, he ignored African advice and chose the path of confrontation, sanctions and regime change, which has contributed to the pauperisation of millions. Mr. Mugabe’s seizure of white farms was an idiotic attempt to arrest his plummeting popularity, but underlying this move in this former settler colony was the explosive issue of land that needed addressing. Instead, Blair escalated what was a minor crisis into a bitter conflict for strategic ends. The conflict in Burundi has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo an astonishing 4.5 million. But these did not merit the attention paid to undermining and demonizing Robert Mugabe, whom Labour MP Kate Hoey, in a shameless excess of spin, compared to Pol Pot.
Even if Mugabe loses power, he has come out ahead within Africa, with Mr. Blair finally agreeing this month with South African President Thabo Mbeki that regional diplomacy was the only option in dealing with Zimbabwe. Two weeks earlier, Mugabe’s denunciation of western exploitation of Africa had been greeted with thunderous applause at the Comesa heads of state trade summit in Nairobi.
It is not an accident that Thabo Mbeki has for so long resisted his friend Tony Blair’s pressure to publicly take on Mugabe. Mbeki was aware there were powerful social forces which were fighting for land redistribution in Zimbabwe, and that he himself faced lurking danger in not having done nearly enough in developing equitable post-apartheid structures. Mbeki is in fact sitting on powder-keg much larger than Zimbabwe’s, but there is no indication that Tony Blair understood this and urged his friend Mbeki to shift course to prevent an explosion.
Darfur is the other major Blair failure, but conventional comment aside, his early resort to bellicose rhetoric in 2004, no doubt to distract from the unravelling in Iraq, hardened Sudan’s resistance to a UN force which could have more effectively protected against the slaughter there.
Less well-known is Mr. Blair’s complicity in the profoundly destabilizing developments in the Horn, encompassing Uganda, Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. The latter’s Meles Zenawi was hailed by the prime minister as a visionary democrat and appointed to his blue-ribbon Commission for Africa in 2004. Mr. Meles now runs a tyrannical regime which stole the 2005 election, and then mounted an illegal and brutal invasion of Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts Union under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Meles should have been disowned by Blair long ago, but instead British aid to Ethiopia went up again last year.
Kenya has historically been Britain’s closest ally in Africa, and hosts a large contingent of its soldiers. But as in the Ethiopian war and occupation of Somalia, Blair gave full support to the US roping in the Kibaki regime for grossly illegal actions in support of the invasion by closing borders to genuine refugees and kidnapping suspects for Guantanamo-type “renditions” Ethiopia’s secret prisons.
In Uganda, the Lords Resistance Army from the country’s North has committed horrendous atrocities. President Yoweri Museveni, another close British ally, retaliated with a scorched-earth campaign in which nearly two million northerners were herded into camps in a campaign which saw massive human rights catastrophes, which some credible human rights observers have labelled genocide. Uganda is nevertheless being honoured by being asked to host the Commonwealth heads of state summit meeting. Rule of law and human rights only mattered for Tony Blair when they were being disfigured by Saddam Hussein.
There are no easy fixes for Africa. Poverty and conflict aside, landlessness, mega-corruption and ethnic divisions born of political and economic marginalization threaten too many states. But unacceptably intense poverty afflicts hundreds of millions and addressing its most open wounds must be an uncompromising priority. Not everything that can be done is impossibly complex or expensive, such as providing public toilets, drains and clean water supply.
Only the continent’s own leaders and people can correct these obscenities. Donors have an important but minor role to play. But they must get this role right. That includes
recognizing that what Africa needs most of all is space to formulate its own policies. To determine what these might be, donors need to radically alter their approach and engage first and foremost with the grass roots.
Salim Lone, who was the spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq in 2003, is a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya.
When did the “centrist” New Labour politician Tony Blair ever exhibit anything that most human beings would call a conscience? He is a nihilistic, opportunistic, cynical political animal who hides behind the language of “political pragmatism” and what is “realistic,” (which is basically whatever he chooses to define as reality).
And now Bush has bought his pooch a new leash and assigned him as a “czar” for the so-called Quartet who is going to impose a “peace” on Palestine by shifting Israeli oppression of Palestinians to the hired-out “security services” of Fatah/PLO and the quisling hand-picked Palestinian “president” Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
He’s no different than the neo-con Bush who is a puppet of his own vice-president, the neo-liberal “centrist” Clintons, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the rest of the imperial political establishment that serve at the behest of the corporate, imperial masters who own them. “Conscience” is not a word found in their job descriptions.
Blair is quite simply a pompous english ass who is stuffed to his gills with gas. How anyone can take this rat seriously is beyond me. He never did have a conscience. All he said and did was with an eye to getting elected or being considered a statesman (whatever !!). He should just go away and stop annoying people.
Howdy y’all
Starting up where we left off at the Mark Twain site…If you respond that is.
I’m working on the imagination project and unpacking all the boxes that got packed about 2 months ago when I put my house on the market. Kids said to make the house very very uncluttered and since I am a packrat of a sort, and an antique collector, lover, I have a lot of stuff, which is why actually I have this big place. Also I am a practicing artist and have tons of art materials, like a at least a million pieces of wood in all sizes and type even about 20 types of plywood orts and bits. Well maybe only about 800,000. I tend to be hyperbolic in my zeal about my life. Since I have decided to try to make a go of it in the mindless state of Texass after all, I am unpacking. It will take more than the 12 days of Xmass, I’m sure.
Music was sent yesterday and of course when I got home, the “other’ had come. Life is that way. So I’ll be busy getting a new compilation ready. And a bonus as well.
Lee mentioned he was tiring of the TD blogs. I am too a bit. Same people saying the same things over and over. Or new biff bam thank you mam types just making cryptic comments then never to be heard from again? Really weird. Anyway, I’ll keep looking but will probably keep my comments as pertinent and limited as possible. I find youse guy a whole lot more interesting.
Waiting for godot with a cup of Leecoffee.
Looks like my edits didn’t take so here is the logical finish of why I mentioned unpacking. Now that I have decided to make a go of it here in the mindless state of Texass, I am unpacking as if I had just moved in. What fun! It is Xmass now for days and days, more than 12 I’m sure.
More Leecoffee.
Hi She and Hemi? AC? NF?
Works for me. BAck at work on the super fast computer line. If I could only type faster. When it rains hard my home satalite will not work, so if you do not hear from me for 40 days and 40 nights it is the rain.
Hyperbolic? You She? Not sure what that means, wired or hyper, oh hyper, got it now.
Couple more days for the Solstice, get those wine glasses cleaned, dust off the bottle of ?
Tick, tick.
Guess were are here now.
Tangerine and gagert
As Jack said in The Shining: “Heeere’s Johnny!”
Hi guys,
Did you miss me? I missed youse!
Anyways, I spent the last two days in the dentist’s chair.
Joy! The two teeth he fixed are fine so far and one he didn’t touch hurts like a son of a bitch. He says to give it a couple of days to calm down. Yeah, easy for him.
I was 35 before I got novacaine at the dentist. My folks never got it for us when we were kids and so I continued into adulthood. (Ding! Wake up, your folks were cheap!)Eventually Frau telling me I was nuts to have dental work without anesthesia got through. I have a high tolerance for pain I suppose and obviously no dental insurance. While I was in the chair and he was drilling away, I closed my eyes and tried to envision a number of things. Once again I got nothing solid, I could see things but they were fleeting and transparent. Yes, transparent.
Same feelings toward TD. A lot of rehashing. The same cast of characters recycled, some pot shots taken and nothing is new under the sun. I am so glad I sent in a little money to CommonDreams a month or so ago. Nice to hear somebody is still cool for cats like us.
And yes She, I was explaining the lesbian comments. That’s the old Catholic guilt jumping up to bite me on the butt. Look, I’m a sophisticated man of the world and I think that the lesbians are just fine and if they want to leave Lebanon and come to this country, why should we stop them? You know the famous Emma Lazarus sonnet:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your snuggled lesbians yearning to breathe free.”
I need a moment…… I’m a little verklempt!
I’m OK now, it was just a little agida.
I like it here. I’ll miss Mark Twain but now this is home.
Hemi: But it wasn’t a dream. It was a place, and you [She] and you [Leefeller] and you [AC]… and you [nf] were there. [Everyone laughs] But you couldn’t have been, could you?
Auntie Em: We dream lots of silly things when we…
Hemi: No, Aunt Em. This is a real, truly live place. And I remember that some of it wasn’t very nice. But most of it was beautiful. But just the same, all I kept saying to everybody was, ‘I want to go home.’ And they sent me home. [Everyone chuckles again] Doesn’t anybody believe me?
Uncle Henry: Of course we believe you, Hemi.
Hemi: Oh, but anyway, Toto, we’re home! Home! And this is my room - and you’re all here! And I’m not gonna leave here ever, ever again because I love you all! - And oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.
I’ve gotta go dream right now, I’m sleepy again. Must be narcoleptic or something. Am reading a great book, I think Hemi the ex catholic, might appreciate. Title is A Canticle for Lebowitz. It definitely will tweak the imagination. I’ll finish up tomorrow. It was a strenuous day.
Good nite everyone. Tomorrow is another day,
Hemi,
I have to admit that this is the first time I have ‘ever’ laughed out loud at anything written on a blog (except for the sarcastic dribble I write). I think you melted your story seamlessly into the dialog of The Wizard of Oz. Bravo, funny traveler, bravo.
Thanks She for the heads up on the move. Common Dreams is a beautiful site for letting us discuss our thoughts. I wonder though - what happens when one of us dies! Will the others just think that person has just grown weary of our forum? Can we assume we will just know that someone has closed this set of books in the hear and now? We need a dooms day scenario that will automatically signal the closing of one brief candle. Or maybe we can just say “if you don’t log-in for a while–well, we’ll just consider you dead as a doornail.” And so it goes…
Thanks AC, you brought this to me mind.
Matters Not
We would be lucky to call our lives a grain of sand in the universe
Flatter ourselves, more like a blink of light, I would say
light, only noticed by other flashes
Our planet a grain, we flash’s on a grain
Time laughs
Good morning all, sleep, “to sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. must give us pause; there’s no respect that makes calamity of so long a life…” Hamlet
Probably if one of us dies, we will just carry on as if you just got busy since we are always so thrilled with our own thoughts. At least that is the way it seems over at TD. I think AC you’ve got our number. And Lee is so existential.
Today promises to be wonderful. I am busy shaping up my painting studio, Lee has inspired me. I’m moving a ton of stuff upstairs to the large unfinished room that is about 19ft x 24ft x 9 1/2ft ceiling with great rafters. I am going to get my son-in-law to finish it and put in a skylight since there is a north facing side of the roof there with a great span available. He is a contractor and has the right connections to get it done quickly. I also have three canvases ready to go. The studio building out back will become a sculpture and ceramics haven. The artist re-emerges. Thank you Leefeller.
Hyperbolic means having the nature of hyperbole, of exaggerating, Lee. I often amplify things I talk about, including myself as I am most often the biggest clown, unless Hemi is around, then he gets the crown. His revision of Oz is memorable, as Auntie M knows. But it did remind me of another retelling that didn’t have a yellow brick road, Zardoz. In the background is the haunting Beethoven’s 7th and what is behind the curtain is even more relevant today with the insane pursuit of life everlasting.
Good strawberry yoghurt tickles the palette, whatever is your pleasure
Hey Guys,
A little political upsy dasy. This article from the LA Times on the writers strike may be on to something.
Check it out.
Since I do not watch TV, my opinion is moot, but what do you guys say?
Java stop when I can
Lee,
The thing I get out of the Times article is that everyone deals with “The Man” at some level.
The writers, as do all of us, have an inflated estimate of their own worth. In my opinion, to enhance their chances for survival, they would have been wise to continue working while negotiating. You have to consider the trends of the times and while it might be exhilarating to be a trailbreaker the possible downside is unthinkably dark. We are not that far removed from our president shit canning 11,000 air traffic controllers. The general public barely blinked at this. Those workers held the lives of air passengers in their hands. What kind of support can be expected for the writer of a Sopranos episode or a Jay Leno joke? There are people on that line that have exposed the plights of others in their work and I’m sure there are those that have crossed the picket lines of technicians and others during their careers. Creative or not they’re only human.
It seems consumers always undervalue the products of creative people. Once you’ve thought something and communicated it to me, my survival instincts are to take that thought (if it is of some use) and make it my own. We are wired to do this. How many high school artists can draw South Park or the latest anime’ characters? Art forgeries have been going on since there were art galleries. Once your creation is experienced it’s very hard to protect it.
When I sent our CD out a number of years ago, a friend asked if I had copyrighted and how was I to make money just giving it away? I had copyrighted all the material. I had the opportunity to help a charity and gave copies for them to distribute to people donating. I also considered what were the odds of my music ever being heard through conventional channels? My decision was to share it and have the opportunity to be discovered. So, I sent it to friends and anyone that requested a copy for about six months. What good was my music if it never left the garage? Worse case scenario, I made some friends.
I wasn’t being charitable, just realistic in accessing my worth. In “God is not Great”, Hitchens is constantly crediting those who came before. He knows there is very little new under the sun. The bean counters know this and depend on it. They know for every writer standing on the picket line there are a hundred more with scripts, jokes and screenplays filed away waiting for an opportunity and not caring that they wont be paid every time their joke is retold on the internet. The plus for the writers is they know the public is yawning and will move on and start entertaining themselves. Hello YouTube! Their hope is that the money and ratings losses will bring the networks around. That’s one bit of leverage cable stations and the Internet have created.
Creative people have always struggled. You can hold on to your creations and hope for a big payday. Or you can dole it out in parcels for a weekly check and some semblance of a 9 to 5 existence.
I don’t have clear way of linking my thoughts on this to the political climate. I’ll be interested in the takes of She and AC on this.
Sticking it to the Man raised a belly laugh out of me. And like Knight notices, when you walk through a door, you enter a whole different world (which I consider these forums to be). The comparison between the writers and the anti-Bushits bunch is noteworthy. I think they ought to point that similarity out even more loudly. I think it would do both groups a lot of good. As Hemi noted of Hitchens who in somewhat different words said we always stand on the shoulders of giants. What Hemi says of the artistic endeavor is true. We cannot protect what is ours indefinitely. That is why I am recently sharing my artworks with those that expressed an interest. I mean who could come up with anything more original than my originals? I also have indicated to some that I write poetry but don’t exactly know how to get it out there without some asshole plagiarizing it before getting it copy written. I don’ know but I guess if I put it on the Internet somewhere, I would have the date I posted it and that would be proof of “post” mark. Writing is a different ballgame than visual art. Words are so much more a free commodity than images. I am on the side of writers because I am an iconoclast against the MAN always.
I woke up this morning to my cat’s “Get up,” relentlessly over and over until I dragged out of bed that I was so enjoying. Ugh. Raja thinks he is Rama. Rama you know is the top god in Hinduism. Rama Raja, or more rightly Raja Rama, thinks I am a royal-ass subject who exists only to do his bidding until he wants to nappy bye again. What a delusional cat! This has gotta stop! He is simply not Toto.
At about 9 am my time, I visited the new thought mall here at CD, I looked around and no one was here! The place was deserted and I admit to being a bit paranoid, that you all had abandoned me, I took it personally, an irrational response I know. But then I looked around again and there in the corner was the bodhisattva, Leefeller! I breathed easier. What is it about youse guys? Like WHAT? I do find reading your sometimes-sick thoughts so energizing that I can galvanize into action and whip the entire world, Muslims and all! Now that’s a lot for wondering woman or am I wandering woman? And the mysterious Uncle Henry is a double entendre since Lee suggested I buy something called Henry 302 to patch my roof and of course Auntie Em (M)’s husband is Uncle Henry, so critical paths cross again. Interesting phenomena isn’t it?
Hemi, your imagination experiences are cracking me up arrestingly (no I was not arrested, although, and here it comes guys, you know I have to say it somewhere at least once a day, in the mindless state of Texass) I’m liable to be pulled over at any time, I think they lay in wait for me to make an infraction, but I’m too smart. But back to the imagination: I am in conversation with my friends in Oregon and I of course referenced that you were doing your part in this experiment. We would like to invite you formally to participate in the discussion that will most likely take place in January when one of the principle members gets back to his Oregon home from a meandering RV vehicle trip around the country. We be serious folks (with a lot of mirth thrown in) about all this. You can let me know via email your interest.
So Shenonymous, who is this mysterious roofing adhesive you’re apparently stuck on?
All seriousness aside, now I’ve been through the copyright worry deal. There are a couple of old methods, any of which entails paying a lawyer in order to extract satisfaction from dastardly copyright infringers I’m sure. First way is having documents notarized. I don’t know if it holds up but there is a party that can be called on. Next is sending items to yourself by sealed registered mail. Of course there is always the copyright office and there are ways of copyrighting a collection of poems, songs and the like in order to pay only one fee for the grouping. Just a couple thoughts and the Internet posting might be fine if you could prove that it was un-tampered with and maintained once posted, that might be tough.
I wrote a collection of poems about 10 years ago. I printed and distributed it myself. I think I sent a copy of the collection to the copyright office for the copyright at that time. The entire collection, one fee. It’s been a while.
Worked on fixing the washer and dryer today, I had the day off. Joy! I’m allergic to work of any kind. The washer is now just fine but the dryer is still a crapshoot. Sometimes it tumbles, sometimes it buzzes and shorts. “Why? I don’t know. Third Base.” (There you have it copyright infringement and Bud and Lou are on their way. Hey, I was born in the same hometown as Lou Costello. My grandmother walked to school with him.) I lost one of my screwdriver bits down the dryer vent. Great fun. (Speaking of lost, are any of you still with me?) I swore silently as there was no one around to witness my witless diatribe. After all that, I might have to get new machines after the holidays. They’re in our bathroom or I would have replaced them in a heartbeat. I could spend a day just getting them the heck out of there. Apartments suck. I’m not keen on reckless spending but we’ve got 25 years on them and if you’re not handy (Ooh, ooh that’s me!!! Right here! I’m not handy! - Our hero Hemi waving frantically while looking absurdly proud of his mechanical impotence!) there is a point of diminishing returns.
My kingdom for a coffee! (Now if I said horse, Doh!!!)
Henry, O Henarie stick with me…and a wonderful roof we will see. Lowes did not have Henry 302, nor did they have Henry of any kind (but they did have a Josh). I had to buy Black Magic, now can that be bad? Sounds so sexy. Can’t say anything more about that since I have to be up on the roof with it. Maybe I’ll run into Professor Marvel up there. It could be dangerous for all concerned.
I will try your methods of preserving my writings, sounds right so it must be right. Now that is a strange kind of logic that Aristotle is probably turning in his grave about. I don’t care, he was a misogynist anyway. Great thinker but had little use for women, cept to mother his kids. The dirty dawg. But I quote him often, he is useful and I can be very pragmatic. I wonder what ever happened to his kids?
Aaarrgh, working on laundry appliances is anathema. When I moved into my house I had to buy a washer/dryer since I was in the outlands where no Laundromat was. They were installed and because the floor was this formica kind of flooring there was no friction and when the washer spun it moved clear across the floor every time and wound up against wall on the other side of the room. Had the annoyed and grumpy service man out (Maytag!) twice, my son-in-law out once and they did no good! Finally I took some lathe and screwed it to the floor on two sides. SOLVED THE PROBLEM. Point is it takes one female brain to three male brains to solve some problems. Hahahahaha Swearing does great work, really. There is no job around here that didn’t get its quote of good Welsh swearing. When the point diminishes to no return, have a beer! I always sez.
I can’t think about politics today, I’m burned out by the blogs. I am leaning more and more to John Edwards, and I want to rally, man, rally. Course it would look silly to do that out here all by myself in the countryside. Will have to go to Ft. Worth and take along John Mayall.
Son-in-law said he will install a solar tube in new painting studio after 1st of the year so won’t need a skylight which he says are almost impossible to seal completely.
Oh yeah, I emailed nf through the Truthdig site. I don’t know if he in fact will get it, but I told him about the CommonDreams move. Maybe he will show up.
Mississippi Mud Pie, ummmmmm
AC were are you! You know I thought he had been here, but it was just before we moved, not that I think on it. Good stuff Hemi, your comments on the writers strike, showed a different view which I find interesting.
She it is Henery’s 208, what ever you do, don;t do Black Magic. Bad Joke, Hemi is the joke king.
This work thing is getting to me, I am tired when I get home and hit the hay around 7:30 if I last that long, then I get up at 4:30 if I sleep that long. Been doing most of my web stuff in the morning with that first cup of coffee.
Solstice tomorrow 10:08 here in the great north specific. She you have been arguing your self in to tizzy with that moron Patrick Henry, no wonder you are tired of TD. It can suck the life out of one.
Solar tubes are all right when first put in, but they seem to fill up with dust and drop the light over time, see if you can see some that have been in operation for several years. They may attract lady bugs too. The light from solar tubes is okay for going to the can, but may not be for enough light for doing art.
She I thought you had a big fight with nf and his sexist comments?
You know it really doesn’t matter to me who becomes president, anything would be better than what we have now, at least not as bad or how about less worse.
6:30 and I am reaching for the pillow. I will be up at 10:08 Friday, you bet.
Taco and Dose Equos Amber
Yeah, I don’t think there is any love lost between nf and Shenonymous, but youse guys like him and I don’t have any emotional attachment one way or the other. He provides a foil for my sanguine nature. I can handle sexist comments as can be seen elsewhere! He keeps me in practice for the other numbnuts. But I don’t know if he will even get the message. Anyway, I’m a forgive and forget kind of gal, well sometimes. It is the Italian kind of forgive and forget, if ya know waddah mean? Hey Vinnie?
The Henery’s 208 does not exist here in Texass. Will you be working away from your farm permanently, Lee? Be sure to take your vitamins. You don’t realize how they add vitality to your physical being. And have good fresh fruit, and juices, and vegetables. Now here I am the perennial mamma, can’t help it. Youse guys just have to put up with it. Okay about the solar tubes, I might let him put in one over the work basin. Plumbing is plumbed into that room so I’m putting in a sink. And don’t need any more stinking ladybugs, they are still assaulting me. I don’t understand, I don’t mean to be a ladybug killer. I have found at least fifty more since I last mentioned them.
Yes, good night. Have to look online for hedge mazes. Hope to talk with y’all tomorrow.
Camomile tea tonight
Okay guys, I couldn’t sleep, the tea didn’t give me a “whole” night’s sleep. It’s like about 3:30 in the morning! Good gawd. So I’m up, reading as usual, and all of a sudden, Wham! An intuition came to me, and I found I have chosen my candidate for president. John Edwards. And I have posted it on the Haircut thing, and the Ron Paul thing and I actually feel good about this new conviction. There are a few things that I don’t’ quite agree with him about, such as his plan for illegal immigration, but I think the chroma of his whole platform is the highest of all. So there you all are, and I can take whatever criticism you want to throw at me. I’ll still love ya. You are now family.
Going to try more tea.
Tomorrow starts solstice, I get to raise that glass (or glasses) on Saturday, though. Oh woe is me as I drink by my sofa so’s I can just drop on it as the lights go out. I like soft landings.
Just realized I got up an hour early, I have this new atomic watch with all kinds of buttons on it and I must have pushed one of them. So I have a little time to write with nothing to say, how about that.
She, you mentioned including some other folks or friends of yours into our forum, I am fine it could be fun. As of late my comments have been minimal. Reminds me of when I was a kid and you have a best-est friend and over you have some other kids over and they get talking, all of a sudden you realize the exclusiveness of the relationship is de-solved, depending on how selfish one can be with their friends. My sister was one to be selfish with her friends and family. We should learn from our experiences, or we are doomed (yes doomed) to repeat them. (Like to use the word doomed, has a nice ring to it) Hope your friends are not nuns, on the other hand if they are it will be amusing to hear some of Hemi’s comments on the Pope again.
Okay guys, solstice this evening at ? She you sure you have the correct times?
Boy, my new job is fun because I do not give a rat’s ass if I get fired, even though I like everyone, I razz their butts anyway, becasue that is what I do. Hell when I used to play basket ball I enjoyed the razzing more than the game, such fun for me. Took the secretaries out to lunch since I have been working there and found out they have never been out to lunch with the bosses before, though I am not a boss? So I am working with and for a bunch of tight wads. Oh, and the coffee is so bad, I long for Postum or instant coffee on the boonie farm again. Bringing in a pot of my Peet’s today, for coffee enlightenment and some solstice munches. Since it is so close to the holidays, I may be the only person there?
Should have spent this time doing something on my blog, but not in the mood. Anyway youes guys, have a great day.
Full pot of Peet;s Hollyday blend for this short day
Solstice is almost here!!!
Here’s a happy little Solstice song.
I’m sure you all know it.
Here Comes The Sun
Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter.
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here.
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun,
and I say it’s all right.
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces.
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here.
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun,
and I say it’s all right.
George Harrison
How’s that for spot on! Carl Sagan wanted this song to be on the Golden Record sent into space on Voyager in 1977. He never got the legalities ironed out with Apple Records in time though. Damn lawyers but then again who would ever find it? Much ado about nothing.
Harrison was a strange cat but very earthy. He was known as the “quiet Beatle”. Born and raised Irish Catholic he adopted Hinduism, as you likely know. He also introduced all of the sitar and Indian influences into the Beatles music. The sitar on Norwegian Wood comes immediately to mind. Now a couple of tidbits you might not know. He was a very proper English gardener with an sprawling estate, wellies the whole nine yards. He also loved to play ukulele and you can here that on his recording of the old Harold Arlen gem “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”. If you’ve ever seen the memorial concert video, A Concert for George, the final number is a ukulele rendition of “I’ll See You In My Dreams”. (Another chestnut from the American songbook written by Isham Jones and lyrics by Gus Kahn.) I highly recommend that video it has played on PBS a number of times. If you can listen to that final number and not tear up, well you’re a better man than I Gunga Din.
Just a little background on what I think is an appropriate song for the holiday. I think Harrison would have dug the Solstice celebration too.
Tea and biscuits.
I agree with you Lee. I am also very possessive of youse guys. Friends are precious. And I am taking my vitamins mom, promise.
The company holiday party is an hour away. I normally get asked to say a little something. I’m known as the spiritual center for the group. Essentially that meant I was the only one attending any religious services. It seemed everyone depended on me doing the praying. (You should have seen the jaws drop when I didn’t come in with ashes on my forehead last February. I didn’t make a big thing of it. No announcements. But they were all annoyed, like I upset their applecart.) Not that I ever said anything religious at these events, just the typical heartfelt anecdotes and corny jokes you’ve come to know. I was expected to be the voice of reason and make everybody feel good about themselves and the people they are working with and for. If I get asked today maybe I’ll relate a little about the Solstice and how people celebrated making it through another year and how glad they were at the return of the sun and looked forward to another round trip.
Stella Artois (It’s a hoity toity lunch.)
Hey Hemi,
You didn’t tell them the joke about the turkey baster? Talk about corny jokes. All my jokes are not corny, so I never tell them here.
On my lunch half hour useing the super high speed comuters, I usually use two at a time, one for each hand.
Hemi, not you upseting the apple cart. Hemi, is that you that posted on Hitchin post using PMS.
My fingers won’t stop, need to type and keep writing. Having a fight with myself $^^&*** @@! trying to quit, actually using ^%%&**@!this as an excuse because I still have not come up with the anwser to She’s question about seeing things. I do have it saved at home so I will try to get on it tonight. Must do it. (***&^%@@#Force myself to do it.
She, Hemi’s answer was close to what I see when trying to form a picture in me mind. The book I am reading suggest Van Gouh had prolems with the minds eye, but he may have been 2 and half sheets to the wind most of the time.
Must say, my dreams seem much clearer than my pictures of the mind. During painting from the minds eye, I really just go with the flow, but that may be different than what you are asking.
Well, luch is over so I have to go.
Solstice wine at 10:08 PT.
PS. sory if I mspeled soom wods, not aa spll checcer here.
I have raised a glass of the smoothest Cabernet to youse guys at exactly 12:00am, black magic midnight. But of course, not being much of a drinker, and my GrandDad is probably rolling over in his grave as he used to make Dago Red every fall. We would have a great big party and about 30 people came, they killed a pig, ground it up and made sausage that hung in our attic for about 6 months. Gawd it was good. So was the wine. Then they would dance out on the huge wrap around porch with live music, GrandDad played the accordion, my dad the Hawaiian guitar, and Uncle Patsy played a regular guitar. Someone played the pianna but I can’t remember because I was only four. Since I was the only girl grandchild, I was spoiled rotten. They would lift me up to dance onto the huge round oak table that had these huge lion paws for feet and as they played good ole Italian songs like Santa Lucia, O Sole Mio, and Funiculi, Funicula. Sorry GrandDad, I do my best. But drinking a half a glass of wine and I’m almost out like a light.
Su questa notte di solstice, potete avere la buona fortuna ed auguri per la vita migliore and that means, On this solstice night, may you have good fortune and best wishes for the best life
Oh, it is really midnight here, I don’t know why it says 1:00a.m.???
Now it is really time for zzzzzzz. But…
Let’s talk a little bit about this very interesting phenomenon called the imagination. Don’t push too hard, just do your ordinary imagining just as you do every day. Like imagining what it will be like at work, or tossing some hay, or structuring your new painting. What colors are you imagining to use? As you do that, try to get a handle on, that is, try to notice whether you are seeing a picture in your mind, or just thinking about the specifics and then when you see them for real, it matches what you were thinking. These are two very different kinds of experiences and it might be interesting to make the distinctions on what is happening. We don’t normally think about it. It just happens. It is not a question of what do you see with your mind’s eye but how do you see and if you are really seeing? We will get more into it in January, in the meantime just think about it. Yes dreaming is another whole different matter. Once we ferret out what we want about the imagination, perhaps we could go onto dreams??? Let’s see where it leads, it can only be fun.
Okay, what about the turkey baster? I never heard it. I don’t mind corny jokes. I have a wheelbarrow full of them. What is going on with your typing fingers Lee? Hysterical. Take a deep breath. Take a walk (no, you already walk too much), uh, focus on the circle???? RELAX. Have a terrific weekend.
We tried our best. We fell asleep in front of the TV but we woke up at 1:11AM. Missed it by three minutes. It’ll have to do, we drank, just a little, then shuffled off to bed. “To sleep perchance to dream” of what the next trip around the sun might bring.
We’re gonna scramble and make some sense of the mess in the apartment for the holidays and we’ve got family parties. No dancing on the porch though, it’s a little cold. Have a great weekend guys.
Egg Nog or Nog Nog (Who’s there? Snow! Snow who?
‘Snow business like show business!)
Stupid Computer,
Hi yous guys,
I wrote a short note to you last evening addressing the imagination and the solstice and it disappeared, I should use my word processor and copy to email or posts, for loosing file safety reasons, my keyboard is on a high desk and tilted toward the center because I used to have a huge conventional monitor which weighted in at 200 pounds, at least it felt like it did. So the sag in my desk may be the problem, because my fingers strike unwanted keys and I loose things after spending some time getting them together. Needless to say, I did not rewrite last evening after toasting yous guys and myself, so I am doing it this morning.
Toasted everyone with a good year 2007 Beaujolias Nouveau, at 10:00, 10:02,10:05,10.08, and 10:o10 and I did not plan on driving anyplace, because the wine bottle would have gotten stuck under the gas peddle again.
Behave yourselves or I will have to get out the Turkery baster.
French Toast with French press coffee and the only other French I know is fries.
Lee, I just read your last CD post and had to let you know how much I laughed. A lot. The imagination thing will come again. Not to fret, at all unless you are fretting the guitar, yuk, yuk, yuk…It is a good idea to use the word processor and copy/paste to your TD or CD posts, or emails. Just be careful you don’t delete your word file before you copy/paste. But I’m more concerned about that bottle under your gas peddle! Thank gawd it’s Saturday.
Cold as hell here. Wait, isn’t hell supposed to be hot? Anyway the temperature dropped about 45 degrees in a couple of hours. I don’t even want to stick my nose out the door. Feels like the Arctic Circle moved to Texass. The wind is blowing at about 40mph. Guess Oregon had winds off the ocean at 100mph! Does your desk have a center drawer? If you answer yes, I’ll tell you how to solve your keyboard problem. And if it doesn’t I tell you another way. Actually there’s a hundred ways to solve it, I’ll give you two good ones and maybe a couple of ridiculous ones.
Well we toasted you too last night. I had a delicious Cabernet, and yup, after a half a glass, I definitely had to crash. I expect a really beautiful year coming up. And I found the sculpture I am planning on finishing for your summer solstice thing. Could you explain it again, please. I’m doing it but only because you wanted us to and I’d do just about anything fer ya, accent on the just about. Except the turkey baster thingy cause I don’t know what that means.
Hey, I got an email through Truthdig from Mike Mid-City. He made a slanderous remark about Texass, but I’m not insulted, cause he’s right. I gotta go shopping again so I’ll be back maybe on Sunday evening. Have a great weekend, you all.
Hot hot hot soup and kettle cooked potato chips.
Sitting here with my keyboard pointed towards Meca, listening to “Artofsound” and She you may be right, it sort of grows on you. Only bad thing is, the soft music kind of puts me to sleep and I already have a problem trying to stay awake, have to hold me eyes open with toothpicks.
Summer Solstice, think my idea was to create a work that shows the feeling or being of the solstice. I may try a large abstract or another expressionist idea. Have not decided on what to do yet. Believe that is sort of what I talked about? We have 6 months to come up with something, anything, should be easy.
Every one I have seen use acrylics seems to have problems with it drying to fast. My concern would be the intensity and luminosity of the work and the flow of the brush, I need to have that feeling in he brush.
Worked on Lady Godiva this evening. The horse is coming together and Lady Godiva isn’t looking to bad either. Really enjoying working on it. I may go back and work on the redwoods, have to say e quality of the one you were looking at was not so good.
Any tips on taking photos of works?
Eyes getting very heavy, so need to crash.
Gaggrt and blueberries.
Hey Lee, She, Hemi, tj, Gyptian, & Antichrist,
From 30 posts there are only 7 people who have posted on this thread…strange. I notice this was a sort of mini-exodus from TD, but while I might agree with you that there was a lot of re-hash there here are some things about it I like that CD doesn’t have.
The e-mail notification of further posts on a thread is nice, the fact it is possible to receive someone’s private e-mail address through the inbox feature for more in depth one-on-one communications, and of course some of the people I have read enough comments by, to have gained some insight as to what kind of person they are, I hate to leave behind. You can also see how many posts a person has made, so it is possible to see if someone is just a ‘flyby’ or around for the ‘duration’.
I think most of us agree there are a number of things in this country & world that need correction, revision, or outright elimination, so total rejection of the TD site seems counter-productive, especially in light of the continuous attempts at total consolidation (and domination) of media sources.
Any bridges crossing from neo-liberal or neo-conservative, toward progressive, shouldn’t be burned completely, just repaired. Consequently, I will keep hacking away at both sites. In fact, and I’ve mentioned this in a number of posts, one way that will help cause the radical paradigm shift in this country away from the absurd toward sensibility that we need, is for progressives & liberals to take the fight to the enemy on conservative blogs, rather than just continually ‘preaching to the choir’ or ‘pissing & moaning’ only on sites like TD or CD.
A number of people have posted that what we do on these sites is just a useless tactic for regaining our democracy; that unless we are willing to back up our words by ‘taking our asses out of our chairs and into the streets’ we are just spinning our wheels. I disagree. A great part of our ever increasingly successful war strategy is swaying of minds over to our position on various topics. It’s a battle pitting truth & facts against lies & propaganda. Only people as foolish as the Bushies would disregard numerous polls showing we are slowly, but steadily, advancing our cause toward universal justice, actual freedom (not just rhetorical blah, blah, blah), and that the ‘we create our own reality’ BS is just that…Bullshit! We are still in a losing position, however, and the real ‘reality’ is it takes longer to dig yourself out of a hole than it does to dig yourself into one. An expression I like to use is, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it got built”.
We have a long, long, long way to go, but even with only 7 of us here on this thread with our eyes open, this is one step closer to completion of ‘a journey of a thousand miles’.
So much for a pep talk, now let’s get to work. In the article above, concerning the plight of Africa, I see the author pointing out a number of problems, but other than deriding Blair & others what solutions does he actually propose? One fundantal issue he raises is a lack of clean water for many on that continent. Since we seem adept at using tools at our immediate common disposal (keyboards, computers, words, and a desire to help others), how can we use them to our best ability to effect a positive change for an enormous number of people thousands of miles away, and virtually complete strangers to all of us? Any suggestions?
PMS,
You have brought food for thought, a few comments in attempted reply, maybe even suggestions.
Defining the problems, should be a start, trouble starts when we disagree on what those problems may be. You are right about educating people, of course the big plan is to to keep people ignorant, in fact most despots use the same tactic. Castro may be an exception?
Unless we have health care for all the people, how can we expect to provide it or help someone in Africa get it? The will of the people is not here in mass, at least via the lies of our government and MM, one would suppose so. So now I move over to point my finger at the Mass Media and it’s contrived inane, inaneness. Obviously part of the ignorant program plan, is to hide the truth from the masses, the people, us.
With the planed idea of having border-less countries, it should be understood that we individuals do not count, according to the self proclaimed elite. Proclaimed by special interest the elite few, we are surfs under the sun, used as cannon fodder and to make money lining the pockets of special interests. Our plight is the same as the poor people in Africa, but at a different degree and we may be loosing ground and joining them sometime in the future.
Selfish as it may seem, we need to help ourselves out of problems here, to help the people in Africa.
Morning coffee
Welcome PMS, I’m surprised you showed up to our semi-hemi-soiree. I am pleasantly surprised also that you are such an articulate and thinking bing. Yup, I meant bing, not being or beeng. To be a bing is to be someone special, who actually uses his or her brain to think with. And when I have a bing along with me and we run into someone, I always say, “May I introduce you to my bing.” Mainly because I love bing cherries, maybe not as much as Rainier cherries but they are second best and a whole lot less expensive (a cheaper date) and it just sounds better to say “bing” than to say, uh, “May I introduce you to my Rainier.” So that is the way we are at the CD place that we found because we wanted to stay together. Because as you know, “a family that stays together, doesn’t necessarily pray together.”
There are three of us mainly: Leefeller, Hemi who used to be known as Hemi*, and myself, Shenonymous Meticulous with a middle name of Hyperbole. Sometimes a guy named AC (he calls himself THE ANTICHRIST) joins us, who is busy building Bucky domes, and then there’s nf, who is a semi-wealthy (I guess) and who spends the winters golfing in Palm Springs but is Italian [way..ell, I’m Eye talian and I haven’t seen any evidence of his being (yeah being cause I don’t really think of him as a bing…yet) Eye talian] from New York, but he sometimes comes in and makes his conservative comments and we tolerate him because he is not too obnoxious, and in a very strange way, he is likable, at least Lee likes him. So that is our family to date, and you are invited and welcome to join us.
However, be it known that we sometimes rant, and because we love each other as only e-people can, we listen, lovingly, uh, well as I said, my middle name is Hyperbole.
We like CD because they let us do pretty much what we want and don’t have a word count limit on any particular post. However, there is a number of posts limit and we filled up the last one on the Mark Twain article site, laugh, laugh, and we got shut down. But CD invited us to find another site not being used so we found this one. TD will let a discussion site go on forever. You are right though, I did love the TD features you listed, but they almost did us in on the Hitchens’ discussion and so some of us migrated to CD. But TD has relented and we are back on many forum sites doing our damndest to piss people off. Except, for me, the forums there are getting a bit boring because the same old same old cast of characters are always there and you can anticipate what they are going to say, and some of them run off at the end of the mouth and write almost never ending pontificating comments. I don’t have to list the culprits, as they are well known. Although sometimes someone like Chompers (Lee’s name for Doug Chalmers), comes up with some gems and funny websites that I never miss checking out just to have a belly laugh when I need one.
We, we three horsemen of the Internet, most often talk art, philosophy, music, and sometimes politics, and about our personal exploits. Lee and I are both visual artists, he is a painter extraordinaire, I am mainly a sculptor taking painting lessons from Lee, and Hemi, well he is probably the brightest light of all, a musician with a beautiful musician wifey. His humor is nonpareil. He keeps us in stitches. Lee, now, is no slouch in the humor department, and he gave us THE GREAT UNYUN, and I declared October to be Unyun Festival month and just wait ’til next year! I dabble at humor me-self, as Lee would say. Levity, m’boy, levity.
There is more to us than I can write about at the moment. We are maybe not a wide group but we are a deep group. But if Lee can get his fingers working again on the computer keyboard, he might add something or Hemi might even contribute a few select words, or not. If you are interested in us, you could read the entire site here, sorry but the Twain site is inaccessible to everyone, even CD, a real hoot.
I like what you wrote to us, and find you are an unusual critical thinker,… maybe a stinker but we will find out as water always seeks its own level.
And with that I will bid you adieu, as there are projects afoot (as Sherlock Holmes would say), hope to see you back with some pearls of comments. Maybe you can be our politic watcher??? I’m willing to work, way..ell somewhat. I’ve come out for John Edwards, I think Lee is leaning toward Kucinich. And Hemi has not completely declared yet. Ernest Canning, a great Obama, or was it Kucinich??? supporter on TD, is probably disgusted with me, but that’s okay. We all have our pointy aluminum caps on.
Happy solstice.
Oh, yeah, if you have some great piece of music you’d like to tell us about, we are all ears (well maybe eyes, nose, and mouth too).
Okay folks,
Seems quite often when I post something on TD, usually one of my trite comments, Chompers stuffs some long boring dissertation on nothing in front of it, this time he apologized that he was on the wrong post. He is still pushing the big Bang or something else again.
Well, anyway I was responding with a serious post on the Obama Bed wetting article. Importance of bedwetting in reference to life in general is something I take very seriously.
Degree of bedwetting provides insight on peoples perspective of how they will react to real problems. For instance, if Obama wet his bed until he was 21, I would say he was a slow learner, on the other hand if he quit wetting his bed when he was three, I would say he was a medium learner. If he quit his bed wetting when he was one day old, I would say we need him as president.
Least now, I know someone is going to read it, if you want to is an other story. TD is falling into the realm of sensationalism instead of substance me thinks.
Heading to the Dump
Lee,
Speaking of bedwetting, the always-correct Frau will not allow me to wear adult diapers. I’m just too lazy to leave the chair but she is unrelenting in my not reverting to a happier, carefree time of my life. I’m talking the 1980’s here of course.
But all seriousness aside, I continue to lean toward Edwards She. I need to do a little more research and you would likely not respect my simply joining you (and that is my tendency, more a follower than a leader, at least I’m aware) without due diligence.
Hey Paul, nice to have you join us. You brought up exactly the topic I was considering today. Frau and I watched the HBO special “Sand and Sorrow” this Sunday morning. It is a documentary narrated by George Clooney about the ongoing tragedy in Darfur. Excellent program, a must see. It’s hard not to like Clooney, don’t you think? The lack of media coverage is frightening when compared to the latest Paris Hilton escapade. All smoke and mirrors.
A lot of things are brought to light. One is that the Chinese have a lot of oil leverage there in Sudan and our government is hesitant to screw with them. Why? Likely they will call the US on the bullshit oil and corporate interests in Iraq. Eventually the Chinese will run afoul of the Arabs in the Sudan themselves. The Muslims will find the need to convert the heathen Chinese or kill them. Nothing short of a US administration that gives a shit will help there. The logistics of change through high schools, church groups and the like are useless. The Sudanese government will let you feed them but you can’t free them. It’s horrific, see the documentary. Obama and Sam Brownbeck (spl?) are in the program and are apparently in the concerned minority.
Hard to thing of other things once you’ve seen that but back to my so called life… Holiday prep goes on. The boy child helped me clear some ice and put up the outdoor lights. No gaudy Disney-like presentation mind you. Some white lights on the shrubs by the front stairs and a spot light on our wreath. I’m still defrosting.
The Coffee is ready! (Maybe a little football on the tube.)
There’s nothing like a little Mikhail Baryshnikov to take your mind off the Sudan. China is gigantic in the oil business pumping oil over the Sudan plain and making a $70 billion deal for Irani oil. As second largest user of oil in the world, China perceives a need for oil even more than the United States and China wants to have big influence in all of Africa. They have a sweet moneymaking “partnership” with the Sudanese leprous government making the China the Sudan’s largest supplier of war weaponry even though the New Year expects a cease-fire and peace.
All the United States can do is posture and rant about genocide. The US owes China billions of dollars to fund the Bush War. The Sudan was also a haven for bin Laden and his bloody parasitic henchmen.
The United Nations is also impotent to do anything about the 2 million murdered and 4 million displaced in the thrall of the government troops armed with armaments from China. What good is it to be bombastic and give a feeble voice that the United States and the United Nations have been doing for years? It is completely disgusting. Even the documentaries such as the HBO provide little comfort to the destitute Darfurans. The heinous terrorists are committing amoral and god-sanctioned mass murder. I say god-sanctioned since that is what the Moslems claim, that god is their guide. But it is a disguise. The truth is that is how they are able to sell billions of dollars of oil to China and China is able to make a fortune selling armaments to the arrogant and cruel terrorists. So the big question is why is the United States and the rest of the world allowed this to continue now for years? Bush’s ought shove his ineffective sanctions up his ass. Back in July the UN approved peacekeepers for Darfur, which was rejected by the Sudanese government actually throwing them out! Now there is scrapping among the rebel bands menaces to prevent the agreements. According to the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) violence and suffering looks set to continue as peacekeepers and peace processes fail in Darfur, Somalia, eastern Congo, North and South Sudan and northern Uganda. Specifically in Darfur, and Somalia is described as the greatest tragedy and most formidable challenge facing the world today. It has been 15 years of chaos and destruction.
Christopher Hitchens in Slate said, “Our policy in Darfur has not just failed to rescue a stricken black African population: It has actually assisted the Sudanese Islamists in completing their policy of racist murder.” But he ameliorates the complicity by further saying, “Thank heaven that we are tough enough to bear the shame of this, and strong enough to forgive ourselves.” What to do? What to do? I don’t think we can ever forgive ourselves for such humanitarian hypocrisy.
The artists of the world need to come forward and record the atrocity of the Sudan.
It is only through art, such as the HBO documentary is, images of the horror that will make an indelible difference in the world to come. I remember how powerful was a play, Murderous Angels about Patrice Lumumba of the Congo I saw in Los Angeles so many years ago, 1971, with Lou Gossett. Whether or not the content of the play was actually true is not the point. But that the art of theater magnifies and spotlights life.
Just a tad more of the Cabernet Sauvignon please
Hey Guys,
Check out the TD article on Ron Paul dost not believe in revolution.
Manny Pee is looking for a solution.
He says, everyone who has gone to college becomes an athiest, socialist and something else?
She, I get all my real news from you, insightful and interesting. How many fights can one get into?
The art approach is one that may work, the ugly politics of the world and humanitarian hypocrisy. One thing I ask, during the French Revolution, the impressionist’s left Paris and painted the beauty of the country side and did not record the ugliness of death, I always wondered why was that?
Our happy little bodes, drinking wine and enjoying the happy life, as best we can under Bush, waiting for Blackwater to take us away to places unknown.
Plays are great, but most people, prefer apathy and watch the song and music of football are oblivious to the world’s going ons. Me the stick in the mud.
Mother T, the prime example of not being what they seem, the world is the same.
Hey, I want to enjoy my life, so selfish I am.
Hot coffee
Well, who loves ugly? Hey Lee, you might be waiting for Blackwater, but I’ma gone down fight’n. I got fingernails and teeth, and I can kick a guy right in the groin and besides I got youse guys. You gotta listen closer to Art of NOISE, not sound boobee. The words are hot! I am going to buy every Debussy piece of music out on CD. It’s my Xm-ass present to meself. So go enjoy life, what’s holding you back? It’s only once around the barn sweetie.
Merry Xmas you heretics you.
Sitting here on my day off on Xmas Eve in front of my Solstice tree, enjoying life while I still can. My little gift to youse guys, you will find it quite amusing, at least I did. Stepping on AC’s toes here, but so be it.
check out the following for a little solstice cheer.
http://users.adelphia.net/~jimswanson/DrLaura.htm
strong coffee and off to the studio
Some thoughts on art for this holiday season: Just as we have to learn how to listen to really good music like a Brahms or Mahler, or the Beethoven partitas we also have to learn to look at artworks. It is called learning visual literacy. To say the basic structure of an artwork is more or less laid out in sketches using the elements of line, color, shape, texture, and value (darks and lights), it is the unique act of putting these elements together in a specific coherent form by the artist that finally emerges in the work. It requires a deep understanding of artistic and aesthetic form to fully understand what is being expressed. It is not always altogether obvious. The artistic part of art involves the skill with which the artist executes the work, the craftsmanship or lack thereof. Aesthetics, on the other hand, does not involve exclusively the idea of beauty. Actually sometimes there is no beauty at all, or if there is, it resides within the concept of the image rather than in the image itself. To make art requires mind, not just the ability to render what is seen on the surface. Pretty pictures are not really art. Except for constructing the design elements, they are simply pretty pictures and require no thought whatsoever and merely are there to pleasure the eye or to remind one of some mundane delight. But to make art, requires a submergence to the unconscious to try to drag out of it some philosophical notion that lie at the core of all our beliefs, whether that has to do with beauty itself, or other life affecting conditions or situations. The artworks of Kandinsky that look like splotches and splashes of color really were great investigations of what color does to the psyche. To take the appropriate amount of time to really look at works of art, to study them, ask questions of them, whether they are scribbles of a Mark Tobey or a heavenly Raphael is what the art experience is all about.
Mincemeat pie and Leefeller coffee
Thank you She!
That’s what I needed. We have a lot of pretty pictures, that’s what I need most of the time. We also have some pretty pictures that I think are art in that they capture the subject, a place or an emotion, without being a photographic representation of such. I know that’s not the pinacle of art but it’s a little bit of the whole deal.
I need comfort at home and I’m sure that’s why we surround ourselves with pretty pictures. Whereas when I got to the Metropolitan or Guggenheim I expect to see art not simply pretty pictures. I suppose I don’t want to be challenged by art 24/7. I’m a small doses guy.
Along the pretty pictures line, we have the “Yule Log” playing on the TV downstairs. It’s a hoakey thing that a local television station has been doing for decades. It is one of those things that is so bad it’s good. They have a film loop of a roaring fireplace and play holiday music over it for the entire day. Not very good art but an old timey feeling of the season and a house with a fireplace that very few can afford. It makes everybody laugh. The logs are never used up. We also watched the “Bare naked Ladies” with the Boston Pops last night. That was fun watching the Canadian pranksters plant a holiday burr under the stuffy Boston audience. You could readily see how most of the audience was digging it and a few cranks were like “I paid how much to see this abomination?” And the “Ladies” are very tame compared to most pop artists. Good stuff and then Pops played sleigh ride. The Pops are primo at playing the hell out of something you think you’ve heard done right. Their new conductor is terrific.
Hey, hope you all have a good Xmas day. Thinking of you all as we dive into the family and friends thing.
Apple Cider
She your post on art was refreshing, places things into focus, we all need that occasionally. Connecting those dots and filling in the blanks. Thanks, listening to the Art of Noise and getting attached to it for relaxing, I am nodding off, but may have to do with being busy over the past few days.
Attempted to send you a pastel of a solstice tree, did you receive it?
Have a good Xmas day.
Homemade Crapes and coffee in a mug
Hey friends (and you know who you are),
Merry Christma-Hanu-Kwanza-Don…Buds (for the Buddhists). Forget all the religious crap, with political implications. Just do right, and be happy & kind. Nuff said.
FESTIVUS!!!
For the rest of us!
I got my Christmas rant in on TD under “Jesus: The Man, the Myth”. Forgive me; I know not why I do this. Perhaps I have a not so hidden desire to be a pontificating pontiff. (I do like to be heard, I admit it.) I would have a baseball cap though and maybe a bat. That pointy deal he wears and the staff are passé. But that’s just me, a slave to bad fashion. You know this is our first fully enlightened Christmas. Last year was an on the fence deal.
It’s been lovely so far and I’m not disappointed.
Peace on you all! And I mean that in the nicest way!
Egg Nog
I guess Hemi, it would depend on how much time you spent at the Met or Guggenheim. To what degree did you spend any amount of time with any particular work? Especially if it was simply an intriguing enigma or curiosity? Or perhaps something you did not even like but made you wonder why it would be in a museum show at all? I have often watched people at museums and galleries, having been a gallery director for many years. Three minutes is about an average look at any work. Visual literacy takes time to develop. To develop the ability to interpret, to find clues to the subsurface meaning, and to make informed and intelligent sense of what is experienced. I think that to learn the articulation of art leads one to be able to articulate in any arena, and hence worth the time to comprehend it.
If you interpret what you’re seeing but the artist was not expressing anything by the work, where are you?
Interpret away, but the author said it was a story about a fish!
Gotta go to work,
Hot coffee.
Heck Lee, you knew that and waited this long to say?
Pass the interpretive coffee pot.
What exactly do you mean, Hemi, by “if the artist was not expressing anything by the work.” I mean even taking a piss is expressing something.
Lee, when you have eight arms like Shiva, you can fight at least eight battles at a time and dance the gig simultaneously.
Don’t worry about coffee, especially Sunday morning coffee…We be drinking liquid steel from now on.
We were in the National Gallery once and we entered a large white room. The art displayed in this room included the white walls and a white tarp covering most of the floor, a museum guard and in one corner piled on the tarp was a mound of gold cellophane wrapped butterscotch candies. We stood there for about a minute, looked at the glistening pile of candy, then at the guard, then we turned around to see if we were missing something, then back at the candy. Then we asked the guard what the deal was with this work of art. He had no idea what it meant but he said we could take candy as they replenished the pile every day. It did elicit a response. It was fun watching others stumble into there and react.
Butterscotch Pie
Hemi, It was probably an artwork by Felix Gonzalez-Torrez, a Cuban, who died of AIDs in 1996. The disappearance of the sculpture in part symbolizes the experience of irreplaceable loss.
But what more could you say about sweet seduction, as people take the candies, they are seduced by the sugar, or what else does the sweetness imply?
What does it say about the relationship between the artist and the public?
I picked up some of the following from several shows he had before he died. I used to use his work in my classes to have the students think critically about the meaning of art.
His works were meant to evoke complex responses via infinitely replaceable everyday materials. They were iconic works. Minimal yet gaudy, formal yet messy, abundant yet diminishing (visitors were invited to take the candy), these works from the early 1990s married conceptual rigor, deep personal sentiment, and political activism, often taking the elegiac form of homage to mortality in the face of AIDS
Peppermints
Yes She, I’m sure that it was Gonzalez-Torrez. I think we read something of his being Cuban at the exhibit I don’t recall the rest of his background but it makes perfect sense.
I now remember thinking of the pile/island and the candy dispersing throughout the day as representing the Cubans fleeing the island.
People of Cuban background do not generally stigmatize homosexuals to the extent it goes on here. Homosexuals were a fully integrated segment of Cuban society (at least prior to Castro) and generally of Cuban-American society. That’s not one of their big taboos. I’ve witnessed this first hand and Frau agrees. Who knows what the official Cuban stance is now.
Arroz con pollo
Hemi, you focused on the artist and not the art. You might learn more if you evaluated the work itself. In what way would the candy represent Cubans fleeing the island? Each sweet piece was a sweet Cuban? Why not use empty thread spools? Or popcorn? to make his statement? May I offer a suggestion? I will. Cuba grows sugarcane, does it not? Its sugar industry has not been doing very well and the people as a result have not realized a better life. There is a huge blame game going on in Cuban politics regarding this economic problem. This conundrum might be embodied in Torrez’s work as Cubans leave Cuba seeking a decent life?
Congri – Cuban rice and beans at Felix Café in Orange, California and their flan, of course
Nighty nite time. Backacha tamarra
Hey folks,
Saw your posts on the well hidden file at TD. Good solid rants as usual. What was the scoop, 1600 post for one day, you got buried in an avalanche.
Tell you what the days are getting longer and I really like it. Thank you She for providing the Solstice.
Hemi how was your holiday, any big plans for NY’s? Cannot get down to the De Young often and long enough to really enjoy the art, it sort of turns into a day at Disney Land seeing all the sights. Next time I going to spend some time in the Impressionist section.
As we rush around, we miss subtle reality in front of our nose. Beauty is there, we need to stop and smell the roses’. rose’s or just the rose.
Need to get to Peet’s for a bean buy
coffee
She,
How about this, forget the sugar. The candy was wrapped in gold, indicating value or a precious jewel and that would represent the value of the people Cuba was losing over decades. Thread spools or unwrapped popcorn, not as inviting to take and the point is for the items to leave. If I take something from the pile my tendancy is to think what if the pile loses too much?
The sugar connection is good point. (Why not cigars? I know I’m a smart ass!) The U.S. Dept of Agriculture states that “sucrose use decreased from 83 percent of all sweeteners used in 1970 to 43 percent in 1997, while HFCS increased from 16 percent to 56 percent during the same period.” And so Cubans got thinner and we got fatter. And Coca Cola was never the same.
Good point on smelling the roses Lee. That’s so true and I use it constantly. I take digital photos of some pretty mundane things. I’ve had friends see photos and ask what botanical garden I took them in. It was just a front yard down the street that they passed by daily. I framed the shot to enhance the flowers and plantings and eliminated anything unsightly. It was always there but got lost because they saw it so often. Maybe it’s the kind of thing that’s affected by what we’re doing when we see it. If we pass something on the way to work or way back home maybe the anxiety of getting there overides our perception of things along the way. Not always of course, at least not us.
I think I can get numb to things I see all the time. When I get away on vacation, to a zoo, botanical garden or a museum, I find it’s like a palate cleanser for my eyes. Maybe for all my senses. I also have local places and things I can’t see often enough. We drive a favorite route with a view of NYC that never fails to wow. I’ll get some shots of that to you as soon as I can. It’s an inspiring view.
Anyways, I’ll get back to you with a report on the holiday goings on. It was terrific and it’s on going. We’ve got relatives visiting for a few more days. I’m not sure yet for New Years.
Ropa vieja y plátanos fritos (y cerveza, por supuesto)
She,
What about these thoughts. The white room and tarp are almost pure, anticeptic and hospital-like in appearance. The dissappearing candies are aids victims. The pile gets smaller as people die and is replenished as new people are infected. I’m relatively sure the museum guard was just that, a museum guard. But what if he were part of the art? Could he be the world or governments watching this ebb and flow of lives without meaningfull involvement?
I think we have a budding art critic! Good work, Hemi. You are thinking splendidly. Now the sugar industry is finding other uses for sugar. At the time, Torrez died in 1996, there was a huge economic sugar crop problem and the common Cuban people were in bad shape. Castro’s policies were not working. Take more pictures, they can only get better. Especially since your thinking about art has made a small quantum leap. I’m not so sure your observations changes the subjects in any local way, but they do change the way others now observe them. Unless they are being seen by a Pinocchio, a woodenhead. What kind of a camera do you use? Is it a digital? Do you print them out? Can you use software like Photoshop to enhance them yourself, or do you have to send them to be developed? Either way has its advantages and disadvantages unless you have your own dark room. I have a couple of photographer artist friends who do their own darkroom mumbojumbo. It is “blaaaacccck…and white magic,” or maybe color magic too. I hope to see your vision of NYC sometime.
As Gertrude Stein said, “a rose, is a rose, is a rose,” [and sometimes painted roses are quite as beautiful]. Now what do you suppose she meant? The bracketed part was a She embellishment. Stein was a cubist writer in the way that Picasso was a cubist painter, sculptor. What do you know about the cubists? It was a whole new way of thinking about the world, and it had a specific message.
Always the beer, never forget the beer!
Including the museum guard is a tenable analysis. Course if he were cognizant of his role, they would have to pay more than scale for a guard as he/she becomes a performer as well and might even need to have an SAG card. Or if he were unaware, and was to be part of the presentation, Torrez would have had to give us a clue, since anyone en passant would fit the bill. And in the case where anyone could fit the bill, Torrez still would have to give us a clue that it was to be included. But it is an interesting idea. I do think you are onto something with the antiseptically clean look of the work. He often used red and black licorice in his candy works. The white has to mean something. In significant works, every aspect has embodied meaning. This kind of thought is what art is ‘sposed ta do. Pirandello, the Eye talian playwright who inspired Theater of the Absurd, wrote a play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, wherein the audience was part of the performance, even the people out in the theater lobby where the actors milled around before the performance. At its first performance in 1921, the play was not understood, not well received Pirandello literally had to run out of the theater to avoid being harmed by the irrational crowd. But the drama had huge success in Milan. Can we say the Milanese were of a more intellectual type?
RR said “if you have seen one redwood tree you have seen the all.” Is this similar to the rose comment? She, the Milanese would perceive things differently than New Yorkers! Of course most people would perceive things differently than New Yorkers. Not a slight on New Yorkers, I got along with them better than Texans when I was in the service.
My reply to RR’s comment would be, if you have seen on politician you have seen them all.
She the audience became upset, they wanted to be entertained, not be the entertainers. Maybe Milanease like to entertain?
Fun stuff guys. PMS had some good stuff to say on economics in TD.
Well goto go.
Brunch at work
Biscuits and gravy not my favorite, but I am polite to the cook.
An interesting property of music is that it can be heard repeatedly. For instance, yesterday I received a most wonderful gift from Paula, my best friend piano teacher. It was a two CD album of Bach played by Andrew Rangell of 48 musical pieces. Although not a Glenn Gould in the genius talent department, Rangell plays beautifully. Rangell was diagnosed with a progressive nerve and muscular disorder in 1990 that left him unable to use his hands, which is purgatory to a passionate piano player. I can sympathize with him as I have a mild condition in my hands called Dupuytren’s contraction from all the percussion a sculptor invariably has when cutting stone. The dystonia that Rangell has is a nerve disease that can be likened to a sort of writer’s cramp kept him from performing concerts. With determination, he agonized though the most painful therapies, and after seven years of not being able to play he is back. Not able to perform as much in public as he once did, he records and we are once again made the gift of his sensitive playing.
But to continue with my thoughts after this diversion, we can easily say that every music lover has favorite pieces that he or she could hear over and over, and even come to enjoy the work even more with every accumulated listening. The question I have is: are such pieces examples of how one thinks music should sound like, or…if it is actually the sound of these pieces that forms one’s musical perception? What do you think?
I am also continuing on my quest of the synesthesia phenomenon. And I think after some study of music theory, have some handle, foggy as it may be, on how it works, which I will share in my next post.
Have to go have a cup of coffee right now. Then it is upward into the new studio space to find my divine Elysium.
The photos are digital. I do print them but not all that often. I have a huge cache of these on various hard drives. I’ve got a thousand or so on the laptop now and need to get the main PC operational to transfer them into the main collection. About half are standard family fare and half are “hey, look at that right there”.
I have/had Photoshop on the PC and will again gawd willin’ and the river don’t rise. I use it but most of the time I try to do what I want when composing and framing the shots. Then if I do any “enhancements” I tend to be light-handed with them. Of course everyone does collages and goofy things with photos now, I just don’t have much time for the photos in general. So, the cache of photos builds and photographed families wait for homes in albums and artistic attempts wait to be blown up and printed. Que sera, sera.
How ’bout this; this thing with appealing visual form, color and fragrance is a thing with appealing visual form, color and fragrance no matter what I call it. Of course I already have a very developed image of a moose, so let’s not call it that. But we can call it something and we do. And when I think of those letters and pronounce the syllables associated with it, I can relate that to a generalized mental image of the item. I can have an almost sensory experience of seeing, touching and smelling that item if of course I have at some point actually had that experience. And that makes us all plagiarists. Where is this going?
And so John Cage lifted 4′33″ from Pirandello’s play. Oy vey!
Arroz es arroz es arroz
I don’t think there is a lineage between the art of Cage and Pirandello. They actually took a different look at reality. Although 4’33” was meticulously scored several times, John Cage, a student of Schoenberg, was very interested in the accidental and unexpected non-musical sounds whereas Pirandello’s works were extremely crafted and exalted the absurd. Cage was a practitioner of Zen and Zen meditation would have given Luigi an allergic reaction. About the only thing that ties them was the incomprehension of their works to the uninitiated audience. In Cage’s case the audience walked out, in Pirandello’s case the audience wanted to staff and quarter him.
Sea bass in the lobby
The difference in audience response, I think, had to do with the price of admission. Perhaps Pirandello’s audience was simply participating in the work as he designed, he just didn’t appreciate what they wanted to “express”. From the Wiki write up on Pirandello, it seems he recovered from that opening night. He had much bigger problems. The thought of him “exiting stage left” brings Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” to mind. With the audience embracing what was meant to flop. “One never knows, does one?”
I was never enamored with John Cage and anal Arnie. That’s fascinating boys, don’t give up the day jobs. And Arnold, avoid that triskaidekaphony at all costs. It’ll be the death of you. Another example of genius and mental instability packaged together. I found an interesting NY Times article on just that. Here’s the link if you’re interested. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEEDB113FF931A25753C1A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Food for thought (What beer goes with that?)
I was interested and I did check out your article.
I always love to consort with the gods, they gotta be the best, by definition. But that is probably just due to my usual risqué nature. Poor Harry Stotle just didn’t know enough philosophers (Arthur Danto comes to mind as a non-melancholic philosopher, and there are many others), poets (Bertolt Brecht), and artists (Picasso one of the most prolific artists, was not melancholy). Harry needed to live longer and travel more. I think philosophers, poets, and artists have no more incidence of madness than do doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs, oh, and dentists. Well….I guess the psychiatrists at John Hopkins can’t be wrong. Gosh, maybe these professionals see that they have to deal with such an irrational world that they just wig out. Want to go crazy, be an actor! Aah, actors are always so in love with themselves and then they leave themselves and feel abandoned. No wonder they have the highest incidence of alcoholism, and manic depression. I have known lots and lots of artists, actors, poets, and especially philosophers and have never seen one with depression of any sort. So maybe the random sampling wasn’t random enough or maybe not really large enough as it seems all those who did studies picked the most well-known and it doesn’t look like a definitive list. I don’t know, it is kind of a cliché. But the article gives me a legitimate reason to act nutty when I want something from my friends and family. They can always attribute it to my being an artist, poet, and a philosopher, a triple whammy. Thanks, I enjoyed the article and thinking about its content.
Triple chocolate ice cream in 9 degrees below zero weather, yeowie kazowie.
Well this artist, poet, philosopher was very successful today in the new studio. I was able to hang two large painter’s canvas drop cloths across the rafters that will keep some of the cold and dirt from the turbines out. I must have gone up and down that 8ft ladder maybe 30 times. Tuckered out. Tomorrow I will tackle the walls. I have to make some shelves to put all the art books that are in boxes out. I took some pictures. You just might have to suffer seeing them. There will be more room to work and put the two drawing tables I have out in the other studio in there too. Then I think I’m ready to start. The ideas in my head are just on the brink of popping out.
Well somebody has had a busy day. I am envious of your studio building accomplishments. You are close to creating and that’s exciting.
Thanks for checking out that article. The art, philosophy and mental health categories are not my strong smoot as you already know. I suspect that the few tortured souls make the best subjects for movies though. With two ears, Van Gogh is just making pretty pictures and pretty pictures does not necessarily a pretty picture make. Damn! Back to the roses! Now there’s a tortured artist! “I am Spartacus…er Van Gogh!” It’s a black hole of clichés day but I rule that world as I run uncontested. Maybe that’s my bugaboo. Schoenberg was hung up on 13, with me it’s pop references and clichés.
Speaking of movies about artists, have you ever seen “Moulin Rouge” with José Ferrer? It’s the only vehicle I’ve seen Zsa Zsa Gabor in outside of a talk show. There’s a scene that is a little funny to see now that special effects are the rule. In the scene Henri is speaking with his father and Ferrer plays both parts. The way they get them both in the frame is filming over the shoulder of the character that is not speaking. So, they never have the faces of both characters shown in the scene and there are body doubles that sub in. It’s fun to see how it was done. Not bad for 1952. Apparently John Huston couldn’t afford to pay another actor.
Champagne!
Covering the bases…before the weekend takes over-
Your post, Hemi, at 12:03 is a bit oblique with respect to visual form, color and fragrance. If you were to not call the moose a moose for our experiment’s consideration, yet attempt to imagine it, say you call it something you make up, not something already known like for instance the fantasy animal, a unicorn. For economy’s sake let me pretend to be you and make up a word, oblidok. You are going to imagine the oblidok. Oblidoks are large animals that have a brown hairy hide, broad and wide antlers, a large rump, and a large bulbous nose/mouth, stands on four legs, has a tail, has a kind of large 4-footed hooved animal odor, lives in a forest. These are the major features. So you are having an “almost” sensory experience of seeing, touching, smelling of sensations you have already had previously. As you list these features are you now synthesizing these perceptions so that you don’t confuse it with a plogtada which has some of the same features but not all? What would you be plagiarizing? Yourself and your previous experiences? And if it is a previous experience is it in some kind of unity where the combined criteria is “seen”. Or are you listing them in your mind and should you see in real experience an “oblidok” you would recognize it as such because you now have this list of criteria to which you can refer for comparison? Or do you have a fuzzy but whole picture in your mind, and do you want to call it in the mind’s eye, as if there were really a third eye inside your skull that is “seeing”? Or some little homunculus being running around inside the head seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing the world around you? This phenomenon we call the imagination is quite fascinating. And this is for Leefeller, on the Art of Noise, The Seduction of Claude Debussy, the very first word spoken is “Imagine.” It is a command right off the bat to the listener to use their imagination. Also the first word of the very next sentence uttered is also “Imagine.” What of this imagining experience? What is going on when we do this? I don’t mean this in a rhetorical way but in an investigative way.
Wishing-for pie, imagining tart cherry pie
Interesting, I go to work for the day and you guys have two weeks of monolog, had a hell of a time figuring out were it began and started. But what I want to mention, is now that I am working in a situation were people are talking and having various conversations , I never know if I should listen in and keep my mouth shut or jump in with a comment. I usually select the first choice, because they were not talking to me.
Of course in polite society, one would call a spade a spade or a duck a duck, and in Chompers case I enjoy jumping in on his conversations in TD. So I guess I do not always stay quiet in the background.
Getting up to speed means going back and doing my homework, last evening I felt like Elcrapo, so I couldn’t handle the conversation with any fortitude, but feeling much better today, so when I get time I will go back or not and jump in if I have any comments which may be enlightening.
Coffee for this feeling better guy
Well if you put it that way….
It’s the fuzzy composite.
I can break down the composite into fuzzy
pieces. Yep, it’s the third eye. Almost like
the eyes are turned around and looking into
my head like a magic eight ball. Not a crystal
ball because I don’t see through. But the fuzzy
moose is in there in the fuzzy forest and with
that gawd awful wet fuzzy moose smell! There’s
a fuzzy frame around all of this with nothing in
particular to see. No added features except those
suggested previously. So, no random walk ons.
At least so far. I’m waiting and… it’s Zsa Zsa Gabor!
Where did she come from? And why is she ….wait….
now she’s mounted the moose and calling him dahling and riding
off through the fuzzy marsh and…. I’m just screwing around…
no random walk ons.
You know there’s a rock band named “Third Eye Blind”.
I suppose that’s another way of saying no imagination.
Heading out on a holiday visits tour.
Will check back in when we get back maybe Monday maybe sooner.
No idea of what’s doin’ for New Years Lee. I do have a
neat New Years story I’ll drag out of the recesses of my
mind when I can. Very cool, I’m sure you’ll like it. Heck,
I like it and I was there and I rarely like where I’m at.
(We’ve spent many New Years Eves entertaining, that’s the
musicians’ deal you know. I spent New Years Eve entertaining
people since I was 15. Probably 32 or so years consecutively and
about 24 or so with the lovely Frau. When we’re not (the last couple years)
it’s like we’re not sure what to do. But we’ll manage.)
Imagining pie, heading your way. (Third Eye Pie! And Lee’s Coffee)
Why, my goodness, Zsa Zsa Gabor is Godiva! What an imagination.
Happy weekend.
And Lee we will wait for you to catch up. We are playing around with imagination getting ready for the January interaction. We are sort of playing around til you can join us. And I’m also working on some music theory that hasn’t really been dealt with yet here. I will be coming up with another question or two soon. Do you or Hemi have any questions in that vein, or any other?
Will have to get back to some politics soon too. Iowa is coming up fast. JE still looks good to me even after the horrible Bhutto assassination.
I’m having a ball grinding away at Chamberpot (my new name for your Chompers) on the other discussion forum, the Evangelical Rebellion. You are so right about that loser.
I’m enjoying my new Debussy and Bach albums immensely. It is a very nice day here in the “m i n d l e s s s t a t e of you know where.”
Third Eyeball Pie? It might be looking right at me. Good grief, sounds so Middle Eastern. I will go for the coffee though.
Oh no, no!
Not “Third Eye” Pie as in the flavor. “Third Eye Pie” as in the name of the bakery.
Ok, Folks,
Must say I had some time this morning to catch up on all the stuff I missed. I agree with She on this one, (actually most things) the association thing is the usual hand picked bs that some people do to support a premise. Well, Van Gough was a head trip for sure, but he sucked on his brushes and was always broke. Yes the number would be for all parts of society. My sister is a good example of a bad artist with the same problems. Case closed. Whipped through