conversation

street scene

Both of these were taken of the same item. which do you find more interesting?

musical interludes

Debussy ~ Prelude to Afternoon of a Fawn


Erik Satie ~ Gymnopedie No.1


Maurice Ravel - Pavane for Dead Princess

Salon des Indépendants ~ New London, CT

Clockwise from upper right corner:

What Then?
Julia Pavano

Home Sweet Home
Karl Hendrickson

Wagon Full of Birds
(unknown)

The "sunny" room ~ my collage is in the upper center of the window.

Original Work ~ Hubcap

Photography ~ Bill P's car wheel

Salon des Indépendants ~ New London, CT

This is "A letter from the mental hospital" [first entitled "Industry"],
which is installed at the Hygienic Arts annual Salon des Indépendants
now on exhibit in New London Connecticut, this year, from 28th January through 11th February.

In changing the name of this collage, it provides a more accurate reflection of the source of some of the materials; in particular, the upside down letter ~ framed by two oxidized kitchen knives, were among artifacts I came across when urban spelunking at an abandoned insane asylum. The building had not house people since the 1970s. The letter was from a woman to her family, asking when they were coming to visit and wistfully talking about coming home. Obviously, the letter never got to the intended parties.

Below is one of the posters for the show, painted by artist Glenn Hart.

Maurice Sendak talks of writing for children

From the Colbert Report: Melanie Jones [from the International Business Times] says "...When Maurice Sendak sat down with Stephen Colbert for a two-part interview segment, even the "Colbert Report" host may not have been expecting some of the answers that came out of the "Where the Wild Things Are" author's mouth."

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Watch Part One of the Interview

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Some choice quotes:
'I really don't like adults at all'
"I didn't set out to make children happy or make life better for them, or easier for them," Sendak said. "I like them as few and far between as I do adults."
"Maybe a bit more," he conceded. "Because I really don't like adults at all."
Before the interview really got started, however, Sendak felt compelled to make an important distinction for Colbert: He is not a children's author. He's a writer.

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Now watch Part Two of the Interview

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"I don't write for children," Sendak said.
"I write, and somebody says, 'That's for children.'" He thinks book signings are "dreadful," and isn't that enamored of his fans, either.
This is not to say that the lovable curmudgeon doesn't have some strong opinions about how children's literature should be written.
"Everything by Seuss is good," said Sendak, perhaps influenced by the fact that Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) was quite an ornery old man himself.
"Curious George," he adds, was also excellent. But otherwise, "Most books for children are very bad."

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image miscellany

Tree Fungus Carving ~ Deer at Night

Photography ~ Drumsticks and Wine

Photography ~ Weights

art show reception

Jim Riccio / Will Brady
Two Distinct Visions
of the World
18th January through early March 2012

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Rathbun Free Library – East Haddam, CT

36 Main Street / Route 149, East Haddam Village
½ mile from the East Haddam Swing Bridge
[call 860-873-8210 for hours]

Reception – Thursday, 26th of January 2012
6:00 to 7:30 pm

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I plan on doing a talk on collage and collage making some time during the month of February. Watch for it.

wood collection

Is it sculpture? or an installation?

According to The Mother Earth News the stacking of wood is a science.

I consider it an Art.

"A woodpile is a public thing — as much of a "statement" as your garden or your mailbox or the vehicle you park out front."

local scenes

One of the Connecticut River's Cruise Line ships at night; berthed serenely at the Tylerville boat launch site. Taken during the flooding stages of Hurricane Irene.

video distractions

Well, lights are truing back on in the town where I live. I wrote the corporate office at Connecticut Light and Power (online, now that I am so able) to recount how obtuse it seemed for them to "offer" internet up to date reports on the power outages to those of us off the grid since last weekend. Anyway, in deference to actually being able to post entries on the blog from the convenience of home, a few videos:

Snap - I've Got The Power


M.A.R.S. - Pump Up The Volume


One Night in Bangkok

And Now Back to Our Regular Programming

Hurricane Irene - local power outages

Can somebody tell me what is wrong with the following statement:

Anyone still without power will be able to log onto CL&P’s website today and find out when the electricity is projected to be restored to their area of the state.

A direct quote from CL&P President Jeff Butler. Fine advice, but completely impractical, when one can't access anything electrical or electronic at all.

     For a perspective on how extensive the power loss damage has been, Governor Dannel Malloy said ""There are more people working on energy issues in this state than on any time in our history, on an event that was almost twice as severe as [Hurricane] Gloria".
     For a perspective on what could have happened to us in Connecicut, a glimpse of the picture on the left, taken by my friend Dave Howe, who was in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There is a dog in the picture looking for dead bodies under the debris. In contrast, we are mostly without lights and cable tv and running water for a few days. In short, we have been inconvenienced !

     Nevertheless, on a personal level, people are distraught and frustrated. East Haddam's First Selectman, Mark Walter, on the East Haddam PATCH news site, is noted as saying:

"Now in the fourth full day without electricity, and most [people] without cell phone service or Internet access [or even land lines - I might add], residents’ nerves here are fraying. They’re anxious", Walter said, "because they’re not able to connect with others in the world, and [people are] getting little information about when the power will come back."

     Waxing philosophical, the power/cable/internet outage frustrations - to me - show how many people run lives that are not reality based, but television-channel-changing time based. Pretty damned sad.
     Lest you think I'm being too churlish, I, too remain without power from the grid.
     I find it troubling and disturbing when folks who opt to live in rural, forested areas, get angry at officials - government or industry - because they never properly prepared themselves for emergencies borne from what are actually relatively short-lasting disasters.
     When living in the country, it makes sense to have a pantry full of food, most canned, some frozen. You ought to have plently to eat, even if the power goes out for a week. It is better planning to have a gas stove than an electric one, since the cooking burners can still be lit with a match.
     For that matter, if an emergency generator is on hand - an item that typically costs less than a laptop computer or an I-Phone, - then you have electricity to run essentials, like the fridge, freezer and a water pump. [And yes, I do have a generator, which has been working since late Sunday afternoon]
     You don't need a lot of lighting, and you definitely don't need immediate television or internet access during the disaster. You won't have it anyway.
     Personally, I DO miss a flush toilet, a bath or shower to soak in or under. As for my not having an operating water pump [hence no flushing toilet], I have only myself to blame for not hooking up the generator to a reverse power switch in the house. So after being hit with one of the most tempestuous wind storms to hit the area in decades, I'm not about to complain after only four days, when things have yet been restored to "normal" from the passing of Hurricane Irene.
     Most anyone who knows me is aware that I generally don't usually have a problem yelling at officials. But under the circumstances, I find it is a bit much - presumptious, self-centered, short-sighted and stupid, actually - to scream at politicians or corporate execs for one's own failure to prepare in advance. In this situation, the execs and the politicians deserve a break.
     Folks who fail to plan for emergencies should, instead, be yelling at themselves.

Posted from a location more than 20 miles from home.

UPDATE: At approximately 2000 hours, in zone 5 GMT, the section of town I live in regained electrical grid power connections. I was able to watch it light up as I drove home from work

hurricane irene

Shedding some light on the subject.

The homestead remains without on-the-grid power since Saturday night. After driving through town it seems pretty obvious that our area won't get lights on before the weekend, if not longer. Smashed transformers, trees and limbs still resting - with some delicacy - atop power lines, and roads that even today aren't really passable.

Our town was hit badly with regard to power and internet outages. Right now I right this some twenty miles from home, and not at a private site. Fortunately, I don't know of any hurricane related fatalities in my town, though I known the same can't be said of other places, especially in Vermont and the Carolinas.

Now that I am briefly online, I find it ironically amusing that the CL+P website, the state website, and others, blithely recommend that people check other websites, FaceBook and Twitter for repair updates. Given that I know I won't have any electric, or cable or digital satellite service, much less land line and cell phone reception, I find it a grim twist of unintended humor. Perhaps the corporate execs should get out of their (presumably) still well lit and phone linked work sites and find out what the rest of us are doing.

I'm not complaining mind you; after all I consider myself only inconvenienced, but it's a bit obtuse to suggest one goes online to find out what is going on to get online services restored.

FULL DISCLOSURE TIME: I am one of the few in my area to actually have some electricity, thanks to a most efficient, if modestly powered, generator. So the contents of the freezer and fridge are safe, though there is certainly no need to turn on the TV set or computer. Instead, I am reading Norman Mailer on Picasso, and actually talking to people that stop by.

an image miscellaney

Chinese take-out gumball machine

The spout for window washing fluid

Storm drain

Heavy duty fan

redneck riviera

As an FYI, there were at least two closed circuit security cameras on this place looking out at the road. Given the amount of traffic that probably goes past this parcel, that is probably a good idea.

gay history

[SOURCE: Wikipedia.org]

Rudolph Brazda, born in Germany in 1913 died earlier this month in Alsace. He is believed to be the last German "pink triangle" survivor of Buchenwald. The pink triangle (German: Rosa Winkel) was one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, used to identify male prisoners who were sent there because of their homosexuality.

Every prisoner had to wear a downward-pointing triangle on his or her jacket, the color was to categorise a person by one's "kind".



After the camps were liberated at the end of the Second World War, many of the pink triangle prisoners were often simply re-imprisoned by the Allied-established Federal Republic of Germany. An openly gay man named Heinz Dörmer, for instance, served 20 years total, first in a Nazi concentration camp and then in the jails of the new Republic. In fact, the Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, which turned homosexuality from a minor offense into a felony, remained intact in both East and West Germany after the war for a further 24 years.

living with cancer

When we try to make sense of things that are
not for us to understand
the result can be confusion
and longing for clarity
         when there is none.

Who sits in the dark
awaiting our entry?
         although we each have guesses
     no one of us really knows
for sure.

Is it G*D
         ...or Jesus
         Gautama Buddha
         Deganawida
For whom we wait ? ? ?
     All one and the same some say
     For they are all prophets and gods in different tongues

Heavy can be the heart burdened with
     the certainty of illness
     and the uncertainty of time of passing

To some extent
it is the physical suffering we experience
     ~ and that we cannot bear ~
     while still in this realm
     more than the fear of passing

And yet
     it is not out of order
     to wallow in aweful wonder
as to whether or not
our beliefs of the post-physical
     might not be exactly as we might hope.

Go strong.
Be with those passing.
And remain constant
     while without fear.

fern workshop

Grape fern: Botyrichium dissectum, of the family of Succulent ferns.
On the left - with the sporing body - a fertile fern, the right a sterile fern.
 




















Bracken Fern: Pteridium aquilinum, of the genus Pteridium.


Oak Fern: Gymnocarpium dryopteris, of the family Polypodiaceae. Found in a peat-filled bog.

poem - the barrenness of dawn

I am summoned to see someone immediately!
He is angry for being inconvenienced
                        and      demands
                                             swift resolution.
Through a third party he is told I will not see or speak with him until tomorrow.
He walked away content.


In a dream
I am served another Summons.
It seems I've been in receipt of a series of pleasant distractions
               whilst asleep
I’m told: I ought to have known that these distractions came with a fee

I become distraught
               not knowing in what manner
               nor what medium
I am to pay for these fleeting pleasures.
The process server smiles.
               "You'll figure it out"


Next to me
   a large cat
   rests contented
   Bathing while abed.