Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Bedlam

And then there was Bedlam.



Friday, September 15, 2017

Amorphous

Accidental Image

I see a variation of the laughing face that adorned the credits of some early Three Stooges shorts. Something funny, but also a hint diabolical. Sometimes it's impossible to discern meaning from the quivering and ever-changing Semiotics of the day-to-day; this is where your creative mojo kicks in. 

The ability to see unique wonder in the banal detritus of our industrial nation lives. The eye twitch of brain synapse that distills a glance into a Zen-like zap of beauty or symmetry or conundrum; the visceral perception of something fleeting or ephemeral that nevertheless makes the heart hum or entrances the eyes in delightful vision; the sudden apprehension of a building's detail that causes you to smile wanly.

Rubbing a cat's belly

You don't have to go to any trouble to notice things; you just have to look around with interest and curiosity. And allow yourself the luxury of unfiltered observation, allow yourself the pleasure of creating your own visual enjoyment by noticing the weird or enigmatic detail somewhere on the vast sheet of your Total Daily Landscape. It is there, that odd juxtaposition, that elegantly spontaneous composition that jumps out at you from the plastic surround, you can ascertain it, you can etch it into your gravitational spin, but you have to be open to it.

You have to have your head up, your eyes surveying the landscape. You cannot be staring at the screen in the palm of your hand. Living and noticing combats staring and clicking.

Out of nothing




Saturday, August 26, 2017

Eclipse

Lescaret and a partial eclipse of the sun
August 21, 2017

Sunday, July 23, 2017

With No Time Left to Fool Around




Tour de France 2017
They said it was something else   
but when the truth came out
many people were left chagrined,
wondering how they'd been so
easily deceived.

Sometimes there's nothing to say. There is only the blurry horizon line
sinking into evening.

On the off chance
that ale falls from the sky
and roast lambs sprout
from barren fields, do not
stop to question your 
good fortune.
Eat and drink like
someone with no time
left to fool around.


Friday, July 14, 2017

Vermeer in the Tour

Two riders

"... two riders were approaching and the wind began to howl."


Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Geometry of the Tour de France



Tour de France 2017, Stage 11

Tour de France 2017

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

GINSBERG : GREEN

Gordon Ball reading from "East Hill Farm: Seasons with Allen Ginsberg"

The GINSBERG : GREEN night at the Sprinkler Factory in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 7, 2017 brought together Beat fans, poets, artists, writers, publishers, and a melange of interested and curious citizens to celebrate and acknowledge Allen Ginsberg's longstanding contributions to the environmental movement and the movement to legalize marijuana. 

Headlining the evening were Ann Charters and Gordon Ball, both groundbreaking Beat scholars; unfortunately, at the last minute Ann Charters was unable to participate. Nicole DiCello, artist, activist and poet read in Ann's stead.

Of note were the virtuoso soundscapes of Jordan Hoffman and Steve Benson, two audio alchemists with alarming vision and the ability to create other worldly sound installations; Patrick Warner's reading of a Ginsbergian textual collage with the accompanying soundscapes offered a unique portrayal of the poet's work, one not gratuitous or ponderous but bardic and oracularly honest.

Audio alchemists Jordan Hoffman and Steve Benson

Gordon Ball offered a captivating reading from East Hill Farm: Seasons with Allen Ginsberg, his reading style soft of touch with tender playfulness and pragmatic confidence. Both professorial and eccentric, a little like a Gregory Corso lite, Gordon Ball related poignant and insightful anecdotes from the years he spent at Allen Ginsberg's upstate New York farm, roughly 1969-1972. 

After Gordon, Kevin Keady, Massachusetts musician and songwriter, performed, with guitar and vocals, Ginsberg's "Father Death Blues" (from "Don't Grow Old"), "Gospel Noble Truths," and "Do the Meditation Rock." Kevin Keady, himself a disciple of Allen, also lived at East Hill Farm, or as he and friends referred to it, "the Committee" (as indeed technically the farm was held under a non-profit entity founded by Ginsberg, the Committee on Poetry). His lively and sensitive performance seemed channeled in part through sacred memory, recollections of Allen Ginsberg, teacher and American hero.

To end the night, a spirited take of Ginsberg's classic "Hum Bom."

Patrick Warner, Nicole DiCello, Kevin Keady, Gordon Ball
reading "Hum Bom"
at the GINSBERG : GREEN celebration
April 7, 2017