Several things blended together for me today like ice cream and warm pie. And Brandi. And Day for Night. And a call from North Carolina about a trip to Italy.
In the bright sunshine, thinking again about the night scenes in My Blueberry Nights. At night, thinking about the bright sunshine in the Thelma and Louise section of Wong Kar-wai’s film, while I listened to Brandi Carlisle’s The Story and wondered if he knew anything about her. Because her music fit much of that, and her own persona fit Natalie Portman’s character, somewhat. There is something uniquely American about a tomboyish girl with a guitar, singing lonesome songs, throwing in a yodel or two for the desert, hoping for more than echoes. Brandi Carlisle sings about friendship, about offering friendship and support, powerfully, but from a deep and lonely place. The kind of friendship and loyalty only the lonely can really touch.
Not the queen…
[More...]
Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. 1942. Art Institute of Chicago.
Wong Kar-wai’s My Blueberry Nights sparks a multitude of thoughts for me. Already an admirer of his previous work, I came to the film with some minor discomfort in need of assuaging. Funny thing about that discomfort. I didn’t even realize I had it until I was well into the film. And some of that realization made me uncomfortable with the discomfort itself.
Part of it was because the film is so beautiful on the surface. Wong Kar-wai has always been a master of color, hue, saturation, framing and time. He has always been able to make the passage of time a visual event, visceral, sometimes wistful, often a character within the story itself. Time moves across his screen, changes up, slows down, speeds up again. Blurs. Trails. Comes into focus. Then stops again. And he has always chosen actresses who can make the camera love them.…
[More...]
Liberty Leading the People. Eugene Delacroix. 1830. The Louvre, Paris
Well, no dirty thoughts, really. Not since I put away the garden and yard stuff, washed my hands, and type now with clean fingers.
Anyway, was thinking again about Ani DiFranco and how she’s grown, matured, evolved. A mother now, she’s no longer the punkish rebel girl, the fighting fusion artist for grrrrl power. At least not overtly. At least not in the same way she brought to the fore in the early 90s. And she’s caught some flak from some fans because of that. Because she evolved over time. Because she wears a dress and puts on lipstick now and then. Funny thing about freedom, and independence, and non-conformity. You can’t stand still. If you do, nine times out of ten, you no longer can claim freedom, independence or non-conformity. Especially if you remain in a certain place to please your fans. By definition, that’s…
[More...]
Filed in: Music
Fender Stratoscaster
Enumerations
I am sitting in a wooden upholstered chair built in the nineteen fifties (I know because the table it came with had the original sales receipt from 1957) at my computer desk listening to Jimi Hendrix performing with the Band of Gypsies on New Years 1970 at the Filmore East almost two years before I was born.
My cat Sibyl is sleeping behind me. She is almost 13. Hard to believe. She looks five and has the most beautiful black/orange tortoise-shell fur I have ever seen. She also has an incredibly sweet and talkative disposition. (I have known many cats and by far she is the most gregarious)
I am 36. Time is spinning a web around my head. I am thinking that the chronometric parsing of our small gasps of life may be the death of us, machinelike, or at least make our oxygen scarcer and sleep consequently less pleasant, but would…
[More...]
Filed in: Art
When I stumbled on oil pastels several years ago after not having had any formal background or training in art, I surprisingly found myself enjoying working strictly in this medium. I am most intrigued not only by its texture, fluidity, and vibrancy of colour but also with the dimension and depth which can be readily achieved through simple hand and finger smudging. In this way, being so closely connected physically with the paper, I find myself able to become even more deeply immersed in the work.
Ingenue, by Desi Di Nardo
Several of my favourite artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Tamara de Lempicka, and the Group of Seven artists. My greatest influence, however, is Edgar Degas mainly because of his discerning eye for the human form and his masterful portrayal of movement in dance mode. After taking classical ballet at the National Ballet School of Canada for some years, I became very interested in…
[More...]
Filed in: More Poetry
A Deep Dark Line
I’m so excited about the wound
That stretches across the skin
Division under a toothed piece of glass
Opens to a field of circumspection-
Can’t we agree we can’t take back what’s lost
In the quiet now a pond settles our reflection
Sinuous strands motion for us under current
Rotten stumps of bark-a lonely plot of grass
The pig-headed calm before the blitz of rain
A deep dark line numbs the nipping tiny fish
Surface of the Moon
Now if someone would take the time to ask how you feel
Instead of making the same old small talk
You’d know just what to do with your pager
You might not even worry so much about the accent
Slinging your arm round to the backseat
Why you might even step over the line and ask me
Always with the same curiosity in the back of your mind
Could I be someone interested in a gloomy driver
I would catch you in the mirror and know
Time would be a factor…
[More...]
Filed in: Humor
Snaps, Buttons and Diguette’s Theory of Un-Natural Selection
by R. Diguette
Painting: The HMS Beagle, by Conrad Martens.
Every time I put on a pair of summer shorts I find myself wondering about the lowly metal snap. It seems to be going the way of the Neanderthal, slowly but surely dying out of existence, perhaps eventually one day to be re-discovered as just another unfortunate victim of the march of time. In its place we have the plastic button. But why is this happening? In what way is the plastic button superior to, or better adapted to survive than, the metal snap?
Consider this. Metal snaps seldom if ever fall off. The same most assuredly cannot be said for plastic buttons. For instance, when was the last time a garment of yours came back from the dry cleaners missing a snap? Never? But when was the last time a garment came back missing a button? Last…
[More...]
Filed in: Poetry
I Am Not The Earth
It is no use your chiding me
for my being an elusive stuff
slipping still out of your hand.
In vain you keep on grumbling
I had better be more concrete,
steadfast, tangible, consistent.
My true nature shuns your senses
every time you think you hold her
after long pursuing my semblance.
Whatever you try at my essence,
she vanishes like a sunset shadow
stretching out and out before dying.
You are looking for your mainstay,
a ground to rest on to look around
without ever losing your bearings.
But what I am is chilly air, I am wind;
I am water and the salt dissolved in it,
yes, please, convince yourself: I am sea.
For all you strive you can’t change that,
I am really nothing you can stand upon.
Indeed, nothing you can grasp or tread.
Believe
If you believe what the eye can’t see—and there is much
of that—you will no longer need your eye, or even want
to see anything. So strive to avert your gaze from the object
of your desire, for…
[More...]
