Fabrizio's Mistresses by Marcel Proust

Fabrizio's mistress was intelligent and beautiful; he could not get over it. "She shouldn't understand herself!" he groaned. "Her beauty is spoiled by her intelligence. Could I still smitten by the Mona Lisa whenever I looked at her if I also had to hear a discourse by even a remarkable critic?"

He left her and took another mistress, who was beautiful and mindless. But her inexorable want of tact contantly prevented him from enjoying her charm. Moreover she aspired to intelligence, read a great deal, became a bluestocking, and was as intellectual as his first mistress, but with less ease and with ridiculous clumsiness. He asked her to keep silent; but even when she held her tongue, her beauty cruelly reflected her stupidity. Finally he met a woman who revealed her intelligence purely in amore subtle grace, who was content with just living and never dissipated the enchanting mystery of her nature in overly specific conversations. She was gentle, like graceful and agile animals with deep eyes, and she disturbed you like the morning's vague and agonizing memory of your dreams. But she did not bother to do for him what his other two mistresses had done: she did not love him.

from Fragments of Commedia Dell'Arte

A Vision of Spring in Winter by Charles Swinburne

I

O tender time that love thinks long to see,

Sweet foot of spring that with her footfall sows

Late snowlike flowery leaving of the snows,

Be not too long irresolute to be;

O mother-month, where have they hidden thee?

Out of the pale time of the flowerless rose

I reach my heart out toward the springtime lands,

I stretch my spirit forth to the fair hours,

The purplest of the prime;

I lean my soul down over them, with hands

Made wide to take the ghostly growth of flowers;

I send my love back to the lovely time.

II

Where has the greenwood hid thy gracious head?

Veiled with what visions while the grey world grieves,

Or muffled with what shadows of green leaves,

What warm intangible green shadows spread

To sweeten the sweet twilight for thy bed?

What sleep enchants thee? what delight deceives?

Where the deep dreamlike dew before the dawn

Feels not the fingers of the sunlight yet

Its silver web unweave,

Thy footless ghost on some unfooted lawn

Whose air the unrisen sunbeams fear to fret

Lives a ghost's life of a daylong dawn and eve.

III

Sunrise it sees not, neither set of star,

Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune,

Nor strong sweet shape of the full-breasted noon;

But where the silver-sandalled shadows are,

Too soft for arrows of the sun to mar,

Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon:

Hard overhead the half-lit crescent swims,

The tender-coloured night draws hardly breath,

The light is listening;

They watch the dawn of slender-shapen limbs,

Virginal, born again of doubtful death,

Chill foster-father of the weanling spring.

IV

As sweet desire of day before the day,

As dreams of love before the true love born,

From the outer edge of winter overworn

The ghost arisen of May before the May

Takes through dim air her unawakened way,

The gracious ghost of morning risen ere morn.

With little unblown breasts and child-eyed looks

Following , the very maid, the girl-child spring,

Lifts windward her bright brows,

Dips her light feet in warm and moving brooks,

And kindles with her own mouth's colouring

The fearful firstlings of the plumeless boughs.

V

I seek thee sleeping, and awhile I see,

Fair face that art not, how the maiden breath

Shall put at last the deadly days to death

And fill the fields and fire the woods with thee

And seaward hollows where my feet would be

When heaven shall hear the word that April saith

To change the cold heart of the weary time,

To stir and soften all the time to tears,

Tears joyfuller than mirth;

As even to May's clear height the young days climb

With feet no swifter than those fair first years

Whose flowers revive not with thy flowers on earth.

VI

I would not bid thee, though I might, give back

One good thing youth has given and borne away;

I crave not any comfort of the day

That is not, nor on time's retrodden track

Would turn to meet the white-robed hours or black

That long since left me on their mortal way;

Nor light nor love that has been, nor the breath

That comes with morning from the sun to be

And sets light hope on fire;

No fruit, no flower thought once too fair for death,

No flower nor hour once fallen from life's green tree,

No leaf once plucked or once fulfilled desire.

VII

The morning song beneath the stars that fled

With twilight through the moonless mountain air,

While youth with burning lips and wreathless hair

Sang toward the sun that was to crown his head,

Rising; the hopes that triumphed and fell dead

The sweet swift eyes and songs of hours that were;

These may'st thou not give back for ever; these,

As at the sea's heart all her wrecks lie waste,

Lie deeper than the sea;

But flowers thou may'st, and winds, and hours of ease,

And all its April to the would thou may'st

Give back, and half my April back to me.

The Dance Partner

She put her hand into his and led him to the dancefloor. He realized she was in front and bringing him along with her. His anxiety began to disappear. It was like a smile inside of him. When they reached an empty spot, she turned around and opened herself to him. Reaching forward with both arms she put her hand into his once again. His other moved along her arm, starting at her elbow and under; to the back of her shoulder. She first put her hand on his bicep and then moved it up farther to the side of his shoulder. He could tell she didn't know how to dance very well, so he looked her in the eye and smiled. Her anxiety began to disappear.

First, he dipped her to the left slightly and the stepped back and she followed. He slid his hand out from under her arm and then held both of her hands. They were soft and fleshy. He could only slightly sense the bones inside them. They weren't plump or loose, but like little bodies. They were her breasts and thighs and waist and neck... they rested in his hands awaiting whatever he wished to do next. She looked at him. Her eyes were dark and large, framed with strong cheekbones and brow. He was used to a more petite women in height, so being able to look at her face without looking down caused him to admire her subconsciously. Her beauty also made it easy.

In a Waffle House World...

the line cook wears his hairnet underneath a folded-paper boat. He works the pots and pans like he has eight arms, ham here, heating oil in that pan, cracks an egg (that's TWO hands... no he did it with one. I didn't even see what he did with the shell.) He wipes down the 6inch counter top he has in front of him... and it's all done with no flair, barely even with effort. The waffle waitress called out the order, messed it up and didn't repeat it. Dude was on it. Some country song was playing and then Phil Collins. [It] Didn't phase him.

I think his name is Eliazer. I guess that's a pretty unique name to only think that it might be what his name is... so I'm gonna say that's what it is. Eliazer. Waffle House blazer on target like a laser with the tater...tots, momma ...ummmmm, correction--- Waffle House doesn't have tater tots, just hash browns. They don't have french fries either!!! I had afriend once who was really upset about that. He eats his french fries with mayonaise which kind of grossses me out so I'm glad (at the time) that don't have french fries.

That's all.

Thnaks for reading.

Cityzen

Sourcing medieval texts to contemporary pop music
not only trying to find the missing link
but translate it into the unspeakable
poetry of symbols. Employing Life's rhythms
dynamics, metre, narrative, music
Notations on a journey
Pilgram/ Fool
knowldege of growth
drab outskirts unfold
evening covers
I thought these things on... (Broadway?)
nudging the horizon
treading Golgothas
Dust and Glory (Death of a Hero)
Forgottten Image 1953
Displaced Love, Dispersed Secret
David and Me
Cross and Crescent
Chansons de Geste (Songs of Deeds)
Finding Forever too soon, In a Moment

Rory Burke

"Imagination (phantasia) made them," Appollonios answered, "a far wiser artist than mimesis, for mimesis will represent only what the eyes can see, but imagination will represent what they cannot... When you entertain the notion of Zeus you must, I suppose, envisage him along with heaven and seasons and stars, as Pheidias tried to do..."
Life of Apollonios of Tyana -Philostratos
Rory Burke's sculptures call attention to the dismembering and assemblage processes of thought and distend logic into a compendium focus. The observational faculties of our nervous constitution are acknowledged as severe in dimensional construction and to this we can understand our phrenological system with regard to its constituents lateral to the whole. The complexity of our mind simply ordered, methodically made manifest to suggest by observation and contemplation we obtain the reconfiguration of intelligence and wisdom. See 'Finite Space' at Thomas Masters Gallery. http://www.roryburke.net/RoryBurke/Press_release.html

The Sandlot

My work is starting to shine a light through the tunnel. I've always believed art to be "for people" and the big question for me has been what do I have to say to them... Through a TON of introspection and analysis of my life and the world around me, paying out my nose with relationships and creature comforts, I've found what I've been looking for... I found the human condition. I've found what it is that levels the playing field. Sketches coming soon!

blog stats

cityzenart: THE BLoG is averaging over 1000 hits a week. It's exciting to look at the stats of where people are from and how they are finding their way here. By far the most popular post is Gregory Crewdson. If you don't know his work, look under the PHOTO heading and see his fantastic photo work. In addition to my resource building here, I've started another blog called missinglinkchicago.blogspot.com It is a call to action to participate in the world around you. I've recently received an endorsement from my brand new Alderman in Uptown/Chicago 46th Ward. It is likely we are going to generate several relationships within our community that will inspire and realize the dreams of many. The world is a garden, my friends. Discover its scenery.

If... (plus H&O)

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream-- and not make dreams your master; If you can think-- and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokem Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winning And risk it on one turn of pitch -and- toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, "Or walk with Kings- nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; I you can fill the inforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance run, Yours it the Earth and everything that's in it, And-- which is more-- you'll be a Man, my son! --Rudyard Kipling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNwOyOTe15w&feature=related

In Dreams

I really believe in dreams. Why would we get these visions of what COULD be? In the Prometheus story, "blind hope" is the one "evil" that didn't escape from Pandora's Box. It is this "blind hope" that keeps us from remembering our mortality, it gives us aspiration ad infinitum to our numbered days. It is evil, because in most cases it becomes a pursuit of vanity and futility. Whether you believe in God, a Higher Power, or the collective consciousness, then dreams are a type of communication. Our free will is the choice of how we participate with that communication. I can't explain how I've known so positively that something was going to happen and it did, outside of this mystic communication. Sometimes, the greater Communicator knew to trick me into following one thought so that I would discover another more important participation or reveal a greater understanding. The hardest "dreams" are the ones that require changes in our personality or our character. Pop artist, Katy Perry has a song called Teenage Dream and I've searched deep inside of me for several monthes to try and uncover what my teenage dreams were, so that I could honor them. I recently came to see that one of my biggest dreams as a teenager was to be in a relationship with someone I went to school with, to marry her and have kids with her and have that... wholesome American Family Life. She and I would talk all the time in High School. We were worlds apart-- I was the semi-outcast eccentric artist that could fit in anywhere and she was the head cheerleader (the nice one, not the "mean girl" one) who I think also felt misunderstood in many ways. Politically, we could never be, and so it was, that our friendship was very personal and mostly realized in phone conversations and rarely in physical existence. Day after day, for hours on end we would laugh and talk about things we liked and what we saw in our young worlds. Very few people knew about it or understood, but we were able to find a good-hearted mutual admiration for each other and kept it well nurtured with sincere conversation. It was never a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of thing, but in a young romantic mind, I saw a future there once the high school sociology was removed, but never rested much hope in it, because I was going to go to school in New York and she was going to stay in Texas and I had bigger dreams that I would bring back when we were much older. It's all quite laughable now-- looking back... but isn't it something we've all dreamed in some way. The teenage dream, not just a relationship, but a dream career or some ambition that "got away". A few years ago, I was at the end of my rope. My life was completely made of other people's choices and I lived for the affirmation of pleasing someone else. The misery of denying my earliest dreams at the expense of what I was told I "should" have was more than I could bear anymore and so I walked away from it all. I left the keys on the table, and walked out the door with two bags and a bus ticket for Chicago. When I got to Chicago, I started at the very bottom of society's sense of status, but I had one thing that very few people above me had, the dream of a 7-year old intact in my heart. It carried me through some VERY uncomfortable moments... Flash forward to "just recently" when I revisited my teenage dream with the cheerleader... what I realized... some dreams require someone else's participation. It's kind of a bitter pill to take... that that dream will never be realized. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAOxCqSxRD0&feature=related

There's Life After High School

I woke up in the middle of the night to a pretty awesome dream. I was driving a semi (truck) down a stretch of familiar highway in the town I grew up in. There was no anxiety or fear, but as I crested over a hill I saw something in the road that was an "enemy" of some sort. I applied the brakes, and the trailer began to "endo"... like a scorpion's tail. I remember feeling non-plussed at the whole thing, to quickly put the truck in reverse, so the trailer would break off and fly forward, while the truck would go backwards and underneath. It was like watching a remarkable special effect for a modern Transformers movie. The trailor flew forward and landed on the "enemy". For all of the dream interpretations imaginable, I can only hope that it means that the emotional baggage of my youth will be the crushing force to my creative block. Oh yeah, this song accompanied it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s22ufU-67iM

Cityzen Art

Many years ago I was trying to learn about Modern Art and how a painting of seemingly haphazard brushstrokes could be worth anything, let alone tens of thousands of dollars. I set out to find my understanding in a stack of books. I followed my nose and decided that Franz Kline naturally appealed to me. His work became my starting point in my scholarly pursuits. I was only 19 and from a small town in East Texas living in Boston and began to forage my way through philosophical and psychological experiments of the Ages. Zen was a concept that was foreign to me at the time and seemed essential to the appreciation of Abstract Expressionism, especially Franz Kline's work. And so I began to read about Buddhism. It clicked when I found a quote that claimed "I cannot explain Zen, but you can find it in sound of the wind through the leaves."

When I came up with the name Cityzen, I wanted to express myself as an "urban" artist and deal with the themes that come about through living in the city. I can certainly say that I've lost touch of that original sentiment, and yet my life has taken me to some of the greatest urban ways of life one can have. NO part of the city has been out of my reach. And last night, I was walking home from the library, down Wilson St. in Chicago and turned my headphones off so that I could listen to the sound of the wind across the bricks and the sidewalk and it all came rushing back to me... Zen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU9p1WRfA9w

Recession Schme-cession

I've been reticent to accept the idea of a recession since they've made up all the hoopla a few years ago. Today, something really clicked for me to help me justify my disbelief. Oddly, it was in the form of a Black Eyed Peas song, but that's not important.

I read something about counter-cultural economics a while back and it described "counter-culture" as the purest form of free enterprise. While most counter-cultural groups feel like they are acting in rebellion and outside of The Establishment, I feel like they are acting within the same sociological parameters. I can relate to the early skateboarding culture, so I'm going to use them as my illustrative example.

One of the things about skateboarding was it's outlet of aggression... there was music and fashion that embodied that "culture" and there was a disdain from the inside for people who appropriated the look --and they were labeled "posers". One of the big things that skateboarders suffer from is the adequecy of shoes to withstand the abuse of the griptape. A few people "capitalized" (oh snap!) on that need and made shoes for skateboarders. Vision Street Wear and Vans were the most popular. These shoes appropriated styles from "Punk" fashion and became an emblem of rebellion and antidisestablishmentarianism (never thought I would use that word to actually express myself...HAHAHA!!!). Skip ahead 25 years and Vans shoes are a huge shoe company and it seems that anyone under 30 has a pair.

Now if we spin this idea out a little bit and pay attention to what indicators are used to describe a recession we might see that the "recession" is really just an unsettling of what some people feel is foundation of their corporate progress.

Wall Street is a large group of incorporated businesses. Sole proprietorships and partnerships are not part of the Wall Street economic engine and so the life of these businesses do not contribute to the numbers that account for the activity of said "engine", but they can take away from it. While there are a number of other factors that have contributed to the upset of our National economic engine, I think that independent businesses and localized spending are becoming more of a trend amongst our consumptive practices, therefore not registering in the realms of Wall Street's books and ledgers. The money is still here, it just circulates differently. While it is circulating differently, the larger companies are feeling a loss at some level and raise their prices which takes from our collective gain as individuals, because we still use plenty of the products and resources supplied by those large corporations, (even in the production of our independent products and services). And so what we have are these large companies making headlines about losses and those losses "trickle down" in the form of inflation.

I'm not sure if I'm right about this or if I'm expressing myself clearly, but it makes perfect sense to me. Please comment.

Secretly On yer Side

Apperception- the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole.

Friends are a way to experience apperception. It's a self-referential experience to examine someone else and notice how you are similar and different and know the intersections of personality.

The Best at Failing

There is alot of change happening around the world.

I went walking this morning and was thinking about Egypt and people I know and what I've been through the past couple of years-- the recession and pop culture. (That's my wandering mind for ya!)

And I thought about this idea that the Egyptian people are just "protesting". Call it what you want, but the message is "Stop!" to a 30 year old totalitarean regime, or mutiny if you consider the regime's point of view and how they're going to respond. That's like telling an old clunker steam locomotive to "Stop." It's going to run over you no matter how nicely you tell it. And my guess is that the "protestors" are counting on the leverage of the global community to step in and help put the breaks on the regime's momentum.

My concern is that there is a full generation of Egyptian people that are passengers to this momentum, and while they may not like the ride anymore, there is a period of knowing what to do that they have to decide for themselves. When you remove a way of being from your life, you can't just leave it empty, there needs to be an activity to replace it, lest you relapse into the habit again. (spoken like a true addict?) The real danger lies in that the youth of Egypt do not possess a true sense of responsibilty to model themselves after, therefore will imitate what they think power should mean and exhibit an impulsive fascism within their sense of freedom... a snapback to the tension of living under the regime. And so an emergency "governor" (think combustable engines) will have to regulate the chaos of mass "freedom". There will be times of desperation to return to the comfort of having the "iron fist" make the decisions and so older Egyptians will exhibit fundamentalist strategies of promoting more regulation to regain what they think is a rational sense of order. It's very hard for me to watch, because I know this pain. I know the liminal states of internalized conflict. These people have not matured to their capacity as a society to know what to do, and while it is my hope that they continue to gain perspective in their vision of a better society, I know those same growing pains, when it seems that all roads lead to failure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NWZRvRHbRY

Jay Strommen at Perimeter Gallery

When discussing the task of deciphering Finnegan's Wake, Joseph Campbell describes school men, terrified by the difficulties of Joyce's "root language" --and have been raking leaves in Phoenix Park for the past twenty years tryinig to catch parley. Any ceramics artist will immediately identify a "root language" to Jay Strommen's work and the intricacies are such that one may also want to sweep Jay's studio floor for about twenty years to catch a glimpse of the man and his works in progress.

Jay is a very approachable artist who is happy to share his work to the curious and the awestruck, as he is to the fawning and doting. He seems ambivalent to the celebrity status he has acquired; egging it on, yet guarding his magic and his internal prestige. At the opening reception, it was a Who's Who of Chicago art world appearances.

His vessels are sublime. They are like Italian grottoes; miniature. The surface texture is a sensitive crustacious drip and bubbling ignacious earth that has been freeze-dried and then preserved in the magic of the fire. Ranging from light and sandy in color to darker grey-tick, the bowls breed mossy highlights and brindle. Some of the vessels are severely cracked or ripped, as if Jay is looking to evoke an emotional injury. The interiors of the vessels reveal a sphincter-like constriction of clay over colored glass. The emerald and sapphire mixtures pool inside the openings like gems fallen into the drain of a sink. Impulsively one wants to remove the beautiful glass setting, but also the stark contrast of the materials begin to render more emotional recognitions that seem to tell a story. Questions begin to emerge from a sense of contradiction. The solitary bowl begins to cry and howl. Parts of the bowl appear to have been removed and reattached like scabs, or violently pulled from the structure and cast into the bowl to be fused as a sandcastle may become crumbled by water only partially left intact, beautifully ruined as only nature can ruin something. It is in this way that Jay's skill and experience shine through. His hands seem to possess the power of wind and rain. And while his promotional statements dance close to the line of being overly sentimental in this way, the work is phenominally executed and the presentation in the gallery is free of any overt distractions.

Also included in the show are several large slab pieces that are mounted on the wall. They measure about 15 X 20 and roughly textured in the same way as the vessels and smoothed by copious amounts of glaze and fused glass. They seem more geological, like a fossil sample mixed with a cuniform. These tableaux seem to encode another experience. The verdent-azure glass puddles spell out alchemical schemes and grimoire teachings. Observing them as objects, is to look at them with wonder at how they were made. They are massive and weighty clay tablets that have every possiblity to be destroyed in their drying process. They index Jay's "root language" in new way and are exciting to see. To describe them any further would be to ruin the personal relationship one may have with the pieces in their pleasant ambiguity.

I recommend moving slowly from piece to piece, so that your breathing accomedates the breath of the piece at which you are looking.

They possess, therefore enter.

-----------------------------------------------------
See Jay Strommen's work at Perimeter Gallery in Chicago or check his website for additional listings http://www.famousearth.com/

You're right leave the booger, it makes you more beautiful when you're dead

This morning as I was laying in bed thinking about things that are important to me, I dwelled on the important people I've known in my life. I thought about my friend Kathleen, who would do anything for me. I learned how to be a good friend from Kathleen. The thing is she died. And it wasn't some random accident that she was the victim, she pretty much drank herself to death over several years. I lived with her about a year before she passed, when I was going through my divorce. Her sister had cancer at the time and was likely not going to make it and I was glad to be there as her friend... I didn't realize that she was much more worse off than she expressed. It hurts me that she didn't let me know what I could do to help her. She was a woman of strength and I don't know if she was always out to prove something, but she definitely made things happen. She loved me as her friend. We never really went socializing together, I barely knew her husband, I never met many of her friends... but whenever we hung out (I also worked with her) it was always a very pure honesty, or so I thought. I guess she was scared to show me some pieces of herself and so I never knew that she was in need. Now she's dead.

The next part of my morning's thoughts drifted to the amount of old people in my life experiences. I go through long seasons of having relationships with elderly people, since I was very young. There were the ladies who played dominoes with my great great aunt nextdoor when I was a kid. My sister and I would shuffle the dominoes between hands and make their egg salad sandwiches and listen to them talk. I don't remember anything they said, but it was the beginning of a comfort level in not being scared of old people (although I was scared of my great great aunt's feet).

Later, I worked at a greasy spoon diner in rural East Texas as the line cook. There were several older people who would eat there or have a glass of tea before they would go back out to tend to the cows. There was a group in particular that would meet at 5:30 in the morning, every morning without fail and drink coffee til the sun came up and set out to feed the cows. On Mondays I would go hang out with them before school and drink coffee and shoot the shit with them.

Several years later (not that long ago now) I would have breakfast with the United Methodist Men at the church I attended in Richardson, TX. It was then that I really began to see what it was that I liked about old people... Their emotional honesty about who they are. They aren't lying about who they are, they're realistic about their shortcomings, and even have a sense of humor about it. They enjoy the company of a young person and they enjoy revisiting the times they had when they were my age and sharing funny stories about the stupid stuff they did... If I were to go by the impression of the oldtimers, it seems that the side we all try to cover up is the part that we like the most when we get older.

So I really tried to penetrate into the depth of this idea of what it is we want people to see and not see and I distilled it down to "shame". I've had a couple of therapists/ counselors/ head-shrinkers at different times and one was adamant about "toxic shame". I think we understand shame as we convict ourselves according to some level of standard as we approach the concepts of "Right" and "Wrong". It's a tough thing to grasp fully, because who wants to admit they are wrong, so we try to dodge it with "learning from our mistakes" and various types of mechanisms that help us cope with the pain of rejection from the instances of incongruency from expectation and reality.

I met an artist recently and I proposed the idea that there are "wrong art experiences". If you look at the Death of Sardanopalous and your reaction is "I like brussels sprouts with soy sauce", then you walking away from the painting with an experience that is wrong; it's completely inappropriate and irrelevant to the intent of the painting. The artist claimed that all experiences were "allowed" in the Modernist convention and we argued back and forth the merits of our cases until we both realized as seasoned carcasses of the rhetorical battlefield that it was beginning to take shape of sport rather than discussion, so we conceded that we should end the discussion. I walked away with a feeling of victory over the artist... yet our potential of collaboration was pretty much destroyed. (One thing I can't help but think, is that if all experiences are allowed, then how could she disagree with me?) In all of her transcendentalism, to not allow me the view point I was presenting? Doesn't her belief in all things include my experience? (If there are any transcendentalists out, there could you address this?)

A similar situation has been eating away at me. I was living in a certain condition that I felt shameful about and was uncomfortable about revealing to people I didn't know very well, and one day I "outed" myself with the information that I was homeless on my Facebook page. A friend of mine was very upset that I "lied" to her (in essence) and was very patronizing in letting me know that I shouldn't underestimate people's understanding my needs because she was someone who wanted to care about me and that I should trust people more.... blah, blah. Again, all I can think is that if you can understand the place of someone being in need, then why can't you understand the place of pride that makes one reticent to expose themselves in that way? I just met the woman and wasn't comfortable with putting myself under her microscope just yet. I eventually came to terms with my homelessness and released myself of the shame and decided that forever I wanted to make that part of my life, a part of my story. That meant releasing myself of the shame and letting people know that while I am this, I am also this... I'm not saying we should throw a party because I have a pimple on my ass, but if it's there and we're gonna get to know each other, IF you happen to see my ass, there might be a pimple on it...

and so we return to my friend Kathleen. I understand why she didn't want to tell me she needed help and sometimes I'm sad that she wouldn't let me wipe her nose when she was crying.

Lessons from hosting a church chili-cookoff

I was on the planning committee for my church's annual chili-cookoff. The weather has been crazy, so the participation was 10 entries compared to 25 last year. The congregation is fairly stuffy and pedestrian. It's a Northshore Chicago suburb. 'nuff said.

Being from Texas and holding a fairly sophisticated experience of tasting chili, my opinion seems to hold little sway in this context, but I learned some very powerful insights in the popular public's sense of "favorite." As I look around, I see evidence of my new found insight everywhere. So a little more back story before I give away my discovery.

Before the tasting festivities (I skipped the church service) I was hanging out with one of the entrants and his five year old daughter. Around kids I like to do magic tricks and then teach them to them. It's fun to see them wonder and learn and then watch them try to do the tricks... obviously, I'm not a real magician. The tricks that I like to do are spontaneous, slight of hand manipulations, like coin tricks, making cards disappear and reappear, ripping up napkins and putting them back together. I do enjoy gimmicked tricks, but they are less convenient because they require the set-up and etc... and now for the insight. People (as in the masses) like gimmicks over the authentic ability. How did the chili-cookoff serve as the medium for this insight you may ask? The winner, wasn't even chili. It was a mole'. I didn't taste it, but it might not have even been a mole'... but that's what they called it and they served it with rice and tortilla... it's a freakin' mini-enchilada that won the chili-cookoff!!! As a purest in most things, inside I was in complete disbelief. And the winner of the cornbread, it tasted like wet grits and milk... but it was green, so somehow that made it taste better. In my mind it was a complete outrage and disaster.

People like the gimmicks.

Building and Adding On

Artist Resource Network- An organization that supplies front end resources for artists, including space finding, insurance options, financial consultation, site hosting, certification oppurtunities, safety and materials information and other services that would help an artist further themselves professionally

"Be the Missing Link"- a mural project that works with the homeless population. As a way for people to get opportunities to gather momentum in their self-esteem and collaborative experience, the project would be centered around the promotion of kindness through art. A true contribution to any community and public at large, Be the Missing Link would serve as a reminder that no matter the situation, we are all valuable.

Art In Our Backyard- A video series that takes a look at the history of art in the United States by it's provenance. There are masterpieces in museums across the U.S. that have a rich history of their own experience, as an object. Several paintings and sculptures that are hundreds of years old and started out in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America that are now at home in private and public collections. Art In Our Backyard is a PBS style documentary series that chronicles those stories and engages viewers in the accessiblity of artistic mediums throught the experience of the objects themselves.

Racing to Be Last- an intern based initiative that takes people on subsitance living who wish to re-enter the workforce, by helping business start-ups within their own initiative. A micro-community effort that mobilizes it's members to contribute to each other's success in planning and execution of business propostions that fulfill their own desires for success from within.

Other areas of interest in career developments include:
Interior Design
Music Production
Tile Manufacturing http://davidpipertiles.blogspot.com/
Art Gallery
Book writing
Fine Art painting
Printing
Clothing
Artists' Book Publishing
Artists' material -branding
Magazine Articles
Blog
Graphic Novels
cartoons/ movies/ screenwriting
Photography

Chad Buck at Roy Boyd Gallery

When I told Chad that I wanted to write about his work, he offered to look at the show with me and help me with the syntax of what I was experiencing with each painting. I grinned and replied that I could walk circles around his syntax. We both had a good laugh.



I then fired three questions at him: "What was his intention? What was his relationship with the materials? What type of relationship does he expect the viewer to have with his work?" His eyes lit up and he pointed at the painting behind me (of course).



Chad told me that he was inspired by J.L. Borges at which point I cut him off about his work and we began to geek out on the idea of the Infinite and the Word in Borges' works "Book of Sand" and "Library of Babylon" which led to talk about the autonomy of his work and his use of wood pulp and various stones ground into powder and mixed with his paints, now Antonio Tapies and alchemy and Ecclesiastes.



I was fortunate to meet several collectors and the gallerists while talking with Chad and we all agreed that his work, while sublime in its representation, possessed enough tactile quality to draw the viewer into the contemplation of tonality and space and the calming of the active spirit.

I asked Chad if he likes magic tricks. He said yes. That lets me know that as a person, authentic to his being-- that is looking to define his work semantically, but that he's excited by wonder and mystery and even slight of hand and deceit. He searches for the extraordinary and the pure essence of infinite, in nothing and everything.

I think he prefers everything.
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See Chad Buck: Painting Survey 1998-2010 at Roy Boyd Gallery 739 N. Wells in River North, Chicago.