Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe

It's raining in love

I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.

If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking: Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."

I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.

-Richard Brautigan

Résumé

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

-Dorothy Parker

twelve

A Different Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Different Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Mark McCray

A simple tree grows on a residential block in Brooklyn. It is not the tallest tree on the block. Neither is it the shortest. It does not stand in perfect parallel to the house in front of which it grows, leaning away at a slightly obtuse angle.

In warm weather, all its leaves are uniformly light green and grow in dendrite-like clusters along its branches. Its entire formation, its trunk and crown, its branching pattern always looks--to me--like the neurostructre and vasculature of the human brain and spinal cord--even more so in cold weather when there are no leaves and I can make out every new twig that has sprouted. What a beautiful silhouette it makes against the cloudy grey skies of winter!

I gaze up at this tree almost every day and I’m constantly in awe of its beauty and simplicity. It continues to grow every day. Every day it changes. Every season it becomes more and more beautiful to me. Not only because it continues to grow, but because of what it weathers as it grows: snow, children, dogs, car doors, noise, the summer sun, and the spring rains. It weathers all these things and still it keeps on growing and changing and becoming.

This tree is also beautiful because it is witness to cries from newborns in their strollers, the stumblings and missteps of intoxicated passersby, the seasonal installation and removal of air conditioners in surrounding windows, the flirtations of firefighters, the occasional altercation between employer and employee, the mating dances and noises of shiny, silky pigeons, the biological processes of canines, first kisses, final goodbyes, moments of realization, block parties, move-ins, move-outs, all kinds of beginnings, middles, and ends. The witnessing of all these things, I am certain, makes this tree feel like a lucky tree. For to omnisciently witness the wonderfully complex behaviour of humans interacting with each other, their world and their creations must be continually both awe-inspiring and humbling.

I gaze up at this tree and marvel again at how its branches grow in all kinds of directions: outward, upward, left, right. All the different paths I can trace from leaf to trunk, from trunk to leaf. So many variations. Start here, end there. Start again, end up somewhere else. Back up, go a different direction. Which direction to choose this time?

I gaze up at this tree. I look up to it. It constantly reminds me of my interconnectedness with the entire world. It’s always a source of inspiration and leaves me with a sense of rightness about the world: things are always as they should be.

I gaze up again and follow its trunk into the ground. It is not stuck, but firmly rooted in the earth. It is where and what it wants to be. And it stands tall and confident with this knowledge.

This tree is a map and a guide, a teacher and a reminder, a lens and a mirror. It is there for me as much as I am here for it. I wonder what it thinks when it watches me study it. I wonder if anyone else notices it the way I notice it. I wonder if anyone takes as much pleasure in his or her exchanges with this tree as I do. Are they as grateful for the existence of this tree as I? Are they as affected, as influenced by this tree?

Love Poem

It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don't love them
any more.

- Richard Brautigan

gustave courbet - the wounded man

Eugene Delacroix - Orphan at the graveyard

lois greenfield

gustave courbet - the origin of the world

"I didn't come to judge, I came to get you moist."

daily draw, matilda

daily draw, unfinished.

this was inspired by eric's poem,  dinosaur.

the decisive moment

"the decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."
-Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Philippe Halsman

Gjon Mili

Henry Darger

Five Paintings Of Creepy Children At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, New York

Robert Peckham (1785-1877)
The Raymond Children, ca. 1838
oil on canvas

"A coach and sign painter and Congregationalist deacon, Peckham executed portraits with keen attention to detail. The interior settings of his pictures are careful delineations of his subjects' homes. Anne Elizabeth Raymond (b. 1832) and Joseph Estabrook Raymond (b.1834) are exquisitely dressed and surrounded by their toys and possessions in the parlor of their family's home in Royalston, Massachusetts."
CREEP FACTOR: 6/10

Oliver Tarbell Eddy (1799-1868)
The Alling Children, ca. 1839
oil on canvas

"Depicted here are the four oldest children of Stephen Ball Alling (1808-1861), a partner in the New Jersey jewelry firm of Alling, Hall, and Dodd, and Jane H. Weir (1811-1889). From left to right, they are, Stephen Ball (1835-1839), Mary Wilder (b. 1836), Cornelia Meigs (b. 1833), and Emma (b. 1831). The apparent ages of the children date the work to around 1839. The composition indicates that the portrait may have been painted shortly after Stephen's death that same year. His coloristic and spatial separation from his sisters, as well as the pool of light in which he stands support this conclusion. Post mortem portraits were common in the nineteenth century as families often desired likenesses of departed children. The artist painted a posthumous portrait of one of the cousins of the Alling children as well. Eddy's crisp, meticulous detail and vivid color temper somewhat his awkward anatomical drawing, all within a setting that is a document of early Victorian interiors. For group portraits like this one, the lack of interaction or integrated poses make it obvious that Eddy made separate studies of each sitter."
CREEP FACTOR: 8.5/10

Joshua Johnson (active ca. 1796-1824)
Edward and Sarah Rutter, ca. 1805
oil on canvas

"The first African-American painter with a recognized body of work, Johnson has long been thought to have been a slave who belonged to the Peale family of artists in Baltimore. In fact, Johnson was not a Peale protégé, but an independent artist, the free son of a white man and a black slave. In 1798 he advertised himself in a Baltimore newspaper as "a self-taught genius" who had "experienced many insuperable obstacles in the pursuit of his studies." Johnson learned a great deal about academic portraiture and developed his distinctive style. The air of stillness, of suspended action, in this portrait gives it an unreal, almost magical, quality."
CREEP FACTOR: 9/10

Joseph Badger (1708-1765)
James Badger, 1760
oil on canvas

"One of the least known colonial portraitists, Joseph Badger was the son of a tailor from Charlestown, near Boston. Although never as popular as his contemporaries, he studied their work and often used their portraits as models for his own pictures. Here, the pose is generally derived from Robert Feke's portrait of John Gerry (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). James Badger, the artist's grandson, was three years old in 1760."
CREEP FACTOR: 5/10

John Singleton Copley (1738-1815)
Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, 1771
Oil on canvas

"Daniel Verplanck, scion of a distinguished New York City family, is shown here at the age of nine. In this picture Copley successfully uses, as he had previously, the theme of the young aristocratic figure amusing himself with a pet squirrel on a golden leash. While the squirrel clutches at his leg, the poised sitter keeps the viewer cooly in view. The picture is done in Copley's very best colonial style, remarkable for its keen perception and clarity."
CREEP FACTOR: 8/10

dinosaur

i was mistaken by an old lady for a dinosaur
coming home from the library one day
she had her guide handy, and try as I might
I could not refute the evidence presented against me
so I told her, gently mind you, that I had to go graze on some succulent water plants
and she seemed pleased with herself
and smiled and went on her way