My Tree

My tree died.
And was cut down.

Only a stump is left behind
Yellow in the center
and black at the bark
Black black black
Like you've never seen in trees.

Nothing lasts.

dreams

"If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams"...

"The Cans Festival"

I like this stuff:
The Cans Festival.

I like it probably because there isn't a lot of gradients or shading or transitions between colors in most of it. Probably I like it because it represents my idealistic (and naive) view of the world (which I need to keep in check quite often) which is that things are either one thing or something else and not something in between or a combination of the two or more.

"The Charmin Experience"

Daily Draw: Lost Portfolio

Takashi Murakami

Peter Doig

Peter Doig
"Girl in White with Trees"
Oil on canvas
2001/2002

Peter Doig
"Concrete Cabin"
Oil on canvas
1994


Peter Doig
"Gasthof"
Oil on canvas
2004

The White Elephant Record Exchange Project

David Bratton over at safetybear.com passed along a link to a bit of audio playfulness in which he recently participated.

"The White Elephant Record Exchange Project was undertaken by 20 individuals in the late part of January 2008. The project involved sampling, composition, and ultimately all kinds of editing and manipulation of various original source material. Participants were first to find the "worst" and "most unusable" 12" vinyl record possible and hand it off to the curator. Those records were then distributed to the participants insuring everyone received a different record than the one they submitted. After receiving this record, the first goal was to complete one song..."

Click HERE or the image above to read the full description and listen to the submissions. Fun stuff.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo
Still Life (tondo)
Oil on copper plate
1942

El Greco

El Greco
"View of Toledo"
Oil on canvas
c.1604-1614

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