02/10/2020
22/09/2020
Autumn equinox 2020
Frank's flowers |
"Mom, this is all so big. First the Covid, then the fires, and then my friend's house burned down." He proceeded to go into the yard, collect some flowers, and put this little bouquet on his desk."
06/09/2020
Our changing world
Bones in the Desert |
or Boris, or Vladimir, or Xi, or Bolsonaro, etc etc. they are not it. And, vile inexcusable and unacceptable as it is, racism is not the biggest issue of the day, or sexism. Nor is abortion, animal rights, free speech, freedom for or from religion, freedom to wear or not wear a mask . . . whatever, whatever . . . cause, right, privilege, power, belief, or hope anyone individually or collectively cherishes . . . with all those things still squarely on the table and more and urgent as ever . . . the greatest, most urgent problem facing America and the world, both human and wild, is our deteriorating climate.
It's not happening tomorrow. Earth's climate has deteriorated to the point that it has now become its own cause. It threatens all life as we know it, not just the poor, starving, dirty poster-polar bear stranded on a chunk of ice that broke off a melting glacier. Earth's climate is rapidly deteriorating by the day, by the hour, and threatens all life on earth . . . yours, mine, theirs, its . . . ours . . . because in this we are one.
Our house is on fire and we humans, the cause and only hope, are inside oblivious, arguing about other things as it burns.
01/09/2020
Year 17
Corn Moon |
Corn Moon is now high in the sky and
Barkie the dog has begun her nightly soliloquy.
First day of September
seventeen years later.
28/08/2020
Morning rant
America is infested with fascists, beginning with our corporate overlords and their political wing, the Republican party . . . their media wing, FOX News . . . their army of battle-ready fascist cops protected by standard issue Get Out Of Jail Free cards . . . their power-hungry colleagues, the racist evangelical churches, the party's foot soldiers, you know, that mob of ignorant motherfuckers worshiping Confederate generals in the name of Christian Jesus, those fucking alt.right vigilantes cheered on by the NRA . . . and the Karens and Kens of every color . . . fascist all. I'm done with all of it, all of it, all of it.
Where is America, shelter for those "yearning to breathe free"? Where is America, the "land of the free, home of the brave"? Fascists aren't free or brave. They are maggots fat on hate who scoff at facts and science, who think because their skin is "white" they are superior, or because there's a dick and balls hanging between their legs they're superior, or because they make a show of worshiping the white-skin version of brown-skin Jesus of Nazareth it's ok to betray their own ethnicity for a ride on the gravy-train. They're maggots thinking money and connections will forever keep them immune to the chaos they have created.
I'm done with the billion and trillionaire elites who hide in the ivory towers of their corporations then shove their US Supreme Court approved Corporate Personhoods into the world to do their dirty work. Corporate Persons . . . legal entities . . . created to absorb the consequences of criminal corporate activity, thus insuring the human power players remain above and beyond the law. I'm am so fucking done with them all.
The ultra-rich have turned America into a tax haven for anyone with enough cash and credit to buy-in. They are the ones who pay to change the law to fit their business plans and are draining the planet of its resources, destroying the beauty, poisoning the air, poisoning the water, poisoning the oceans, rivers, springs, lakes, wells, clouds . . . poisoning and eliminating top soil. They are destroying the very climate upon which life as we know it depends.
I am so done with the Republican Party and its president, Trump Corp, and all their climate change backers who live above the law in their corporate structures, skyscraper hideouts, island retreats, insider enclaves, underground palaces, international tax havens and whatever other fantasy worlds they have created to escape the consequences of their arrogance and greed.
There is, however, a footnote to all this.
Where do we go from here? It's chilling how successful the alt.right has been at brainwashing the unaware with their lies and loathing. I pity their obedient, hapless supporters who embrace wage slavery for themselves and their poorly educated children. I feel sad for everyone in America and around the world waiting for their fascist overlords to give a shit about them. They never did and they never will.
It's heartbreaking realizing that collectively we humans have triggered a mass extinction on the planet, that all species on earth are being sucked into the environmental collapse with us. It's surreal looking through the web of lies America is suffocating in because . . . no matter what . . . no matter who or where we are . . . no matter what we think, feel, or believe . . . we are all in this together.
###
Ok. Sometime I just have so yell into the void. Rant over. I've included an antidote to all this poison below . . .
12/08/2020
The Polite Press
Don Winslow, @donwinslow, just posted this video on Twitter. It's agonizingly years behind necessity but still an extremely important message.
I don't know about you, but I've been yelling THAT'S A LIE! at TVs, my laptop, and phone since Trump first came down that escalator on his way back to Hell but, on no! The Polite Press magnified his lies, paved his road to the White House with them. Poisoned and broke America with them.
Hey Polite Press! Stop being enablers and become the reporters you started out in life to be. Butch up! Get real! Take this son of a bitch on! Do it! Tell the fucking truth to his face, on camera, in print, every time he lies! Trump has no power unless you give it to him. This is war. Which side are you on?
07/08/2020
Bird Park East - update
August - The highly rhythmic pomba (pigeon) chant was the first sound I heard this morning. It's a great way to start the day. I highly recommend it. I'm now on the balcony with my morning coffee, listening and watching pombas crisscross between trees and apartment
buildings. It's nice being out here again. Earlier in the summer, I did my best to leave the area to the mother sparrow. She raise two separate batches of babies in the roof tiles and was fond of resting on the railing between feedings. She was very determined to keep their location secret. Even a look her way was enough to drive her off. The Waning Gibbous moon is visible in the windy morning soft blue sky. Swallows zig zag by. Chickens are clucking in the grass below. Roosters are hard at their usual crowing competition or whatever it is. It goes throughout day and is my preferred alternative to the now-noisy-again-world surrounding us. The friendly neighborhood fellow and his two white dogs are just now coming down the sidewalk on their morning stroll. The younger dog, as always, is on a loose leash and the ancient one, held together only by love, saunters behind sniffing the morning news. A couple of squawking parakeets just dashed by, a flash of green only. They are always off to somewhere else in the greatest hurry. And, most notably of all, Barkie the Dog barely barked at all last night. I remind myself it's not the new normal but it was damn nice.
21/07/2020
Hands up. Please don't shoot me
.Hands up - Please don't shoot me - Hands up - Please don't shoot me.
.Hands up - Please don't shoot me - Hands up - Please don't shoot me.
04/07/2020
Happy 4th of July, America - Mask up!
Republican Pres. Donald J. Trump Flag humper |
Yesterday, America had the world's largest daily increase of pandemic victims, 55,000 reported in all, with 10,000 new cases in Florida alone.
Happy Fourth of July. Be sure to wear your mask and keep your distance.
26/06/2020
20/06/2020
Midsummer Eve 2020
11/06/2020
Was it a mistake?
06/06/2020
05/06/2020
Spider
Spider
is now
making his way
out from under the glass
Worlds beyond the glass |
02/06/2020
Blue Period
17/05/2020
Gary's good-bye
That's how my daughter described her dad when I inquired how he was doing yesterday then, this afternoon, to the same question she wrote, "He died this morning. About an hour ago." I wish he'd lived a happier life but his death was not as lonely as it might have been—she was sitting beside him—had been all morning—nor was it particularly sad, coming as it did after a long illness, cancer not covid.
So . . . yesterday afternoon as the nest full of baby birds under the roof tiles chirped away at the top of their shrill little voices, and I was painting an illustration for one of my poems while listening to music with headphones on, Gary dropped in from America to say good-bye. He was wispy and floating and mostly transparent (imagine something between a whitish horizontal veil-like form with flagella and a thin floating, mostly transparent sea creature) and kind of stand-offish as always, but he was there.¹ My eyes got blurry for a bit but I saw him clearly in my mind's eye . . . he in thin air, me in afternoon light, us remembering what our dreams had been back then (did he chortle?) and who we'd been for each other. We forgave each other. He lingered a few moments more then said good-bye.
Portugal . . . about an hour ago . . . |
¹· No. I wasn't stoned or drunk nor do I claim this moment to be a "Fact". Just sharing my subjective experience.
13/05/2020
One world
Believe it or not, care or not, own up to it or not—we are making this planet uninhabitable, not only for us, but for life as we know it. If we don't quickly and radically change the way we eat, live, do business etcetcetc— the environment upon which we all depend will collapse beyond repair. This pandemic can be a preview of coming events or a lesson we learn from. Which is it?
07/05/2020
No events scheduled except the moon
Image credit: NASA/Bill Dunford |
Lovely day today. Lots going on here at the hermitage, aka apartment. I'm working on an illustration, based on Blue Period, a poem I wrote some years ago. It's written as four scenarios. I am currently doing the first one. It's tempura on cardboard and, at this point, it's become a conversation the paint and I are having. Yesterday was especially interesting. At one point, I realized I was just standing there watching the brush move across the page, leaving a new sky in its wake.
No events scheduled today |
Bird Park East in general has been the happening place this spring. There are a couple of noisy nests nearby, one right above our balcony, one across the alley. It's great fun listening and watching the comings and goings. Also interesting, if not a bit shocking, I also saw about 10 roosters chase and jump one of the young hens the other day. Holy cow! Those guys are brutal as ducks. Poor girl. She was terrified. Not so, the seagulls I saw later that day. They were quite tender towards one another mating on the flat chimney top. Afterwards, they hung out together for about a half hour, nestling each other, nuzzling with their beaks, yawning, and looking around obviously relishing the quiet end of the day.
04/05/2020
Change or die
during the COVID-19 pandemic
astronaut's guide to self isolation
03/05/2020
Thanks for saving my life
I've really appreciated this time. I'm a hermit by nature but have never been terribly good at disciplining myself. During these last seven weeks, I've been able to recalibrate, begin painting again albeit slowly, write and organize my work, see a little deeper, a little more clearly, focus, renew, identify. It's been enough time for new ways to present themselves, hidden things to surface, resolve, finish unfinished business, heal. Today, for example, an event in the distant past suddenly came into sharp focus and I realized I had an amend to make.
My ex-husband is dying of cancer. We haven't been on good terms for years but it wasn't until today I saw, no matter how he might take it, I had a long overdue amends to make. It wasn't the length of time that clarified my thinking. It is this extraordinary suspension of ordinary life that gave the waters time to clear. Today I asked my daughter to pass along a long overdue recognition. "Thanks for saving my life". The details don't matter. The fact that I never thanked him does.
01/05/2020
In defense of pigeons
Picasso and a pigeon friend. |
Research suggests the domestication of pigeons began during the Pleistocene era, some 10,000 years ago. They are memorialized in Egyptian hieroglyphs and mentioned in Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets 5000 years ago. They are very helpful folks. They were humanity's first airmail service during times of war and peace. They are pets as well as mid-air aerialist able to fly upside-down and backwards. Some played ping-pong with behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner, others are doctor's assistants helping to point out cancer in medical imaging. Besides their other contributions to a better quality of human life, pigeons are sometimes muses for artists, poets, and musicians. Picasso did a delightful series of pigeon paintings near the end of his life which are on display at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. An interesting side note about pigeons and art is that, with a little education, they've proven able to between the work of Picasso and Monet though I'm not sure anyone had a preference.
Henri Matisse and pigeon pal |
From the beginning of the third millennium BCE, these "flying rats" as Woody Allen stupidly called them, have been humanity's symbol of love, peace, the soul, numerous religions as well the chosen representatives of various military, sports, and pacifist groups. The fact that pigeons are common in grungy human habitats like our polluted cities is not because they are dirty. It's because we are dirty. They clean up after us now just as they've been doing for the last 10,000 years.
26/04/2020
Did I mention
2015 when we first visited this place. |
I am now an official resident of Portugal and actually for about a month already. I forgot to mention it but it is something of a milestone. It took over a year, a lot of paperwork, getting health insurance, renting a place, etc but it's official. And it actually does, or did, feel a little different at first. The idea has since settled into its mundane context but I'm glad it's done. The next step is that I must now start learning Portuguese. It will have to be, as a friend in Florida used to say, "little by slowly".
10/04/2020
Good-bye John Prine. I never knew ya.
I never heard of him until now. His debut album was released a year after I "renounced the world" and for the next 12 years. Yeah. That's pompous, and it didn't end well, but it's what I did.
I missed him till he died. My loss.
04/04/2020
One-sided coin
Being isolated like we are now is a great reminder of how we are always at the mercy of artless nature. All day I listened to a strong on shore wind battered the building where we live. Sometimes it hit then crashed over us the way storm waves hit then crash up over rocks. Other times it rattled, and banged things as it tore by. It's still blowing now. I imagine the roof tiles are quivering as I sit in bed writing this in the dark, waiting for sleep.