Let's Go Somewhere-9/30/2014 Wildwood/Naples, Nashville

Aleathia says:

For our third anniversary together we decided we would like to go to one of the Quiet Places since we missed our usual summer trip.  In the past we had spent some days at High Tor which is not far from Naples, NY.  It is a great little town full of nice people.  It wasn't available so we stayed at a new place called Wildwood.

This place is more beautiful than the pictures give it credit for on the website.  The common room is an airy open space with a peaked roof like a ski lodge.

The decor is modern woodsy if that makes any sense.  It has accents of being a cabin in the woods but doesn't scream back country.

The kitchen is modern and fully prepared for cooking.  The bed is fantastically comfortable though be prepared to be awakened by falling acorns if you go there in the fall!

The best part of the place is the view of Canandaigua Lake from the back porch.  We watched the sunrise and the sunset here and it gave such a sense of peace to the day.

The owners of the house are gracious to leave basic medications in the cabinet like Tylenol and Ibuprofen and Tums as well as clean toothbrushes and toothpaste in case you forget your own.  They also leave a snack basket and a gift certificate for a free wine tasting at a local winery.  They also make available a binder full of restaurant menus and local attractions so you can plan your day while you drink your morning coffee.

In Naples there are great places like Bob and Ruth's, Inspire Moore Winery, Luigi's Pizza, and Rennoldson's Grocery.  If you go down the street a bit you will find the Middletown Tavern (home to slamming wings on Wednesday nights) and Joseph's Wayside Market for fresh produce and baked goods.  There are other various restaurants, ice cream places, and quaint stores to shop at.  As always, stop by Monica's for a pie.  She makes the goods.



John Says:

The New York Times recently published an article on the surging population in Nashville and the subsequent boom in real estate that runs in tandem to these sort of things.  One aspect of the article touched on the fact that many of the buildings of the legendary Music Row were being torn down to be replaced by luxury condos.  Ah, America.  While you may not be imbued with a sense of history, artists as diverse as Ben Folds, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and The Monkees have recorded music in the studios on Music Row.  This Man recorded some 200 songs in the famous studio B.

Anyway the article got me thinking about the times that I had been in Nashville.  My wife and I went there for the first time in 2006 and then again while traveling the country in 2007. 

A must in Nashville is hanging out on Broadway. 

 The street is lined with honky tonks and juke joints galore.  While the strip has probably lost its authentic gleam as most places have lost their authentic gleam in 21^st century America, there’s still a lot to take in for someone looking to sit back, suck down a cheap Pabst, and get pleasantly buzzed to the sound of good music.  Key places along Broadway are: Bluegrass Inn, Legend’s Corner, Robert’s Western World (both a boot shop AND a kick ass honky tonk), The Stage, and the immortal Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, which was once home to the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, and Waylon Jennings. 

 Add a drunken trip to Jack’s Bar-B-Que for some brisket and then stumble around the corner of 5^th Street to the Ryman Auditorium, home to the original Grand Ole Opry, and you have the makings of a pretty good night.

For those of you on a non-musical historical bend, Nashville is also home to its very own Parthenon.  Located in Centennial Park, the Parthenon is a full-scale copy of the original in Athens.  It was built in 1897 as a part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  In 1990 a re-creation of the Athena Parthenos statue was added to the structure.  The building is a pretty impressive place to wander around in….at least until the bars start to open.

Those of you who watch TV are probably familiar with the Blue Bird Café from the show Nashville.  I’m sure the place is overrun with tourists in the same way my blessed Spotted Cat in New Orleans became overrun with Treme fans a few years back.  But if you can squeeze in the Bluebird is a pretty good time.  They do this event there called In the Round which involves four local singers/songwriters playing and riffing on music while sitting in a circle.  It’s a pretty intimate experience for people.  One of the singers had his whiskey right on the edge of my table.  The Blue Bird, while a Nashville institution, is a touch removed from the city center, so you’d need a car/bus to get there.

Music Monday-9/29/2014 Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

Aleathia says:

Ok.  Another week wandering around FYE looking at new releases and hopefully finding something used that I can snatch up when I come across the duet album for Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. Pause. REALLY?

Now this is an honest to goodness item in the store.  I am pretty hit or miss with Lady Gaga and on most days it is a miss to be honest.  It has been hard to really assess her talent behind all the get ups and stunts that she pulls.  Having said this, I have always loved Tony Bennett.  His voice so classic and smooth even in his later years.  He was a man born to sing.  I figured if he believed in the power of Gaga maybe she wasn't all bad.

I am floored at how much I love this album.  Seriously, Lady Gaga has a wonderful voice to belt out these classics and such a fun sounding nature with Tony Bennett.  I am definitely putting it on my Christmas list of things I want and that is saying a whole bunch.  I love the standards because I love singing which I don't do enough of anymore.  This might get me right back in the mood.  Here are a few videos that I could find of them together:

Lady is a Tramp:

Anything Goes:

I Can't Give You Anything But Love:

OM-9/28/2014 Knowing

Aleathia says:

Every now and then you have to pull a little knowledge out of the Walt Whitman cap.  I remember as a young girl I used to sit in the stacks at the library and read Uncle Walt.  He seemed such a strange and wonderfully knowing being then and now.  Sometimes my brain can't handle him, but today I wanted to pull a little bit from "Song of Myself".  It feels spiritual to me.

In all people I see myself, none more and 

not one a barleycorn less,

And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

And I know I am solid and sound,

To me the converging objects of the

universe perpetually flow,

All are written to me, and I must get

what the writing means.

And I know I am deathless, 

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept

by a carpenter's compass,

I know I shall not pass like a child's

carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.

I know I am august,

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate

itself or be understood,

I see that the elementary laws never apologize,

I reckon I behave no prouder than the 

level I plant my house by after all.

Walt Whitman

Quills and Frills-9/27/2014 Createspace

Aleathia says:

For years, since I started publishing in the small press in 2006, I absolutely abhorred the idea of self-publishing.  I really thought that if someone else cannot see the quality in your work then it must be pretty terrible.

After being an editor for many years of various small press zines it was easy to back that knowledge up.  Having to read gobs and gobs of poetry that did not move me a millimeter was tough and often left me less likely to want to produce any work myself, let alone self publish.

Enter my friend Josh Olsen's book "Such a Good Boy" which he made on Createspace (an Amazon company).  I have yet to order the book but I know his work always stands up to a certain credibility so I will be ordering it.  I was curious the process for Createspace so I looked it up.  It is pretty simple.  You upload the work and the cover art, you choose how much you want to sell it for and if you want it to be available as an e-book (you get higher royalty) and if you want it available internationally.  They even give you a calculator that will show you exactly in each form how much royalty you will get for each book.  I was pretty impressed.  The best thing is that they will set up space for you in their online stores so all you have to do is drop links.

I have been contemplating putting out several books this way.  In the last three years I could give a hot steamy crap about being published and getting semi-not-really famous.  I gave up on the game so to speak, but I would like to have collected works available to friends and family that want them. The cool thing is that I don't have to promote them if I don't want to or I can try and make a little money. Either way, I'm not out money or any significant amount of time.

I'm pretty sure the first book I will be working on is one called "Reasons for Never Sitting Still" and it will have this cover:

Art Bomb-9/26/2014 Winslow Homer

Aleathia says:

Please enjoy one of my favorite works of Winslow Homer.  Someday I will do a whole piece on him as I have always loved his paintings.  But for now, since I've had a long week, enjoy "Northeaster".

Lit Bits-9/24/2014 Lucille Clifton

Aleathia says: 

Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 (we share a birthday of June 27) just outside of Buffalo, NY.  She eventually moved to Maryland where she became the Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979-1985. She was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice.  Her work is widely enjoyed for its easy nature and voice that she gives to African-American women and women in general. In her life she published 13 collections of poetry, wrote 10 children's books, as well as a children's series based on her character Everett Anderson.  She died in 2010.  It was a tragic loss to the poetry community.

I can't exactly remember when I started reading Lucille Clifton or where I got the notion to check her out, but I have always loved her simple, heartfelt language.  Her words feel down home.  They taste like the dreams of common people with uncommon desires.  I have several of her books in my collection.  I was lucky enough to find "The Book of Light" at a local library sale a year or so ago.

the women you are accustomed to

wearing that same black dress,

their lips and asses tight,

their bronzed hair set in perfect place;

these women gathered in my dream

to talk their usual talk,

their conversation spiked with the names

of avenues in France.

and when i asked them what the hell,

they shook their marble heads

and walked erect out of my sleep,

back into a town which knows

all there is to know

about the cold outside, while i relaxed

and thought of you, 

your burning blood, your dancing tongue.

Lucille Clifton

Let's Go Somewhere-9/23/2014 Elyria, Ohio

Aleathia says:

Three years ago I drove to Elyria, Ohio for two reasons:  a man and poetry.  What better combination could you ask for, right?

I met Michael for the first time in person that weekend as he came all the way from California to start a new life with me and my kiddo.  It was a weekend of excess and debauchery and poetry.  We shared it with new friends and people we had never thought we would ever get the chance to meet.

The first night was full of hotel room drinking, dinner at Denny's with friends, and then the beginning of the worst hangover on an Ocktoberfest beer that anyone could ever imagine.  This place is a dive just down the road from the porn store.  It was perfect.

Michael and Brian representing...

The morning after wasn't pretty.  We had to function at a poetry reading in the park.  WE HAD to READ.  It would be Michael's first ever live performance of his work.

And let's not forget the infamous Elyria shitters....

There wasn't much to this town to be honest.  I would have never gone there had it not been where I was meeting the man of my dreams.  It was one of the best days of my life.  It was one of the worst hangovers ever, but it was worth every second.

Happy Three Years Michael.  I love you.

Music Monday-9/22/2014 Life Goes On

Aleathia says:

Sometimes a song gets stuck in my head.  This has been roaming around my brain for the last 24 hours.

I like The Beatles.  I can't claim to love everything they have ever done and I think I own maybe two of their albums, but this song has always been fun.  It's been one of those weeks.

OM-9/21/2014 Asperger's Syndrome

Aleathia says:

A few years ago I thought my daughter was having some severe problems.  I found a poster by her desk that had all these hateful messages to herself written lightly in pencil so no one could see them without being very close.  I caught her several times hitting herself in the head with a brush when frustrated.  It seemed hard for her to make friends and she started to show signs of having little to no ambition.

My first thought was severe anxiety and maybe some depression.  Her hormones had just started to rear up at that time and I thought maybe she wasn't coping or adjusting well.  It took some time to convince her father that therapy was needed.  He has been anti-therapy his whole life despite most of the people in his family having some form of mental illness ranging from anxiety and depression to Tourette's and schizophrenia.  I understood he was in denial at the time.  He did not want to think his only child was not "normal".

I took her to therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, in hopes that he would be able to give her some mechanisms to deal with her frustration in a better way.  After 4-5 visits he didn't seem to think there was much more she needed so we stopped going.  At the time, I was suspicious for Asperger's Syndrome.  I printed out a check list and she really had about 90% of the listed signs.  I presented it to her father and he insisted I was over-reacting and that it was "just a phase".

In the interim, we signed her up for classes to meet other kids.  She never wanted to go and it didn't change much at home either.  If she went out to play it was alone.  Everything she liked to do was a solitary function.  To be honest, I did not push the issue with having her evaluated for Asperger's because I was frightened....not just for her, but for myself.  Inside I felt defective and guilty that my own genetics could have possibly put her in such a lonely place.

My daughter is now nearly 13 and at the height of social happening yet she remains the same.  We had an incident this summer where she started stealing and her lying has increased and there was question of self-harm.  I revisited the idea of Asperger's a bit more specifically for teenage girls and what I found was astounding to me.  There was my daughter on the page. These girls fall through the cracks mostly unnoticed because they have learned to mimic people and make themselves invisible. They stay out of trouble at school so the teacher's won't notice them.

Again, I relayed my findings (there are more details than I have given that lead me to believe she has Asperger's, but there isn't a need to list them all) to her father.  This time he was devastated, but cooperative.  He agreed that if she needed therapy then she should get it.  Before we entertained that, I knew I had something very scary and important to do.  I had to speak with my daughter about these possibilities.

We went for coffee (her favorite) and sat side by side in the parking lot.  I asked her if she had ever heard of Asperger's.  She thought it was a hysterical name and laughed quite a bit.  I explained to her what it was and she sat there biting her lip until I was done.  I asked her if she thought it sounded familiar.  She nodded her head as she hung it down.  I assured her she wasn't a "freak" because of it, that there was nothing she could have done to prevent it, and she smiled letting out a sigh of relief.  I explained that it would just be harder for her to understand a person's body language which tells you things that words cannot.  We talked for nearly an hour and she said that she would agree to be evaluated and that she felt better knowing she wasn't doing something wrong all the time.

After we got home I had to go for a little walk and cry.  I felt so horrible I had been so in denial of this possible diagnosis that it put her in a lonely, frightening place.  I felt horrible that we were pushing her into situations that scared her to death and she had no way to tell us that it did.  Being a parent is such a hard job.  There are so many delicate things to face without knowing how to handle them.

Since we had a talk, she has been less anxious and has looked more peaceful.  She asks me questions instead of hides from me.  Daily she tells me "do you want to hear something weird?" which is code usually for a social situation that she didn't understand.  We would discuss the situation and how most kids my react to it.  This makes her feel better.  The biggest changes will happen with me and her father as our parenting style will have to be altered to help make her successful.

We don't have a diagnosis yet, but my heart tells me this is what we are working with.  Thinking everything is right with the world or imagining your child is in the throes of depression everyday is a tiring existence.  Knowing is half the battle.  I'm not sure who said that.  They weren't kidding.

Quills and Frills-9/20/2014 Josh Olsen

Aleathia says:

It has been a long time since Josh Olsen has put out his last book.  I enjoy the first one immensely and even participated in a blogradio interview with him about it years ago.  Olsen's fiction is very real.  These things could happen to any of us and do.  What makes the stories great coming from him are a sense of comedy in which he is able to laugh at himself.  He understands that no one is perfect.

Josh Olsen's second book of fiction is entitled Such a Good Boy and is available through Amazon.com.  Olsen published this book himself through Createspace, but don't let this deter you from buying it.  Olsen does not frivolously publish material but saves it up for when the time is right and socks it to you.

This book is 98 pages for $8.54. Come on.  You can't even get a burger for that price anymore.  We will be ordering ours this week and look forward to the zany thing that happen in Josh's family and his mind.  Here is the synopsis on his store site:

"Josh Olsen is back ... and this time it's personal. Maybe a little bit too personal, in fact, if you ask his mother. Olsen's sophomore effort is a grab bag of candid flash fiction, self-deprecating personal essays, and subversive pop culture musings that (warning: cliché alert) make the ordinary extraordinary and mine the humor, darkness, and resplendence of childhood, parenthood, and baseball cards."

Art Bomb-9/19/2014 Sam Gilliam

Aleathia says:

It was my intention, as mentioned last week, to present artist's that burst into the scene in the 1980's and display their work from the beginning to the end of their careers.  This has not proved to be as easy as I would have hoped.  Not all artists have their own website which catalogs their life's work.  I do not have access to books on all of these artists either.  What I am left with is simple, good old-fashioned exposure.  You will have to live with it.

This week we are going to look at the work of Sam Gilliam who is an African-American painter born in 1933 in the great state of Mississippi.  He is a color field painter and a lyrical abstractionist.

Color Field painting is a type of abstract painting that emerged in NYC in the 1940's and 1950's and was inspired by European Modernism.  It is characterized by large flat fields of solid color that are spread across or stained into the canvas to create areas of unbroken surface.  The basis of this movement was more on the overall consistency of form and process.

Lyrical Abstraction emerged in the US in the 1960's and 1970's but originally began in Europe in the post war Modern painting era.  This movement in the US was rich in intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, and illusionist space.  It went against the Formalist, Minimalist, Pop Art, and Geometric Abstractist painters.

"Dance me, Dance You 2"

"Carousel"

"The Keels"

Sam Gilliam did most of his work on stretched, wrapped, and draped canvases.  He was the first artist to introduce the idea of a painted canvas that was not stretched onto a frame base in 1965.

"Chehaw"

"Horse"

Gilliam also spent much of his career working on pieces that were sculptural or loaded with 3-D effects.  He often worked with many types of materials including: polypropylene, computer generated images, metallic and iridescent acrylics, handmade papers, aluminum, steel, plywood and plastic as well as traditional canvas.

"Tre"

"Pretty Boxes"

You can find Sam Gilliam's work as part of many museum collections especially in Washington DC and New York City.  I do hope you get some time to see his work in person.

Foodies-9/18/2014 Carmenere

Aleathia says:

I'm a little late today, but exciting things are afoot.  Michael just landed a full time job today with the possibility of moving up to management in the near future.  The last few years have been great spending a lot of time together and solidifying a deep and centered relationship.  We needed the time to know each other, to grow together, and deal with a lot of tragedy in our lives.

Tonight, I bought myself a bottle of wine in celebration of his achievement and to the future of our lives.  Because it was close, I went to the local wine store called Bottles and Corks.  Back in the day it used to be the premier place to buy wine with really knowledgeable staff and an owner who was very prideful in what he could offer the community.  The original owner sold it years ago and retired and those that took over have dwindled the business over the years.  It is my least favorite place to shop for wine anymore.  Their selection is not great.

I went in looking for a decent Malbec. I wandered over to the Chile and Argentina sections to find most of the bins were empty or only had one bottle as a representation.  This says a number of things to me:  either they don't order enough or they don't have the business to keep the stock current.  That is a sad state of affairs because it is my experience that wine drinkers are the type of people that find a type of wine they like and then venture out to try many other makers of that type of wine.  They had three Malbecs in the whole store none of which I was willing to take a chance on.

In the end, I settle for a Carmenere from Chile.  As history has it this grape was originally found in France in the Bordeaux region, but over the last 150 years has not really been present in France.  This grape ended up in Chile and they have preserved its history.  The grape used is similar to those of Merlot and Malbec and is considered one of the original six grapes of Bordeaux.

The Carmenere is deep red in color with aromas of red fruits, berries and spices.  It is gentler and softer in its tannins (which I am mildly reactive to) and the body is lighter than that of a Cabernet Sauvignon.  It is often used in the blending of wines, but some wineries maintain the full grape on its own.  Unlike many wines, this is one that you want to drink young instead of aged.  The nice thing about this is that it can be much more affordable.

I bought this bottle of wine for around $11 and it is delightful.  It isn't as deep as a Merlot or as heavy in the body as a Cabernet.  It isn't as smoky and leathery as a Malbec but a nice wine with hints of all of those things that you love from a red.  You should give it a try.  This is my first time trying this particular one and I'm half way through the bottle.  Yes, I'm feeling fine.

Lit Bits-9/17/2014 Anne Sexton

Aleathia says:

When I first came onto the small press poetry scene I was grossly naive about poetry.  I had been writing it my whole life, but only for the comfort of my soul.  A friend had suggested that I try to get published.  This idea frightened me really.  It is such a hard concept knowing you will put out the most secret and tender parts of yourself for others to read and judge.  That is what poetry is about, isn't it?

Over the years I have learned that staying true to ones self is important.  If you get published you shouldn't be writing for an audience or so that you will continue to get published.  Write because you want to, because you have to.  Along this journey I have been introduced to so many different established poets.  In the poetry scene there seems to be certain poets that you are supposed to admire no matter what.  Anne Sexton is one of those poets.

Why wouldn't they want to love her?  She was beautiful and commanding...cool and sophisticated. She was a time bomb of mental illness waiting to go off.  She was confessional and let it all hang out hiding nothing from the reader.  That sort of power is very attractive to young minds.  Her life ended in suicide, wrapped in her mother's fur coat, in the family garage.

I have some of her work though most of it is wholly unpalatable to me.  As a reader she often gives too much for me.  She doesn't allow for me to use my imagination much.  I do however like this poem:

The Silence

My room is whitewashed,

as white as a rural station house

and just as silent;

whiter than chicken bones

bleaching in the moonlight,

pure garbage, 

and just as silent.

There is a white statue behind me

and white plants

growing like obscene virgins,

pushing out their rubbery tongues

but saying nothing.

My hair is the one dark.

It has been burnt in the white fire

and is just a char.

My beads too are black,

twenty eyes heaved up

from the volcano,

quite contorted.

I am filling the room 

with words from my pen.

Words leak out of it like a miscarriage.

I am zinging words out into the air

and they come back like squash balls.

Yet there is silence.

Always silence.

Like an enormous baby mouth.

The silence is death.

It comes each day with its shock

to sit on my shoulder, a white bird,

and peck at the black eyes

and the vibrating red muscle

of my mouth.

Let's Go Somewhere-9/16/2014 Paris, Madrid

John Says:

I’m sure there are several others, maybe millions of others, who have the distinction of beating me in this category, but I’ve managed to get drunk enough in two European cities.

The first one is the beautiful city of Paris.

The details of my debauchery are pretty hazy.  I suppose I could fetch my journal and look up all of the gory details, but I think this was probably the day that my wife and I got into a huge argument around one of Hemingway’s old apartments, and, in typical Grochalski fashion, I stormed away.  I specifically remember cooling our tension over several beers at an Irish pub off of the Rue Git-le-Coeur, which, for you literary buffs out there, is the same small Latin Quarter street where the infamous Beat Hotel is located.  The hotel was once home to ex-pats William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso (amongst other luminaries), and now feeds off that legacy as an over-priced relic with a faux-bohemian flare.

The wife and I ended up here for more debauchery.

 The list of artists who have gotten toasted at La Rotonde include such big shots as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani.  Yours truly cleared a couple bottles of red and ended up like this.

The next day was almost a wash.  I pretty much spent the morning in our hotel throwing up wine and peanuts and begging my wife for an exorcism.  But when she informed me that I don’t believe in Jesus or other myths, I settled on aspirin and water.  I was pretty well out of it until about the middle of the day when we ventured down toward the Eiffel Tower.  As soon as we hit the ground a Parisian started shouting “Obama ca va” at us.  It must’ve been the American flag that I had draped over me.  The first thing I was able to get down was a French vanilla ice cream cone (they call it French vanilla in France as well).  And I only made it mid-way up the tower before the shakes hit me and I thought that I was going to make history again.

Next we have the beautfil city of Madrid:

We were drinking beer from 10:30 A.M. to 10:30 P.M. with the great Spanish artists Oscar Varona, Aida Corrales, and Gemma Vegas.  That’s twelve hours of Spanish beer in the Plaza Santa Ana with the ghosts of Hemingway and Lorca.  The wife and I were so drunk we couldn’t find our way to the hotel that night, and some Ex-pat American student had to guide us there.  As a nightcap we killed a bottle of Tempranillo next door at a bar.

I thought I felt all right the next day.  The wife and I like to walk in cities as opposed to taking public transit.  You can always see a city better that way.  I think it was about four or five miles from our hotel to the Reina Sofia museum.  For those of you who don’t know, the Reina Sofia is home to Picasso’s Spanish Civil War era masterpiece Guernica.

 Midway through the walk in the heat I start feeling…well…NOT well.  By the time we reached the Reina Sofia I was in full-blown hangover mode.  I had a headache.  The stomach was doing cartwheels.  I’d pretty much sweated through my shirt.  

Me...on the way to full-blown hangover

While my wife viewed Guernica I was safely ensconced in a bathroom shitting and vomiting my brains out.  I did manage to view the painting for a moment before we had to leave.  It was nice.  

But by the first floor the waves of nausea were at me again.  The first floor men’s room at the Reina Sofia only had urinals.  So I had to make the best of it.  I began vomiting in a urinal while some Spaniard yelled at me in his native tongue, and in between vomit bouts I kindly told him to fuck off in mine.  After a struggle with the Metro we managed to make it back to the hotel where my wife tried to OD me with these Spanish horse pills that killed all of my pain and essentially knocked me out until the Sun went down.  Then we had a lovely dinner of Paella and met Oscar for another round of beer at this wonderful Irish joint called Finnegans.

Music Monday-9/15/2014 Charlotte Church

Aleathia says:

Today is pretty emotional for me.  Being a parent has its challenges and its rewards and knowing which direction you are supposed to go in is often daunting.

When I was in high school I learned a song called "The Water is Wide" for a singing competition.  It is singularly the song I remember most; it is always with me.  I used to sing it to myself when I felt alone.  When Chloe was a baby, I used to sing this song to her all the time and it would ease her.  I would feel like we had some sort of connection with the song.

Sometimes, I wish I could still sing it to her.

OM-9/14/2014 Open Communication

Aleathia says:

"Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we're not entirely certain about who's right and who's wrong?  Could we have no agenda when we walk into, room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right?  Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are?  It is powerful to practice this way, because we'll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again--to make ourselves or them either right or wrong.  But true communication can happen only in that space."--Pema Chodron

This concept is pretty deep on the inside if you think about it.  We are a society driven by what is right and wrong and rarely do we linger in that space that something just is what it is.  Having a touch of OCD this free form approach to communication poses so many problems to me.  I am literally an old dog that will have to learn new tricks.

I have been thinking about my mother a lot the last few days. She and I did not see eye to eye most of the time and this was because our perspective on life has always been different.  She jumped into the fire and I have always waited until the smoke cleared.  One of us had to be right and one of us had to be wrong.

My goal this week is to try and communicate this way to see if it opens more doors than closes them.

Quills and Frills-9/13/2014 Aleathia Drehmer, Poetry

Aleathia says:

We Linger at Dawn

We linger at dawn

hanging in what's left
of the nights breath,
cling to summer's skirt
with cold tips of fingers.

I left a man lying
in a hospital bed,
old as mountains,
and sweet as honeysuckle
knowing his end is nearer
than I can explain.

I'm sad for his wife
who flits over him
scared in possibility
and knowing,
in the dark pit
of her stomach
the horizon.

Days like these

are when I miss my mother most.

Cool new fall mornings
when we would drink strong coffee
and talk of the bacon we would fry later.

I never get  to have any more
of those moments, those days.

There is so much regret
hanging in my breath as it sails
across the field and over the highway into the gray sky.

There were so many more things

to share and laughter to hear.

I have to pull up my boot straps
and leave this icy spot, go home
to my panting dog and sleeping lover.

It feels unfair sometimes
though I know we all must fade away in the end.

It's unfair how we take
it all for granted
until it is ripped away.

Aleathia Drehmer 2014

Art Bomb-9/12/2014 Dennis Ashbaugh

Aleathia says:

The great thing about having your own blog is that there is the freedom to change your mind at the drop of a hat.  I am my own editor (as terrible as that might be) and can choose to pivot when the wind blows.  My original idea for today was to start a two part series on Joan Miro which looks at the beginning of his career and the very end.  This is an insanely involved project that I now see requires a bit more thought and research.

However, I love the idea of looking at an artist's career visually from start to finish.  How did the world influence them?  What became their muse through the years?  Did they alter their technique to allow new ideas to flourish?

I am one of those people that stand in awe of artists.  I have always wanted to be one, but never put the effort forward to achieve it.  I have been afraid of failure most of my life and thus it has kept me from pushing outside the boundaries set for me by society.  I am well aware of being able to break that habit.  I must be an old dog.

While picking up the Miro books at the library, I found this odd little book called American Painting in the 1980's.  I had to laugh since the 80's are coming back in full swing.  So much neon that I could barf.  It was hard enough the first time.  Inside were bio pics of artists which were decidedly 80's and then one representation of their work from that era.  I thought this would be a quick replacement for the Miro project until I could finish it. Ha.

I flipped through the book and chose 12 artists whose work I really enjoyed.  My thought was to feature one from their early career and then one now.  It wasn't as easy as that.  Almost half have faded into obscurity or gotten "real" jobs.  The remaining 7 artists have amassed such an interesting collection that supports transformation that I couldn't be so nonchalant with their work.  So, here starts a 7 part series on artists whose fame on the art scene happened in the 80's.

Sadly, for as decorated as some of these artists are now, I have never heard of them.  I love modern art with a passion.  I feel a bit cheated that I have not taken in their offerings before.  This week will feature the work of Dennis Ashbaugh.

Dennis Ashbaugh was born in 1946 in Red Oak, Iowa.  He spent his younger years in California where he learned to surf.  In 1969, after attending college in California, he moved to NYC where he immediately started showing work in that art scene.  He has remained there to this day.  He is an internationally decorated/acclaimed painter and sculptor.  He was the first artist to ever use DNA marking patterns in his paintings.  His major themes in content are computers, clones, DNA, networks and viruses both biological and computer generated.

"Goodbye" 1970

"Shiny" 1971

"Agitreklama II" 1974

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"Stout's Last Surprise" 1975

"Free My Wife I'll Pay 300 Grand" 1978

"Big Relief for a Big Headache" 1984

"We Will Keep Our 2 Headed Baby AKA Pollack and Mondrian" 1987

"Untitled: Gene Sequence Series" 1989

"Bio Gel AKA The Jolly Green Giant" 1990

"Prism Issue" 1992

"Entropy" 1992

"Hot Chernobyl" Sculpture, 1994

"Frozen Chernobyl" Sculpture, 1995

"Paul" from the Guilty Series, 1997

"It's Only Human" 2001

"Seadevil" 2007

"Incendiary Q Kill A Tron" 2009

"Gravitron Squish Master" 2010