unbalanced pieces

Awakening on a couch more comfortable than my bed to the cats running, it's cold outside, and maybe it's the artificial sweetener accidentally ingested making my head feel foggy, wondering how the brain processes all these things, the physical, the mental, the spiritual because sometimes the little clarity I have is blurred and I mumble and grumble incoherently to God as I sit up and realize the sun's already risen but it's not all that late.

I tried to play guitar last night, between the ringing of the phone, couldn't find it in me to be social to do anything functional as the Paper From Hell's day of reckoning gets closer, someone knocked on the door and scared me last night but it was just the kid across the street. I felt bad, but I didn't want to open the door either.

But the sun is out, and I will go in pursuit of coffee and relating and being, wondering how I let a little Lanegan/Patton jam pass me by the first time around.

the wood between the worlds

As an English major who spent more time reading the works of dead crackers than doing anything resembling creative writing both out of shyness and disdain for those who wanted to be the next Bret Easton Ellis or Thomas De Quincey, I got a decent dosage of medievals and Romantics that I alternated adored and was infuriated by.

Wordsworth might have said he wandered lonely as a cloud and found some daffodils, but his sister was most definitely along for the ride, as their diaries show, but she was conveniently written out of the picture to maintain the image of the loner among nature.

I've been rediscovering Annie Dillard after a long time of not maybe understanding, maybe not getting out into the almost-wilderness enough, obsessed with crumbling concrete dying from neglect rather than the world outside continually dying and reborn.

“Concerning trees and leaves... there's a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud and flower. Every year a given tree creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn't make one. A tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes, it splits, sucks and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling. No person taps this free power; the dynamo in the tulip tree pumps out even more tulip tree, and it runs on rain and air.”



“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.”



So Saturday I was introverted, and I know these days are getting shorter and colder and more brutish, so I went out to the woods where we played as kids. Our parents would walk along the concrete path and we would run along the side, scampering over huge trees fallen across the creek, making our way across stones to the island in the middle of the creek as runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad or Robin Hood's merry band or the kids in Narnia, so immersed in this world of water and trees and imagination even with the suburbs on the top of the hill and the road running along the other side. It's still as beautiful as I remember it.



The summer I graduated, me and one of my friends used to come here, because it was so close by, and me and him would sit by the water and ponder, or lay on the picnic tables and stare up at the pine trees soaring so tall and straight over us. It felt like time was fluid, an endless eternal tap when it was already beginning to drain away.



This was so good for my soul, so when I got out of church, I did it again, driving out to Medina and wondering why every road now has the name of some poor kid who died in the army, stopping at Worden's Homestead, knowing that the ledges had to be nearby.



I'd only been there once, probably fifteen years ago, when we walked from my parents' friends house through some back yards and back woods to end up in a quiet place in the middle of a forest strewn with hanging Jungle Book vines in a place with carvings not quite Olmec, but ancient seeming enough for a part of the country where the ancients did not see it fit to build. The path behind the farmhouse is not well-marked, but I followed the couple in front of me in, and made my way across.







I wonder what the carver of these stones thought when he came upon them for the first time, and shaped and incised these rocks with sweat and fervor. The deformed Sphinx remains cryptic, the faces unidentified, the symbology of cross and schooner arcane.







I return up the path to the back of the property, where assorted playhouse-sized outbuildings disintegrate and a crucified effigy is sprawled on the ground, awkwardly formed, with a bulky torso and a crown of rusty nails. Attempts at getting a good shot were made but ultimately unsuccessful.



And from there I went to the much more populated Whipps Ledges, which was crawling with children, dogs and rock climbers. I walked the periphery and the then along the top, knowing I'd be unable to capture the grandeur completely.



“After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.”





“What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.”



And now I'm back at the daily routine, and I wonder why I didn't do this more, because of the euphoria of atmosphere, movement, and the created order at its most beautiful.



“There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: A people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time-- or even knew selflessness or courage or literature-- but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.”

codas

The heat permeating, the inability to cool down, hair metal on the radio all weekend, no breeze to speak of and I end up spending the afternoon fleeing the heat and Getting Things Taken Care Of in strip malls and big box stores like a Real American because I need groceries and work clothes and art supplies. I've spent the night drinking tea and listening to 70's rock, swirling paint around to Skynyrd and Sabbath, relocating to the balcony because it finally feels good out here. I know it's the weekend of cookouts and revelry for the Peonage and their overlords, but I'm just not there right now.

We went to visit my great uncle this morning at the nursing home, and it's the first time I've seen him since he had a stroke a couple weeks ago. His words come slower, and he apologizes constantly for what he deems boring talk ("I just can't do the small talk anymore") but this is the best conversation I've ever had with him. Instead of sitting alone in his house listening to the radio where people keep talking about buying gold, he's found people there to talk to, a priest he likes (he's never liked organized religion because he thinks it's all about parting fools with their money, I understand this), a nice lady friend down the hall "Nothing romantic, we just talk about old times. I need an alliance now like I need a hole in my head..." He knows this will probably be where he spends his last days trying to learn how to walk again, how to speak the way he once did, but as strange as this is, it might be a good way to end, a place where there's people to talk to and take care of him so he won't die alone.

I hate nursing homes slightly less than funeral homes, but this place is beautiful and if I become unable to take care of myself I'd rather be there than a lot of places. Catholics do the nursing home thing well, that whole sanctity of life/having the funds to stay there I guess, and I'm relieved I no longer have to fear going to check on him at his house and hoping he's still alive because I don't know what I'd do otherwise.

The prayers I struggle most with are those involving the changing of souls, because it's just such an impossible thing for me to understand that divine calculus of how it all works, but between this time and the last time I saw him he's a different person or rather not different but alive in a way that he wasn't before even as he grows closer to shedding the mortal coil now after 90 years of life and disappointments, a childhood in poverty, the hell of the Pacific theater (which he still doesn't talk about), an unhappy marriage with a woman who couldn't see past her own issues("She wasn't all there, but I didn't treat her right. I supported her financially but not emotionally..."), a daughter in worse shape than he is, a house full of tchotchkes worth nothing, if this is the closest thing to heaven how tragic is that?

He used to always talk about money and a good job and being a decent person being the ultimate most important thing and for the first time in 92 years, he's finally started talking to God after being so bitter and so stubborn for so long. I've never heard him apologize for anything before. I've never heard him say that what you have doesn't matter. I've never seen him so peaceful, so ready to face a pending mortality, ready to let go of all the other things he clung to so desperately. I'm glad he can't see me crying because I just couldn't stop.

the life of the world to come

I think there's a certain set of people who really really hope a disaster happens so they can say they're right and everyone else is wrong. I also think there's a sense that most of us have that what is now can't go on forever, there has to be some kind of finiteness, a shelf life, an end, be it self-destructive human dumbassery, the sun swallowing us up, the Second Coming, the Mahdi, Cthulu, Quetzalcoatl, Shiva the Destroyer of All Worlds. It's hardwired in there.

As your token born-again-er, who still believes that no mere mortal knows the day or the hour, I really haven't been paying much attention to whoever this Harold Camping and his Family Radio people are. I honestly just tune it out because everyone is always wrong, considering that in my lifetime, 1989, 2000, and countless others have gone by without even, and find the whole Left Behind thing a bit absurd. It's cheap catastrophic entertainment for people who like to read mediocre fiction. I figure that everyone got the whole first coming thing completely wrong, what's to say we won't do so with the second?



If history is any indication, it's just another in a long string of speculations from everywhere. I've got circa AD 1000 medieval "chants for the end of the world" sitting on my bookshelf at home, our library-ish amusement at sensationalistic pamphlets from Renaissance England reveals speculations about the Antichrist being everyone from Muhammad, Oliver Cromwell, and of course whoever the Pope was, thanks to the pending year of 1666 and the earthquakes and comets and other "straunge syghtes" such as the "rayning of bloud" in Rome.

I'm sure that someday all sorts of crazy will break loose if it hasn't already, but honestly, I really don't want to be around when it all goes down.



And am I born to die?
And lay this body down?
And as my trembling spirits fly
Into a world unknown

A land of deeper shade
Unpierced by human thought
The dreary region of the dead
Where all things are forgot

Soon as from earth I go
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my fortune be

Waked by the trumpet's sound
I from my grave shall rise
And see the Judge with glory crowned
And see the flaming skies

sprang

I was too unmotivated to sit in class, so some kind of slacking seems to be in order, as the third cup of coffee is the charm and I'm finally feeling awake. Too awake to zone out on the last day of class, a class where I already have an "A" and it's not for credit as it is. The rain has replaced the sun that shone all morning, but I think about how it will nourish the soil and seeds in a way that I could not myself.

I spent the morning yesterday after realizing I'd showed up for work as if I was first-shifting rather than second, planting seeds and pulling weeds, trying to turn the dusty back yard full of dead vines and renegade spearmint into something purty, dropping California poppy seeds in between cracks in rock and brick, zinnias and wildflowers on the side and in the back, using the cement blocks between the yard and the fence as de facto planters.

On the other side, I'm doing vegetables again, so I can cook Mediterranean style all summer, living on tabbouleh and pesto, and there's still room that I haven't used yet. Having space is still strange to me after using a 6'X 3' strip last year, and I have lots of unfilled terra cotta pots and planters left behind by the downstairs neighbors meaning that I could do even more than I've done right now.

Being a constant cynic who assumes the worst and impatient on top of that, I never believe that any of this stuff will grow, even though it did last year. It's not unlike my spiritual journey which is fraught with doubt and questioning and expecting the worst even though there's the best to hope for. I know that with sun and water and that strange miracle of nature, that these tiny seeds contain the means to make plants that will flower and fruit and multiply themselves.

we call this Friday good...

The sky is overcast, the weather cold, and a decade of Catholicism still makes me want to be in settings of candlelight and arched ceilings getting meditative and such on days like these, because part of my rhythm is still in tune with a liturgical calendar, though like a Christmas & Easter celebrant, I gave up nothing for Lent and forgot that most Good Friday services are happening right now as opposed to when I get off of work.

"You look like you're in the spirit of the day" someone says, and I guess I do with the black dress-as-tunic, the probably-too-dangly-for-work cross earrings found at a yard sale, but I've been laughing too much to give off any air of gothicity, thanks to Kynge's Brew and the inside jokerye of the peonage. Even in my darkest nights of the soul, there is still a sense of light and hope that sustains me through the many times where things seem too bleak and sucky to keep on living.




O how great is the kindness of the
Savior,
who sets all free
through His incarnation
which divinity breathed out,
unbound by sin.
And thus those garments
are cleansed
by the greatest grief.



Reposted as appropriate. Eliot once more...

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood -
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

flood my eyes with light

"What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful." - kierkegaard

The trees are still dead, the brown grass flattened and matted like tangled hair by the flooded riverbed, and the cloudless azure sky more suited to a place like Arizona seems like an irony with its clearness. We don't get skies like that here. But there is green coming up through the dead wood and the broken reeds, heart-shaped violet leaves.

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed." - pascal

I walked in the valley alone with God and my questions, drove home listening to Pearl Jam watched the light fade from golden to blue. I am thankful that this sea of emotions, this inarticulate ache, a sense of wonder at the strange beauty of creation even in its least sentimental seasons, a sense of things being so wrong and in need of righting, this cathartic sadness that shocks me out of a complacent existence, has precedence as the agony and ecstasy of the psalms resonates, the despair of human existence in Ecclesiastes, the anger and questioning and wonder of Job, the visions of medieval monastics, and of course, my favorite poet ever.


The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fireV

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

since I didn't get my existential convos this week and am working late instead...

I find it amusing when those outside of evangelical circles like to generalize about an entire group in ways that are about as absurd as saying that Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan or Oprah speak for "the black community" or put-your-favorite-talking-head here speaking about their pet topic.

Immerse yourself in any subculture, whether it's musical or religious or whatever, and there are infinite permutations and variations and raging debates on what is true and good and what sucks and is totally ridiculous.

As far as serious issues go in the taboo topics of politics, sex, and religion, I am more willing to argue about religion than other things because I think that this kind of stuff actually matters in the great scheme of things as far as eternity goes, and as far as application to one's daily life in the meantime.

On the other hand, I don't really like to have these arguments because I don't believe that any of us mere mortals really get it half the time. There are certain things that I hold to, that I gauge the truth based on as far as I can tell. Any time anyone starts talking about "a new way of" this or that or anything resembling a "bright new future", I'm expecting a whole lot of bullshit platitudes coming my way.

So often we make God into our own image, assigning preferable personality traits and occasionally a skin color, political party, and language to fit the way we see the world, whether it's in a hellfire-and-brimstone-way or a Buddy Christ motivational booster kind of figure who just wants everybody to be happy and get along.

Anyways, Rob Bell has a new book coming out where he's talking about heaven and hell and not in a way that has anything to do with Dio and the inevitable evangelical subcultural debates have begun on whether or not he's keeping it real or something.

Most of you my dear readers (possibly all except for maybe one or two) may not realize that evangelicals are not all clones of Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. Evangelical is if anything a catchall term for those who are not in mainline Protestant denoms or Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, and even then, there's occasional overlap. People take this stuff seriously and occasionally aren't friends anymore over hair-splitting doctrinal differences (I don't think that's a good thing, but more on that another time).

The book hasn't come out, so no one's read it yet, kind of like all the people who freaked out about Dogma but hadn't actually watched it. Having seen a few of Bell's videos and whatnot, I'm not a huge fan and while a lot of it sounds nice and looks pretty, it lacks a theological depth and seems to be more of an emotional and aesthetic appeal that looks deeper than it really is.

This is somewhat my issue with the whole Hipster Christianity thing because what looks all cool and edgy and relevant right now is going to look like Stryper 20 years from now if it doesn't already. And when I get mailings from these churches that talk about how they're relevant to me as a creative cynical questioning 20-something who doesn't feel like they fit in with the prevailing culture, I feel pandered to and I don't like feeling pandered to.

I don't pick who I worship with because the building looks cool or we all listen to U2 or there's candles or something. I like that they're not all earnest indie kids and that I find a commonality in God with people that I couldn't be more different from. I like that we're not all the same age and from the same walks of life and that it's scruffy and honest.

Not to sound like a bitter old record store clerk still mad that their favorite underground band got signed to a major and is played on commercial radio, but faith isn't supposed to be cool. And yet, I look at these articles and see myself there in a way that I assume is unconscious and accidental in an "oh snap" kind of way because I do love the writing of Flannery O'Connor and the music of U2 and try to give a damn in an "I want to do something good and right because it bothers the hell of out me that things are so bad" kind of way.

I understand my generation's disdain for poofy haired televangelists and the culture wars still fought by our parents, but there's just as much smug self-righteousness and keeping up appearances that becomes just as much a bubble with its own lines to tow, whether it's trendy and good intentioned causes that everyone thinks is bad (sex trafficking and genocide are generally non-controversial in this way) so that no boats are rocked and a cachet of cool is still maintained.

I get emotion and aesthetic appeal, but essence of what I believe is distilled down to "Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." I suck at both of these, but this is what I try to base my life on, to know and learn and love and try not to be a jerk, which is hard, because being a jerk is so easy and sometimes way too fun to do.

And what bothers me that is that the whole "mind" aspect of this equation gets checked in at the door more often than it should, both in hardcore fundamentalist circles and just as much among the more emergent types, when dissent can lead to accusations of "well you're not really a Christian" or "you obviously hate everyone especially poor people and are totally judgmental."

I've been told I was the former, because I didn't dress right, listen to the wrong music, and cuss when I get mad, and described as the latter because I do believe in structure and creed and not in the bright and shining hope of People Who Can Change the World Because They're So Nice and Awesome and Well-Intentioned. I know that they don't know me, that only God knows me better than I know myself, and the more I live, the more I realize how much about me needs to change.

It bothers me to see so much tied to "how this makes me feel" or "this is what I want to hear" or "this is what I want to believe." I'm probably guilty of this too, because I tend to tune out the talking heads and the drivel with every fiber in my being. These conversations are not conducive to facebook walls or message boards and as with anything that can get emotional or misconstrued, I always prefer face-to-face, preferably over dinner or coffee. Even then, sometimes it still gets dramatic.

Because who of us has all the answers or can comprehend these things? It's not that we don't try but we've had a couple millenia now and there will still be thinks that will be seen through a glass darkly. I know that I'm not always consistent and usually not content to just live and let live. It bothers me that there is so much that I just don't understand, and so much more to learn, and that I can't get complacent even if I wanted to because my mind is always working and my heart is always bleeding and my soul is always yearning.

I feel like the little kid in O'Connor's short story "Temple of the Holy Ghost" who makes fun of her ditzy Catholic schoolgirl cousins, the boys in the neighborhood who are going to be Church of God ministers because "You don't have to know nothing to be one," who's asking God to help her not be so snarky, who probably could never a saint but might be an ok martyr "if they killed her quick."

music, soul, emotion

Tuesdays are long days, getting up at 4-ish to get down to the station, working, and then usually coming home to crash early, but I'd heard from a reliable source about some good medieval-ish music on Case's campus last night, and drove out that way to pick up some printing ink and crazy expensive yet beautifully luminous paint at the art supply store, met up with a friend for dinner at the usual place, and walked over to the beautiful chapel over there to sit in the darkness and listen to 12th century French choral music.

I almost fell asleep at certain points because soothing voices in a dark church are good for that kind of thing, but it was beautiful and interesting and it's intriguing to realize that our ancestors 800 years ago were just as snarky as we are and that political and clerical corruption are nothing new and that satirizing religious culture is probably almost as old as religion itself.

While I play several instruments a little better than decently, I'm still no good at attempting to write songs, and admire those who can put something together that's amazing.

I'm on a rotation of people who are in charge of doing music at church, and in all honesty I don't listen to much in the way of modern Christian music. I honestly just don't have the patience for it, as either the style is so strictly codified in its own way or it's trying to hard to sound like one of its usually superior secular counterparts. And half the time, it's just too damn perky and I'm not really a perky music person. I always assume there's some kind of dark secret hiding underneath that perfect smile.

When I read the translations of the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, when I listen to Bach or Arvo Part, there's a reverence, depth and a beauty there both lyrically and musically, with such detail paid to the composition of both, that is so far removed from that of my culture, where being happy and positive is often more important than dealing with real love and truth lived out.



When I listen to old gospel recordings by Blind Willie Johnson, or read the words of old spirituals in a hymnal one of my friends picked up for me at a place in East Cleveland that sells both gospel music and insecticide, there's a realism that says not everything in life is easy and fun but God is good and there's something more than what we see in front of us.



In Pakistan, believers have taken the entire book of Psalms (which is gorgeous writing in its own right) and sing them in traditional forms like qawwali, a style with Sufi roots made famous here in the west by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.



Having been a lifelong literature geek, I love words that are strung together beautifully, and I can't bring myself to sing things that don't mean much or are repeated mindlessly. I know not everyone can write like Julian of Norwich, T.S. Eliot, or Gerard Manley Hopkins or necessarily have the skills to compose something amazing. I know I can't like I'd like to. Having played music in one form or another for about half my life, I love the way it moves me, but I also know that it's manipulative.

While I never liked mumbling through the songs at Mass when I was still Catholic, I was just as squeamish in more charismatic congregations that some of my friends went to where the same song would go on for fifteen minutes and I'd look up and people would be passed out on the floor or just kind of dancing around and would start praying for me because obviously I wasn't letting the Holy Spirit move me like I should.

I try to take the whole loving God with one's heart, soul, mind, and strength, and when I feel like it's suggested that I check my mind in at the door and just let the emotion carry me along, I don't see where that's a good place to be, because how truthful are emotions half the time? Just because I feel something, doesn't always mean it's the truth.

oh please.

So Sarah Palin is still claiming to be some kind of martyr but there's a different between getting persecuted for your faith and being justifiably ridiculed for being an opportunist with a big mouth and a seeming incapacity for self-reflection. Some people say I don't like here because it's "cool" to not like her, but this is different. Any time someone uses spiritual language and metaphor in a way that does a great disservice to where that language comes from, it's just not a good thing.

Persecution for your beliefs? Hmmmm...

Considering that merely going to church in Egypt or India makes you likely to get blown up or that you can get dragged into court in Pakistan for supposed blasphemy and converting equals a loss of family, life and livelihood in a lot of other places around the world, snarky people on the Internet and non-Fox News outlets are really not that big of a deal.

I'd like to see these people actually, well, re-read what they supposedly believe because there's a whole lot about being blessed for being a peacemaker and thirsting for righteousness and showing mercy, and the sun shining on the evil and the good. I supposed that's too much to ask, though.

Meanwhile in the world of those who are formerly Catholic (probably the most common religion of my generation at least here in the Rust Belt), everyone else is freaking out about their zodiac sign because vague newspaper predictions like "you may encounter stress today" or "you will find something out about that special person in your life" are forever not the same anymore.

I always found it ironic when my friends in high school would give me a hard time about my preference for "organized religion" when they were reading the daily horoscope as intensely as I read the Bible and consulted the Tarot deck every morning before class and based romantic relationships on said significant other's stars. "Oh it's okay that he's an asshole. All Aries are that way. What can you do?"

It must be a great job to write the daily astrology and keep cycling catchphrases like a housewife Nostradamus. It'd almost be as good as ghost-writing or penning deadpan Telegraph-style obituaries. Why didn't they offer writing classes like that when I was an
undergrad? Damn.

And since I can't think of much in the way of songs about snow, here's some fabulously frigid New Zealand post-punk for your Tuesday morning...

on art, literature, and Dogma (incoherence reigns)

Like the last time I had wanted to see some good free live music on the east side, the snow decides to come down in massive quantities. I love public transportation on days like that because at the very least if I'm stuck I can read or something, but anything's better than being in a long line of cars and wondering if the bridge you're sitting deadlocked on is going to buckle and send you nosediving into the frigid Cuyahoga River.

However, having a stash of CDs to get me through and leftovers from lunch in the car made the gridlock and the catcalls from loiterers on the corner much easier to bear though I wish I'd remembered to set my alarm this morning so I don't have to reprise all the fun.

Hibernation and not having anywhere to go is a beautiful thing, being able to change out of work clothes and make tea and a dinner consisting of Goya taquitos with no nutritional value and a grapefruit, and watched 'Dogma' for the first time.

I had heard a lot about how bad and blasphemous the movie was from the Catholic newspapers that my grandparents got but I've always believed that you should know what you're talking about for yourself as opposed to what other people say about something.

While I take God as a literal supreme being and la Santa Biblia more seriously than some wingnuts seem to, I'm also convinced that God has a fabulous sense of humor and a deeply creative nature, due to the heady combination of beauty and weirdness that is the created world. I get this sense of wonder when I see photos of galaxies and nebulas. I probably get this from my mom, whose faith was rekindled as a grad student in environmental studies in the 70's.

Everything else, however, is up for grabs, and there's enough dry humor in Proverbs, downright scatological imagery, and some serious sarcasm woven into the Good Book that I really didn't find anything terribly shocking or blasphemous. I do think that there are certain truths and beliefs that mean way more than simple "ideas" and that these do affect one's life in a massive way, but I honestly didn't expect to laugh as hard or find as much depth as I did.

But for someone like me who grew up Catholic, argued with my theology teachers, questioned everything under the sun, gets very cynical about the increasingly common and ridiculous Buddy-Christing of modern church culture, was accused by a college professor at Kent of "sucking on the tit of Mother Church" in the middle of class as an undergrad, whose conversations with God often involve a lot of cussing and questions wondering why things are the way they are and why do things happen the way they do and what's the point of all this.

I'm sure that people will get what they want out of it, whether it's an "I told you organized religion is a sham" or "there's something strangely redemptive here." And that always happens whenever art is involved. One of my art school friends did a final project installation piece that included a film about her great-grandfather who wrote the first hymns in the Tamil language and at the show, a lot of the people who viewed it couldn't get past the Indian-ness of it, assuming that said girl in sari was of course Hindu and into an entirely different theology.

And I wonder if I'm just too English-major-ish when I'm seeing echoes of the Screwtape Letters in the conversations of the fallen angels, the calling out of idolatry in modern civilization, concepts of grace and forgiveness and judgment, and a sense of humor and theology that reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's crazy preachers of the Church Without Christ and carnival freaks that are as unlikely prophets as Jay and Silent Bob, and Walker Percy's apocalyptic scenarios of fragmented partisan Americas and Jesus showing up on Phil Donahue.

Maybe if I was still Catholic I could write something good and God-haunted, but I can't go back there at this point because there's just too much that I can't believe in anymore. That being said, the evangelical wing of modern Christianity kind of sucks in the fiction department, with its terrible virginal romance novels about Amish people and governesses, and general ripping off of already mediocre pop culture.

I don't expect anything to be terribly cool or trendy because that's not what this whole thing is about. If I wanted to be 'with it,' I wouldn't be bothering with this. It has to come from within and not be imposed upon. That's how things got screwed up post-Constantine.

But seriously, fellow believers, a little bit of originality and talent put to good use never killed anyone. Heck, if you believe in God as a supreme and genius Creator and you're made in his image, you need to step up your game a whole lot. More Albrecht Durer and T.S. Eliot and less Thomas Kinkade and less hipster memoirs and prairie romances, okay?

nothing new under the sun

I can't seem to get warm, even with the space heater and the heat turned up to almost 70, which makes me want to sleep, but I've been sleeping a lot and sometimes I just want to have something to show for this massive amount of time I have to play with besides having the flu.

Ryan came up yesterday for what's become a wonderful annual hanging out tradition. We went to the Art Museum to see the "Treasures of Heaven" which is totally stuff I'm geeky for because of that weird convergence of religious devotion, body parts of dubious origin, and medieval bling. And they had a corresponding illuminated manuscripts exhibit downstairs so I was in artistic heaven.

It was even more fabulous than I thought it would be, with a lot of Byzantine and early German and Irish artistry with this sense of seriousness, beauty, and ancientness that doesn't seem far removed from the time when my ancestors were still painting themselves and running around naked in the woods throwing people into bogs to ensure a good harvest.

Even as weird to our jaded minds as it seems to be taking trips to see the enshrinement of John the Baptist's tooth or the skull of one of St. Agatha's 11,000 virgins, I get the feeling that while some people did the pilgrimage for the whole religious experience but for others it was a chance to get out of whatever village you were stuck in and have the excuse to go somewhere warm like Spain and party at taverns and maybe shave a few years off of purgatory. I get why the Calvinists were pissed off because the whole shameless revenue of this enterprise must have been hard to bear.



It's not unlike the way that people now do spring break or take road trips out to the middle of nowhere America to see abandoned buildings, eat at weird diners or places like the Cathedral Buffet and take photos at roadside attractions with giant dinosaur sculptures. Or the people who go to Graceland or the gravesites of Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain. I wonder what Chaucer would make of us and our strange mess of European culture with its own agnostic mysticism.

We were talking about some of the conversations heard around the table at Christmas, where our relatives who listen to a lot of Glenn Beck are freaking out at the state of society and how it's on this continual slide into the morass of something or other, and how back in the day it was better.

But it wasn't. There's always been wars and power struggles and corruption and moral degeneracy as long as there's been people. Peace is the punctuation between war not the other way around. It's just that now there's the Internet and bigger guns and nuclear bombs instead of cuneiform and spears. Is 21st Century America really worse than Nero's Rome?

It's not surprising to me that Ecclesiastes doesn't get a whole lot of coverage on Sunday mornings with its despairing existentialism that resonated with me in my teens when I wasn't sure if I believed in God and if He/She/It existed, did it really matter, but the way it describes human nature and the patterns in society and culture could have been written yesterday, they resonate so strongly with what I saw around me in a way that more esoteric texts didn't. It was a visceral truth that was reassurring in its lack of platitudes.

There's nothing really new, just repeated patterns and revisions.

There is a time for everything. Most of our pursuits in life are dead ends. Politicians are greedy and corrupt. Sometimes good things happen to bad people and vice versa. The eye never has its fill of seeing and the ear never has enough of hearing. It's foolish to talk about the good old days because they never existed and it doesn't do any good. God gives meaning to existence but that doesn't always make it easier to understand or bear.

I'm sure if this got thrown into the conversational fray I'd probably get some funny looks but whatever.

the breaks...

Christmas was wonderful this year with no car crashes or drama, even though we all got the flu one day after another. We did the traditional Polish fish and kluski, breaking the oplatek together before us 'kids' split off for Apples to Apples.



I wasn't expecting everyone to still be hanging out when I split to go to Midnight Mass with a friend from church. We both grew up Polish and Catholic before our search for God took us to the same place, but those roots run deep, that staying up late to sit there and listen to the choir, bask in the echoing quietness, the incense and candlelight. If anything we believe more than we once did.





Most of my cousins on the other side came in on Christmas and we joke that the alcohol consumption has gone up massively in the past few years, which has something to do with all of us getting older, and I got some family history about relatives who were in the IRA and how everyone ended up where they did way back when because back then no one else talked about things.

But it's a week off, and I've got some fresh stuff for my show to get a good world format going again, and friends coming in to visit, and hopefully a trip to the art museum to check out that medieval relics exhibit. It's nice to have a winter break again.

frail children of dust...

It seems like every other parish church is boarded up now, and from what I hear, it's very hard to buy them. I think about St. John's Byzantine in the heart of the east side, with its beautiful murals and the light streaming through its missing windows. There is still a peace there even in the ruins. It makes me sad to see these places fade from the memory of their neighborhoods as the reverberations of white flight and lost faith continue to manifest themselves.



Every ethnic group had to have their own building and when most of those ethnic groups cleared out, they left so many places behind. It might have been "one holy Catholic church" but my Irish side of the family couldn't get baptized at the neighborhood Slovak parish back in the day.

I listened to people talk this week about new congregations and new communities and new directions forming in different neighborhoods and I was frustrated because as beautiful as something like this is, I still felt like I was being sold something. I get squeamish when I hear about five-year-plans and growth projections and recruiting charismatic individuals who will be catalysts in their communities.

It seems too business-like, too franchise-ish. The best people are not always the ones who know how to shake hands and kiss babies. I don't trust a lot of charismatic people because it seems so often that people are so easily blinded by their light and that they themselves can't always see beyond their own halo.

Maybe it's just that my weirdo artistic mind doesn't work that way and I'm being a bit harsh. If I read these words as true that we all say are true, we can do planting and watering all we want, but only God can make anything grow. Somehow that gets lost in the conversation.



Conversely, I don't know how I feel about churches that are trying so hard to be different and not like the often graceless sociopolitical force that came out of our parents' radios, but it ends up being just a bunch of social services where God is a spice rather than the sustenance of our existence. It's easy to feed the body in this society with so much excess but our souls are starving.

It all seems like a business enterprise or a "We Are the World" endeavor rather than something that has a whole lot to do with the Divine. We seem to make so many plans but God with His infinitely strange and fascinating sense of humor seems to turn them back around constantly because it's all about Him and not us.

Somehow it seems like we stopped talking about God and started talking about us talking about God along the way. We act like our stories and sufferings are so damn unique and important, that our generation "gets it," and is going to "change things" but as I look back and listen to those older than me talk, look at movements throughout history, and it's the same things and same cycles with different haircuts and pet causes.

He continues to do His work through so many reluctant ones, people who made bad decisions and made excuses and ran away and got profoundly depressed. It wasn't the best and the brightest and the coolest. I love that. There's a humanity in the scriptures that just resonates with me because these weren't perfect people being awesome all the time, they were just as messed up as anyone I know.

They get mad at God, they question Him, doubt Him, and praise Him, and get fed up with the messed-up-ness of the world and repeat that cycle over and over again.It resonates so deeply because I understand those feelings more and more.



There is nothing that I read that says to blindly follow, to believe everything someone says. It's loving God and others with heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's the difficult path of an intellectual engagement with something that empirically unprovable and yet deeper than I ever dreamed even if I doubt I'll ever have all the answers I want or be able to comprehend everything I see in front of me, but to know that others have been there is so beautiful and reassuring even as it seems like the world grows more cold and everyone around me falls away.

crying out in the wilderness

As I've mentioned before, I was Catholic until I was about ten years old, and since then I've been hurtling through various strains of what might be defined as the American evangelical movement. I started really believing around the time it seems that almost everyone around me stopped thinking it meant anything and I'd run into friends from way back when who say "you still believe in that organized religion stuff?"

And I do.

I'm thankful that I have the Nicene creed burned into my memory, that I grew up raised with the whole idea of loving God with one's heart, soul, mind, and strength, where it was okay to ask questions and deal with hard answers in a search for truth.

I hear people say "I stopped believing in God when I look at the people that believe in him" is like saying a band sucks because you don't like the fans. Yes, they might sometimes be losers, but that has nothing to do with it.

And thus I have no patience for bishops who say that congregants will be excommunicated for meeting on their own after a church has closed. Who is any mere mortal to say that when it is between God and each individual?

I don't have much patience with the culture warriors on either side and the dominionistic attitudes of both. If we revert back to the nonexistent past when everyone "had values," how good is that, and it's not realistic. People were just as bad then as they are now, it was just that certain things weren't talked about.

And even if we all "fought poverty," lived communally, and bought fair trade coffee, that would not end the power struggles and global conflict that have plagued this planet for thousands of years, only now instead of spears and knives, it's "smart bombs" and kalashnikovs.

I don't even want to talk about this whole "Ground Zero Mosque" thing. Yes, you can't build a church in Saudi Arabia and you can't go to Mecca if you're not Muslim. Whatever. I really don't care where people build their houses of worship and the thing isn't probably going to happen anyway.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin don't speak for me. I don't understand how so many people talk about this guy who's a Mormon who believes in all sorts of weird things and is raking in loads of cash by antagonizing and stoking the fires of fear and paranoia. But when I went to DC in '06 with some friends and ended up on the Mall, I saw the same arrogance in Brian Mclaren and Jim Wallis as a church service became a political statement saying "we care more than George Bush does" rather than a sacred act of communing with God in the presence of each other. So often we become like those we criticize and cannot see it.

I love that among the closest followers of Christ, there was Matthew, who worked for a corrupt and bloated government that made a fortune off of ripping off the powerless and Simon who had spent most of his time trying to overthrow that same government. Both of them left where they were in life to follow, though I'm sure they had arguments about "the system" too. But that ceased to matter because of the transcendence of who God is.

I can't stand all these other things we do that we say are "of God" and are justified by scriptures taken out of context that usually amount to social control and also the occasional session of something resembling group therapy with a religious veneer. This is such a waste of time, and I have no shame in saying that I have walked out when I've realized this more times than I could count.

I can't deal with leaders who talk mostly about themselves and their personal views on things that have nothing to do with their Creator but they claim that it does. And when I or someone else speaks up and says, "Hey! There's something wrong here!" we are ignored, shouted down, claimed to be unholy for questioning, claimed to be judgmental or critical, told we "don't care" about good American values or morals, or "don't care" about the poor. It's easy to end on that because it's so severe and so absurdly not true.

But we need critical thinking. God asks for us to trust Him, but He also tells us to be discerning of those who speak in His name.

I crave truth, and with that I crave love. Truth spoken without love can often be so cruel and unfeeling, but love without truth is lethal because it says everything is okay when it's not.

shine your darkness on me.

On the same idea of laws...

This is one of my favorite T-Bone Burnett songs that sadly isn't accessible on Youtube.

You can listen to it here ... it's gloriously noisy and apocalyptic, especially coming from someone usually associated with "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and Bob Dylan's born-again years.

The laws of God and the laws of man
The laws of man, they don't carry
The same weight as the laws of God
Or the laws of nature in the nomenclature

Do we want to inject
The concept of sin into the constitution?
Is this really necessary?
Does this not make you somewhat wary?

Shouldn't sin be left to the laws of God
And to the laws of nature?
Can we trust this to the legislature?

And shall we trust sin to the wisdom
Of the criminal justice system
Which can't handle the criminals we have now?
Why create a whole new class of them?

Isn't crime dealt with by the laws of man?
Isn't sin dealt with by the laws of God?
Isn't crime dealt with by the laws of man?
Isn't sin dealt with by the laws of God?

If sin were dealt with by the laws of man
Everybody would be in jail for life
In solitary confinement with no one to go his bail
Or else would have gotten death, maybe I should save my breath
But this lunacy is bound to fail

But there would be no one to get the food
Or run the machines, mercy on us, dude

You shine your darkness on me
I am blinded by the darkness

like shining from shook foil

I need to read me some more Gerard Manley Hopkins, because this is good stuff.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

a father to the fatherless

This weekend started out quiet... catching up on my sleep, bike riding at sunset, house party on the east side, dancing at Native Tongues Night at the b-side with some good people (I don't tend to do the clubby scene but I love me some early 90's hip-hop goodness) and staying out way too late.

And then I get a phone call Sunday morning while I'm at church.

The father of one of the families of refugees I worked with beat up his wife horribly and then committed suicide. Children's Services took the kids and now they'll be in the foster care system, which scares me to think of them being separated and having do deal with a whole new level of stress.

It's been about six months since I quit volunteering and working with the kids on Saturdays and tutoring them three nights a week during the school year. It was an incredible year of my life that opened up a world to me and I learned a lot about a culture very different from my own and hopefully did some good.

But being immersed in their lives and culture also meant that I had gotten in way over my head, found that in typical Western world fashion I'd become someone that enables rather than someone that empowers and life got crazy for me personally and I got burned out.

This news didn't come as a surprise to me because this was one of the families that was struggling the most in so many ways. The kids were having a hard time in school and last summer I had to get a social worker involved last summer because of a slumlord they were renting from. 9 people in the top of a single turned into a double, with a foot of water in the basement that smelled horrible.

I think about this woman with a broken body who's been to hell and back countless times and wondering what will happen to these kids and wishing I could do something that would make everything ok but all I think I'll be able to do is go and visit her at the hospital tonight, try to stumble through my Swahili and just be there. I've been able to find out that she'll survive this, though she isn't speaking at all right now, and that the kids are in Columbus. I hope they're not separated from each other, there's 7 of them aged 3 to about 15.




It seems like we have this skewed way of looking at those who live among us as strangers and refugees, speaking different languages and doing things differently than how we do. Either it's a fear or a distance because they are "other" or some of the more socially conscious can sometimes be guilty of looking on with pity or elevating them to some level of sainthood for being born in the wrong place or the wrong time.

Or we think that the struggle ends when they get here, but here also means unemployment, discrimination, cultural clashes, isolation, and often heavy alcoholism in a profoundly economically depressed city in dangerous neighborhoods where they're especially vulnerable. It's hard to learn a new language when you've never been in school and can't read in your own language.

I was reading through the Psalms last night and marveling at how God cares about those who are strangers, those who are fatherless, those who have lost. I hope that Mari and the kids get a sense of that.

"You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."

color lines

Despite the absurdity of the previous post, I've actually been pretty serious the past couple days but unable to articulate anything that would be worth sharing.

I've been having really good conversations the past couple days, grappling with history and its implications. I think part of this was actually doing MLK-related things the past couple days instead of treating it as another day off just like Memorial Day or Labor Day where you really don't think about the meaning at all and use it to sleep in.

Watching my roommate play in the orchestra and thinking about how someone like Nina Simone could be rejected from a conservatory because of discrimination just a few decades ago. Looking at the exhibits at the Western Reserve Historical Society with some friends, seeing flyers protesting segregation and photos of people marching in the streets. Me and the roommate were talking last night about how all these problems are still here, but we don't say as much and had no sufficient answers. We talked about how we wanted to sacrifice the way that others before us have, but we're not sure how. A friend of mine wonders today why Michael Vick got such a bad rap but all those police who used attack dogs and fire hoses to harm people are let off the hook.

In the meantime, we are praying, living out our lives with the love of God, and taking steps in the right direction every chance we get, trying to pull each other up instead of complaining or dragging each other down. When I watched Obama's speech, I wasn't inspired the way Hollywood people were, but I did feel like I've been on the right track with the decisions I've been making and the way I choose to live my life. I know that I'm not perfect and there's a lot I need to learn and so much that needs to be done.

Those days weren't that far away from us, and I am thankful that we value each other for who we are and not where we came from or where we grew up. I am thankful that we haven't let the loaded connotations of our local geography get in the way of us hanging out, because otherwise I'd be missing out on so many beautiful and amazing things like this summer photo from last year that I took on one of our graffiti adventures.

the concept of love

I know it's cliche to rant about bad art, and maybe part of it is jealousy because if I knew I could make crazy money just by being the first person to exhibit dead animals floating in formaldehyde, I'd do it too, maybe.

And this is why I have no patience for Thomas Kinkade. Part of this is because he just kind of paints little flecks on prints, but Andy Warhol was just as guilty of crass commercialism. I think what bothers me is that these are deemed inspiring and godly or something and that just seems kind of insulting to God, and embarrassing to me, I guess, though I'm sure that God's used to people doing all sorts of stupid stuff and worse in his name.

He seems to be doing the American enterprising thing and delving into all sorts of other business ventures other than endless replication of country cottage gardens and lighthouses ad nauseam on every conceivable surface imaginable. He's not just inspiring soulless subdivisions, he's moved into book publishing and film territory now as well.



This guy's got an ego bigger than Kanye's and Bono's combined, and here are his filming suggestions from the auteur himself. Thinks he's the next Kubrick or Hitchcock.

Thomas Kinkade's

The Christmas Cottage

The sixteen guidelines for creating the "The Thomas Kinkade Look".

1) Dodge corners or create darkening towards edge of image for "cozy" look. This may only apply to still imagery, but is useful where applicable.

2) Color key each scene to create mood, and color variation. When possible, utilize cooler tones to suggest somber moods, and warmer, more vibrant tones to suggest festive atmosphere. In general, create a color scheme for each scene that can be accentuated through filtering, DI treatments, or through lighting. Most of my paintings feature an overall cool color envelope, into which warm accents are applied.

3) Create classic compositions. Paintings generally utilize a theme and variation compositional motif. Heavy weighting of the image towards one side, with accented areas of interest balancing it on the other side. Allow the eye to wander into the scene through some entry point. Be aware of where the viewer is standing at all times. Utilize traditional eye levels for setting the shot -- that is, no high vantage points, off-kilter vantage points, or "worms eye view" vantage points. Generally focus on a standing adults viewpoint of the scene at hand.

4) Awareness of edges. Create an overall sense of soft edges, strive for a "Barry Lyndon" look. Star filters used sparingly, but an overall "gauzy" look preferable to hard edge realism.

5) Overall concept of light. Each scene should feature dramatic sources of soft light. Dappled light patches are always a positive, glowing windows, lightposts, and other romantic lighting touches will accentuate the overall effect of the theme of light.

6) Hidden details whenever possible, References to my children (from youngest to oldest as follows): Evie, Winsor, Chandler and Merritt. References to my anniversary date, the number 52, the number 82, and the number 5282 (for fun, notice how many times this appears in my major published works). Hidden N's throughout -- preferably thirty N's, commemorating one N for each year since the events happened.

7) Overall sense of stillness. Emphasize gentle camera moves, slow dissolves, and still camera shots. A sense of gradual pacing. Even quick cut-away shots can slightly dissolve.

8) Atmospheric effects. Whenever possible utilize sunset, sunrise, rainy days, mistiness -- any transitory effect of nature that bespeaks luminous coloration or a sense of softness.

9) A sense of space. My paintings feature both intimate spaces and dramatic deep space effects. We should strive for intimate scenes to be balanced by deeper establishing shots. (I know this particular one is self-evident, but I am reminded of it as I see the pacing of the depth of field in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon".)

10) Short focal length. In general, I love a focal plane that favors the center of interest, and allows mid-distance and distant areas to remain blurry. Recommend "stopping down" to shorten focal lengths.

11) Hidden spaces. My paintings always feature trails that dissolve into mysterious areas, patches of light that lead the eye around corners, pathways, open gates, etc. The more we can feature these devices to lead the eye into mysterious spaces, the better.

12) Surprise details. Suggest a few "inside references" that are unique to this production. Small details that I can mention in interviews that stimulate second or third viewings -- for example, a "teddy bear mascot" for the movie that appears occasionally in shots. This is a fun process to pursue, and most movies I'm aware of normally have hidden "inside references". In the realm of fine art we refer to this as "second reading, third reading, etc." A still image attracts the viewer with an overall impact, then reveals smaller details upon further study.

13) Mood is supreme. Every decision made as to the visual look of each shot should include the concept of mood. Music can accentuate this, use of edges can accentuate this, atmospheric effects accentuate this, etc.

14) The concept of beauty. I get rid of the "ugly parts" in my paintings. It would be nice to utilize this concept as much as possible. Favor shots that feature older buildings, ramshackle, careworn structures and vehicles, and a general sense of homespun simplicity and reliance on beautiful settings.

15) Nostalgia. My paintings routinely blend timeframes. This is not only okay, but tends to create a more timeless look. Vintage cars (30's, 40's, 50's, 60's etc) can be featured along with 70's era cars. Older buildings are favorable. Avoid anything that looks contemporary -- shopping centers, contemporary storefronts, etc. Also, I prefer to avoid anything that is shiny. Our vintage vehicles, though often times are cherished by their owners and kept spic-n-span should be "dirtied up" a bit for the shoot. Placerville was and is a somewhat shabby place, and most vehicles, people, etc bear traces of dust, sawdust, and the remnants of country living. There are many dirt roads, muddy lanes, etc., and in general the place has a tumbled down, well-worn look.

16) Most important concept of all -- THE CONCEPT OF LOVE. Perhaps we could make large posters that simply say "Love this movie" and post them about. I pour a lot of love into each painting, and sense that our crew has a genuine affection for this project. This starts with Michael Campus as a Director who feels great love towards this project, and should filter down through the ranks. Remember: "Every scene is the best scene."

The list above is not all-inclusive, but is a good starting point for internal dialogue. These guidelines are not listed in order of importance, but are dictated off the top of my head. After painting for nearly 40 years, I still wake up every morning daydreaming about new ways to make paintings. Creating a movie is a natural extension of the picture making process, and hopefully my catalog of visual paintings, along with my visual guidelines in this memo will provoke dialogue, experimentation, and a sense of over-arching visual purpose.

Yeesh. Give me Dave McKean any day.