Mad Mar Walker's Multimedia Internet Arts Attic

Cubist-like, flattened? Man with a dog, bone, & cigarette

2012-02-11T11:02:00.000-05:00

I was shooting for flatness, lines with no heft, or volume, depiction in two dimensions without the illusion of mass, when I drew this little shot - quite a few years ago. A reclining man is smoking a cigarette, while making a dog jump up for a bone. It seems like a summertime drawing, maybe after a picnic. I really like the feel of the chair but that may be because it is the only thing with any discernible three dimensional form. I had been looking at a lot of Picasso but certainly this is not quite that either. The actual drawing has a crease down the middle. You can still see it a bit.

More abstracts: Purple Neon Night

2012-02-05T20:57:00.000-05:00

This composition makes me think of unexpected chaos at night in New York City. I like all the reds, purples, and dark brooding smoky blues, the hazy blackish green on the edges. It seems noisy, exciting, yet it's too much and the viewer is hiding. I am not sure what I am making when I do this sort of work. I just keep adding and tweaking until I am satisfied with the effect.

More circles in pastel

2012-02-03T17:20:00.000-05:00

Android artwork:

More phone art

2012-02-01T22:11:00.001-05:00

Woohoo! More phone compositions. Different phone this time. Virgin Mobile. Prepaid. No contract. I sold the iphone and ditched ATT. I had 4000 plus rollover minutes, paid for 450 minutes a month I never used, and was starving for data. Oh well. On the bright side, I'm paying half the bill and now am getting mostly data and only paying for 300 minutes a month i won't use. I don't miss iOS at all even though I'm only on Froyo Android. Made with a free version of the MagicDoodle app. Something new everyday.....

Alice-Anne Harwood and Robert Messore: The Woulds wow

2012-01-30T15:58:00.001-05:00

Out of New Haven -- The combination of Alice-Anne Harwood's clear evocative voice (both in the singing and as a lyricist) and Robert Messore's nuanced guitar work and excellent arranging make The Woulds suberb. They are sooo worth hearing. With heart and musical skill, poetic lyrics, an organic weaving of guitar and voice lines, an actual conversation between two musical entities - with humor & humanity - well you have to hear them live. There isn't any substitute for it. I saw them at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, for the Riverwood Poetry Series on Saturday night where the duo performed both musical compositions and AA's poetry with a guitar accompaniment.

You can like their Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Woulds/161183917263131

Molten's new digs, and events

2012-01-27T17:11:00.000-05:00

One notable thing that happened in January was the opening of Molten Java in its new location at 213 Greenwood Ave, in Bethel, CT. A lot of elbow grease went into this openning and it shows: everything is gorgeous. This is a day shot of the front room.

There appears to be renewed interest in evening activities too. This was my vantage point for viewing last night's Open Mic - from the stairs you can see the whole room. Below, there was not a chair to be had with a view of the performers. It's a packed house these days. go early if you want a seat.

Nicholas Wells and his group played, Sal Saldagdo, Justin Virga, the host (whose name escapes me), young folks named Megan, Holly, etc. A few read poems. Neal and Richard the old picker were there too. The list was long. I got a bit clastrophobic a little after nine and Henry Cort and I went home without playing. It was just as crowded the week before also. Maybe third is the charm.

There is a gallery upstairs and tonight from 6-8pm is an art show reception for Katie Bassett and Thomas Nackid whose work is up there right now. At 8 Seth Lefferts plays. Might have to check that out since the Pears are not on.... Some events are sometimes listed here

First Casablanca open mic last night

2012-01-26T16:39:00.002-05:00

Al Rivoli (above) who plays and sings at quite a few area restaurants, hosted his first open mic last night. It's on Wednesdays 7-10 in the Casablanca Restaurant's small bar. The food is good, the coffee really excellent. It looks like this room might well open to a large side-porch in summer also so stay tuned. Michel Rae (left) and Sal (below) did a duo and they performed solo also. They are both members of The Hip Relacements. See them if you can! Michel and Sal are at the Blue Chip next Thursday I hear.

I had a great time, and got to play two sets since it was a first run and there were not too many signups. I did my first live performance (world premier haha) of Elves on Expresso and I think my new tune caused a few near-dancing moves at one table!

Sketch: an extended doodle

2012-01-22T15:29:00.003-05:00

Sometimes the hands are busy and the mind is doing something else. Not sure who these folks are, or what kind of odd fairy tale senario is going on here. I guess its a visual dream sequence. I was watching the idiot box, while doodling with a mechanical pencil and a black bic pen on an 8x11 sheet of light grey card stock. I digitally faded the grey to white. I kind of like the result. It might be the plan for a painting.

BOOKS: The Last Place on Earth - a historical study in character

2012-01-12T16:11:00.000-05:00

Need an amazing nature adventure? A character-driven drama? Roland Huntford's mesmerizing "The Last Place on Earth." is for you. I know the genre on the back cover says history. Nonetheless it kept me up late into the night several times. It's not a cliff hanger. But it is a fascinating dissection.

In 1910-11 Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, and Robert Scott, a Brit, each led an extended expedition across Antarctica hoping to be the first to reach the South Pole and return. This book is a gripping, meticulously-researched narrative that contrasts the two men, their characters, methods, values, preparation and leadership styles, and finally their relation to their country's differing cultures.

Amundsen got to the pole weeks ahead of Scott and lost not a man. Scott's poor planing and failure to learn. listen and prepare cost five lives including his own. Instead of an investigation into how such a lackadaisical administrator, poor planner, vain publicity hound could have been entrusted with so many lives as they entered a dangerous environment - he was venerated as a national hero whose victory was "stolen" by Amundsen. Talk about spin. Read this book. You might never again trust what you think is a cultural given. You might never trust a "hero" again.

This past December marked 100 years since Amundsen arrived at the South Pole.

There is apparently a whole six hour epic mini-series based on this book. It takes up 3 DVDs and has Martin Shaw as Scott and Sverre Anker Ousdal as Amundsen. Might have to see that now....

Seeing through the haze of actions and reactions

2012-01-08T13:31:00.002-05:00

This digital abstract represents something for me today, namely - how hard it is sort through what is actually happening between humans. Sometimes a person wants something from you - but it isn't obvious what that is. Sometimes you answer a question with what you think is your fairly simple reaction and step out into a mine field of replies.

It's hard to know what to make of it all. It feels like this picture, as if you were trying hard to see the simple line drawing or pattern through all this colorful and busy fog.

And in this technological world, sometimes technology allows people access to you at all hours, in a way someone you weren't particularly close to would never have had only a decade ago. Electronic communications can arrive when you are tired or half asleep or ill. They might seem to alternate between mild friendliness and something bordering on an aggressive insistence. I have to learn not to check my mail so much and not to reply to email after say, 10pm. or before 8am. I really have to learn that. Like I had to learn not to pick up the phone and let it roll to the answering machine so I can deal with whatever it is at a later time when I have recently counted all my marbles and know where they are located.

Technology can also complicate things. Right under the "To" field in Google's webmail there is a line that says "Send also to:" which is followed by a list of people you might often email at the same time as you email the address in the "To" box. If you have an oversensitive trackpad on your laptop (as I have on my Chromebook), you might hover a fraction of a second too long on the way to the Send button and find you've wisked an extra recipient into the "To" box. Ah well. The kaffuffle is on - it always is I guess. Maybe life is just an extended kaffuffle. hmmm.

The picture was created and edited on a phone, and then in enhanced Picnik.

2011 - my personal year in review

2012-01-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

First Night Danbury, last night of 2011

When 2011 arrived I don't think I made a single resolution. There's just no point, as I break them all, and if I say let it be a year of ___ inevitably it turns into a year of something else. So instead of my resolutions for 2012 (of which there are exactly none), I am thinking about what I accomplished in 2011.

A year without New Year's Resolutions is not an emply year. I finished a whole bunch of paintings in the first four months of 2011. That's the time of year when the sun comes right in the front window and the light is really fresh.

I did a lot of poetry slamming this year for the White Plains Slam team beginning with a regional 4-way slam at the Bowery Poetry Club in January and another in July. I did a short featured performance before the first ever slam in June at the Veterans Memorial Center in Harrison NY.

Twice this past year I read poems at Free Poets Collective events - art-based poems written specially for the events. One was in April at the New Britian Museum of American Art another was in October at Broad Street Books in Middletown for a Celebration of Women Beat Poets/Writers/Artists. Thank you Colin and Yvon.

In July I started playing out at open mic nights again. I won a nice gift certifiace at the Tuesday Night Open Mic in New Milford. (still have to use it....) I did this on and off again all year, at Hideaway, Molten and one more in New Milford.

In August 2011 I officially became a National Slam Poet. I went to the week-long National Poetry Slam in Cambridge as a competitor on the White Plains Slam team. It was more fun than I expected. Being at a National slam makes you a witness of sorts. You hear poems from all sorts of people, widely varying circumstances on all sorts of difficult topics. You become a witness to their stories and many were stories i had never heard first hand. After this experience I find I am much more likely to look with friendly inquiring eyes and not look away. When I see strangers I am always wondering now - what's your story? What's hidden inside you?

I also got some great pictures of wild archetecture on and near the MIT campus, some crazy scuptures and paintings, got to see the MIT museum which is filled with intricate amazing robotic mechanisms.

So Thanks Zork, LV, Jonathan, our coach Bram and of course to the nameless guy who arbitrarily quit the team because he didn't want to be on NPS's favorite good-spirited losing team. This kind of brings things full circle for me as I quit the CT team as alternate in 1997 and Victoria Rivas went as alternate instead. Sometimes you get a second chance.

In September I read my comic erotic story Lipolt and the Amazons at the Erotic Literary Salon in Philedelphia, where two of my fellow Shijin also read. Thanks Erobintica for setting that up.

In November 2011 I finally finished my second chapbook Tabernacle of Bees (which I had been ignoring since 2009 when I began the project. ) I have printed out the first 25 copies and more are on the way.

Not only did I finish it - I sent a copy of Tabernacle of Bees along with a copy of my 1998 chapbook Inverse Origami the art of unfolding to Poets House . On Dec 23 I recieved word back that both would be added to the inhouse collections there and that Tabernacle of Bees will be on display this summer along with other chapbooks published in 2011.

In December I officially retired as Wednesday Night Poetry's web mistress and email update sender. I had been webmistress for most of the last five years and I think that is enough typos and photo changes, and governance committee discussions for anyone. I have passed the torch and the secret handshake or whatever to Derek, Lisa Marie and Christine. I will still maintain the new archve site at wedpoetrypast.wordpress.com. (regular updates are not required....)

Late in the year organizers asked if I would donate some music performance to the Molten Java send off bash on December 18. (The Cafe is moving from 102 to 213 Greenwood Ave). So I played a 1/2 hour gig of my own original songs for the event which went fairly well - despite me being in less than good voice.. I also got to see some fabulous acts - Michel Rae, Marc, Joey, the Molten Jazz Trio, Burnkit2600, the Hip Replacements and many more during that event. And I'd like to take this space to thank the nine people who came out just because I invited them. Thank you all so much - seeing your smiling faces made it so much easier to do!! As a consequence of video from that performance - I cut my damn stringy hair into a very short punkisk cut.

Finally - I have to note that for the fifth year running I weigh a little bit less than at the start of the year.

So, bring on 2012. What will happen? Don't know - but I'm pretty sure something will!

SONG: Elves On Expresso! (a fractured Xmas song)

2011-12-30T22:43:00.000-05:00

Elves on expresso! was my Facebook status on Dec. 23rd. Someone commented that it sounded like a song title. So I agreed and wrote the song.

ELVES ON EXPRESSO
- mad mar writes a new song on Dec 23, 2011

1) Kids are getting greedy
shopping lists are getting dense.
Everyone's fretting and getting tense.
Break out the eggnog, break out the rum,
when they ask you what you want
just play dumb dumb dumb because
the ELVES are ON EXPRESSO
OH NO they're over the top
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
NO NO NO
they just can not stop!

2) The sesason is unreason, expectations and illusion
buying, wrapping eating, salesmen in collusion.
Kids are full of GIMMES. Bills are all unpaid
parents under misletoe hoping to get ___ (you know!)
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
OH NO they're over the top
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
NO NO NO
they just can not stop!

3) So The relatives are coming, so the bank will soon foreclose
put on your santa hat and sparkly reindeer pantyhose
sweep out those killer dustballs, let that brick of fruitcake shine
you could always lock the door and drink holiday wine!
the ELVES are ON EXPRESSO
OH NO they're over the top\
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
NO NO NO
they just can not stop!!

Song from the Molten show: I bet it all on you

2011-12-28T23:45:00.001-05:00

Well I can't say I was in good voice here - NOT. But it seemed to go well, nonetheless.

My Pathetic Holiday: CHRISTMAS BE GONE!

2011-12-27T13:02:00.001-05:00

Christmas is over and I for one am glad. I'm not so much grinchy, as totally irreligiously flummoxed by a season I find artificial and demanding.

To move things along next year, I want to invent a product called Christmas-Be-Gone. Perhaps an aerosol spray or tins of loose scrub powder. Not sure what the fragrance would be. And it certainly couldn't be guaranteed since Christmas is like the damn flu and return:s each year. I'd like it to be a product you could spray around the house and no one would bring you awkward presents or heart-burn cookies or worse insist you visit a church. That shouldn't stop us from visiting each other or enjoying the seasonal lights, the concerts, or the beauties of winter. ---- BUT if only it would stop me from revisiting the follies of gift-giving disasters past. Take this year's: which I could easily title "My Pathetic Christmas Day."

Christmas Gingerbread House at the Sun

This year Maize declined to have people in and instead asked for a particular present - a trip to the Mohegan Sun on Christmas day. Not for a show, just for a little slot machine action. It's not my idea of fun, but she doesn't drive, and my gift then, is to take her there and back which is two plus hours each way.

Christmas morning came under a dead-pan sky and we were on the road. A planned stop at O'Rourke's in Middletown was kiboshed by the fact they were not open, or not open for breakfast at any rate. So we just drove on. We arrived, had sweetish food-court muffins and java, then Mazie sat with the slots and I sat reading a book, 3rd Degree from the Woman's Murder Club Series by James Patterson. I felt it was pure formula pulp. The characters seemed flat and the prose sort of blah. (I couldn't get the voice of the TV actress who played the lead character out of my head and I think that was problematic somehow, oh well.)

Then after an hour and a half Mazie abruptly announced she wanted to go home right away and didn't want to stop until we got there. (It might be she was out of sorts from eating Xmas cookies the evening before.) On the way back I got a bit lost (flummoxed again) used the gps which routed me some odd way of just highway driving. When we got home, naturally I felt compelled to finish the book I wasn't enjoying. And so it was I gave a dud of a present on a dud of a day, and ended up reading a dud of a book (at least for me), and driving for 5 hours mostly on highways. We decided it was not a plan we will ever repeat on any subsequent holiday.

Bring on the middle of January.

Abstract made in web-based browser programs

2011-12-24T08:31:00.001-05:00

It's Xmas eve and the days are moving fast toward years end.
This picture was begun while sitting at Molten Java in Bethel this past Wednesday night. I connected to the web over the wifi and usedg Deviant Art Muro to make a few sketches. This was further processed later in Picnik

SONG from the Molten show with weird visual effects

2011-12-20T16:20:00.000-05:00

This performance by Mad Mar Walker (me) was filmed at the Molten Java send-off benefit on Dec 18, 2011, in Bethel CT. Since it was filmed in portrait rather than landscape AND since my head looks like a bowling ball with bad hair - well, I thought I'd just distort the heck out of the picture and give people something slightly less disorienting to look at....

METHOD: In iMovie HD - I used the Crystalize effect to make large cells, followed by the Edge effect, mirror effect, bloom, then n2 and exposure adjust. I exported it from there as an .dv file and used the new iMovie to turn it into an M4v file. whew... I left the sound naked as the day it was born. No effects there at all, gravel old age and all.

THE SONG:

This one dates back to when I was going out with my future husband and I was in my early twenties.

Lay On Down And Die

a song by Mad Mar Walker

Verse 1)

My love rents from a cold water baroness who
sticks to his pay check like gum (shit) on a shoe
on payday, she stalks him like a bloodhound dog
but after lunch why she'll be lost in a corn mash fog

REFRAIN:

So you and me go down to our favorite spot
in the grave yard beneath the pine trees
where it never gets too hot

We'll read the tombstone poets smell the flowers, get a little high
and when were too happy to move
why we'll just lay on down and die

Verse 2)

You had yourself a rusted out Chevrolet car
you drove it one night right thought the window of a bar
Then they could not find you for 17 days
when they did were mumbling dirty words
and your little eyes were still glazed.

REFRAIN

Verse 3)

For your birthday I brought you buttered rum, Jamacian red
You smoked and you drank till I was sure you was dead
but when it comes to chasing round after me
you're ever ready like that famous flashlight battery....

REFRAIN

Molten Benefit Bash - this Sunday Dec 18 Noon-10pm

2011-12-15T14:02:00.000-05:00

Woohoo it's a nice line up for Sunday's music Marathon at Molten Java in Bethel. (That's the existing Molten Java at 102 Greenwood, near Bethel Foods. (In the new year it will move to Dolan Plaza, 213 Greenwood.) For $5 you get a free cup of something and some great tunes!

Here's a link to a writeup of the event: http://www.ct.com/entertainment/music/shows/wtxx-local-musicians-throw-a-housewarming-party-to-celebrate-the-new-molten-java-in-bethel-20111213,0,7546758.story

Here's the linup of music:

Molten Java Jazz Trio 12-1:30pm
Marc Huberman – 1:30-2pm
Mar Walker – 2-2:30pm <<<<<< me - ha!
Joey Vee – 2:30-3pm
The Hip Replacements 3-3:45pm
Seth Lefferts and the Side Effects 4-4:45pm
Amanda Bloom 5-5:30pm
Neil Corday 5:30-6pm
My Dad's Truck 6-7pm
Michel Rae Driscoll 7-7:30pm
Phoenix Tree 7:30-8:15pm
J.D. Hill – 8:15-8:45pm
Mr. Happy Cloud 8:45-9:15pm
Burnkit2600 til closing

Psychological Spaces: Alone, Not Alone

2011-12-13T08:23:00.001-05:00

A public place is a place of odd and unexpected possibility.

In a busy world where so many things demand attention and there is always a list of things to be done - sometimes a public place is the only place where obligations can be briefly set aside. It's also a place to be a participant with others in a kind of silent, noncommittal way. Often it's a place of watching, reading or waiting. Sometimes it's a place of writing.

Sitting in a public place, you have company, yet you are by yourself. You are with the crowd, but not in it. You can feel lonely there, but you don't have to - with a little imagination, you can also feel your place as a member of our varied human menagerie.

Here, you can quietly observe or discreetly ignore the gaggle of humanity around you. You can chronicle it all - just in your head, or with a camera or a laptop, a drawing pencil and sketchpad, or with a pen and a pocket notebook. Or you can sip your java, ignore your cell phone and revel in this small zone of tranquility.

This, of course, makes a glaring assumption: you have money for coffee, a cell phone and/or any kind of peace. When 11 million people have lost their homes and half the working age population has given up looking for work - that's not a good assumption.

If you are homeless, for sanity's sake you have to carve a private space out of a series of public or shared spaces. I think that's why so many choose to live in a car, (assuming you have one of whatever vintage) - because a car offers the privacy of a door and a lock.

You can't hide out there forever though, and inviting public spaces offer a respite. Of course I have made another assumption: that store owners and citizens aren't complaining and getting non-buyers tossed out for loitering.

My how the mental furniture around here has changed.....

This phone-photo was taken from the second story of the mall, looking down into a sitting area. It was fiddled with digitally in Picnik.

Small, colorful works at Art & Frame

2011-12-06T15:49:00.001-05:00

There is an interesting Small Works show, around 200 pieces from 80 local artists, up through January 6, 2012 at Art & Frame in Danbury. That's on Route 6, (60 Newtown Road), in the same plaza with Camamile Natural Foods. I wasn't going there, just walking by, and the display caught my eye, lured me inside. The works are various, with various prices, and the atmosphere was soft and friendly as opposed to austire and sterile. I liked being there looking at the art. You can find their website at http://www.artandframeofdanbury.com, and their facebook page at http://facebook.com/ArtandFrame . I noticed three Alberettis two by Robert and one by Mary Lou, all with a nice well-touched feel. Check it out. Made-in-America too.

Sun, blood and darkness - a digital pic

2011-12-02T18:17:00.001-05:00

Title: Sun, blood and darkness. This digital abstract bit was originally an MS Paint file. It's last facelift was in Picnik. I have a feeling this little file should actually be big, wall-sized like a Pollack. If I could print it out onto canvas, I'd have some extra brush work to add since this file is small.

There is this sporadic, insistant intermingling going on in this picture. of the red and yellow, of the beige and black. For me it bespeaks the relentless stippling of ideas and culture. There is always disturbance and spillage.

Past, Present, Future Wedpoetry stuff...

2011-11-29T18:31:00.001-05:00

Wednesday Night Poetry is prepping a few changes for the new year, so I thought I'd post one of the 2006 series posters I made, (click on it for a larger image) as an excuse to gab about it a bit.

Snow And Ice -- This past winter Wedpoetry was canceled at the last minute at least four times (it might have been more) for bad-ass storms that made travel hazardous. So this winter, the series is going to take a winter break starting after its meeting on Dec 14th. through January and February. The first meetup of the new year will be March 7, 2012, when the all new 2012 Wednesday Poetry will begin.

Coming soon -- Tomorrow, (Nov 30) is a Leonard Cohen themed open mic, followed by a workshop. Next week (Dec 7), the feature had to cancel , there will be an open mic but the rest of the evening program is still to be determined. The feature On Dec 14, the last meeting of 2011, there is a four-person panel discussion called Putting Your Poetry Collection Together! Panelists include Brad Davis, Leslie McGrath, Claire Zoghb and Faith Vicinanza. During the open mic - it;s Grinch Night.

Changes in offing for 2012 are still up in the air. The group will likely be meeting in a different venue, and format may change a bit as well. To mark the change, all entries on the http://wedpoetry.wordpress.com website have been archived to a site called http://wedpoetrypast.wordpress.com. So if you have a link to a reading you did there that now is broken - just slip the word "past" into the address and it should work.

POEM: Surface Substance Entropy

2011-11-24T18:43:00.001-05:00

A bit of a mood here. Photos of reflections, or where one can look into and out of a building at the same time, taken in CT New Milford, Danbury, Bethel and Georgetown. An improvsed singing track over a keyboard track, a tap the metal mug track - all recorded in Garageband, sound effects added in both IMovie and Garageband. The poem was recorded using the Iphone OS Voice Memo app..

The Poem:

SURFACE SUBSTANCE & ENTROPY

Blue light, evening sky, red arches
frame black branches in reflection or white arches.
or grey shadow of arches and brick. Look through; see beyond the glass.

Notice the distorted view, the glass rippling
with unspoken memories and caught between
looking at the surface and looking through the surface

to another surface, to distant reflections
of that which is behind us --
far away, removed but present.

See into the room, see past the room
as the branches wave, reflecting unseen winds.
Sometimes the trunks of trees become what they are not.

They lift their hidden deadly power, tangled and electric.
The squares of constructed sky reflect cloud
until the pains are broken one by one.

The tenderest green leaves soon turn to barest vine,
and on the car, a curveture of glass
reflecting the ubiquitous trees.

On the horizon the peeling paint continues, and
in the glass, under the sky dome, blurred
with the speed of going, the goodbye waving

Tabernacle of Bees

2011-11-20T14:23:00.001-05:00

Have you been a true believer at one time but not so sure anymore? Think the idea of hell is pretty revolting? Ever wondered that religions contradict each other? About all the wars committed in the name of religion? Ever read up on the sordid back-histories of various religious movements, reformations, new age fuzzies or even the papacy? Do you enjoy poetry? Tabernacle of Bees might be of interest.

I originally announced this book in October of 2009. But conflicting edits proposed by a writing group I belong to, followed by several computer deaths and some other odds and ends, frooze me into a state of indecision about how to proceed. However, recent developments have cause me to act.So finally two years later, in November of 2011, I'd like to annouce TABERNACLE OF BEES, a small book of poems which represent a journey from dogma to doubt and beyond, is now available from Puzzled Dragon Press. It's a short book, just 14 poems, but offers a lot to ponder.

POEM with artwork - after Jay Defeo's The Rose

2011-11-17T23:56:00.001-05:00

Cosmic Super Nova, Mountain, Flower, Nirvana

on Jay Defeo's the Rose

A digital fiddling while thinking about
DeFeo's The Rose

At the start was a vague idea

about climbing mountains, the forms,

the form of mountains

It became a mountain of paint

a canvas 11 feet high,
8 feet wide, 11 inches deep

A mountain eight years long.

There were brushes for painting it up,

slathering on the peaks

Knives for carving down the crevasses

making symmetric straits and canyons of implosion

hacking away material

to get down into the mythical center

of this inverse starburst..

Cleaning the brushes

sharpening the knives

day after day, month after month

year on year, the daily wrestling

the readiness to cascade to the center

of toil her commitment leading deep,

and growing deeper though glistening white

Like the expansion and contraction

of a universe And those opposing planetary forces

the building up and the wearing away,

the building up the carving down into

the building up despite the erosion of sharpened steel

in her own two hands she shaped it with 2300 pounds of oil paint.

And when it was done it lurked behind a wall

like a dormant volcano

or a lover you no longer want as a roommate

and she refused to paint for years

Later she painted smaller-sized botanicals,

little but weighty abstracts as if the literal enormity

had gone out of her.

Eventually the mountain went down the fire escape

They took out the window took out the wall

to get it out of the Filmore Street studio

to let it unfold in public view

let it flower, this endless road

this journey of making

the name came late,

The Rose,

a concentric flower

petals, arrayed around a center
of daily sweat followed by stillness

its silvery shimmering a monument

of whites of lights and highs accented

by shadowed abyss, this human reaching

for meaning reaching and collapsing

into the event horizon of art

c MM Walker 2011
written for a Free Poets Collective reading celebrating the Women Beat-ear poets, writers and artists, held at Broad Street Books in Middletown

Dan DeRosa - good memories linger

2011-11-16T09:13:00.001-05:00

Tonight at Weds. Night Poetry we will be remembering a local poet, and a former WNPS host Dan DeRosa - funny warm young man. I kidded him once that he had a dangerous smile which if trained on the polar ice caps would melt them right away. That was after he had smiled at someone sad at Molten Java and they lit up like a Broadway marque. His smile told people it was okay to be themselves. He was everyone's friend or brother. Had an uncompromising positive attitude and great compassion towards the autistic and everyone else too.

When he graduated from Western CT State University in 2009, he announced he was going to grad school in Florida. There was a graduation party (see photo at the right) and then at the end of the summer WNPS held a good-bye party for him, during which he was the poetry feature of the evening. During the open mike portion we roasted him with poems and stories. For my part, I wrote him a song, "Dangerous Dan" I had it up on Youtube at that time but later took it down because I was a bit horse the day I taped it and hoped to make a better version. I never did naturally. So here is the original verison once again from YouTube. The lyrics are posted below also. Dan died suddenly of cardiac related problems at only 33 years of age. He was a man who embraced life, took it on his own terms, who cared for everyone around him. May we all live even half as well.

Dangerous Dan

Dangerous Dan is going away to Florida
Dangerous Dan is leaving this cold state behind
He's going where the water's rising
he'll do well and that's not surprising
Dangerous Dan is a man still in search of his life.

Dangerous Dan is driving the road to his future
and being a poet, he's mapping it out verse by Verse
Life's a poetry slam of four score ten
Practice, edit, the do it again
Blend it into something inspiring no matter the score

Dangerous Dan has a smile like a bright summer day
His smile tells the world You can be who you are
He'll poem on some other page,
Dangerous Dan is turning the pageand we'll see
what he will be

Dangerous Dan is going away to Florida
The King of Haiku will soon be expanding the form
We'll miss his wit and that dangerous mouth
Think of us when you're in the south
Let wisdom guide all your rhyme
You can come back anytime.

POEM: Discovering Home (from Inverse Origami)

2011-11-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

Discovering Home
--- a poem from Inverse Origami
I used to live in the front entry
with the hall table and a mirror
reflecting latched glass doors
leading inward, heavily curtained
I dreamt in shadows, vague confusing rooms,
a twisting maze opening into light
One day, unexpectedly
I came out from behind the doors
introduced my self to me
stepped in as
the doors opened
to living space, a country
of dangerous mountains,
temperate forests, prairie grasslands
rippling; full oceans
frothing to universal currents.
I am one
with this geography
it matters to me and I to it
here I embody magic
lead turns to gold daily in my hands
in the hands of those around me.
now the entry is for guests
the curtains are drawn back,
the door, ajar,
so visitors can wander
see the sights
leave delicious word-maps
to their own countries.

c) 1998, MM Walker

This is a poem from my 1998 Chapbook "Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding" Most human beings have capacities far beyond what they see of themselves everyday. Sometimes it takes a while to discover all the various people you contain - and who you might be, could be, will be. And to honor even those aspects you choose to hide..... The photo is a digitally finesed picture taken in a dark room where lights hung behind heavy curtains. Only after fiddling with the settings was I able to see the unknown woman sitting there in the dark. I hadn't realized there was anyone in the picture. It seemed a match for the poem.

Musical Marriage Proposal Seen At Molten

2011-11-13T12:30:00.001-05:00

When you visit small locally owned venues, you just never know what might happen. I joined a friend for dinner last night at Molten Java, and we gabbed long enough so that a pair of musicians appeared and started setting up some interesting equipment.

Anna and Mike who may at times may call themselves, The Kitchen Sink Boogie or The Connecticut Vanilla Beans, play a mean blues blend. The instruments and voices have a nice back and forth conversational quality. Sometimes one sang, sometimes the other - often doing music by blues greats, with an occasional harmonies, and some original songs thrown into the mix. Anna plays a Kirk Resonator with a flashy, silvery plate over the guitar's opening. Mike bends an all-electric with a whammy bar, a well-used slide and nice amp effects.

Then came the second surprise. About halfway through the evening, Mike began to sing an original song to Anna, and suddenly the lyrics said (more or less) "I love you Anna B. I love you Anna B. I'm asking you to marry me....." Then Mike stopped and presented Anna with a jewelry store bag and inside it was a box with an engagement ring...... Looked like a yes to me - a happy ending or rather a new beginning.

Gift-mas has arrived at the Danbury Mall

2011-11-11T08:08:00.001-05:00

Oh come on! It's not even Thanksgiving yet! Halloween is barely over and Santa is red-clad and ready for sales! He's already frightening shy children at the mall, and taking wish lists as the stores hope for some business after a quite few years of bleak. This child looked a bit reluctant to even look at Santa. These photos were taken yesterday, November 10th. This is surely the earliest sighting I can recall. The mall however, despite seasonal decor, was pretty empty, and this was the only visitor for Santa, there was no line. Maybe he was a test run.....

Pale Blue Dot: Carl Sagan Day

2011-11-10T08:33:00.001-05:00

I'm posting the video below for Carl Sagan Day,( a day late but posting it nonetheless) It's courtesy of MadArtLab.com and http://youtube.com/RogerCreations where I ran across it. In it you can hear Carl Sagan's own voice on of his most famous statements about the earth. The photo to the right is a Voyager photo on which the statement s based - where the tiny speck inside the circle is the earth, and us, and all we have ever known.

Michel Rae on WalkWriteSing, a health-related song

2011-11-08T10:55:00.003-05:00

The personable, country-style singer-songwriter in this clip is Michel Rae Driscoll (Please hit like on her facebook fan page) She is the warm funny hostess at a Thursday night open mic currently held at the Hideaway. I like the subject of this song very much. A wife urges a husband to change his ways and take care of himself. "Can You Hear Me? she asks him. It's hard to watch a loved one who is literally killing himself, healthwise. There are a lot of behaviors we take for granted when we are young - for years you might have an iron stomach - and eat or drink or smoke as much as you like and still walk away.

At some point though, if your genes are wrong - you might not know if the next doughnut, double cheese pizza, greasy barbecue lunch sandwich, steak and fries, etc are going to provide the little hunk of fat that finally blocks an artery and sends you off into a drooling oblivion. So painfully - if you want to live - you start eating right, turning down food even when other people are urging you to eat it - with the words "Oh go ahead, its a holiday" or "Come on live a little bit!" Because I want to live, I turn down many many edibles. If I didn't I am sure I'd already be dead. I had an aunt that died at 40 of a heart attack. My father and his father died in their mid-fifties. If I turn down your cake, it's not because I don't want to celebrate your birthday. It's because I want to celebrate another one of my own.......

Made with web-based browser programs

2011-11-06T21:17:00.001-05:00

This new abstract was made completely with web-based browser loading programs on a Chromebook with a Chrome operating system/Chrome browser. These programs are web/browser-based and completely free. If you have raged that illustrator or painter cost so much. Give them a try. DeviantArt Muro, Pixlr and Picnik and others.

We need a Constitutional Amendment:

2011-11-04T20:28:00.000-04:00

Let's amend the constitution:

PROPOSED AMENDMENT: Pay and benefits for the elected legislative branch must be set once a decade by national referendum. There shall be no interim raises, no government funded healthcare, and most especially > no retirement plans for elected or appointed congressmen and senators unless they have served in office for 20 years.

What do you think - can we get it passed in 50 states?

I picked this crazy photo for this post because it uses the "invert" effect - changing the colors of an ordinary cup of coffee. We need to invert the power distribution in this country. Siphon it off from our egomannical congress and senate and take it to ourselves via NATIONAL REFERENDUM!!!

What we take for granted 'til the lights go out....

2011-11-03T12:41:00.002-04:00

Here in the modern lands, we've built out lives around a long thin strand of wire and the invisible stream it delivers to us, to our homes and businesses, to our necessities and our amusements, to our comforts and our endless devices.

When the wire breaks we are lost, transported instantly to another world where our daily lives are changed. Instead of a four lane highway - we travel a narrow, unfamiliar foot-path. Everything slows. Everything is dark and getting colder as we fumble for matches, candles, batteries.

At home we learn to work the curtains and furniture for maximum passive heat gain. We drag out kerosene heaters, stoke flames in the fireplaces we usually ignore, break out sterno stoves long packed away, put on mittens to grill food on the back deck, pack a few perishables in a cooler - if we are lucky enough or clever enough to have any of those things.

We go to bed early, get under the down comforters, get up early to drive off to a warm diner for hot food, head to the fire house for water to flush with, to the store for something to drink. We drive to get warm, to charge the phones - if we can find a gas station that has power.

This storm brought so much quiet on Saturday night. It was beautiful and tranquil - it unnerved our cat no end. She seemed to be listening for familiar sounds that had vanished. By Sunday afternoon though, the roar of a neighbors generator could be heard and the traffic noises began to creep back into our hearing. The sun crept back also and most of the snow has entered the watershed already. We can see the lawn but not by the back porch light. We have been without power since Saturday afternoon. It's Thursday afternoon and utility bashing has become all the rage.

First our mayor, who in my opinion has been in office too long, has made no less than five robo calls each of which imparted some useful information, but each of which whined about CL&P, a handy scapgoat in the face of next weeks election. In a gas station yesterday - I heard more complaining about CL&P - why did they have to import crews from Georgia, grumble grumble, why don't they just hire more people right here. Now think about this for a minute: if they hired enough regular employees to cover special emergencies when 800.000 people have no power for two weeks - what might the daily charge for electricity rise to?

Let's face it folks - the utilities WANT TO SELL US POWER. They want to hook us up as fast as they are able.

Then in the grocery store a woman who had moved here from New York City, said she thought there was something wrong with Connecticut. There, finally I had to agree - but what is wrong with Connecticut electrically speaking is also what is so right with it - all our lovely trees and our crazy tree hugging loving populace, many of whom moved here from New York because of the state's lovely trees.. This early snow clung to leaves everywhere, dragging down any tree with a weakness, and some that looked hearty as ever before the storm. Many here even sue towns and utilities over tree cutting . Too many of us say no way, not our tree.....

The moral is, trim up in the summer or shut up when the lights go out. I love the trees too. Nobody wants a bare blacktop world. But a little electric is nice too.

Poem: The Uses of Nature (from Inverse Origami)

2011-10-29T00:42:00.001-04:00

the Uses of Nature

Down at the interplanetary 2nd-hand nature boutique
I’d like to buy the night sky. I'll take the round full moon,
and put it in my pocket so I'll always have a coin.
I'll pick the stars, every one. I'll put some in my hatband
I'll put some across the shoulders of my coat,
and I'll stuff the rest up my sleeves so I'll
finally be luminous and amazing.
And when I am tired of being admired,
I'll take the darkness that remains and slip it over me
and become invisible so I can rest.

But look! There are lovers there under the night sky
clutching nothing, clutching everything in each other.
What will light their way when I have the moon?
What will hide them when I have the dark?
What will they wish on, when I have every star?

Hey! I could divide the moon into quarter acre lots,
and they could get a variable rate mortgage
with giant balloon payment and health insurance
and chain themselves to jobs they hate for 30 years to pay for it.
I could portion out the stars, one to every house,
An heirloom,a family treasure kept in a little box on the mantle
taken out as a conversation piece to impress visitors
I could pour the darkness into pint containers
and have it delivered to people's doorsteps
I think there's enough to go around....

----------------

by Mar (Mistryel) Walker
10/95, POEM 27 - From Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding - c 1998

I am posting this because I read it Friday evening. (it's 12:36 am Saturday) I read it last night really I guess, during a Google+ hangout. One poet was from India another from UK. etc etc. I just looked in, and was surprised when they called on me to do a poem. I had no work within reach so I did this one - an old stand-by from my chapbook that I have slammed with in the past. I have it memorized but I forgot changes I had made to the beginning of it.....

Obsolete tech devices as canvas and frame

2011-10-28T10:17:00.000-04:00

I painted this abstract (above) in an odd place - inside a dead Sharp Personal Organizer, "512K" which, for a short time many years ago, was invaluable. (Click on the picture to see it even larger - I think it makes the size-transition well) Of course, every darling is brief in the tech world and the planet is littered with abandoned, non-functioning gizmos. Painters - recycle! Below you can see it insituo - in the frame and substrate.

Poetry in disguise at Halloween party

2011-10-27T00:10:00.010-04:00

Pictured above, are the crazy folks at the annual Halloween thing at Wednesday Night Poetry, missing are Faith, (a devil) Victoria, (a pizza delivery girl with a pizza) Ernie in a bandana with a pirate spyglass. And T.G. as herself, with Tess, as herself. We can't forget Tess. I had 'em wondering, including Tess who barked at me in my head-covering Egor mask, I tried to talk very low pitchwise, and sit not like myself, no leg crossing or sitting on my feet. The whole bit seemed to upset Tess no end - the cues were too confusing I guess. Poor puppy.

I read a short spoof of a poem in my ultra low-pitch, threatening Egor style:

Mouse traps
Hickory Dickory Dock
Little mousie ran up the clock
The clock struck one
And Mousie did run and run
until she was done dun da dun, dun da dun da dun da dun

A poem on a drawing: Free Space

2011-10-26T05:57:00.001-04:00

From the archives:

Free space,
defined by what it's free of...
the grace, the drape, the solid
air, where shuffling gauze
gives way, writing the bend
of torso, an ambition of words,
of space, of not often enough
exploring, hiding
or not hiding,
the cloth that tells
betrays the careful
covering and uncovering,
the moving and falling,
the piling of layers, taken
away, removed so
we find our
silence
.
-- a poem and drawing by Mar Walker aka Mistryel

This is an extended doodle, and all of the words of the poem appear in the drawing. I drew this during a lecture at a conference on metaphor and the book ta few years ago. It was done in a little leather book that is very small. The medium is pencil. I have boosted the contrast to make it easier to see. It is one of a handful of small works where I have tried to combine drawings with words....

Dancing under a dark sky

2011-10-25T10:34:00.000-04:00

From the PuzzledDragon archives:

This is a picture where music is integral to the subject. You can't dance unless someone or something is piping out a tune...

This work is an oil pastel/water color I did in 1992 while I was in Maine and its lovely hills are visible in the background. The guy in blue with the hair was a very odd fellow named Peter Smith who used to wear fingerless billy idol gloves and who could talk just like homer simpson. Go figure. The fellow in the brown tee shirt is waving his arms despite his girth. He was based on a rotund neighbor named Rob Puncheon. I tried to create vivacity here with the motion of bodies, stars, sky and grasses. Even the seated figure on the far left seems as though she might jump up and join in. The only static being here is the pensive onlooker on the right. And the picture is really hinges on her. There is all this joyful motion and one sad bit of pensive melancholy. Ah well.

This was moved from the gallery blog, where it was a Jan. '07 entry

Coming home - for some it's not easy or simple

2011-10-24T10:58:00.002-04:00

from the archives of the Puzzled Dragon:

Tim O'Brien's book, The Things They Carried

A few years ago in October was a series of local events on the book, as a part of the "One Book, One Community" series including a visit by Tim O'Brien. That's why I've reposted this bit - I have changed my blog name several times since posting it originally.

DEATH AND THE FUNHOUSE MIRROR

To clearly see ourselves whole, stripped of the polite social mask, is at once privilege and nightmare. Tim O'Brien's self-reflexive novel The Things They Carried offers a soldier's view of the Vietnam War, but also a view of how a man's socially sanitized vision of himself can break down during war. More than this, O'Brien takes readers on side trips, where they can feel a portion of what he felt, where they can envision their own disintegration.

After describing in a dozen different categories the things they carried with them, O'Brien the author tells us this:

"For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then however, there were times of panic..... when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly..... In different ways it happened to them all."

It is a rare thing for me to fall speechless after reading a novel. Some of this novel is like Lock-tight and stays around when it is no longer convenient to remember. For instance the passage where the medic in grief and rage shoots a baby water buffalo to death one small divot of flesh at a time making sure that it is alive and suffering. Or the repeated references to the Lemon tree, the light and the explosion, the clean-up....Despite the amazingly different content, this book bears a great structural resemblance to Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Like Stein's book, it discusses itself to death, one chapter discussing how the previous chapter was written, discussing if any of it is really true. The book also uses Stein's device of the endlessly repeating iterations of cubism. Many scenes first appear in a slice, then in part, reveal just a little more, then the full version then recede, but never completely.... This cycling structure, Stein's "little waves" lapping, lends itself to the material in that it mimics the soldier's inability to let go of the experience of combat in Vietnam, just as O'Brien the writer could never let go of it. It also mimics the reoccurring nightmares of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and the mind's inability to let go of this self-disintegrating experience.This whole structure is echoed in the chapter "Speaking of Courage" where Norman Bowler drives around and around the lake after returning from the war, unable to stop driving or thinking about the shit field by the river and Kiowa drowning and Bowler's failure to rescue him. Then in the next chapter we discover maybe it was O'Brien the writer who let Kiowa disappear in the muck. Maybe it was true, maybe it was a story. How Steinian.One of the oddest chapters is "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong." In this chapter O'Brien the writer effectively shows an aspect of war rarely discussed with non-combat veterans: that for some soldiers nothing in life will ever be as physically thrilling and challenging (nor as traumatizing) as survival, will never involve as much of their instincts, not as civilized beings but as cunning animals, tribe members, ritualistic hunters. This is usually only hinted at in much war literature. By couching it in a double fiction, showing the transformation as a fable that supposedly happened to a women in a pink sweater, O'Brien both externalizes this transformation and at the same time, frames how easily, how steadily civilizations slips away from even the most innocent and loving.

--- M.M. (Mar) Walkerauthor of Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding,editor and writer at the Puzzled Dragon and former editor of Bent Pin Quarterlyoriginally written in November of 2003 .
Previously posted on all my variously named blogs, puzzleddragon, MMW113, etc etc etc

Dollars & Dimes by Mary Mitchell on WalkWriteSing

2011-10-23T20:53:00.000-04:00

Another singer who plays at the local open mics is a nurse, and a nursing student by day. Mary Mitchell played this tune, one of her originals, at the Hideaway not long ago.(Not this week, I wasn't out at any open mics this week.) It's a great tune called Dollars and Dimes. I like her unique vocal approach and her energy. She does quite a few covers as well.

U.S. has a class system: bankers are sacred, soldiers are ignored

2011-10-22T00:24:00.000-04:00

The troops finally will leave Iraq. How will they be treated? Will there be jobs? Not yet apparently. Will there be healthcare through the VA or will that be gutted too? Have their homes been foreclosed while they were gone? How many lives have been disrupted and then changed irrevocably? War takes a bitter toll even on those who can walk away.
Click here for the LA Times on the withdrawl announcement

(below a note on the vicious Stop Loss program, from last January)
You can tell there is an unspoken caste system in the U. S.
Here is how you can tell:

When the economy took a dive and the feds had to bail out so many giant financial corporations, the lobbies and lawyers screamed that contracts including big bonuses to CEOs CFOs COOs, traders etc, had to be honored. Start breaking contracts and Western civilization would crumble, according to the bankers and their lackies in government. When the fed finally got busy and put some restrictions on bonuses - the banks couldn't pay the TARP back fast enough.

But, WHAT ABOUT OUR SOLDIERS WHO SIGN A ONE YEAR CONTRACT for military service - but then the U.S. engages its "STOP LOSS" program and they aren't allowed to leave, sometimes having to serve a second or third term against their will. Their contracts are broken, and they have no legal recourse. So a contract with a banker is sacred. A contract between the Federal Government and a soldier isn't worth the paper its written on..... (See Stop-loss policy entry on Wiki)

Of course a whole list of American Indian tribes could have told us this.....So according to U.S. practice -- If you are a well-connected banker the government will go broke to protect you and your contracts are sacred.(Unless of course there is a populist outcry of VOTE THE BUMS OUT!) If you are just a foot soldier, or an Indian Tribe, historically the government says, screw you. Obama may have fixed the first part - but he hasn't gotten around to the second part yet....Check out this NPR story about a soldier the army wouldn't let go -- who is going to get a court marshal because he wrote and sang a song protesting the Stoploss program. The military actions against this soldier are unAmerican.

SCAN fall sale reception

2011-10-21T23:18:00.000-04:00

The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown had an opening reception for its fall holiday show Friday evening. Lots of artists, a few local pols, everyone with cider or wine, noshing on fattening snacks and wandering in isles of art. A nice time, lots of great stuff to see and buy if you have a few bucks to spare. Ends tomorrow at 5. (10/23) Might be bargains!
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"We are all connected" - the Symphony of Science

2011-10-19T13:53:00.000-04:00

I am 60 years old this week, and less isolated than I have ever been. More than ever I know that all of you out there are part and parcel of this world, or which I am also a part. I feel the small speck of life that is me, is in relation to all the specks that are, in a very basic way. The music in this video is a part of a series of videos from http://SymphonyofScience.com - watch the video and checkout their website. I think it expresses how I feel in many ways.

Honoring The Women Beats

2011-10-18T03:30:00.000-04:00

Helen Peterson

Yvon Cormier

An event called Women Beat Era Poets/Authors/Artisits: A Celebration, took place at Broad Street Bookstore in Middletown, CT on Sunday. Like most women during the 50s, they were a bit under-exposed, and despite their own rebellions they seemed overshadowed at the time by their outlaw men. I have to admit I enjoyed listening to their work.
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Poet Yvon Cormier who organized the event, asked to me read poems representing someone, and I chose Jay Defeo - a visual artist rather than a poet, who now in retrospect is considered one of the definitive American Abstract Expressionists.
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Joan Kantor

Colon Haskins

For the occasion I put together six poems, five so called found poems gleaned from her own words as found in a lengthy oral history interview with Defeo conducted around 1976. The last was a reaction poem to her monumental one ton painting, The Rose which was eleven feet high, eight feet wide, 11 inches deep and eight years of effort long. It's now owned by the Whitney Museum.

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Dolores Lawler

Mad Mar Walker

The former Poet Laureate of Long Island, George Wallace was suppoed to read Janine Pommy Vega. He was unable to come at the last minute so Dolores Lawler read Pommy Vega's work instead, as well as some some Denise Levertov and some of her own. Helen Peterson, co-editor of the Waterhouse Review read Diane DiPrima, Joan Kantor, author of Shadow Sounds, read Hettie Jones, Yvon, who organized the reading, read Mary Fabilli and Colin,Haskins, who's put out a whole slew of fine poetry chapbooks and started the Free Poets Collective among many other ventures, read Elise Cowen.
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Robin Sampson

Sympetalous

I only have two pics from the open mic, Robin Sampson and Sympetalous. I have video but give me a month or two to sort that out.

According to the press release: This event is proudly presented by the FREE POETS COLLECTIVE, IN COLLABORATION WITH BROAD STREET BOOKS & CAFÉ, The Wesleyan Bookstore. The next Free Poets Collective event is Farmtober on 10/22, 1-4 at Fort Hill Farms in Thompson, CT

Noticed: ratio of for sale vs help wanted ads

2011-10-17T08:19:00.000-04:00

This morning I am adding a tiny inexact comparison to the list of ways I guage the health of the local economy.

It's a measure that may or may not be invalid in these internet days. Perhaps it's a measure that says more about the future of newspapers than the future of employment. In your local paper take a look at the want ads in yesterdays paper, the Sunday paper which traditionally has the larges want ads section of the week. Look at the section labeled For Sale. Then flip over to the section for Help Wanted. One seems significantly larger than the other.

Let me make a sweeping surmise: Because the one is so slender, the other has increased. People without jobs or if they have jobs, without raises, people who can't move on to a job or a better job, want to raise cash by selling things. Cars, houses, stuff. If you charted the ratio from 2007 to the present - I wonder what the arc would look like......

Now that's the economic explanation. There might be another way of looking at this. Perhaps as the baby boomer generation are retiring or getting cash strapped through job loss, they are trying to selling things to downsize their bills, downsize their debt.

Demographics or economics. Who knows. Maybe a little of both. Might be a third or forth way of looking at it, or a fifth or sixth. Conjectures at least, are free.

Hairs on Fire - with an oil pastel technique

2011-10-16T03:00:00.000-04:00

From the archives:

HAIRS ON FIRE! Not really. This is an oil pastel I did while working in North Conway, New Hampshire. I often find the faces of people I know creeping into my work. I guess because I have had to look at them and their features are familiar. In my mind there is some facial resemblance to a fellow named Burns who was a planner there. (It's not much of a likeness.)

One of my favorite things to do with oil pastels is to lay down thick color then draw back into it with some handy implement or other. Sometimes the first layer is scraped, then a second color is heavily applied and scraped into revealing some of the first color. When I took a drawing class at Western Connecticut State University, many years ago, I remember learning to draw into heavy pencil marks with an eraser. This is where I got the idea of removing material as a way to form the picture.

Post Script 10/19/2011 - One of the reasons I reposted this at this time is, I recently read how Jay Defeo formed The Rose using sharpened knives as much as brushes as she cut back into the layers of paint and scraped and hacked to remove material to form the topography of the painting. Very cool stuff.

Connecticut's Jeff Smith featured on WalkWriteSing

2011-10-15T09:18:00.001-04:00

Jeff Smith is a young singer-songwriter based in Connecticut, whose brooding hypnotic voice takes you deep into a zone of thinking about your life. One thing I really appreciate in his performances - It's clear that he views a song as dynmaic emotive structure. By that I mean, he uses the loud and soft of the voice and the guitar to represent the universal arc of a human life with its sorrows, with its ebb and flo of energy and engagement.

So, among other things I have videoed recently, I videoed a Smith performance of his song Shelter, at the Hideaway Cafe on South Main Street in Newtown, CT. (It's a great place by the way.) On Thursdays, they have an open mic run by Michel Rae. Shelter is a gorgeous song and he has arranged it well too. But I didn't know what to do with the video. Eventually I decided I needed to make a new channel dedicated to songwriters. (I have two others, one for my eclectic ramblings, and one for poets reading their own poems) It dawned on me maybe I needed to start one like the poetry channel for Songwriters singing their own songs. The result is http://YouTube.com/WalkWriteSing, which so far has just the one visible video. At least two more are in the can, to use old film terms.

You can hear other songs by Jeff Smith at http://myspace.com/jeffsmithexperience
For Michel Rae's music checkout her Facebook Fan Page
For mine, just click an arrow over there on the sidebar!

Guns as Inheritance: Passage or Portent?

2011-10-14T13:26:00.000-04:00

From the archives:

I haven’t been able to think clearly about guns since my ex-husband shot me in the behind with a pellet pistol 30 years ago. He actually said those classic words - “I didn’t know it was loaded.”

He said it in an uncharacteristically high and nervous voice as he was wringing his hands. My ex kept that gun in our over-the-junk-store apartment for the unbelievable purpose of shooting wasps, and he was actually quite good at it.This isn't on my mind at the moment.

Right now, I am troubled because I was witness to an odd ceremony last weekend. A grandfather, a relative of mine, gave a pistol with a holster and ammunition to his 14-year-old grandson. It was not a toy. He talked about not being around much longer and wanting someone to have it. He helped the boy strap on the belt and tie the bottom of the holster around his leg. Showed him how to load it. His segment of the family takes periodic Sunday afternoon outings to a shooting range at grandpa’s behest.

While I understand the idea, this last gift is a bit disconcerting.Adolescents don’t live in the same world this 78-year-old grandpa did when he was coming of age. After Columbine and other recent school shootings I can hardly believe anyone would think this was a good gift for a teen.

Though this boy seems smart and sensible, he is a teen. The young seem to live in a world of exaggerated response, always testing the limits and forming the brain circuitry. A young teen’s world is up and down in a day. Their triumph and despair always seem life rending. I hope his parents had the good sense to store it out of reach.

No doubt guns have several iconic meanings in American culture. The giver of the gun was a guardian-of- freedom type, a wanna be militia man with twisted but good intentions. For him and for many conservatives and libertarians, guns represent a sacred trust by which we remain free, though the federal government runs amok, though invaders from abroad or from Mars descend. To the frontiersman or the hunter they are a tool to dinner, triumph, survival. To the egoist, validation. To the vigilante and the sociopath, gunfire is the bark of the archangel.

As a wounded pragmatist, to me guns will always represent a pain in the ass and an unanswered moral question.

---- Mar Walker
December 4, 2006

Duct Tape Improvisations

2011-10-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

From the Archive:

A few weeks ago, on a rural/suburban road I noticed a pitiful mailbox that had been hastily repaired. It’s a simple, stubborn fix, born of a determination not to let the wreckers win. That’s a sentiment my father would have appreciated.

We lived in the middle of a long dark stretch of woodsy road, and our mailbox often fell victim to the excessive exuberance of youths with unsafe levels of testosterone and beer in their veins. Once, a family who lived four miles away called to say they had found our mailbox, crushed to sheet metal, and tossed onto their lawn in the middle of the night. It was the fourth time that summer our mail box had been assaulted. Once it was blown to shreds with an M80.

In response, my father fell to clenching his teeth and muttering down in the basement. He had something more substantial than duct tape in mind. For weeks he worked to construct an impenetrable mail box fit for the great age of the vandals. He added steel plates to the ends of a heavy gauge steel pipe. One plate was mounted on a heavy spring so the Mailman would have to pry it open to insert the mail. What my father had in mind was Roadrunner and Coyote. In particular, the scene where Coyote raises his baseball bat, but the Roadrunner suddenly steps aside. Coyote, swinging for all he’s worth his a big rock instead of Roadrunner. Cartoon shock waves travel up his arms until his whole body shakes. My father planned a stealth execution of this script. He intended to wrap the steel pipe with a regular, vulnerable-looking mail box to lure the villains. Unfortunately he died before he could put the thing up. I often wondered if the extra stress contributed to his early death.

In Dad’s reckoning, making needless work for someone else, was a theft of their time and effort. “Don’t make work for you mother,” he was always telling me sternly. We put up the steel mailbox for a few months without its stealth covering. As fate would have it, a plow knocked it over. Though the plow driver apologized, the original vandals were never found. Now, twenty-five years after the great steel mailbox caper, I wonder if somewhere, somehow our vandals have mailboxes of their own, and a baggy-pants, spiky-haired teen with ear buds dangling is unknowingly getting even for Dad with a quart of green slim or a quarter-stick popper.

---- Mar Walker, 12/3/2006

On the Women Beats - a reading this Sunday

2011-10-12T18:47:00.002-04:00

On Sunday October 16th 11A.M. - 2:30P.M. at Broad Street Books in Middletown Ct there will be:

A CELEBRATION OF THE WOMEN BEAT ERA POETS/AUTHORS/ARTISTS　　

The press release reads:

"This rare spectacular event commemorates Women Beat Generation poets, authors, and artists, featuring international poet GEORGE WALLACE, former Poet Laureate of Long Island, N.Y. based in N.Y. City, author of twenty-one chapbooks and was named artist in residence at Walt Whitman’s birthplace, reads Janine Pommy Vega; Helen R. Peterson, of Canterbury CT, writes poetry and fiction and is coeditor of The Waterhouse Review reads Diane DiPrima; Joan B. Kantor of Collinsvile CT, author of Shadow Sounds (Antrim House) reads Hettie Jones; Mar (Mistryel) Walker of Danbury, CT, painter singer and author of Inverse Origami the art of unfolding, reads Jay DeFeo; Yvon J. Cormier of West Haven CT, author of Life Sketches in Blue, reads Mary Fabilli, and Colin Haskins of Glastonbury, CT, latest poetry collection Drinking of You (Ye Olde Font Shoppe) is Free Poets Collective founder will read Elise Cowen. Following the features there will be open mic, music and a reception.

This event is proudly presented by the FREE POETS COLLECTIVE, IN COLLABORATION WITH BROAD STREET BOOKS & CAFÉ, The Wesleyan Bookstore. YVON J. CORMIER will host the event at BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 Broad St, Middletown, on Sunday, October 16, from 11:00A.M. to 2:30P.M. For more details visit http://freepoetscollective.webs.com/ or questions, call 860-233-4984."

Rant on Political Ads

2011-10-11T13:58:00.000-04:00

From the archives:

Imagine a world where elections were won by over-the-top spending of a different sort, say donating millions from campaign coffers to pay down the national debt. Or spending to actually help someone: creating jobs for the jobless, homes for the homeless, assisting those left destitute by weather, war, disease or corporate raiding.

Now that you have imagined high purpose, turn on your TV. Almost any channel will do during prime time. The election ads you will see feature distortions, half-truths. Say candidate x voted against an ethics bill. Maybe that bill didn’t go far enough, maybe it had a rider raising or cutting taxes, or granting a presidential power or some pork barrel project wasting millions.

Any legislator or senator with a voting record has been in a bind at one time or another, having to choose the lessor of two evils according to his beliefs. Yet these unqualified sound bite ads are offered up to us as if they held facts revealed instead of obfuscated, and all backed by emotional music and images. This has cheapened, poisoned and polarized us. In the guise of free speech, this has enabled monied partisans on both sides to fool some of the people some of the time.... But the reality of any legislative situation is more complex than a two-minute ad. And the tasteless spleen-filled ads I see daily, more nearly resemble a mental mugging than the civic discourse they pretend to be. Don’t think I don’t mean your candidate.

At the paper where I work, letters to the editor attacking a candidate are not accepted for the last week before the election. Partisans may tout their favorite, but may not blast the opposition at the last minute when there is no time for a rebuttal. For television, a ban on negative ads beginning a month before the election would give us relief from the onslaught of tawdry distortion blaring endlessly from the tube right now. TURN OFF YOUR TELEVISION IN PROTEST.

Join me in my small bid to change this disgusting election curse. Help America toward civil discourse! Ban negative TV campaign ads! Or at least ban them in the last 30 days of the campaign, so last minute lies, later debunked, can’t tip elections.

---- Mar Walker, 10/28/2006

POST SCRIPT 2011: OVERTURN Citizens United!!!

Uncle Henry Torments Deacon Wayne Just A Little

2011-10-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

From the archives: a fictional vignette

Uncle Henry was crazy, that's what Deacon Wayne said. And Henry had a few odd ways about him, in a sublime sort of New England way.

When he worked on his truck, he’d take a brown paper bag and roll it up until it was about six inches deep. Then he'd jam it down over the top of his head to protected his hair from any oil that might drip down from the chaise. When he was done fiddling with the engine, he'd forget to take it off. He'd stroll up the back stairs and wander in through the kitchen doors to where Aunt May was just pouring tea for the Ladies Garden Guild. He'd stride in with that bag on his head, grab Aunt May and kiss her on the cheek, then help himself to the cookies she was serving up with tea. Aunt May didn't mind. But it got all over town that Henry wore a brown bag instead of a hat. It was that sort of thing that made folks wonder about him.

One day Deacon Wayne stopped by the house about a blueberry pie Aunt May was baking for the church bake sale. Henry came upstairs to see who had arrived for tea. Naturally he had a bag on his head. Deacon Wayne pointed at it and announced that it was prideful to be odd. Uncle Henry said Deacon Wayne was prideful enough for both of them since he was so proud of being humble. Deacon Wayne choked and tea came leaking out from between his lips unexpectedly. The Deacon sniffed and poked at his mouth with a paper napkin then blew his nose. Said he was doing the Lord's work and that he'd just be about it now if Henry and May didn't mind. He stuffed the napkin in his pocket, snatched up May's pie and headed for the door.

"If that fuzzy old man you call OUR father wanted us all the same - don't you think he could have managed it hisself?" Henry hollered as Deacon hurried away down the walk. Then he noticed the Deacon's hat sitting on the radiator under the window. He opened the door and tossed it across the lawn like a Frisbee. The Deacon scrambled after his hat with the pie balanced precariously, all the while praying out loud that the Lord should bless him and save him from Uncle Henry.

--- Mar Walker, 2006

My Dad's Truck & Carolann Solebello -wow!

2011-10-09T00:13:00.000-04:00

My Dad's Truck with Carolann Solebello (center)

Bill and Susan

Molten was melting in foot-tapping acoustic bliss this evening. My Dad's Truck was at it again and they were at the top of their game tonight. After a wild opening set of close harmonies by the band, their special guest Carolann Solebello of Red Molly fame, did a solo set. She has a new album out called Threshold and she played quite a few songs from it. She showed herself to be a fine musician and performer, as well as a lyrical and rather poetic songwriter. The final set included all these fine singers and players. What a night! By the way check out the MyDadsTruck.com where some great audio and video can be enjoyed.

Chris August at White Plains Library

2011-10-06T23:41:00.000-04:00

This past Wednesday, (10/5/2011) I headed over to the first Wed. poetry and Zorkslam event at the White Plains Library. I read in the open mic, one poem "Travel Ready." The highlight of the night for me was the feature Chris August, a teacher, and a touring poet from the D.C. area who has a wildly vigorous performance style. I really loved it. He gets his whole body involved, like a dance....

Some surprises always at an open mic

2011-09-30T19:09:00.003-04:00

It's hard to know what open mic to attend. Lately they are multiplying. This week I stayed close to home. I went to Molten Java's Thursday open mic which is run by J.D.Hull, shown iabove (on the right)

He opened the night as host, followed by Mr. Happy Cloud, Sean Ward who's quirky delivery is always jars my stodgy brain into writing poems. There was a rapper poet, a duet by some teen-agers, and a number of other acts. I did three originals this week (Blow me away, Love Makes You Free, and The Marigold Song). Then a young fella named Luke in a plaid shirt came to the mic. He sounded pretty good. JD closed the night and during his last set a woman from the audience who'd been working on a laptop all evening, on the spur of the moment asked for song she knew. (She is on the left in the photo at the top.) Then she got up and sang it and sounded great! She is shown above. Don't know any names this week. If you do, add them in a comment below.

POEM: The Situation

2011-09-30T07:20:00.000-04:00

The situation

1
Forget the map
I don't want your location
and I already know where I stand

2
No high heels
Table dancing is out for now
I won't break my neck for your amusement

3
I'm done auditioning
pouring out my depth
You say it's the best ever, but I don't look the part

4
Finally, polite subservience is over rated too
I no longer care about your orders
or your wishes, I can't be bothered
imagining you have my welfare at heart

5
Job applications?
I am too complicated, odd and old
for the human resource raptors to approve
and I can no longer hide my amusement
when contemplating where I'll be in 5 years

--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker

At Molten Java's mic: Nicholas Wells and group

2011-09-24T12:10:00.001-04:00

I was really weary Thursday night and decided to stay close to home. I headed for Molten Java in Bethel, and among other folks at the open mic, I heard a really tasty ensemble before I left at 9:30. The singer-songwriter (on the right) is Nicholas Wells. He has a good voice and interesting material, well put together. He also had two very good players with him, and though I don't know their names, they really added a wonderful intricacy to his material. The skillful violin was always weaving around in a very organic way and the base anchored everything, kept it honest. Nice work all of you.

Double Bill at Hideaway last Saturday: McMahon & Smith

2011-09-19T22:09:00.003-04:00

Saturday there was some good sound down at the Hideaway. Jeff Smith opened and Shannon McMahon ended the night. Both have strong, emotive voices that really communicate, as well as finesse at the guitar. I enjoyed the listening. The Guatemalan coffee was pretty good too. Both players have tunes online: http://shannonmcmahonmusic.com and http://myspace.com/jeffsmithexperience.com

Rev Bill, from Worchester way shares poems

2011-09-18T13:18:00.001-04:00

Last week "Rev." Bill MacMillan, a national slammer, poet and most especially a human being interested in what happens to fellow humans - featured at the Wednesday Night Poetry Series in Newtown, CT.

Until recently he was slammaster of the Worchester Poetry Slam. Among the many wonderful poems he presented in Newtown were two items I found particularly interesting for my own hair-brained reasons. The first was a poem called "Reentry (for Larry Walters)" which is about a guy dubbed Lawn Chair Larry, who apparently many years ago, launched himself to 16,000 feet while sitting in a lawn chair dangling from some hot air balloons. I'd never heard this true tale before. It really is an amazing story of human endeavor and eccentricity!

Besides Larry himself, lawn chairs are peculiar items, colorful and odd. When I lived in North Conway, I believe there was a summer parade featuring a precision marching troupe which slung aluminum lawn chairs around in maneuvers the way Marines might sling their weapons. Another point for lawn chairs. Amazing. I also have a poem titled "I Sing the Lawn Chair Electric" (see the poems page for a video of that one), though riding one airborne was certainly not what I had in mind when I wrote it....

The other item that knocked my socks off was a "last will" poem called "A Humble Request" MacMillan said he handed it to his attorney and said "Make it so...." It bans services and memorials in favor of a bon voyage party, requests the singing of the Monte Python song "Always Look on The Brighter Side," and the distribution of his ashes to everyone in tiny vials with a long list of interesting places they might be scattered. All excellent notions and quite similar to a half written will I have on hand. He carries it a bit farther though than I did and I really like where it ended up with a final request on how we should "be yourselves, be the people I knew and loved," and to move on and live on with joy.

Both poems can be found in his chapbook Searching for DB Cooper, which has many other gems. Check out his facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rev-Bill-MacMillan/169733419736107

My Dad's Truck had Molten Jumpin' Again

2011-09-13T21:20:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, September 10, I got to hear one of my favorite local groups. It's always a happy night when you get to hear My Dad's Truck, a Danbury based trio comprised of Susan Lang, Leif Smith, Bill Wisnowski. They play what they call "Free Range Acoustic," which is a wonderfully flavorful description of the smorgesborg of sound they offer. They have a great fan base of regulars who attend their gigs also.

"My Dad's Truck performs with rich harmonies, diverse instrumentation, and an improvisational spirit. All of the members play multiple instruments, which include percussion from around the world, bluegrass instruments, assorted reeds and horns, ukulele, accordion, guitarron (a fretless Mexican bass), acoustic-electric bass, mandolin, mandola, and, of course, guitar."

-- from their Facebook fan page

For 9/11 - Never forget.. to go on living

2011-09-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

(Video is from the http://www.youtube.com/user/JBransVideo Youtube channel.)

Never forget has become the patriotic watchword of the aftermath of 9/11. At this ten year anniversary I think we as a nation, desparately need to refine that idea.

If by never forgetting you mean - always having in your mind the fresh memory of trauma, loss and vulnerability then I say - now, after ten years, it's time to begin to forget - not our beloved lost, but our fear and anger.

But if by "never forget," you mean: take a lesson and go forward with courage, with prudent preparation, endure this all and rise to find joy once again and to live life freely as if no terrorist had ever touched you, then by all means - go forward, remembering, but growing, going on to a renewed life. I think a perfect example is the memorial on site in New York. There is incredible beauty, and ongoing life in the presence and movement of that cascading water pouring down into the footprint of ground zero. It's a fitting, beautiful tribute and remembrance of those lost.

Unexpected results

2011-09-06T11:10:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, you take a picture and get odd results. This photo, if you tip it landscape fashion, is actually of the side of a car with an ascending asphalt driveway, all bathed in sun and shadow. With a little tweaking, not much, the pavement turned to purple which contrasted nicely with the reflections of trees in the window. I like it much better tipped on its side - because it removes the visual cues and it makes it easier to see as an abstract composition.

Wishing Stone (Long Pond is Cold)

2011-09-04T12:16:00.008-04:00

Every so often I like to post a song of mine.
This one is available in two versions. One with just myself and the guitar and pictures of Maine via YouTube video. The other is via BandCamp and on this version Dickie Tilton is playing the electronic keys. He also did the digital recording - which at that time, was a brand new thing to do and the equipment was not readily available.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://madmarwalker.bandcamp.com/track/wishing-stone-long-pond-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Wishing Stone (Long Pond) by Mad Mar Walker&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Songwriters workshop & Open mic

2011-09-02T21:47:00.008-04:00

Jeff Smith (left), Richard Kind (right)

September 1st was another great night at the Hideaway Cafe in Newtown.

Jay

Besides host Michel Rae Driscoll's country tones, I heard a variety of acoustic acts, Jeff Smith, Mary Mitchell, Jay & Richard, Joe Vee (who does credible Roy Orbison covers!) and many others turned in some fine performances.

Earlier there was a songwriter's workshop with Daryl Gregory who suggested daily journaling as a source of ideas for songs.

I played three original songs: In Search of Our Dreams, Stranded in the Starlight & Love Makes You Free. And thanks Lou for the pic!

Confessions of a lapsed but rededicated practicer

2011-08-29T20:12:00.026-04:00

At the Joni Mitchell song night at a local poetry venue I played Carey and He Played Real Good For Free, and one of my own songs: Love Makes You Free.

The following night I went to the Hideaway Cafe which by the way GAVE AWAY CHOCOLATE COOKIE SAMPLES. Mickel Rae Driscoll who runs the open mic kindly asked if I was wanting to play. I was having nervous night and dreaded the idea, but as a discipline I went up anyway. I did Carey this time from memory and Love Makes You Free which I feel confident about and that went well I thought.

Anyway, back to my epiphany --- the acts I enjoyed the most, not only had authenticity but a very connected rhythmic structure. I knew right then, I had to go home and break out my metronome and get to work on smoothing out my guitar work and coordinating it with the voice. No more sliding by on this, because lack of preparedness makes me nervous!

Earthquake? Tree Sculptures?

2011-08-24T20:01:00.000-04:00

Smoke Jumper by Joseph Wheelwright

I was minding my own business yesterday, sitting at my desk/worktable dabbing a brush at a painting. And I heard this rattle. First I yelled at the cat. Then I thought there must be a large squirrel or two in the attic. Then I noticed the desk itself was in motion and I looked over at the back of my computer stand and the cords were swaying as if a strong wind was blowing past them.... I was sure a huge truck must be backing slowly in to the house without realizing it, so I ran outside to stop them before they knocked it off the foundation.

It was a beautiful bright day. The mailman was talking special delivery with the neighbors, no trucks in sight anywhere."Did you notice anything odd, just now," I asked."I think I heard a large truck go by," the mailman said, handing me the mail as he does everyday. hmmm. Of course, an earthquake (5.9 on the Richter Scale) had occurred just then, its epi-center in Mineral, VA.Today, I asked him, "How bout that large truck we heard yesterday?" He just laughed. "And to think it came all the way from Virginia!" he said. You just never know.

The photo shows a giant tree-trunk sculpture called Smoke Jumper by Joseph Wheelwright which stands outside of the Katonah Museum of Art. Mr. Wheelwright does amazing things with natural materials. Somehow this giant "ent-like" tree man looks like the earth shifted under his feet, and he has momentarily lost his footing. (Though as a smoke jumper, maybe he is walking between the flames or just touching down to earth. Still, he's perfect for an all natural earthquake post.)Five of these giants will remain on display at the museum until May of 2012. Remember the Ents? They were tree people from the Lord of the Rings. Anyway be sure to visit Joe Wheelwright's website and check out his amazing work. (http://joewheelwright.com)

Just back from the National Poetry Slam in Cambridge, MA

2011-08-15T10:18:00.025-04:00

What a great week at the National Poetry Slam which was in Cambridge/Boston this year. I heard some fine performances, brought home interesting points of view to ponder and a slew of photos of the architecture on the MIT campus.

Congratulations to Slam Nuba from Denver, the winning team in the finals. And thank you PSI for all the unsung work you do. And thank you Zork & Sweetie (of Bed vLog fame) and Jonathan Harris, my teammates at nationals, for making this wonderful field trip happen!!!

Though I have dabbled in performance poetry for many years, even being an alternate ten years ago, this is the first time I have actually gone to the National Slam as a competing poet.

Slammers are a crazy weird and wonderful family really. As an old grandma type, they were very kind to me. I like the tee-shirt design this year too.

For poems, I did Alternate Theories on Wednesday night at the Democracy Center, and Blood Brothers, an old saw from my 1998 chapbook Inverse Origami on Thursday night at the Cantab. I am glad to be back - I missed Henry Cort, my guitar. It was all poetry this week, and for logistical reasons Henry stayed at home.

Open mics - two fabulous acoustic venues

2011-07-25T18:33:00.010-04:00

1) Michel Rae Driscoll, a wonderful warm, country singer-songwriter, runs a Thursday open mic at the Hideaway Cafe in Newtown. There were quite a few folks I knew there. Every one was very supportive. On July 14, I only played one song. It went over way better than I had expected.

2) Chris Elliot, an accomplished singer-songwriter and guitarist with a great voice, runs Tuesday Night Open Mic, a great open mic at 59 Bank Street, in New Milford. I had more callouss by this time (July 19) so I played two songs. Everyone was so supportive. I always do better than I think I am going to. (I found out later I won the open mic gift certificate. a nice surprise)

Every time I stop playing for a while it feels like I have forgotten everything. I didn't even have callouses when I started up again in the beginning of the month. Though I feel I have forgotten, I haven't. And though I seem to dread the act of performing now, once I start, I just enjoy it so much, and I get such great comments.

In the old days, my forte as a singer-songwriter had been putting emotion and eccentric personality in the music. I used to be very comfortable and confident. I knew I had meaningful tales to share and people seemed to really get something out of it.

But in classical singing, technique is king. You are conforming to an ideal of interpretation in a long line of those that came before you and you are always being judged against this ideal.

Anyway I ended up with 15 years of singer-songwriting confidence drained out of me, by my decade in classical just by being out there and working professionally in a highly politicized arena where all participants and much of the audience is constantly judging, holding to some mythical perfection. Acoustic/Folk Open mics are different. You offer a song, sing it with heart and it is appreciated for what it is, no matter how old or odd you are.

I've gone back to my first performance art, and I'm loving it.

Do you drive with a phone in your hand? STOP IT!

2011-07-17T17:30:00.000-04:00

I was followed today by a large man in LARGE silver Ford Truck - the kind that sits way up high - a 150 or something like that. And he had a phone in his right hand and was clearly thumb typing as he drove.Frankly I was terrified. I have twice been rear-ended - once by a huge red pickup and once by a guy hurtling along around 40mph in a magenta jeep, while talking on his phone.IF you drive with a phone in hand ask yourself - is this message so important that it's worth a life? OR worth a life of pain for someone ELSE, after getting serious neck injury when you hit them???? Or worth a huge lawsuit and losing your license? Frankly there is NO MESSAGE THAT IS THAT IMPORTANT.So put down your damn phone and drive.

Paintings: Spacious No 1 & 2

2011-06-20T06:51:00.000-04:00

Though I have put up Spacious No 3 - I had not written about Spacious 1 & 2 yet. With the caveat that the color is a little off in these photos, here they are:

--- Spacious No. 1 ---

....

--- Spacious No. 2 ---

Both of the these paintings had more garish beginnings than is apparent here. They both hung for years in the house before I finally knew what to do with them... Spacious No 1 on the left, had green and purple clouds that looked for all the world like intestines. And that is what bothered me about it. Spacious No 2 had a garish sunset, and I do mean garish. Ultimately I went for a sense of spaciousness over jumpy colors that I didn't think worked well.....

The link to a post on Spacious No 3: http://puzzleddragon.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/painting-spacious-no-3/

In era of caller-ID, are phone polls valid?

2011-06-16T10:52:00.000-04:00

In our house, we don't pickup calls that say "Political Call" "Unknown caller" "no name" or any variant of customer, services, marketing or anything that isn't someone's name or a company we know is local.

We do not pick up, so our opinion is never counted in the know-it-all polls from Quinipiac and other groups who officiously announce what Connecticut Voters want.

I am guessing the era of caller ID we are not alone in this foible. Frankly no one that I know picks up the phone unless they know who is on the other end. I think it's just a handful of the foolish and/or technically challenged who actually answer pollsters' calls.

I wonder if the polls are often wrong - I mean how would we know?. Of course would equal numbers of opposing view holders exist in the group that refuses to pickup or in the group that consistently answers? I think it is possible that the people MOST likely to vote are LEAST likely to pickup calls from unknown groups, and are also most unlikely to answer questions strangers pose, if they did pick up! SO - In the era of caller ID and cell phones - is the classic telephone opinion poll an acurrate measure of public opinion?

And I am so sick of hearing politicians proclaim that this or that is not what "The American People" want. As if we were all alike. As if they really knew -

Governor Malloy, you are doing a great job. Thank you. Glad I voted for you.

Fiddling with new program

2011-05-17T09:35:00.000-04:00

I have been fiddling with a new program from the mac app store. It's called Paintr and it is fairly inexpense on sale for $7.99. This is my first experiment with the program. Just fiddling. I will be using this to sign my work digitally in the future as picnik has proved ahh, unreliable.

Unexpected sights: wild mix & match

2011-05-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

The other day, a drab day, I saw a wonderful eccentric sight in the grocery store, that cheered me immeasureably. It was like I had moved to some Caribbean island nation on perpetual vacation. Or as if the sun had suddenly emerged from deep fog. What I saw, was a pre-occupied grey haired gentleman (or perhaps rascal) with a beard and sandals who was sporting a wild wild shirt. I loved the sight so much I had to take a picture, though I took pains to not show his face to preserve his privacy. Thank you so much dear sir, you made my day so much better. I left the store humming.

Poetry at New Britain's Museum of American Art

2011-04-20T22:07:00.000-04:00

On April 17th, 2011, twenty poets read poems on paintings that were hanging at the Museum of American Art in New Britain. The poems were all written specifically for painting the museum had on display. Behind the podium was a large slide show of the paintings - so that as the poet read, the listeners could see the painting that inspired the poem.

This extravaganza was dreamed up and arranged by Colin Haskins (the CT Beat Festival & The Free Poets Collective) in cahoots with the very congenial museum staff. Particulars of the reading were fussed with by a few busy ladies from the free poets collective. I will be adding a few shots the readers are below, in the grainy manor of my phone.I wrote a poem for the occasion on a Georgia O'Keeffe painting in the museum's collection, that I had never seen before - of New York and East River, a surprising subject for O'Keeffe.

It was a wonderful event, really wonderful and I got a great poem out of it.....

April Fools Poem: "Rest Stop"

2011-04-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

A Poem for April Fools Day.

Rest stop

Pavement, road gravel, dirt dry throat

heavy lids, dizzy routine.A hunger and thirst to see,
purple hills, a thread of river, the spit of a falls,

the grandmother's smile, a wink, a grin,

a future, another 24, another ten,

breath into, breath, out of .... breathe.

Get up, start up, try again

Memorial Concert for Sergei Vladimiroff, pianist, woodsman, grandpa

2011-03-24T16:59:00.003-04:00

This post was updated on April 7, and April 12, 2011.

A musical tribute and celebration of the life of Sergei Vladimiroff of Brooklyn NY took place at the Valley Presbyterian Church in Brookfield CT on Saturday, March 26.

Players included Natalya Shamis (violin), Bonnie Aher (violin), Zarchary Paranyuk (cello), Maragrita Nuller (piano), soprano Patricia Hulber, and Sergei's son Maxim (piano). The program, which was played with great skill and deep feeling, included Tchaikovsky's prelude "Autumn Song" Opus 37, "If we live in the spirit" by Clement W Barker, the Largo from the Sonata in C Minor (BWV 1017) by J.S. Bach, two Rachmaninoff works "Moment Musical" Op 16 #1 and "Daisies" Op 38 #3 and finally Sonata for violin and piano in F minor by Eugene Ysaye.

In addition Sergei's two grandsons dedicated performances to their gandpa - Damian on guitar and Luca on piano - both displaying the musicality and feeling of fine beginning musicians. During the Remembrances many spoke of their fond memories of Sergei including Tatyana his wife, with Max translating from the Russian. Sergei "would have clapped very loudly," one of his grandsons said of the performances.

Concert pianist, woodsman, showman, grandfather - Sergei died in the midst of living - of a sudden heart attack while riding the city subway on his way to the beach on March 15, 2011. He was well known in this area as a concert pianist, having performed at the Danbury Music Center on quite a few occassions. For the past ten years he served as organist at First Church of Christ Scientist Katonah.

The official bio:

A native of Klintzi (Ukraine) Sergei Vladimiroff spent his childhood in Saratov, a major port on the Volga river. He began studying piano with his mother, and later became a pupil of Dmitri Serov. While a student at the Saratov Conservatory of Music, he met Tatyana, who at that time was attending Saratov State University. The two of them married in 1962, and a few years later moved to Sochi, a resort town on the Black Sea coast. Sergei worked as a pianist in the local Philharmonic Society, and Tatyana became a TV commentator and producer. They had two sons, Maxim and Frol. During the last decade of his life, Sergei worked as a ballet accompanist at the Steffi Nossen School of Dance in White Plains, NY, and served as an organist at the First Church of Christ Scientist in Katonah, NY. He gave a number of solo piano recitals at different venues, including the Danbury Music Centre and the Valley Presbyterian Church.

He is survived by his wife Tatyana, two sons, composer Maxim Vladimiroff (and his wife Leisa), of Brookfield, CT and Frol Vladimiroff of Sochi, Russia, and two grand sons Damian and Luca.

Besides his musical endeavors, Sergei was an avid woodsman who loved life, loved to keep moving. He enjoyed leading his grandsons on hikes though the woods, and also taking extended hunting expeditions to wilderness areas. "His hunting trips could fill up a whole chapter," his son Maxim said this week. "Everything he did, he did with great enthusiasm. He will be greatly missed."

The 70 minutes from memory recital Sergei gave on his 70th birthday with photos.

A News Times review of Sergei's All-Russian-Composers program from Oct 2008

Read about a joint concert with Sergei and Maxim

A Review of an All Chopin program Sergei played in 2007

Painting: Anyone

2011-03-23T10:32:00.000-04:00

This is my 501th post on this blog. Woohoo!

Humans hold many kinds of commonality - via inheritance as well as history. We are connected over centuries by the tranmission of handed down culture as well as hand me down genes. We have a common animal nature and energy that expresses itself in countless individual ways. We are many and one. Any one.

The materials here are watercolor pencil and gesso on paper.

Walking away from religious belief - my story

2011-03-21T12:26:00.000-04:00

I grew up as a quasi- Episcopalian, sang in the junior choir. When I was 14, I was invited by a classmate to a baptist vacation bible school where I got “SAVED” i.e. born again as they say. I was an over-imaginative and socially alienated teen, happy to hear somebody loved me.... And when I say over imaginative, I was the sort, who as a child of three or four years old, had conversations with an imaginary species of “pookiebell,” a sort of small fairy creature that tended the ferns. It wasn't so much delusion as a strong creative streak that needed guidance.

In my teenage loneliness I conjured a deep emotional connection to Jesus and to god as I imagined their love for me. And this was the attraction. I started going to a baptist church, and felt accepted there, and began writing christian folk songs. This belief conveniently kept me from having to make the usual teenage decisions about sex and drugs, gave me a ready-made group of people who were supposed to care about me and another far more authoritative imaginary presence to talk to. After high school, I went to Philadelphia College of Bible as a music student. (Now it’s called Philadelphia Biblical University.)

The first chink in the old armor came one day when I was out passing out "Jesus Saves" booklets in Rittenhouse Square. I met a Hindu man and we spent some three and a half hours trying to convert each other.. My mind churned. We couldn't both be right, one of us had to be wrong, I thought. But he was every bit as sincere and devout as I was, knew his own holy books just as well...

The summer I got a job as a camp counselor at a religious “ranch” I was brought up short again when a fellow counselor told all the children that their mommies and daddies would burn in hell unless they came to believe. The terrible anguish of these children, who assumed the words of that counselor to be literal, immediate truth - starkly framed the barbarism inherent in the concept of hell. It was the beginning of the end of fundamental evangelical Christianity for me. I no longer could believe in this version of god. Despite this, I returned to college in the fall - I needed to figure out what to do instead, how to change direction.

After one more year (three total) at bible collage, going through the motions, trying to understand - I dropped out and became an avid non-christian, interested in whatever I could read about religion(s). For many years I told the census takers I was a pantheist, a pagan, a heathen. For a short while I I was into a sort of new age mumbo-jumboism & reincarnation, and then dabbled in home-styled American buddhism & insight meditation. My religious opinions were further fleshed out by six years working for churches as a mezzo-soprano, including four years working for a Roman catholic church. I was a non-christian, quasi-atheist at the time, and my immediate musical bosses knew it.

Over the years I have done a lot of thinking about religion and it's creator - the human mind. At the core of each religion, there is always a set of people called mystics. When you read about their experiences they are remarkably similar even in religions that call each other heretics and infidels. I think the similarity is because a “mystical experience” is a brain-state that can happen to anyone who's brain chemistry gets bent in a particular way. It is a state accessible through mediation practice BUT it is a physical phenomenon, not a revelation of a god or gods and not a product of any supernatural process. Religious states of communion, thankfulness or “oneness” that often accompany prayer or meditation are also brain-based and beautiful even apart the common religious labels applied to them. They are natural states of the human brain.

Apparently, I have a atheistic and naturalistic view which excludes divinities as well as the supernatural.. Naturalists see no evidence for the supernatural, and no need for it either as all things, both interior and exterior, arise from the natural physical world. I am also a secular humanist. Secular humanists think that human beings should, without a god or a religion, try to live the best life they can using the power of reason to realize their unique abilities and thereby contribute to the good of society, mankind in general and to the life and history of the planet.

- Mar Walker

Books: A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemmingway

2011-03-17T15:55:00.001-04:00

Seared carp with butter and brandy

If Earnest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast is about surface, then the surface in question would surely be a well-appointed dinner table. While obsessing in detail over the delights of Parisian food and liquor, Hemingway casually carves up both friends and acquaintances. They are just another course, really, in this buffet view of life in Paris. However, like the smooth surface of soup in a tureen, this work's pleasant reflectivity conceals a few lumps. Hemingway uses careful manipulation to make readers think well of Hemingway even while he is poking at other writers. He skillfully brags about his own character in the manner of a good novelist, by showing rather than telling. He shows us, by his own example that what writers say is not to be trusted, nor taken at face value, that surface does not equal truth.

Hemingway spends some 16 pages openly skewering Gertrude Stein. He says her companion was frightening, that Stein was badly dressed, that she craved public recognition for her work but couldn't be bothered revising it, that she was repetitious and lazy, that she prattled endlessly, that she badmouthed any writer who had not already spoken well of her work, that she was so competitive she should couldn't bear to hear about acclaimed writers, that she was an egoist, that she resorted to “dirty easy labels” for others. After thus dispatching “Miss Stein” handily, Hemingway tries to leave the reader with a good impression of himself. The chapter ends as he spends a part of a very long sentence recalling a speech she had made defending one of the painters. After trashing her for 16 pages, he vows to “serve her and see she gets justice for the good work she has done." Then Hemingway quotes himself in a conversation with his wife: “You know, Gertude is nice, anyway,” he says. Gee, what a magnanimous, forgiving, always-fair kinda guy.

In the chapter “Shakespeare and Company” Hemingway presents himself as someone who craves books, yet who has enough integrity that he would worry about getting right back that afternoon to pay. In the chapter “Hunger was Good Discipline” he shows us Hemingway, a man who never complains and who would rather learn the benefits of hunger than borrow money, even to eat. Of course later on, we see that in truth he is a betting man, one who would take money he'd collected for charity purposes to help a fellow writer, and lose it betting on crooked races.

He uses the same strategy with regard to marital fidelity. He presents himself as Hemingway the loving husband in several stories. In one, the painter Pacin offers him one of his beautiful models. “Do you want to bang her?” he asks, “She needs it” but dear good Hemingway goes home to his “legitime." Yet, towards the end of the book he offhandedly talks for a page about how complicated it is to have a mistress and a wife.

He implies that he is a trusting man and a gentleman in the chapter on “Ford Madox Ford and the Devil's Disciple.” Hemingway shows himself inwardly irritated and disgusted with Ford, yet outwardly polite through Ford's “cutting” of Hilaire Belloc, and the long discussion of who is a gentleman. Though Ford insists Hemingway would only possibly be considered a gentleman in Italy, in the end we see he is a propagator of falsities, and has passed off the devil's disciple as a poet. Hemingway humbly apologizes for passing on this misinformation to someone else. Maybe he is a gentleman after, all a reader might conclude.

Hemingway's Paris memoir was his lush answer to Stein's oddly stark and chatty book, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas which tells everything and shows little. While his work is ostensibly a memoir, it is interesting to note that the following disclaimer appears on the copyright page of the Touchstone edition of A Moveable Feast “This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.” Both works skip across the surface of life in Paris like stones across the Seine. Both feature multiple episodes of dining, of leaving and returning to Paris, of things not said.

However, any writer almost always has a reason for including a vignette about the main character. Hemingway is a clever man and a skilled storyteller who is essentially telling his story his way. He knows very well that things stated plainly are not nearly as memorable things deduced from stories and dialog. This is the pattern in A Moveable Feast. He openly makes unfriendly judgments about other writers, but stays the likable protagonist by imbuing himself with noble qualities implied through action and dialog. When joining Hemingway's moveable feast, - let “Tatie” pick the restaurant; you can trust him to order something delicious, but be sure - with Tatie and every writer - to examine the subtext with a skeptical eye.

- Mar Walker

written 12 October 2003

Poem: Unmask (from Inverse Origami)

2011-03-08T11:17:00.000-05:00

Unmask

the fall of your soft eyes,
so suddenly slumped and weary.

This weight,
a whisper,
a formless something
hinted at.

I have stepped
unthinking around it,
my words,
waxed brick
brittle and waterproof.

Unmask,
gather your chaos
and conjure the thing itself by alchemy:

sweetness
from the tin-acid taste of emptiness.

------------------------

I just realized I still have a lot of work left to do as I have only half of my chapbook, Inverse Origami online. This this is the 13th poem in the book and it appears on page 19. After this one, I have 17 more to put online.

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
by Mar (Mistryel) Walker
Puzzled Dragon Press, 1998

the drawing was not a part of my book. it's on paper but this is a digitized version

Painting: North Country Scene

2011-03-07T05:11:00.000-05:00

This scene was inspired by my years in Maine and New Hampshire. I started painting this when I lived over a junk store in Cornish. I think now, finally, it's done. It's oil on an 8 x 10 canvas board. Wrong it's actually on 9 x 12 canvas board. I was close.

Photo: The Shattering

2011-03-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

Another everyday item has deteriorated into an odd state due to a lack of house-keeping will. The fractal pattern is formed by cracks in dried cocoa on the bottom of a white mug. A few days after I drank the cocoa, I came across the mug, carried it to the sink and looked down inside it, thought wow, gotta take a picture of that. I obscured the cup rim and edge with the vignette effect in iPhoto.

Rifkin: Human nature, the fate of civilization

2011-02-19T14:39:00.000-05:00

There are ideas here that will challenge you, challenge us all. If you are a thinking person, and have a little time, watch this video.

Painting: Spacious No. 3: The Dry Lands

2011-02-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

These mountains, rising in the distance under an expanse of sky, began their existence looking like scenery on the planet MARS. The underpainting I used for this oil-on-canvas-board scene was cadmium red. You can see it clearly in the stage on the right. The main shapes of the mountains and the road line were immediately laid in with a soft cloth. I learned this technique when I went to a SCANart.org demonstration where a painter used it to build a flower painting. The red was hard to give up though, so this painting ended up as a Southwestern sort of scene. I thought the colors were off, but a friend who'd lived out west told me this is how the mountains look at a certain time of year. I'm not positive that I'm through with it. I have terrible urges to add items to the foreground such as a rusty pickup, a gates, an oil derek, a wagon wheel, an OKeefe-eske skull, or an antique gas pump, or aburro, etc. etc - all the usual Western sterio-typical items. I am trying to resist this urge.

One thing I like about this painting is a funny effect the sky has in different light. Sometimes the clouds almost seem to have a depth, I think from the layering of blue and white that I used. Sometimes it looks like it must be raining over the mountains. Sometimes it looks like dusk, and there is a city on the other side of the mountains - giving off a glow. It's quite odd. And I am not sure if I could reproduce it.

It occurs to me that I have not posted Spacious No 2, nor Spacious No 1 - so I guess I am ahead of myself somehow.

Painting: The Riptide Within aka Brain Chemistry

2011-02-01T11:59:00.000-05:00

UPDATED WITH NEWER VERSION OF THE PAINTING in Feb 2011

A human being, torn in multiple directions, struggles but is unable to break free! To me this is a visual representation of how I felt the greater portion of my early adult life: caught in a subtext of hormonal machenations, fighting overwhelming emotions. It's inspired by the mood swings of my youth... So much of what we are is about brain chemistry and DNA. Studies of identical twins separated at birth are quite bewildering. Some marry women with the same first name and buy the same style of eyeglasses. Yet nurture and experience alter the brain as well, alter our paths. The brain, once thought immutable rewires itself, its chemistry can change. So much is still unknown... This is an oil painting on canvas board. It was begun around 1990 and finished late last year.

PAINTING: The Glaring Irregularity again

2011-01-20T07:35:00.000-05:00

Update Mar. 9, 2011 This painting drives me to drink well, coffee.

VOLCANO PIC CHANGES AGAIN!! And Again! And Again. And Again.

Updated Jan 20, 2011 --> "The Glaring Irregularity!" This painting has gone from just odd, with a Greek classically clad family standing at an angle, to bizarrely dragonesque, to google earth meets black velvet, to Google earth meets VanGoh to lava spill in candyland. At this point it is all about undulation, oscillation, periodicity somehow. Everything comes in waves in this pic now. Although I like this version in someways, I miss the very first version with all the crazy eccentric lava. Sigh. Let's give it a few days and see....

I am beginning to understand something. I need to preserve the eccentricities somehow, but in a way that serves the overall composition. I am most likely to use this cronic revisionism when I don't have an overall composition in mind at the start of the painting. Scroll down for pervious versions.

PREVIOUS UPDATE -- I have altered this so many freaking times and still I am not statisfied with this painting. I would like to be able to throw it out. But I just can't. I need to nail it down in some way that pleases me for more than five minutes. But in the night version here, the smoke bothers me. I want something to unify the composition. ( I think because of the previous tentacles picture it became parallel lines.. hmmm.)

After seeing pictures and videos of Mr Etna erupting in Italy - I just had to revise this picture!!! MORE RED!!! that's what Eli Cleary told me. Okay I am not yet done with it..... and of course I am nuts. I just can't seem to stop. I actually showed the second to last version of this. But it still bothered me. Someone said the lava looked like a dragon. And I could see it didn't follow the land contures but seemed vertical somehow. SO here is yet another incarnation of the same canvas. I might change the title too.

PREVIOUS UPDATE: Below is the version that I showed at Artwell in 2010: Between The Darkness and The Deep. What promoted me to change that one is I couldn't get the lava to lie down on the landscape.. hmmm. I don't know what's come over me, painting a semi-readable landscape. My usual fair is oddities like the very first version at the bottom .

I like the early eccentric version a lot. It is a completely different painting that I wish I still had! Apparantly I am painting the eccentricity right out them I think and I don't know why! I seem to be going though a pseudo reality phase.... It might have to do with my new reading glasses. I had quite a stigmatism in the left eye which some new glasses correct. When I first used them, every thing on the right seemed bigger than it should. In the original version, what prompted me to begin changing things was I could figure out what the people were standing on. Then I couldn't figure out where the horizon was since the Island was tilted. Probably due my stigmatism. I guess my brain had learned to compensate..... To the left is the lava that looked like a dragon. To the right is my favorite version:

Painting: Cold Quiet Tranquil

2011-01-15T17:21:00.000-05:00

There is a feeling I get when I look out the window at night and snow is falling, relentless and silent. When my dog Oggi was alive. we often took late walks in falling snow. Sometimes I still do. In the dark snow, I feel expansively alert and connected to everything, yet also filled with a strange sense of deep peace. For a few years I lived in Maine, so I have a passing acquaintance with the desolate beauty of winter in the north country. This is an older style landscape, a bit hallmark for my taste. It belongs to my mom who asked me recently "Is there ever a painting of yours that you are actually finished with?"

When I look at it now, I feel that same peaceful sense as when I look out the window in a quiet spell of falling snow .... So yes, I think it is done. It's oil on 8x10 canvas board.

Painting: Busy No. 2 - Tentacles

2011-01-06T04:27:00.000-05:00

In darkness - who knows what is waving its tentacles frantically about? This is a sort of an obsessive vision. Once I started I couldn't let it go. The style began with a previous work Cat Dreams, which is more readable, and notches that style it to a frantic, uncomfortable rush. It's oil on canvas board. Like the previous bit "In the Museum" I am not expecting a lot of folks will like it. But some how I needed to make it anyway. Below are earlier stages of the work where I envisioned the lines as highways, even added cars. Some may prefer these but I favor the end result at the right.

In The Museum: on our relationship to art

2011-01-05T07:17:00.000-05:00

Our relationship to "art" (visual, literary, musical, theatrical etc) is complex, if we have one that is. Some don't ever look . If they did they might be surprised and find they relate to at least some of what they see. Is there possibility for us in works of art? A vision of our humanity of our world of beauty or ugliness? Is there a nobility we aspired to but didn't realize? A tarnished part we hide from everyone? Are we more alive after facing and acknowledging these odd truths about ourselves? Just asking questions.

This is the first of a batch of works I've finished recently but have not yet posted. This is an odd one. It's oil on canvas board. Below is a very rough sketch of mine on which it is based, though it differs considerably from the sketch. As stated, the visual metaphor here are about our interaction with art our relationship to art.

- Mar Walker

2010: art shows R us

2010-12-31T05:26:00.000-05:00

In the beginning of 2010 I wrote - "Let is be a year of music!" Instead for me 2010 was a year of Art. It was the first time in decades I showed my artwork in a Gallery.

,First I showed a drawing called Aspects of the Self one drawing at the Frieght Street Gallery during their May Day Festival show: This was an amazing thing. No one had seen my work, except digitally, in years!

Later in May I showed one of my polymer faces during the Artwell Rocks show in Torrington. I was on a roll whoohoo! The work was called "The British Invasion: 40 Years Later."

During the summer, at the request of Victoria Munoz, I brought three works to hang at Freight Street during one of her poetry Salons there. I brought my Dancing Poems collage, Hair's on Fire (an oil pastel) and Water & Fire, a digital painting.

For Artwell's Landscape and Still Life in Septemeber, I brought three works I had finished recently, all oil paintings on canvas board: Between the Darkness and the Deep, Rural Free Delivery, and River of Sky.

I created a special work for Artwell's DaDa show in November. New Era: the Eagle Egg Shell Breaks, and a found art peice called congress which consisted of twisted spring wires from an old couch. It's been a good year!

In honor of the eclipse: Moon Madness Strikes

2010-12-21T04:47:00.000-05:00

In honor of the eclipse: This column appeared years and years ago in the Ridgefield Press, back when I was a reporter there .

.

Moon Madness Strikes Reporter

by Mar Walker

Some Ridgfielders had a perfect view of last Sunday's lunar eclipse.

``Did you watch the eclipse?'' I kept asking friends expectantly.

``Too cold.''

``Too late at night.''

``Saw one last year.''

Like many other disinterested parties around town, I've always figured the stars and the planets could carry on perfectly well without me. And what I had planned for this particular event was to skip the whole thing and stay in bed.

Fortunately I was awake at midnight. On impulse, I put on some shoes and threw a coat over my pajamas. I was curious I guess, and it seems I've been cheating myself all these years. It's like the Grand Canyon was right off the porch and I'd never even looked.

Out the back door I went at a little past midnight. There was a bite out of the full moon already, just a little nibble really. It was a perfect night, utterly clear. The bright moon washed the night sky to medium grey and crisscrossed the yard with shadows. Bare trees swayed in parallel. Black limbs juggled stars in leafless hands like fussy husbands rearranging Christmas lights.

And of course there was music - the brook out back, full from the day's rain, murmured on its way to the Norwalk River. Over the scuttling of leaves and over the wistful sweetness of wind chimes on the back porch, ever so slowly, the round silhouette of Earth stretched over the moon.

As moonlight dimmed, starlight and darkness heightened. I felt cold and alive, shifting weight from one foot to the other, craning my neck like some fat bird in a courtship dance as I stared straight up.

My cat wailed at the backdoor to come out and as I turned, momentarily facing further North, I saw two bright shooting stars, one right after the other. The very long, very bright trails streaked down and I imagined I could hear the sizzle of air as they fell.

A little numb now, I ran into the kitchen and put on water for tea. I wrapped a scarf around my neck and rummaged around for a pair of binoculars. Leaving the tea to steep I went back outside.

What a revelation - with the binoculars I could make out the dark spots on the crescent of moon still showing. I studied a pale smudge to the lower right of the moon and found a cluster of stars. I focused on stars and found where I thought I saw one or two, there were entire flocks of stars drowned out by ambient light.

Alone under such surprising immensity, many thoughts came. About the fear this ancient sky-dance had once inspired. Once, before there were electric lights and television, it must have been a natural thing for men and woman to study the night sky, feeling its beauty, dwarfed by its enormity.

Now we hold nightly vigils before the TV's glitzy banality - consumer culture flashing across an 22 inch screen. What a contrast in pacing and depth when compared to an eclipse. Our attention span is jaded by 30 second commercials. Our awe is reserved for special effects.

Instead of stepping outside and experiencing nature firsthand, we watch the highlights, rebroadcast to us as we sit on comfortable couches in warm living rooms. I know that I myself am like that. Most people I know are too.

A sudden noise caught my attention as a bright light appeared moving quickly along from the direction of New York. In the binoculars, red and white lights flanked the slender shadow of a jet. As it drew closer, low in the sky, I could see the glow of its engines spewing eerie white smoke, twin rockets in the dark. The sky is amazing and despite our drawbacks, we and our technologies are amazing too.

At one thirty a.m., when the moon had dimmed to a glimmer, and my hands had grown numb holding the metal glasses, I went in and drank my mint tea and rubbed my neck. I found if I lay flat on the floor beneath the kitchen window, body stretched under the table, I could see the moon easily without having to twist my neck. Lying on linoleum, bathed in the emerging moon, I fell asleep.

Drawing with markers: An odd little sheep

2010-12-13T07:57:00.000-05:00

Okay I admit this slightly silly, though it's fun. It's something I drew with markers when I was in college. Of course that was in the stoneage! HAHAHA, I used it recently on an All rights reserved notice on my Picasa web slideshows. More on that later.

I think it represents me - sort of odd but colorful in a squirrelly kind of way! hahaha! though these days I am no sheep to be herded. I am more the puzzled dragon, fire contained within, ready when the situation calls for it.

Painting: one last tweak on Blue Velvet - the cat

2010-11-27T23:10:00.000-05:00

What did I change in this painting? Yes! The cat didn't fit. No cat I have ever known would sit with its back to two persons as they approached it outside. Most cats would skitishly prepare to run somehow, then look back to see if they were still approaching, stopping if the people involved made a friendly noise. With everything else so delicately poised, it seemed wrong to me to have the cat so solid and seated. So I fixed it. The lines work better now as well with the cat's tail leading to the arm, leading to the faces... Note the cat above and the cat in the version below.

The original drawing was called Bad Date as I mentioned in an earlier post. As you can see, it was energetic and threatening. Needless to say, the feeling of this painting is a gentle one, and does not follow the sketch. See my earlier post for commentary on that change.

Attack of the pie brigade

2010-11-26T06:47:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving goes from one extreem to another. There might be 35 people or just one. All you need is a semblence of a meal eaten with appreciation.

In 2007 and 2008, my mom and I broke with tradition and went to a local diner for our meal. This year my cousin who had moved to PA has moved back here, and one of my mothers sisters has moved back from Florida. My cousin's sons and their families were not visiting this year. (One is overseas, the other is on the West Coast.) So it was a small crowd and a meal featuring some high fat but really delicious food. Our gathering including five actual relatives and three folks the cousins invited who are not relatives. One of them is Chef Johnny who deboned the bird and stuffed it with chestnut sausage stuffing. My cousin's husband basted it with brandy and cooked it on a grill outside. Oh my. Chef Johnny spiced up mashed sweet potatoes and doused green-beans with almonds and amaretto. My family always fears there will not be enough, and so there is always WAY too much. When one is trying to avoid cholesterol - it seems almost an assault to sit with a mousse pie to your left, cream pie to your right, etc etc. The following video is an account of dessert.

Going WAY back here - my first oil painting

2010-11-20T14:24:00.000-05:00

I have always been a fan of brown in all its zillion permutations with raw and burnt umbers and siennas rich as compost.

This is my first oil painting. This was painted during a Painting I class with Robert Alberetti at Western CT State U - decades ago. The actual painting mildewed and was tossed out. All I have is this rather blurry snapshot - which I scanned into the computer and digitally signed in Picnic. The wonderful thing about Mr. Alberetti's still life setups was that the objects were all so beautiful and compatible. My rendering of them is forgettable but forgivable considering it's a first attempt.

P.S - the blurry snapshot does it a service in my opinion, i.e. it looks nicer in the photo.

Inspiring pastel demo with Clayton Buchanan

2010-11-15T14:44:00.000-05:00

Pastel artist Clayton Buchanan gave a local workshop last week. Wow. Now, first I have to say that I don't work with soft pastels much or ever. I work with oil paint and oil pastels, occasionally watercolors, collage - yadayada. But the way this artist talked about what he was doing, and the way he was doing it shed light for me on the process of "seeing." Check out his website, by the way - his finished works are gorgeous.

His method was at first baffling. He'd stare at his subject, then stare at his chalks. (a familiar enough process). He'd suddenly pickup one and make a little mark here or there on the paper. At first the results didn't seem to make much sense or form a picture. It was just little squiggles or patches of color. But after a while the subject emerged from the chaos of color into a recognizable and accurate picture. During the process a roomful of 30 people sat silently watching for an hour and a half. There was a ten minute break, and an occasional question shot out by onlookers - but mostly these folks, all artists, watched intently. And it was worth the wait! He also had two great handouts about using pastels and using them for portraits. The event was put on by SCAN.

Mr. Buchanan said we should try to see our compositions in terms of "plains of light and shadow," and to try and see those plains in terms of color rather than value. That really hit home for me. I am currently working on a bunch of paintings. One in particular features two men sitting on a bench in the early sunlight. I am trying to apply these ideas: "Plains of light an shadow" and color rather than value . I think these ideas will allow me to move forward with this particular picture in a different way than before.

Melody with slide show

2010-11-06T16:54:00.000-04:00

This is a tranquil melody or that is how I envisioned it.

While brandishing a set of wind chimes and ringing them occassionally, I improvised this melody to a video of my cat. When I watched it afterwards, the tune didn't really fit the pictures. So I took some old stained glass-like digital works I had made years ago (most of them in MS Paint) and strung them together with iMoive effects. The slides overlap which makes new colors as one fades into a another. The last slide is a low res pic of a painting of mine. Hope you like it. I recorded the sound directly onto a macbook in iMovie.

Drawing: the groper

2010-11-05T18:27:00.000-04:00

This is an old sketch. I like it though. He is surely a groper - but she doesn't seem to mind and clings to him as they slide. I made the jacket rather too splashy and check out the blue suede shoes! Have always had a visual fascination for dancers of various kinds. There are quite a few sketches of bodies in motion here on the blog.

I was bummed earlier because someone was on the blog looking at the drawing category and I realize only 5 old drawings were properly categorized. There are actually 24 plus drawings on this blog... I have fixed it and the drawing category now calls up everything it should.

Painting: Rural Free Delivery

2010-11-03T05:26:00.000-04:00

This is an oil painting on a small canvas board. This painting hung around for a year because I couldn't figure out how to finish it.

Below are earlier versions of it. I have this debate with every picture: when do I stop? Things are lost and others gained. Perhaps I am over painting them.

Painting: Busy No 1 - Cat Dreams, oil on canvas board

2010-11-01T16:16:00.000-04:00

Cats are busy when they're awake, and who knows what they dream about. Maybe little birds or mice running, or leaves skittering on the wind? This painting is busy too, with color and movement of dots. I don't know why. Just a fancy I had I guess.