Ship's Lantern

(click on photo to see the detail)

This photo was taken at the Sandwich Glass Company museum in Sandwich, MA, on Cape Cod. I don't know if this museum still exists, but I hope so. The museum presents glass pieces that date back to when glass was still blown and imbued with the human touch. I like to think that a lantern just like this one lit some sailor's way as he made his way across deck on a Schooner late at night, or gave light for the Captain to enter the day's events in his log while the ship tossed on the seas underneath him. If there are indeed other lives, I'm convinced that I sailed on one of those ships back then. I feel so married to the life of the seagoer.

I just read an interview with Ted Kooser. He was talking about poets taking ordinary things and letting people see them in a new way, a way it didn't occur to them to see before. For me, this lantern brings the scent of the sea, the rushing waves, and sailors dressed in their woolens, braving the unknown for one more adventure before land holds them fast again.

Pris, holding fast as our own adventure rushes towards Florida.

Spammers

One measure I just googled and found a stopgap measure to help users of Blogger.com to avoid spamming comments.

In your administrative box, go to Settings/Comments/then click 'yes' next to Turn on Word Verification. This requires that several letters be copied in order to post a comment. A new feature recently added.

One problem. When I tried it, I couldn't read the first set of darn letters. If that happens, hit 'back arrow', then hit 'comment' again. You'll get a different set of letters. I could read the second.

Sorry for just one more step, but I've deleted two spam comments already this morning and two yesterday. They're increasing.

Pris
A thursday p.s. this is the first morning of three now that I've opened the blog not to find spam posted. Let's hope this continues to work!

Shall We Dance?

This image is courtesy of the old ArtMagick site. Degas loved to paint ballerinas and this, in my opinion, is among his best.

When I was young, I dreamed of being a ballerina and that dream lingered all the way into my late twenties, manifesting in my imagining myself on the stage whenever I saw a ballet. Our small town was able to afford a combination tap/ballet teacher for only a couple of years when I was in grammar school. I loved both and still remember some of the tap steps. I also loved the feeling at the end of that first year when I was allowed on my toes in the ballet slippers. I was a swan. I was transformed. She left at the end of that year, but the moment remains.

War in Iraq...will we ever learn??

Click on the title. You'll likely need fast access. The presentation has sound. It was sent this morning by an online Vietnam Vet friend. He asked the question, 'Will we ever learn?'. I wrote back, 'apparently not'.

Hit back arrow to return to this post.

P.S.
Just added: See Michael Parker's Blog for today. Senseless and outrageous killings...but let his post tell the tale! He provides links for any of us willing to take some small step. Get involved??



Pris

Pretty Boy Floyd

Woody Guthrie sang about him. Larry McMurtry, author of The Last Picture Show, and Diana Ossana co-authored a novel about him, entitled 'Pretty Boy Floyd', of course. I just finished it and here I sit feeling sad about his death. Some men can do that to you, bad or good. I do highly recommend the novel. I didn't expect to like it, especially, but I like McMurtry, so I read it. I couldn't put it down.

Pretty Boy Floyd went to the top of the Most Wanted List after Dillenger was killed, but he was still considered a Robin Hood, loved by three women and the people who met him. Click on his name in the post title to read more about his life. I'm posting this to see if a poem comes about him. If one does for you, I'd love to see it.

(a poem in progress--another draft up)

Pretty Boy Floyd

Flies still buzz-bomb that spot
where the G men gunned you down.
Hungry, tired, frost on your clothes.
Like bagging a whipped deer.

The grass never greens
in the place where you fell
and your blood, they say, tints
the bushes with red every Spring.

You tipped your hat to robbed ladies
offered candy to babies, but
two-timed women waited till
their nails grew and curled
for one more glimpse
of those pretty boy looks.

The Okies still claim your ghost
roams the hills, gun under one arm.
You croon out dreams of bigger
bank rolls, sweet loving kisses
and picket-fenced white houses
doused far too soon.

Discovery, by Rene Magritte

Over the years, people have decorated their bodies..paints, piercings, tatoos. Do you have a piercing other than your ears? What about a tattoo? If so, which and what is the tattoo of, if that? Where is the tattoo or piercing on your body? What or who inspired you to do it?

This and other paintings by Rene Magritte can be found HERE.

Backyard At Dawn

The clouds were out over the ocean, three and a half miles to the east. A full moon was behind me, still high in the western sky. A few lights were on in the neighborhood here and there, this Sunday morning.

Weird Art

In randomly browsing for 'Weird Art', the image to the left on
THIS SITE appeared. I like it. Other interesting images on the same site. If you could pick one art related search name to put into your browser, what would it be? Have you tried it? What did you find?

my shadow glues layers
of sadness into the thick brush
where spiders play and dog rut
for rodents and timid cats
to chase home, leaving us
stuck in the waning sun.

Questions , always questions...

Didi Menendez posted on her blog.....I had to answer these questions for my profile for the project I am working on. She says, why don't you guys answer these questions on your blogs too?

3 Songs from the soundtrack of your life:
A Whiter Shade of Pale- Procal Harum (sp?)
Lying Eyes- Eagles
Father and Son- Cat Stevens

can't help it..had to add
Brown Eyed Girl-Van Morrison (thanks, Charlie)
Two out of Three Ain't Bad-Meatloaf
My father's Eyes-Eric Clapton
The Blower's Daughter-Damien Rice (thanks, Steven)
Bach's Double Concerto
Brahm's Piano Concerto
Dvorak's Cello Concerto

Favourite book[s]:
Anything by Alice Hoffman, Sue Grafton, Tom Robbins--mostly anything offbeat, too.

Favourite film[s]:
Love Actually, The English Patient, Closer

Favourite poem[s]:
Impossible question

Favourite quote
Is that a banana in your pocket or are you glad to see me? Mae West

The Beatles or Marvin Gaye?
The Beatles.

Favourite comfort foodAnything my friend Barbara cooks when she comes to town..mostly unusual made-up vegetarian

What fuels your drive?
My friend, Joe..he always says I can do it.

What Inspires you
Music. Art. Love.

Bio:
Pris Campbell lives in the greater West Palm Beach with a crazy dog and an absent-minded husband. She writes poetry and is co-writing her second romance novel. When she can't be creative, she turns into the Incredible Hulk and destroys things.

If you decide to do this, post a comment here or on Didi's link.

Break Day

I spent a lot of time on yesterday's post. Today, I'm pampering myself in hopes this darn cold goes away. SOON!

Pris

Advice From Jack Kerouac

Some from the above link...

Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
Like Proust be an old teahead of time
Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
Accept loss forever
Believe in the holy contour of life

God's Messenger

It's that sort of day--the kind when birds
fly straight for the sun, when mice run
in circles till their tails twist into knots,
and squirrels argue endlessly atop telephone poles.

The mercury explodes in Sam Sander's garage
when the temperature roars over 120 degrees
and Mable Jenkins breaks her big toe-
her pot of cold cucumber soup wriggling
and protesting withdrawal from her fridge
till it slips loose from arthritic hands.

It's a day when frustrated lovers lie separate,
panting on sweat-drenched sheets, and long-married
couples grump about old fissures and decide they should
have married their childhood sweethearts, after all.

On such a day, a day ripe for miracles, a day
prime for Gary Cooper to ride in on the twelve o'clock
special, a vagabond appears,tells anybody
who'll listen about dire deeds forgiven
and roads paved in gold, roads leading
anywhere and everywhere but here.

Communes circa The Seventies (Thanks to Michael Parker for Inspiring me to do this!)

(Clicking on the photos shows them full size)
********
Communes were very different in the Seventies in Boston from the Sixties concept of Drugs, Sex and Rock and Roll. Oh, a few people smoked pot here and there, but it wasn't mainstream and not as a group. Communes had by then become experiments in alternative living and were taken seriously as such. The people living in them were older and had jobs. They were stimulating to be with, being fellow seekers.

I lived in a commune of eight people for six months, then moved to a smaller one. This shot is fuzzy, taken with no flash, no tripod, and no light. I'm the only one dressed in the photo, to the far left:-) Different communes had different feelings about nudity. The two women living here felt comfortable going to and from their baths nude, the one guy in his skivies, the others in robes. In the second commune, a woman who posed as a model at the art school at B.U. often wore just a sarong under huge swaying breasts. I admit my modesty. My nudity is reserved for the bath and other private occasions. When we did the nude male calendar, one of our models lived in a huge commune where nudity was also taken for granted--except with Jack. His female love (she was 40, he was 45 and dropping out of the business world) saw his being a model as one way to overcome this, so we posed him all over the commune one Saturday morning, as other members came and went, with no more than a casual, 'hi Jack'.:-)

******

This photo was after the move to the second commune and was taken before leaving for the People's Revolutionary March in Concord, Massachusetts. We weren't marching against the Vets. We were marching to bring our boys home. Ford was now in office and would be in Concord the next day. The night before the confrontation with Ford, we camped,thousands of us--the six of us lying like sardines sideways in a two man tent. There was a big concert in the hills that night, too. Phil Ochs sang 'I'm Not Marching Anymore', one of his last concerts before his tragic suicide. Other singers I no longer remember. I'm not in this photo. The man to the far right was the love of my lifetime(or so I thought at the time) and commune mate for 3 1/2 years before we left on our boat trip.
***

In the communal main living area with friends in for a meal. Two were Psychology Interns from the VA where I worked outside of Boston. The woman with blonde hair pulled back was the intern I supervised, now in private practice outside of Boston. This was Mexican meal night. We all chipped in with the cooking and created a feast. I took the photo.
*****

Two other commune mates, Eva and Vortek. We'd taken our 22 foot sailboat out to one of the islands off of Boston Harbor. That's Boston in the background. Eva had escaped Poland right before the Communist takeover, leaving behind the man she was in love with. He was one of the Resistance leaders and couldn't leave. Vortek was in love with Eva and so he escaped and came to be with her while she was still living in Manhatten. They eventually grew to love each other, but I was always convinced her heart still belonged to the man in Poland. Eva was going for her graduate degree at Harvard and Vortek worked as a foreign car repairman.

*****

What can I say??:) The type of clothes often seen. This guy was over helping us make paper ornaments for the Christmas tree that year.

*****

And, finally, a trip up to the Berkshires for the Boston Symphony Concert and camping with R, my then love.

*****

This is me, cleaned up and hair curled, at a party with several of my work colleagues, two other Psychologists at the VA and a female intern. It was interesting being part 'hippie' by night and weekend and hard-working normal looking psychologist by day. Everyone at the VA knew I lived in a commune. No secret. It bothered a couple of the older, conservative nurses at first until they got to know me, then it was no big deal to anyone.

C'est la vie!

Self Portraits

Why do we create self portraits, whether through art or photography? I would image we'll find different answers from each artist or photographer asked or from those of us who take family photos only to be kept in an album. Some find this ego-centric. Others, an indulgence. Personally, I find the self a fascinating and changing subject over time and the best part.An artist most known for her proliferation of self portraits was Frida Kahlo. She had a fascinating life, carrying out affairs with many prominent leaders/artists of her time, but a life also filled with illness and pain. One of her many quotes about her paintings:

"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."

Frida Kahlo's Art

But one by no means has to be ill to create self portraits. Here are a few more that I like.

Degas: Self Portrait

Series of self-portraits by Van Gogh

A quote from a site on Dali's paintings:

In all of Dali's paintings you can find a self-portrait. That is, if you look hard you will see at-least a sillouette of Dali himself.

Dali Self Portrait

Odilon Redon Self Portrait

Edvard Munch series of self portraits

Rousseau Self Portrait

One of my favorites...
Chagall Self Portrait

Jan Toorop Self Portrait

Page of Traditional Artist Self Portraits

Another page of Wonderful Self Portraits

Yousuf Karsh, Photographer

Matisse and Picasso at MOMA


I would love to see links posted in Comments to your own favorite self portrait on line, either of self, artist or photographer. I would especially love to see links to female artists, either traditional or contemporary.

This post was prompted by a note from someone this morning asking why I posted photos of myself or created haiga using my own image. I thank him for inspiring this search. While I'm not an artist, my answer would be partly similar to Frida Kahlo's: I'm much isolated and often I'm my only subject. My other answer would be that I create whatever I do because I enjoy doing it, be it poetry, comments, calendars, or photographs. Plain and simple:-)

Pris