Friends, here is an image that is at most at 5% of its potential. I hereby relinquish all copyright to it. Anyone who wants can claim it for their own and finish it. But–can you?
Seven, Eight–Collaborate
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Riddle Q/Inference Pattern/Riddle A
Today’s post will be a riddle’s question, followed by an image titled “Inference Pattern” and containing partial text from whose pattern it may be inferred forms “Inference Pattern” (the image also contains checkerboards and other patterns of horizontal and vertical, and a wicked-looking earwiggy caterpillar, or caterpillary earwig, if you prefer), followed by the riddle’s answer. As far as I know the riddle was invented by me some hours ago. The sufficiently smart and/or patient will be able to infer the answer to the riddle prior to seeing it.
Q: What is an orange’s favorite type of furniture?
Inference Pattern
A: An orange’s favorite type of furniture is…
…
…
Sectional, of course. [dodges thrown oranges]
PS–The phrase “Inference Pattern” was deliberately modeled after the phrase “Interference Pattern.” An Internet search on “Double-Slit Experiment” will yield extensive discussions on the intereference pattern abtained via this experiment. It is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Universe and the interaction of the observer. Infer from that what you will, my friends!
Giving Birds the Vote: a Parable
Special thanks to stellar poet D___C____ for thematic suggestion.
Giving Birds the Vote: a Parable
One day some parrots stopped parroting. They spoke, but in sentences of their own invention, and not from mimicry. Somehow, some one or thing had hacked into their birdbrains and downloaded intelligence and eloquence. With help from some sympathetic humans, a delegation of intelligent parrots was brought to the nation’s capital, and through the courts a type of citizenship was fought for and won for them.
Meanwhile, other bird species demonstrated intelligence despite their speech being limited to warbling and other birdsong. Soon they too were talking via prosthetics, and they too became citizens. It was a bit tricky to prove native-born status for non-parrots, but one very smart bird teamed up with Google to develop retroactive surveillance, ironically using the sensoria and memory of birds to “videotape” the births of every sentient, or potentially sentient, being born on or after August 4, 1961, the birthdate of Barack H. Obama. (Yes, he was born in Honolulu. Some of the funding for the project was provided by right-wing groups convinced that he was not. Ouch!)
By the time of the extremely accurate 2030 Census, the birds not only had the vote but they had the numbers, partly thanks to “anchor chicks” from eggs deliberately laid in the USA. Soon humans were voted out and given the boot. Since the birds had a far different agenda than human beings, most industry ground to a halt. The entertainment industry thrived, though. The common ground of the flighted and the flightless, it turned out, was irrational sentimentality.
There is more to the story, but I bawk at continuing.
Laugh, SARAH, Laugh (to Suzy C)
I have a friend now named Suzy Jacobson Cherry. When I met her she was Suzy Jacobson. Here she is with her man.
Today I got an invitation from Suzy to participate in an “Invitation to Take Part in a Collaborative Art Project.” Here are the details:
Below you will find scriptures that describe the life of a character named Sarah. Please read it with literary/artistic eyes. Think about the things that affected her, and consider what kind of person she is. The drawing below is by my friend Cecilia O’Brien. This is her rendition of Sarah. Study this drawing, and put together an idea of who Sarah is and what she might be like, what her concerns might be, how she might feel about the things that happen to her and the choices she makes in the story. Think of her in terms of this ancient past AND today’s world. THEN, in the comments below, share words and phrases that describe her and/or her world. Share thoughts of current events in relation to this woman, if anything comes to mind. This is an artistic endeavor, faith tradition should not come into play. If you choose to take part, have fun and thank you for helping out with this!
And here is what I did:
What struck me in the story: Sarah (then named Sarai, but that’s another story) was thought to be barren, i.e. unable to have children. She sends her man, Abraham, to conceive a child with the slave girl Hagar. (Sidebar for American comic strip readers: the Horrible? One wonders…) Years pass, Abraham is about 100 years old and Sarah 90, and the Lord God decides it’s time for Sarah to have a baby of her own. “So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?'” Yes, you shall, dear old Sarah, if it be His will.
Here are the words to my triple acrostic “Laugh, Sarah, Laugh”:
Lady pushing 90-plus is laughing fit to howl
As she cuddles ISAAC she just bore–yes, life’s a luau
Unto her nonageneric self–a CHILD!! HA
Gosh, and when much younger she was BARREN as a log
HEY–can’t spell Jehovah without ending with an Ah
LORD, I hope Suzy likes this!
Were YOU There with Vic and Gair?
Photo by Deborah Berman, co-host of Balboa House Poetry
Here are the two co-features of Balboa House Poetry’s April 2014 event, collaboratively reading. Victoria Hoyt and I have been friends for a good half-dozen years, and it is always an honor to perform with her.
Vic went on first, and she moved the audience to laughter and tears and glowing good feeling. Then I went on, showing off an acrostic portrait of Patrick Stewart, a valentine to my Sweetheart, Denise, and certain other selected poems. Fellow poet Paul Dlouhy had offered harmonica accompaniment, and I took him up on it for my “The Love Song of Heinrich Chinaski, Deceased.” We had never rehearsed, and I suggested before we started that Paul come in with a cadence like walking. He did a jazz/street riffarama that was perfect for my words.
Finally, Vic joined me at the podium and we did some back&forth haiku we’d written in e-mail exchange a few years ago:
Dueling Haiku
Gair:
Spring
Blossoms all around
Transport me and my nose to
Pollenesia
Vic:
No Spring
Millions of meno-
Pausal baby boomers add
To global warming
Gair:
Global Warming
Global warming’s cool
Majestic ice calves make
Ocean on the rocks
Vic:
No Global Warming
From Lark to Exxon
Smoke and mirror scientists
Falsify research
Gair:
Falsification Haiku
Weapons of bereaved
Weepings of mass destruction
“Whoops–honest mistake!”
Vic:
No Falsification Haiku
Now playing on your
Smart phone: Iraq war heli-
Copter video
Gair:
VideoHaiku
Blockbuster’s busted
Netflix flickers red box loi-
Ters near entrances
Vic:
No VideoHaiku
Reality killed
The video star who killed
The radio star
Lastly, we read this, which we’d written together on a sketchpad. First Vic wrote one word, then I two, then she four, then I eight, and so forth till we got to 32, and then we imploded it back to the final word, which we co-wrote: “BLOOD.” No transcript is available at present, but wrestling through it is half the fun…
Long story concluded: a good time was had be all, and especially us!
I Got Your Back (Wish It Were Mine)
At the Cottonwood Recreation Center there is a certain subset of gym rats that hangs out in the Free Weights area. For the members of that subset, frequent homage to the Buff Gods is mandatory. One in particular likes to quasi-scream as he cranks out the last of his reps, and when the set is done he lets the free weight free-fall to clang on the rack resoundingly, distracting the entire gym floor.
I don’t like such behavior, but there’s no denying he’s getting results, and I’m envious enough to do a post about it. Lord help me if I’m ever envious enough to act like that, though.
Here are the words to the triple acrostic:
If you’re fitly lifting free, bub
Getting anatomic visa
Off them duds & take a pic
To preserve a build like brick
(“Anatomic” may also be read as “an atomic.” [smiles])
Still Life with Invented Elements
I had the spoon to look at. The rest of the elements of this drawing were invented. The awry-ness was a good fit for the incongruity of the elements, I think.
Dippy Diptych of the Day
One is the latest of my Spoon studies. The other is a concept rough of a sculpted bird commissioned by my poet friend Deborah Berman. The bird seems to have something to say to the dummy, and perhaps to the spoon as well.
Maud/Lynn Monday
Last week my friend Bob Kabchef created a feature called Maudlin Monday in the poet’s group we both are in, and I joked that I was working on a dual portrait of Maud Adams and Loretta Lynn for Maud/Lynn Monday, but it would take some time. This week my friend Genevieve Lumbert, another member of our group, reminded us: “POP CALL TO MAUDLIN MONDAY ARCADE.” (Arcade was Bob’s username in the now defunct seniors social site Eons, where we all met.) Spurred by Gen’s nudge, I did the above. Since the index card is a little beat up, it didn’t lay on the scanner flatly, and so I put a CD-R atop it, remembering that there’s a cool prismatic effect when you scan a disk.
Words:
Made their marks with smarts and toil
Anguished; languished; knew true joy
Upped their cred despite their men
Do let’s see them both again
The Shakespeare quote is apt for these two ladies, and for several of the ladies in our poet’s group Poets All Call, including its originator, Socorro Olsen, and Genevieve, and my Sweetheart, Denise.
My Mother, Jane Stoneman
This morning I bought some more Tracfone phone minutes, and then called my mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and to fact-find and get permission to do an unadorned account of her life as a mother. She cheerfully and at some length reviewed certain of her life events with me, and granted me carte blanche to write what I would.
Here is what I wrote, but not unadorned: atop my account I made a sketch of her.
