Today is Victoria’s birthday. My mission was to write a birthday poem using words Love, Beauty, and Truth. I spent fun, odd time working on acrostic arrangements thereof, but came to feel that simple and ungimmicky would be best. Here, then, is
To Victoria on Her Birthday
In LOVE we find both Hope and Fear.
The tragic BEAUTY of a tear
Reveals the TRUTH as something felt:
We want, we need, we give, we melt.
Happy birthday, dear, dear Victoria!
the real me
when searching for the real me
a thousand falsehoods i did see
and then a chiding voice said “you!
look elsewhere or you’ll lose the true.
you need more sisters and more brothers.
the real you resides in others.”
The co-worker portraiture series continues with this friendly, energetic person who was a server when I started with MBB and has now moved on to bartending.
all life is bathed in wavy particles except
that’s not right; words fail
“suchthing” might describe it better by not even trying to
for one suchthing allowed the existence
of the first and lightest few elements on the periodic table
enabling the energetic coalescence of stars
and a suchthing made the first of them eventually energetically die
and the deathpressure filled in much of the rest of the periodic table
and these such things eventually allowed the existence of grandkids
and in the spite of “the Big Bang” there is evidence that our “universe”
is but a localized phenomenon and thus “In the Beginning . . .” never obtains
no matter how far back we go
there’s no suchthing
Just before Christmas I did an index-card portrait of my co-worker Michael. He liked it a lot, and so did his Mom. Since then I’ve tried two more, but I’m not too happy with them, and so I consider them “preliminary sketches.” That’s Garyspeak for “I didn’t go yet.”
Here is a 2010 outtake from a modeling session with Valley enchantress Crystal Cruz. I found it while searching in vain for the drawing “God’s Breakfast Table,” which I’d intended to enter in the Glendale 2016 annual juried show. It makes me nostalgic for the student Life Drawing days, but it also makes me happy and hopeful since I see many things I would do differently with this drawing–it could be so much better with patience and care.
Friends, it is three years to the day since I began this picaresque blog. I have published somewhere north of 800 posts. Anyone caring to start at December 3, 2012 and go post by consecutive post to the present day would have a good idea of who I am, what I like to do, and what triumphs and tragedies have occurred in my recent life. But who has the time and inclination to do so? Here’s a quick way to go down your own private memory lane with these: Look at the posts that were written on your birthday. There will be at least one, but four at the very most. If your itch still isn’t scratched, go for other important anniversary dates in your life. If you get to a dozen posts without losing interest, please declare victory for both of us.
I have some loyal followers. I’m especially grateful to “The crazy bag lady” and Marlyn Exconde, who both live halfway round the world and are extraordinarily talented. But I am also quite grateful to the thousands of other readers, international and domestic, who’ve given irreplaceable time from their lives to view my blog. Many thanks!!
At long, long last my Residential Drawing Station is operational, and I have many to thank. The fluorescent drawing-table lamp was a gift from my parents more than forty years ago. The pencil was part of a package of pencils given me by my then-wife, Joni, about eight years back. The light tablet, a marvelous surface to draw on, came on a Christmas from my then-sweetheart, Denise. The Captain America shield/eraser was a freebie acquired at the Jack Kirby Birthday Celebration, courtesy of my friend Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. The Bookmans goodie bag is from my fabulous Steady Girlfriend, Joy. And the coffee? The coffee was, is, and always will be a Gift From The Gods.
The work in progress is signed and dated today, and therefore must be finished by midnight tonight. Got to get cracking. Thanks so much, everyone!!
Some months ago I was at a thrift store and found Barack Obama’s DREAMS FROM MY FATHER for a dollar. I bought it but didn’t give it a serious look until this week. Now I’m at the point in the book where he is attending Occidental College in California. He has been through a lot, including life in Indonesia.
Some months ago I began a drawing. It was a good start, but demanded time-chunks I was reluctant to give to it. It lay fallow.
Some days ago I stumbled upon a website of the former Nina Rogers, classmate at Glendale High School and wedding guest at Joni’s and my wedding. She is now a wildly successful photographer and scenemaker in Vancouver. We have traded emails, and when I described a book of mine that is “finished” but just lying around waiting for me to prepare it for printing, she gave me the secret to her success in four short words:
“Finish what you start.”
So I have begun to take her advice. Here is the now-finished sketch, “some day,” flavored a bit with my recent reading of young Barack’s journey.
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