oy
odd malarkey
oligarchy
what to do
when to end
hatred trend
act or no
time to go
ICAD xlii: oy, what to do
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Tag Archives: Gary Bowers
icad xl: crick (paddy whack) knack
Crick? Knack? Paddy Whack? What kind of world is this, that nonsense rhymes should stick in our heads from infancy to decrepitude? A QUIRKY one, THAT’s what kind. And so let’s include Roald Dahl, the King of Quirk.
Crick (Paddy Whack) Knack
Climbing upward in the murk
Roald Dahl in leather jerkin
In for abracadabra’d Tea
Catch a handcuffed BBC
Knowing, click to Reykjavik
ICAD extra: I Am Gary’s Brain
Fans of late-twentieth-century Reader’s Digest will remember a series of articles told from the point of view of various organs of a middle-aged patient named Joe: “I Am Joe’s Spleen,” “I Am Joe’s Bladder,” etcetera. Sly reference to the series was made in the movie Fight Club as well. So here is late-middle-aged patient Gary’s Brain.
Gary needs to get his head examined. But in order for that to happen, a specialist must order the imaging. And, indeed, that was done on July 1st. But then the order needs to be placed by the doctor’s office with the imaging firm. That was NOT done till quite late in the afternoon of July 5th. The imaging company did not receive the order till yesterday, Monday the 8th. And as of now, though an appointment was made of this morning for the Magnetic Resonance Imaging session, since my insurance company has not authorized the session, the appointment was set aside, “pending authorization.”
Gary’s Brain
Growth appears–rub-a-dub-dub
Get it while it’s just a nub
Auth required? I say thee Yarr
Action needed? Har har har
Rigatoni and lasagna
Rest assured you’ll get some on ya
You WON’T see me aujourd’hui
‘S UNFAIR–red tape Soup Tureen
Notice that in the illustration the next-to-last line is left out. I forgot to put it in before I scanned it. I think I may have Brain Problems.
ICAD xxxix: window facets
window facets
when you have driven off a cliff
it serves no need to quench your spliff
a now-soon-ending story arc
dissolves to next scene: flaming barque
oh, lap-dissolve may make a mess
it wows the yokels nonetheless
ICAD xxxviii: pane full
A fuller title would be “icad xxxviii: pane full/sens less/onward & expert” but it’s panefull enough as it is.
No transcription for this one, Friends. It would create more confusion than resolution. The words are mostly there for their visual impact.
After I finished the inked work, I got the whim to take a pastel pencil to it and so there are hearts and a would-be creator thinking of yet another heart. Part of the glory of the Index Card A Day project is the testing-ground aspect: you tend to not worry about trying and failing, since they’re just cheap index cards, and so you follow your nose more fearlessly, and either succeed or learn something or (as in this case) semi-succeed AND learn something. I think I learned that it can work with a lot more practice.
Inspiration (to Rafael Navarro)
My super-talented sculptor friend Rafael Navarro just had a birthday. “Happy Birthday, you talented fellow!” I wrote on his Facebook timeline. Afterwards, realized: about a year ago I asked Rafa for permission to do a blog entry on him and his work. He answered some questions about his career. One of the things that came up was his trip to the famous marble quarry at Carrara, where Michelangelo got HIS marble. Rafael was granted permission to quarry and take away all the marble that he could carry at a single go. Marble is heavy, Friends, and it’s a good thing the talented Mr. Navarro didn’t take away a hernia to go with his marble.
My blog post never got written. In early August my younger brother Brian died, and things turned sideways for awhile. The three-week vacation I had started was cut short, and my aunt Diane, with my clumsy assistance, attended to the many details subsequent to the death of a loved one. And things like planned blog posts fell by the wayside.
Aside from the Carrara anecdote, I remember almost nothing of my chat with Rafa. I see his work when he or another art friend posts it on Facebook, and it’s uniformly both magical and professional. Interested parties may feast their eyes on his image-laden website, https://www.rafaelnavarroartes.com/ — and I hope that they (you) do so.
After I did my Index Card of the Day today, I had both urge and creative juice left over, so I started skating a white pastel pencil on the surface of a sheet from my Canson BLACK DRAWING/DESSIN NOIR/DIBUJO NEGRO 7×10 pad. A bird emerged. Then a young man, arms spread imitatively. Damn if he didn’t look a little bit like my friend Rafa. So I tried to make him look a bit more like him, and then I realized that I was finally doing the blog post I’d committed to do.
ICAD xxxvii: It s’Complicated
This complicated mess started out with a simple idea: let the poem and image demonstrate Complexity. It took about two hours to make. Along the journey issues of motif and loss of resolution due to smearing and overwriting came up. “Don’t worry,” Inner Voice assured, “It will all come out. And what doesn’t can be dismissed with yet another ‘It’s Complicated.'”
If you spent as much time looking at this thing as I spend making it, you will certainly see a determined-looking, perhaps nude young woman at left. you will probably see a cat. you may see two or three faces and/or necks and/or upper torsos. You will see the tip of a spear, and if you follow the spear shaft you will see someone wielding it and holding up a shield. But what I really hope you will see are two obvious rhythms and one subtler one. No matter how Complicated something is, a pattern may be discerned.
It’s Complicated
Invading realms marked Tricky Dick’s
Investment bankers Sic sic Sic
In f l i g h t s of impresario
Inventiveness sounds Gong & Om
Intending-harmers draw a map
Ingesting H A T R E D ‘ S plate of scrapple
Then R E A S O N faits her accompli
Threads denimmed Platinum très chic
Theatrics stemmed, the brouhaha
Thence T E A P O T S, D O M E S & apparat
The threnody will S W E L L then fade
Thus tying off a Celtic braid
icad xxxv: aloe vera ness/Steve Allen
Steve Allen invented the television talk show, says a capsule biography I just watched. He was also a songwriter, an actor, a father, and the author of 44 books.
This card is a sort of Allenesque variety show. It includes an encrypted quote from Descartes that is familiar to most philosophy students.
As for Aloe Vera, Friends–it’s good for what ails ya.
ICAD xxxii: Space Brace
“Space is curved,” they tell us in school. Forgive a bad pun, but it’s hard to wrap your mind around that. Space is a shifty word. It’s the Final Frontier. It’s a place to do your thing, as in Art Space. It’s spooky woo-woo, as in Space Case.
Words don’t come anywhere near Reality, but they’re what we have to approximate it. The specific definition for the space that is curved is approximately “everything and all the nothing in between and beyond.” Really hard to get down to brass tacks, isn’t it?
But if we start simple, imagining a Universe with only two chrome spheres in it, fifty feet apart, motionless relative to each other, each with a mass of one kilogram, we can get a glimmer. They instantly cease being fifty feet apart. They move toward each other. As they get closer the attraction increases. Soon they make contact.
Add more objects and the Universe gets more interesting. The more massive an object, the more attractive it is. (Except for bachelors like me.)
Space Brace
Sustenance IS the J*O*B
Paparazzo IS a star
Andalucia and a pea
Craft a plotted story arc
Excellence is never free
There’s a lot more to say, especially to make the poem more comprehensible, but a) Mystery makes Life delightful b) I am on a bus and soon to get off. Two lines should strike a good balance. “Paparazxo” IS a star.” Paparazzo is Observer. If not for Observers, the Universe would not be self-aware, and would effectively cease to exist. “Andalucia and a pea/Craft a plotted story arc.” Though one is large, the other small, they still interact; they attract each other. That’s how it works, my friends.
icad xxxi: wise eyes
wise eyes
watched the bees at Innisfree
ivy crept so languidly
sons of robins in a breeze
ever shifting Mysteries
