Old Books, Old Friends

Balladiers seem to enjoy composing works that profess to address realities with which they have no experience.

For example Paul Simon composed these poignant lines:

"Old friends, old friends

Sat on their park bench like bookends

Old friends, memory brushes the same years . . .

Time it was,

And what a time it was

It was . . .

A time of innocence

A time of confidences . . .

How terribly strange to be 70."

-Written at the tender age of 26, with nary an inkling of what it meant to be 70.

James Taylor, who joins me in our 76th year, penned this advice:

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time." 

-Written almost 35 years ago, when he had barely turned his back on his 30s.

One might be tempted to write off these uninformed musings, regarding some fictional seventh decade, as the trivial scribblings of young poets. But as both proved in their later works, there was an inclination to insight in these two writers as they touched on the mystery and the allure of life in maturity.

And, for me, a large part of that mystery and allure lies in the wonder of memory - a statement that will, most likely, reduce both my wife and my sister to gales of hysterical laughter. But let me clarify, I'm not talking about the kind of memory that would allow me to recall "that lovely restaurant in Venice where we had the squid ink pasta." Remember the dish, but the when and where escapes me. 

Nor can I recall specifics of the trip to Disneyland in the mid-1950s, except that they closed the park because it had reached capacity. Sorry ladies, I just draw blanks there. That doesn't mean that the original experience wasn't significant, it's just that the details may be a touch fuzzy.

But, strangely perhaps, I can recall "pretty near" just about every book I have ever read. And more than that, I can fairly clearly recall what was going on in my life when I first read them. So the books serve as some sort of mnemonic aid. I have no explanation for this phenomenon, except perhaps as some existential compensation for my inability to recall the trip to "that restaurant we went to twice last month."

But there is an important aspect to this wrinkle of literary memory. To jump back to the songsters, Gordon Lightfoot penned these two lines in his 1970 song "If You Could Read My Mind":

"And you won't read that book again

Because the ending's just too hard to take."

Well, to stand that notion on its head, I often read old books again, specifically because the ending is joyful, peaceful, comforting. The bad guys get caught, the good guy gets the girl, the world is saved from the evil genius, the dog finds its way home, and the lovers ride off into the sunset. And I can sleep.

So to crib a rhyme from Paul Simon - delightfully now in his 83rd year:

"Old friends, stand on my bookshelf

'Tween bookends.

Stories that lull me to sleep,

Fall from the pages,

And the sages

Of these old friends."

Living 24 x 20 #5: The Rest.

 And everything else!

How We Got Tongues

Marker on paper.

When Tongues Got Color

Marker on Paper

Just Musing

Marker on paper.

And a couple you have seen relatively recently:

Flight of the Cranes

Marker on paper.

Painter Ponies

Marker on paper.

Duet

Living 24 x 20 #4 Flowers

 Lets start with a couple of photo based works:

Azalea Leaves and Stems
This is actually much larger than 24x20 - more 40x20.

Sunflower with Stripes

Falling Leaves

Yes, technically not a flower.  .  .  .  

Still Life Without Stems

Again larger - 40 x 20

Still Life with Stems

Another biggie - 40 x 20

Living 24 x 20 #3: Bottles

What can I say? They are just fun to draw.

Starting again with one you have recently seen:

Rainbows Toasting the Roses

An earlier version I found on my hard drive.

Bottles in the sky.

With Bottles You Need to Watch Out

For the Glasses

To Your Health.

 

Living 24 x 20 #2 Places

 By their very nature - and further constrained by my inability to draw "realism" - the images in this section are based on the photos that I took of the various "places." I would then pull the photos into Photoshop and "erase" the portions of the photos into which I wanted to create and paint my designs.

My father's family was located on a groups of farms around the small farming communities of Marion and Freeman in southeastern South Dakota. We would vacation there most summers in my youth getting a taste of "farm life." The area was the source of several of these images.

The Grand Canal
View from our hotel window in Venice

This is a "horsepower" gear. 
Several horses would be hitched to the gear and walk around,
generating the "horsepower" to drive other implements.

Old Wheels

Surrounding one cousin's farm was this collection of antique implements

designed to be pulled by the horses.

Chained Up.

A collection of old chains and ropes on a barn wall.

Modern Work Horses

The passing of a cousin necessitated a sale of

a collection of equipment.

My Grandfather's Car

Found a final resting spot in a field

not far from the "home place."

Can I See Your License?

The driver hails from a connection to my Mother's family.

The photo is from her scrapbook.

Specific identity up for grabs.

Barrel, Wheel and Rope

Colonial Williamsburg hosts these implements

in the woodworking shop.

The Grand Canal

View from our hotel window in Venice.

A Herd of Gondolas
Venice again. Italy not California

Beltline Boogie: Raleigh, North Carolina.

No photo this time. Marker on paper.

And that's it for the "Places" unit.

Living 24 x 20 #1 Faces

 As drawing has become more important in my life it seems only natural to ask myself why? So I did so: "Why," I said to myself, "has drawing become so important in your life?"

"I'm glad you asked me that," I responded. "I think there are a couple of threads in my life that have come together over the past decade."

"That's very interesting," I said to myself. "Would you like to tell me about them?"

"Well, if you have the time," I responded.

"What is time to us?" I joked, "There's only the two of us here!"

"Then go on," I said.

And I did.

First is the doodling. I have done it all my life. Early, it was pencil lines on menus, church programs, things like that. Later in school, doodles often took over the margins of my notebooks. But it wasn't about not paying attention. It was rather that somehow the act of doodling allowed me to actually concentrate - focusing on the doodles seemed to make it easier to make order out of the lectures.

"I still have dozens of the notebooks. Would you like to see them?" I asked.

"Let's save that for another time," I responded. "You mentioned another thread?"

"Ah, yes. I spent more than forty years teaching university courses, all of which had something to do with the media and its impact on society."

"Interesting."

"Initially, yes, certainly," I allowed. "But when you spend 40 years concentrating on the terrible things the media show us. The deceitful, violent, uncaring ways human beings treat each other - with only an occasional human 'human interest' piece thrown in, it can kind of bum you out."

"I see," I said. "So what did you do?"

"I began to treat my doodling more seriously."

"Go on."

"I retreated - in my drawings - into a world that avoided the mayhem on the screens. A world I created on paper - often 24 x 20 inches. It is probably about the illusion of control. Something we have forfeited for the convenience of an interconnected digital world. Going "off the grid" - if it is even possible - would demand a set of survival skills and level of personal fitness incredibly rare, if not unique in the softer inhabitants of the First World hi-tech world I inhabit. So I make up a nicer world on paper. One I can control."

"Would you show me those drawings?"

"There are quite a few of them." I hesitated.

"Oh, go on. As you said, 'It's just the two of us."

So i did.

I guess if I had to create some sort of logical presentation I would skip a chronoligical scheme and go for categories: Like, faces, places, flowers, bottles, and "other things." That would cover most of it.

So lets start with Faces:

I call this guy Gandalf - drawn and painted in Photoshop

Angry Dude - Marker on paper

On My Mind - drawn and painted in Photoshop

Masque - Marker on Paper

Apple of My Eye - Drawn and painted in Photoshop

Elf Self - Drawn and painted in Photoshop

Four Faces - Marker on paper

Rainbows Toasting Roses

 Hi All -

I walked by this piece for a few days thinking about the wine glasses. Couldn't decide whether to add color or leave them blank. Did a couple of tracing paper overlays so I could see them with color. Eventually decided that the white glasses gave the whole image the pop I was looking for.

The name can stand for just the roses as pictured, but when my older daughter married she took her husband's name, Rose. They now have two daughters - so there are 4 Roses. Ta da! Here's looking at you, Roses!

As usual, the live image is 20 x 24 inches, so clicking on the image or viewing on a large screen enhances the experience 😁

The Agony of Aging Arrogance

 It is easier to see the flaws in others if we have first glimpsed them in our own mirror. I'm not quite ready to totally cop to "arrogance" here in my seventh decade. Yet there have been more than a few periods in the past when "quite self-confident" and "very assured" would have been shoes that fit. I recall a particular "devil may care" description in a performance evaluation. I regret those times and the hurt that the guy I was then may have caused to others. But, realistically, the damage he did was usually limited to those who least deserved it; friends and family, sometimes students or colleagues. My occasional arrogance though, bruised only those in my relatively small circle of influence.

When arrogance plays out on the world stage the damage it does touches us all. History sadly provides reams of examples. Hitler, Stalin, Pot Pol, Napoleon and Idi Amin, spring to my Western male mind. They were despotic, arrogant rulers who killed millions who, they felt, stood in the way of their "superior vision" of how the world should be. I'd add the guy responsible for the ancient and widespread global practice of slavery, and the attempted genocide of the native inhabitants of the US, but I don't think there is a single individual who could shoulder blame for those cultural dark times and the vile practices of the species.

 

When looking back to those more specific individuals, we have a tendency to take a healthy swig of schadenfreude, and sigh "Thank god, I wasn't alive then!" But we might want to pause a moment and consider the reflections of arrogance we could glimpse in the mirror of the world today. It is those creeping visions of arrogance that make me ignore the "front pages" of my morning news feeds and scroll swiftly to the "arts and leisure" sections of today's online news outlets. Yet, almost escaping my glancing notice is the fact that much of that front page contemporary arrogant chaos is being fomented by a particular demographic subset - old white guys.

Let us take journalism's old mantra of "if it bleeds it leads" as our guide and take a look at a couple of today's aging arrogant warriors: Vladimir Putin, 72; and Benjamin Netanyahu, 75.

We shouldn't really be surprised at Putin. He was, after all, in the KGB for 16 years and served as head of Russia's version of the CIA. That resume doesn't lead one to expect a "kinder and gentler" version of Russian foreign policy. Putin obviously believes that the "proper version" of Russia includes huge chunks of Ukraine. And if he has to borrow a few pages from Stalin's murderous playbook to make it happen, so be it.

Netanyahu also carries his own "tough guy" credentials having served in the Israeli Defense Forces and Sayeret Matkal special forces. He arrogantly makes no secret of the fact that "Hamas started it!" and that it still advocates the total destruction of Israel. True. But where is the wisdom, forget compassion, in subjecting your enemy - and civilians caught in the middle - to the same, deadly and immoral treatments which you endured?

But maybe there is a bit of schadenfreude lurking in my choice to deal with Ukraine and Gaza first. I mean those places are really, really far away. It's not as though some aging arrogant politician is beating up my country or the rest of the world with self-serving actions. 

Oh, wait. Enter Donald Trump, 79. 

Unlike Putin and Netanyahu, Trump has no military background - a deferment based on heel spurs and various other conditions allowed him to avoid that dangerous arena. However, he is well-trained in his weapons of choice: political and financial pressure and/or executive orders. Wielding these tools Trump has swiftly confronted those he deems "standing in the way of his 'great' vision of how the world should be." Universities, international trading partners, cultural venues, domestic manufacturers, international political allies, poor and middle class citizens, professional football teams, legal immigrants, and former political and legal adversaries; all have felt the sting of the President's mercurial and unpredictable proclamations. And while, seemingly, no actual bodies lie dead on his political battlefields, the security and predictability of millions of lives around the globe have been thrust into uncertainty.

What is it with these old white guys? Well, as one of them at 76, I can hazard a guess or two. Despite the ability to click around and find a website that would paint each of them with the brush of dementia, I think other more intentional motivations are at play. First, I think it has to do with the whole business of legacy. We all want to be remembered, hopefully in a good way. The arrogant angry three have found themselves, for some reason or another, on the mediated center of the world stage. So unlike the rest of us septuagenarians - who are mostly concerned about the perceptions of friends, family and colleagues - the big three realize, and probably delight in, the fact that the whole world is watching. So they bluster and preen.

Secondly, they are bullies who have always demanded that it was "my way, or the highway!" or "You're fired!" Two have history in military organizations that simply killed those who disagreed with their view of the world. The third destroyed opposition just a touch more subtly with the unvarnished application of political and financial power.

It strikes me that much of the damage done by these three aging "arrogantists," to create a word, is the result of a predominantly patriarchal cultural process that values and rewards the acquisition and application of power. So what's a guy or gal to do? According to an old quote (the source of which is much debated) "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." Ignoring for a moment the omission of at least half the species, that exhortation is a bit shy on what the implied "something" we should be doing actually is. Or, more clearly, what can each of us do to prevent the rise of, and the damage caused by, arrogant old men?

My stage is hardly the world, and smaller still since leaving the classroom. Nonetheless, I will leave you (yes, I know, again.) with the assertions that my seven decades prompt me to advocate:

"Foster harmony, enable beauty, distill complexity, and oppose harm."

I cannot help but believe that even just a little bit of that mantra, every day, in whatever we do, an effort from all of us can make the world a better, more compassionate - less arrogant - place.

Flashing Blue Light Special

OK, we need to enter the Wayback machine - there is some internet version out there today but I am referring to the original version from the late 1950s to the early 60s, in Peabody's Improbable History. In the series Mr. Peabody and Sherman would enter the Wayback Machine to visit various points in the past. Here they go:

We are headed back to the 1960s, 70s and 80s when K-Mart was a major retail player with thousands of stores scattered across the country. It still has stores in the Virgin Islands and Guam, but the last mainland store closed last year. But I digress.

The point is that K-Mart had a marketing shtick where they would move this mobile cart with a tall pole around the store. On the top of the pole was a - you guessed it, a flashing blue light. The storewide PA system would blare out "Attention K-Mart shoppers! We have a flashing blue light special going on in sporting goods! A ping-pong paddle set will be available for the next half hour for only $3.95!" Or some other marketing push. In this instance a flashing blue light was a good thing. It looked like this:

But alas, blue light has fallen out of favor. To quote a brief Google search:

"Blue light, while a natural part of sunlight, is also emitted by digital screens and can negatively impact eye health and sleep patterns. Excessive exposure, especially in the evening, can disrupt the body's natural sleep-wake cycle, leading to difficulty falling asleep and reduced sleep quality. It can also contribute to digital eye strain, characterized by symptoms like eye fatigue, dryness, blurred vision, and headaches." 

 

A study at UC Davis piles on with this:

"Exposure to blue light before bedtime also can disrupt sleep patterns as it affects when our bodies create melatonin. Interruption of the circadian system plays a role in the development of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, sleep disorders, and cognitive dysfunctions."

While these proclamations are still a cut above a pharmaceutical ad I saw the other day that snuck "death" into the quick, voice over (more like voice under) of possible side effects that are  tacked on to such ads. However, these "blue light bashing rants" are still rather off-putting revelations especially among those of you who may share our household affliction: insomnia. If we both are asleep before 2:00 AM and remain asleep til the rosy-fingered dawn touches the sky - the story makes the local news.

Sleep is like Shangri-La or Brigadoon for me. When I experience it, it is wonderful, peaceful, caring, comforting. It surrounds me. But come the night when I actively seek its comfort, it recedes into the mist - lost, mysterious, illusive. Banished, in part it seems, by the blue light leeching from our various screens, household lamps, and the life-affirming sun itself.

But, fear not, according to that blue light emitting small screen, there is an answer: blue light blocking goggles, glasses, whatever! Just slip them on and the evil glare of blue light is banished! So I drank the kool-aid and bought these babies:

And I wore them for maybe a week, at night, when reading, watching Curiosity Stream, etc. When doing anything on a screen I did it bathed the orange glow of those weird googles. And after the week I was able to discern absolutely no impact on my sleep. And I really wanted to.

So, a couple of strange things about me and world of Morpheus - the Greek god of dreams, not the creepy guy from The Matrix. First, my issue with sleep does not extend to naps. Anytime between say 2 and 4 in the afternoon, I can lay down and go to sleep - often drenched in the blue light of my iPad while reading a mystery. Hmm. But come the night and it is an entirely different story.

We try to turn off the big screen by 10. And begin our varying "go to sleep" rituals. I don't do "sleep aids." Bad experience during my second dance with multiple myeloma - I think with gabapentin. So "take a pill" is not an option. So, I read novels or browse through science magazines and videos - carefully avoiding the bizarre world of the news. But all on my little blue screen. Hence, my chagrin at the failure of the heralded orange goggles.

I have come to the conclusion that my issue with insomnia is in my head, not in something blue that leaks in through my eyes. I can't call it "a sleep phobia" because I love sleep. Maybe it has to do with blunting the obligatory nature of "bedtime." You are "supposed" to go to sleep at bedtime, right?  A cultural norm neither of my daughters seemed to grasp while growing up. Hmm. Maybe genetic?

Anyhow, I have decided to try to "adjust" my attitude to bedtime. I read somewhere that you are not supposed to go to sleep,  rather you are supposed to fall asleep. So I'm going to try to not care about going to sleep at night. I mean, I already see the tiny numbers, 1, 2, 3:00 AM. So why worry about going to sleep sooner? Rather, I'm going to try to focus on interacting with gentle content once the sky gets dark. Prepping to fall asleep. Cozy mysteries, or novels I have read before, liked and already know the ending. Or watching videos like "Making a Stradivarius," or "Peacocks and Octopuses: The Secret of Natural Color." No stress. Only quiet screen comfort food. Video mashed potatoes and gravy.

I'll let you know how it works out.

(Hmmm. Last night went rather well. But a rather limited sample to test this hypothesis)