My Friend

Pedro

Gap, JC Penny, Levi Strausse, Walmart, all guilty. Spread the word, name names SHAME THEIR BOTTOM LINE, SHAME THEIR NAMES!

GAP, LEVI STRAUSSE, JC PENNEY, DISNEY, WALMART and others all have blood on their hands. DISNEY....yes, DISNEY has blood on it's hands. Aren't U.S. corporations treated legally as persons, with all rights attending...? Disney, Gap, Levi Strausse, JC Penney, and Walmart must be held accountable...as persons I guess. The death toll from the collapsed building at the factory in Bangladesh is nearly 650. Managers herded workers back into the death trap to meet deadlines imposed by U.S. manufacturers demanding against a "dead" line. JC Penny, Gap, Walmart, and Levi Strausse are all companies with blood on their hands. Facebook, tweet, and blog the names of Levi Strausse, Gap, and Walmart, JC Penney. Yes, that's right...Walmart, Levi Strausse, and Gap.

A worker should not have to choose between putting food on the table, or being safe from explosion, building collapse, or fire.

The labor movement has been regressed back into the nineteenth century and centuries before, by U.S. and other "industrialized" nations doing business SHAMEFUL practice.

It is not only cheapest and least expensive clothing provided for our convenience, luxury brands that are of greatest cost are produced in the same ways, in all cases workers are exploited.

If you dig, you can find a few companies not guilty. Dig, tweet, facebook, blog, and more transparency will become more transparant.

Disney announced this week that they will be pulling their brand from Bangladesh manufacturing, where the labor is the cheapest in the world. Too little too late for nearly 650, and their loved ones.

The cost of doing business includes human rights embedded in the U.N. human rights charter.

Rite of Spring

Rite of Spring, time to emerge from the cocoon, and unfurl those butterfly wings...

we are out of February, and although it won't be official until March 20, it is SPRING!

Last night I saw the world premier at SF Ballet of The Rite of Spring.
Composer, Ivor Stravinsky, Choreographer, Yuri Possokov, Principal dancers, Jennifer Stahl--- (standing ovation for her alone), and James Sofranco---perfect foil for Jennifer. He and all the rest beyond sublime.

It is part of Program 3, three separate pieces, w/ MM Dance Company.

Last and middling, Guide to Strange Places, Composer John Adams, Choreographer Ashley Page, was lovely, perfection, I would say, even if a little pastoral for my taste.
Two more performances, March 2, and March 10.

Planet of the Apes, Friday, December 14, 2012

"...Oh my sister, oh Stella...in this dark march toward whatever it is we are approaching, don't, 

don't, don't hang back with the apes." I think that's what Tennessee Williams pleaded to the 

American people through his character Blanche, who was loved by him, completely 

misunderstood by most. Somehow, perhaps somewhat paraphrased, the admonishment to her 

sister by Ms. Dubois comes to mind from the monologue I performed in a college drama class, 

by a playwright most beloved by me, Tennessee Williams.

Was 'apes' the word used by Blanche? I think it was, but I may have it mixed up because of my 

rambling ongoing conversation with my friend. Again the subject of the great classic American 

film comes up, Planet of the Apes. And as I tell my friend that we are living in the planet of the 

apes, 350 million guns already in the hands of the people,  while continuing gun business 

thrives as our government asleep at the wheel drives us off their demented dream of a fiscal 

cliff...

My friend wonders yet again, and I love my friend for his repetition because of truth always 

inherent in it..." Did Charlton Heston even know what Planet of the Apes was about?"...as I 

answer, no, many fine actors haven't a clue. Many do not even read the entire script ahead of 

time. It is one of many reasons why the director is  more important to the making of great or 

good film, because more responsible for the end result than any of the other components of 

the collaboration that filmmaking is, even the writer, more responsible by far for greatness of 

film result than the actor.

So no, we had to wait until his life had passed before we could wrest the gun from the cold 

dead arms of Charlton Heston. The man was wrong, we were able to do it, as he was wrong 

about many things.

I am going to make some chamomile tea, and see if I can go back to sleep as I consider that 

totalitarian regime is the people in my country, that life here in the U.S. is a game of Russian 

Roulette for even the most vulnerable, the most innocent. It is a cruel game imposed by who? 

Any among us, as any among us are potential victims. All of us as we walk, talk, move, and 

even try to sit still, remain stationary while trying to learn in a classroom of first graders. 

Or even those who like my teacher in first grade, Mrs. Martone, who called her little charges "Dear Heart," 

 and allowed each in turn to be honored weekly as "Personality of the Week."

All together now, just before Christmas...

     

Amygdala

I love my amygdala

admire from the distance

amygdala tells me,

and I listen.

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

Almond-shaped set of neurons

you reside deep in my brain’s

medial temporal lobe.

location, location, location

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

You play a key role

unlock the door of my emotions, but

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

from angry boys.

you form part of my limbic system;

collective name for structures in 

the human brain involving

emotion

motivation,

emotional association with memory.

Both fear and pleasure responses

are linked in you,

across species, your size

correlates with aggressive behavior.

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

You shrink in males that have been castrated,

by more than 30%.

Interesting fact, but I speak

to you who are in me

You, in me do not always function as you should,

you that I don’t fault you for that,

for I know

it is not your choice

that pleasure and pain

often cannot even know 

within you,

which is which,

one dissolves easily 

(in emotional moments)

into the other, 

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

one would laughingly say

there is a groping in the dark,

a blindness, an inability to understand

at times

what’s-what-what-what’s-what-

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

Sometimes that which appears to you quartz clear

diamond bright

Amethyst hued

or carnelian,

may be,

or maybe not be,

may be

murky black but glinting like obsidian,

while all the while beckoning mica 

fools you,

when gold is real.

Problem is

fear of serpentine asbestos chrysotile

with its fibrous crystals

has made its harsh toxicity known,

so in your malfunctioning self you

stayawaystayawaystayawaystayaway

mix it up:

the pleasure and the pain

a frightening witches brew

laughter/tears

attraction/repulsion

hideous beauty bitter sweet ugly

comforting and alienating

always

the dancing revolution 

pleasure and pain.

Desperada,

I love you,

and I know that 

love is what you need.

the closest one to you

I am here to ease 

transitions, transformations

endless shape-shifting trickster

you

who will never be conquered, quelled, comforted 

by

my 

love. 

still, be still,

I am here.

Censorship of Art at Facebook Must Not Be Tolerated

     A disturbing trend is coming to my attention all too frequently of late on facebook. Several of my most talented artist friends are reporting that facebook is allowing its users to report art, and that facebook is responding to these reports by taking down the art. While I realize that I have little or no power to affect and influence facebook in their inane decision to allow this, nevertheless I state boldly that I will not stand by and say nothing. I will not allow this ludicrous practice on parts of both users of facebook, and facebook itself to continue without protest. In that spirit I post what might be my most offensive art at this blog entry, which I will post on facebook. Keep in mind I don't really know which among my works are offensive. I do not set out to make offensive art. Offensive is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder often has an offensive agenda, jealousy is often what is behind any kind of offense.

     There is one here I shocked myself with when I painted it, Adam and Eve at Palisades Park Cliff Above the Pacific Ocean. The two of them have just partaken of massive amounts of fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they have been cast out of the Garden of Eden. They are thinking seriously of committing suicide, their spirits can be seen ghost-like tumbling over the edge of the cliff.
      How I offended myself at the time I painted it, and since when I see photos of it online (including here) was by using garish Disney colors,  and an almost cartoony inyerface style, telling story without benefit of intermediary masking techniques, which are usual for me, and too numerous to expound on here.
      Ambivalent as I am about this painting, people have enjoyed it, remembered it, discussed it, and finally purchased it.

     I post this entry in celebration of Independence Day in the United States. I seek liberation from the petty and mundane forces which seek to mediocritize us all. No to censorship of any art, anywhere!

     The situation is childish, not suited to a society interested in what is best and brightest among its citizenry, namely those practitioners of all of the the arts. We all need to find ways to protest that people seek to undermine artists, and that facebook allows it.

     I have read at the blogs of others that facebook allows the most repugnant vile hate groups to post what they like on pages about subjects which for the purposes of this entry I deem unsuitable for me to address.

     This posting is against censorship. In protest I upload some of my own most offensive images and will post this entry to facebook, along with a call to arms. Blog about this subject. Write to facebook. Post offensive photos from among your artworks. Write about the subject at your status report. Write about it in notes. Call upon others to also protest. We should put our "friends" and facebook on notice that the situation is not one that is in any way tolerable to us.

Skin Deep

No More Words Today, it is Night Again, and Somehow I Have Always Known