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Tonights moon.... on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Rated Jun 14 2008 • 1 review • photography, poetry, moons, cooters, wheezers • flickr.com

Tonight's moon, with a hand held shot....


Orion

Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you're young

my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won't give over
though it weighs you sown as you stride

and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
an old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.

Indoors I bruise and blunder,
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.
Night cracks up over the chimney,
pieces of time, frozen geodes
come showering down in the grate.

A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman's head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow's nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it's with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can so least damage.
Breathe deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall.

--Adrienne Rich

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Comics and Editorial Cartoons: Ted Rall on Yahoo! News

Rated Jun 14 2008 • 0 reviews • cartoons, politics • yahoo.com

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Felis catus or ifn youre a pal, Joe..... on Flickr -...

Rated Jun 14 2008 • 1 review • cats, death, photography, poetry, mother • flickr.com

Felis catus or if'n you're a pal, Joe.....


That the Soul May Wax Plump

My dumpy little mother on the undertaker's slab
had a mannequin's grace. From chin to foot
the sheet outlined her, thin and tall. Her face
uptilted, bloodless, smooth, had a long smile.
Her head rested on a block under her nape,
her neck was long, her hair waved, upswept. But later,
at "the viewing," sunk in the casket in pink tulle,
an expensive present that might spoil, dressed
in Eden's green apron, organdy bonnet on,
she shrank, grew short again, and yellow. Who
put the gold-rimmed glasses on her shut face, who
laid her left hand with the wedding ring on
her stomach that really didn't seem to be there
under the fake lace?

Mother's work before she died was self-purification,
a regimen of near starvation, to be worthy to go
to Our Father, Whom she confused (or, more aptly, fused)
with our father, in Heaven long since. She believed
in evacuation, an often and fierce purgation,
meant to teach the body to be hollow, that the soul
may wax plump. At the moment of her death, the wind
rushed out from all her pipes at once. Throat and rectum
sang together, a galvanic spasm, hiss of ecstasy.
Then, a flat collapse. Legs and arms flung wide,
like that female Spanish saint slung by the ankles
to a cross, her mouth stayed open in a dark O. So,
her vigorous soul whizzed free. On the undertaker's slab, she
lay youthful, cool, triumphant, with a long smile.

--May Swenson

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Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens - Image

Rated Jun 13 2008 • 1 review • painting • nga.gov

Albert Pinkham Ryder, though a near contemporary of both Homer and Eakins, was a very different sort of painter. Hermitlike and visionary, he explored biblical, literary, and mythological themes. His Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens was inspired by Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelungs. Ryder claimed, "I had been to hear the opera and went home about twelve o'clock and began this picture. I worked for forty-eight hours without sleep or food." Nevertheless, when he exhibited the canvas in New York in 1891, he had been revising it for three years.

Lit by an eerie moon, the Rhine River nymphs recoil in horror when they realize that the German warrior Siegfried possesses their stolen, magic ring. After he refuses to return it, they predict that he will die violently. To evoke impending doom, Ryder devised tortured shapes, crusty textures, and an unearthly green color scheme.

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NGA | Winslow Homer | 11

Rated Jun 13 2008 • 2 reviews • drawing, painting • nga.gov

Winslow Homer's "Blackboard" 1877
The marks on the blackboard puzzled scholars for many years. They now have been identified as belonging to a method of drawing instruction popular in American schools in the 1870s. In their earliest lessons, young children were taught to draw by forming simple combinations of lines, as seen on the blackboard here. Rather than being a polite accomplishment, drawing was viewed as having a practical application, playing a valuable role in industrial design. Homer playfully signed the blackboard in its lower-right corner as though with chalk.

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Distinguished Artist Series - Franz A. Bischoff

Rated Jun 13 2008 • 1 review • painting, ceramics • tfaoi.com

While working at the glass factory, Bischoff made the acquaintance of a Mrs. Wagner, who persuaded him to move to Detroit to work in her ceramic studio. He and Bertha set up house in nearby Dearborn in 1892. Bischoff did not work for Mrs. Wagner for very long, deciding instead to open his own studio in Dearborn, where he produced exceptional ceramics and taught classes in china decorating.

During the next fourteen years in Dearborn, Bischoff became one of the most famous ceramic artists of his day. He specialized in painting flowers, most of which he grew in his garden. He was above all noted for his representations of roses, which earned him the epithet "King of the Rose Painters."

While in Dearborn, Bischoff continued to teach classes and founded the Bischoff School of Ceramic Art in Detroit. He later opened a second school in New York. His fame spread and his ceramics won several major awards in shows and expositions. He participated in the Columbian International Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and in the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. He also took part in various exhibitions in Paris, France. Bischoff invented and manufactured many ceramic colors which he formulated at home in his workshop.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zPIMHcWtuU

Rated Jun 13 2008 • 2 reviews • music, video • youtube.com

My favorite Roches song......
youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]

Hammond Song.......
(Words & Music by Margaret A Roche)

If you go down to Hammond
you'll never come back
In my opinion you're
on the wrong track
We'll always love you but
that's not the point

If you go with that fella
forget about us
As far as I'm concerned
that would be just
throwing yourself away
not even trying
Come on you're lying to me

Well I went down to Hammond
I did as I pleased
I ain't the only one
who's got this disease

Why don't you face the fact
you old upstart
We fall apart

You'd be okay if you'd
just stay in school
Don't be a fool

Do your eyes have an answer
to this song of mine
They say we meet again
on down the line
Where is on down the line
how far away?
Tell me I'm okay

If you go down to Hammond
you'll never come back

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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/0...

Rated Jun 13 2008 • 1 review • news • baltimoresun.com

Tim Russert receiving the Television Broadcasting Hall of Fame Award during the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas last year (Photo by Darrin Bush, AP)

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