You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
He got his name from signs I saw all over campus. NO SMOKING. Just move the space and it became Nosmo King. He was a solidly black cat with Siamese lines and smarts. As I noted when he was a kitten:
“Learned Audience, those who recite the word ‘prajana’ the whole day long do not seem to know that prajna is inherent in their own nature. But merely talking on food will not appease hunger, and this is exactly the case with these people. … Talking alone will not enable us to realize the Essence of the Mind, and it serves no purpose in the end.” – Hui Heng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, “having taken his seat and asked the assembly to purify their minds collectively.”
The Patriarch again: “Do not talk about the ‘Void’ all day without practicing it in the mind. One who does this may be likened to a self-styled king who is really a commoner. Prajna can never be attained this way. ….”
How I feel listening to so many sermons or radio-evangelist preachers.
“Prajna [Truth] does not vary with different persons; what makes the difference is whether one’s mind is enlightened or deluded.”
At the small-town paper, Marcy made all the difference. She was also a future Pulitzer Prize winner.
With her camera she cut through all the crap to find something of real value in the people.
Her signature touch often blended humor and compassion while giving a glow to black-and-white images of daily life. What she found added up into a larger statement over time.
Photographer Burt Stern was one of her inspirations of the hard work to strip an event down to a simple, direct image and underlying message, albeit his were often of commercial intent.
In those days, please remember, ours were mostly black and white shots, though her darkroom technique did wonders with the grays.
I noted her remark about a coworker’s husband who had no concept of aesthetics – a photographic silhouette, to him, meant something went wrong. He saw everything as “good” or “bad” reduced to a scale of “I like” or “don’t like.”
Yes, “good people” (like us) versus “bad people,” who may simply be different rather than evil.
It’s been a problem across much of humanity, though consumerism cashes in on it.
Sticking to what you like means taking the easy way out, rather than aiming for greatness or achievement. Many of the things I value in my own life started out as dislikes – opera, contemporary classical music, asparagus, lamb, meditation, beer …
I suspect she was the inspiration to make the protagonist in the novels that became Subway Visions, Daffodil Uprising, Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, and What’s Left a photographer rather than a writer. It was a step away from glorifying the writing trade. Besides, I had seriously considered becoming a visual artist but settled on writing instead.
“The camera itself creates and destroys illusion.” (Source long since lost.)
I became fascinated with Native petroglyphs, or carvings in stone, largely through reading scholarly reports when I was a social sciences research associate at Indiana University. The readings had nothing to bear on my paid work, but they did touch on some of the poetry I was engaging. I had no idea I would actually be viewing these in the wild barely two years later.
And here I am, 50 years later, living in a landscape at the other edge of the continent and aware that Native petroglyphs and petrographs, or painted images, are found hereabouts, though their precise location is kept secret.
Here are ten points I noted from the field notes.
Or “heh-ell,” as the dialect might say. It’s been a half-century now since I left Bloomington as a research associate, and a few years before, when I graduated.
Rather than rave about the graduate library or the celebrated rare-books temple or the music or business schools, let me take a different tack, as viewed from now.
Reporter Tom: “I was building a cabinet several nights ago and everything kept falling into place, everything fit, I cut the wood just right and there was such a good feeling of simply working that in a way I didn’t want to finish the thing. They never taught us to work that way. It’s always to get the thing done.”
Nowadays, no sense of craftsmanship. No unity of elements or workers. Just things, not creation.
For Esquimaux artists, objects do not have to be seen but treasures to be unwrapped and felt on special occasions.
~*~
Let’s clarify.
As I reacted somewhere recently, Endless Prairie, broken into what? Ghosts?
Most of my journals along these lines simply broke off.
Maybe I’ll revisit what I had and issue it later as a chapbook at Thistle Finch. There are limits to everything, after all.
Please stay tuned to see what else I turn up in this review of my past.
When it comes to mass media, the real power brokers are the big advertising agencies that foot the bills or at least allocate the payments. Forget “liberal media,” the rig of the game is elsewhere.
Here are some of my early journal entries along the topic.
“I used to think I had some control, but I’m finding out more and more that I have no control over the film. The film is gonna come out the same way,” depending on the performers, scriptwriters, prevailing moods, and other factors. “The material is being filtered through me, so it’s gonna wind up having my shape. And for me to think I can unshape it is crazy.” – Robert Altman, producer and director
My feelings after “having my own paper” on the prairie
“I hate to admit it, but everybody’s got the same news.” – Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Maxwell McCrohen on promoting features and columnists. He broadened the definition of “news.”
Celebrities get the headlines, of course. What makes them so special?
“Hollywood marriages are two constructed images colliding,” said bandleader Artie Shaw, reflecting on his ex-wives. He married eight times, in addition to 11 serious girlfriends. So much for expertise.
Let’s turn to ten others.
Jnana's Red Barn 