White with little black letters
April 15, 2008
Looking at a blank page is like looking into the center of the universe and discovering that it is white. White is substantial, the basis of all color. Now that there are little black letters on this white page it is no longer itself. It has been assaulted. Sliced and pickled. This is when the artist feels most uncomfortable. How can we paint or write anything as beautiful as the white page or canvas, manifestations of the white center of the universe, where the unknown greatness floats? The eternal white and bright where the star dust of our ancestors and friends are silent, and remind me that the white page, the white sky, the white, see through, see nothing, wall of blank, pulpy flatness is a gift that cannot be unwrapped. The whiteness is an empty lap. I try writing my way toward it, to be encompassed, rocked, suckled, bounced on a knee, a child again in my mothers arms, but my mothers arms are star dust, and wordless.
Side Swipe from a Grief Drawer
March 27, 2008
Over and over, in your head, you say, what have I done? What have I done? What have I done? Standing in front of a bureau drawer you’ve been cleaning out, discovering your dead father’s driver’s license or a black and white photo of yourself, at a beach, standing knee-high to that father. You shut the drawer and go on. Maybe clean out the linen closet. Too late. The image of the face on the plastic weathered driver’s license is now lodged in the middle of your throat and when you swallow, the image sinks deeper and cuts into your center, the center from which all activity and motivation spring forth, and you want to sit down but the image might kill you, so you open the linen closet. 
Mice turds and urine sprinkled throughout the sheets and towels. The mice have eaten holes in your favorite sheets. Hands rip at the mess, pile it in the car for a later trip to the laundry. A temporary respite from the jabbing ache of longing, regret, loss, loss, loss. And you think, all is lost, so why bother washing the sheets? Dangerous thinking. Phone call from daughter driving a U-Haul cross country alone. Her cat is freaking out in the truck and has pissed on the seats, in her purse, on her lap. Ah, a problem, a smooth-out time-out. The gift of an unsolvable problem of the now. Will I have to pay to have the truck cleaned, she asks? Does vehicle insurance pay for cat piss cleaning? I offer to call the U-Haul people. There are no U-Haul people, just U-Haul recordings. What have I done? What have I done? Why am I standing in the middle of the living room asking what have I done? What does that mean? I have no idea. What am I going to do? What happened? What is happening? What is this? What is what? Let’s not walk to the mailbox today. Let’s not clean out any more drawers. I brush the mattes from the dogs paws. Mud season. Futile. The brush in my hand is weightless, the dog seems unreal, like a stuffed animal. In my head, full color, my father’s face on the driver’s license, resigned but dignified. One eye droops from a growing cancer of which he is unaware. Date of birth. Safe driver. Frayed, dirtied edges of plastic, a small square of plastic, impersonal, lawfully executed. My father is gone. And I will be gone. And my daughter may find my driver’s license in a drawer and your daughter or son may find your driver’s license in a drawer. But after all, we’re going to be dead and that’s perfectly natural. The lesson is: when we feel concern about mice eating our sheets, traffic jams, a neighbor’s gossip, lost job, bad credit, the inevitable broken heart, we can rest assured that someday all that will be left of us and our concerns is our driver’s license and maybe a building, some money, a novel, a good deed, our children’s and friend’s memories of our shenanigans. And so I suggest, don’t play it so safe. Live and die large. Fail large. What our children need are good stories about outrageous people who were ahead of their time. Be ahead of your time and make the discovery of your driver’s license in a drawer a cause for celebration and laughter.
Word Window Art Installation Project begins in Middlebury, Vermont at Great Fall Gallery
January 27, 2008
I drove to Vermont from D.C. last week, to check on things. I went to Middlebury to visit friends and noticed that the town no longer existed. Main Street, Lolly-pop Land, had erased itself in an effort to be cute. There were many windows with snow suits, beads, cow mugs, folk singer posters. I decided to take a window hostage for a new Word Window Art Installation Project. Doug Lazarus, artist, had just opened a new gallery/studio on Main Street, and one of his windows faced an acceptable stream of pedestrian and car traffic. We discussed the project for four minutes and he gave me the window. I will be posting a continual stream of words in phrases for the next few months which will reflect the subtext of Middlebury and, in totality, when published, act as an artistic rendering of the collective unconscious of the area. My last Word Window was in Newport, RI in 1998, and became quite popular with the locals and police force. An example of a Word Window in Newport: You Are Not Your Car. I look forward to this art project, because I don’t have to stay in Vermont to do it. I will mail Doug the words and he will post them . I can simply lay in bed and think up phrases after reading the Middlebury newspaper and talking to artists in the area who will act as conduits for me.
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I drove to Vermont with a man and I would like to tell you, now that he is gone, what happened, but I cannot because I am not sure myself. I only know that I am tortured by the many photos of my parents. On the desk, the wall, the piano. Now that I am alone with the ten-thousand dollar dog, the cottage feels like a mausoleum. It is not my home, although I now own it. It is theirs. It will always be theirs and there is nothing I can do about it, nor do I care to. The white quiet is deafening, the memories unbearably burdensome. All the days of before, without the comforting illusion youth provides – there are many days ahead. I am caught in the white quiet, like a fly in a web, and I know that it will close in until my breathe is shallow and my supressed grief has resurfaced. The lake is frozen solid and I can walk to New York. It was a skating rink until last night, when a new snow lay three inches of powder. Those inches of snow hang heavy on the evergreens and fence. I am thankful that he is gone so that I can talk to the white quiet, and ask what happened.
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The cop looked in the dumpster and noticed a picture of his wife. He had just received a complaint from the Olympic Sports store that someone had dumped bags of garbage in their dumpster. That someone was me. I’d cleaned out a few drawers of hometown memories that morning, – high school notebooks, graduation pictures, diplomas, clippings and headed into what I thought was a free-for-all dumpster tucked behind a strip mall. After I threw the bags into the dumpster I took a walk with the dog and when I returned to my car I was met by the policeman and the assistant manager of the Olympic Sports store. Read more »