“…it’s clear that world has lost its confidence in the responsible role of the United States. Iraq is viewed by the world as reckless and self-serving rather than being a necessary step to protect the mutual security.
In the financial sector, the world viewed us as a safe haven because they believed we had effective systems for legality, transparency and security. That’s taken a hard knock. But we are rescued for the moment by the fact that other people’s systems turn out to be even worse. I believe that you can turn a page and that you can rebuild the position of the country in the world community if you do so in a way which is fully credible. New people, new philosophies, new policies.” — James Galbraith
“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slave of some defunct economist.” — JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES If he were alive today, what would Keynes have done?
In trying to explain what is obscene, Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart uttered the now-famous phrase, “I know it when I see it.” Each one of us may have used similar phrases when shopping during this holiday season; “I’m not sure what I want to buy her, but I will know it when I see it.”
But what exactly is “it”? Defining what we mean can be an abstract exercise. “It” is often used as a generic expression of “worth,” but can take on a different meaning for different people. Why is this?
How we define “it” is a reflection of context, values, experiences, and expectations. “It” can be referring to the quality of service, art, craftsmanship, functionality, all of which are intended to identify, codify, and communicate our expectations. So, is “it” really an abstraction?
The test for “knowing it when you see it” is expressed in behavior. As a young man, I loved going to the Chicago Art Institute. I could spend hours staring at masterpieces, surrounded, in the silence of others, sharing art that has endured the test of time. Such silence, in the face of beauty, speaks volumes.
Seek not to define
You know it when you see it
I know you see it
Another case for intuitive thought. Define it, lose it!
There are so many things I want to share, but time doesn’t allow – aren’t you glade.
If you every doubt that we are all connected, just listen to music. You’ve seen it on T-shirts, heard it in songs and read it in literature, “Music, The Universal Language.”
“Music is a form of energy, like the sun.
Music is the voice through which spirits speak,
using a language that is beyond words,
a music that is beyond notes.”
Enigma, mystery, paradox are just a few of the frequently used words in describing Emily Dickinson. In the 122 years since her death, scholars, students and fans continue to analyze both the person and her poetry. To help in this endeavor, the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council continues its annual panel discussion and birthday party. This year’s dual event will be December 4th. Click here to learn more.
For more years than I can recall, I have given books to family members as if it were a form of contrition for all the books I wish I had read – call it a form of “book credit.” This year will be no exception, however, I have learned that this annual selection process may have more benefit to the giver than the receiver. Although I read more books than ever before, I still can’t read everything I would like, so I supplement this deficiency by reading reviews and discussions on the Internet.
Tops on my weekly list of Internet reading is the NY Times Sunday Book Review and this time of year includes “100 Notable Books of 2008.” As with most years, I have not yet read any on the list, but one year into the 2007 list, I can acknowledge having read some on it, thanks in large part to being a member of the “Society of the 5th Cave.” This group of the “non-discriminating bourgeoisie” ensures my reading some books I would not normally read, especially those in the fiction category.
ART IN BLACK AND WHITE –SEEING THROUGH THEIR EYES, NOT WITH THEM
I belong to a book club, “The Society of the 5th Cave,” which meets monthly. This month our book selection was Portraits and Observations – The Essays of Truman Capote. If you enjoy reading prose with superb style, as illustrated in this early morning walk in New Orleans:
“…I stopped still in the middle of a block, for I’d caught out of the corner of my eye a tunnel-passage, an overgrown courtyard. A crazy-looking white hound stood stiffly in the green fern light shinning at the tunnel’s end, and compulsively I went toward it. Inside there was a fountain; water spilled delicately from a monkey-statue’s bronze mouth and made on pool pebbles desolated bell-like sounds. He was hanging from a willow, a bandit-faced man with kinky platinum hair; he hung so limply, like the willow itself. There was terror in that silent suffocated garden. Closed windows looked on blindly; sail tracks glittered silver on elephant ears, nothing moved except his shadow.”
I love it, “…nothing moved except his shadow.”
However, this posting is not so much about Truman Capote as it’s about photographer, Karl Bissinger, who pasted away three days ago (November 25, 2008). Bissinger photographed many artists, actors and writers in the 1950’s, among them, Truman Capote.
Gore Vidal has written on the Bissinger image below (from left: ballerina Tanaquil LeClercq, novelist Donald Windham, artist Buffie Johnson, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal and Karl Bissinger): “So study this picture, and see what optimistic people looked like as they began what they thought would be lifelong careers, and in some cases indeed lasted as we lost more and more of a country that is no country without Karl Bissinger to make art of it.”
Puzzled by her restricted access to her world, she lone to reach its outer limits – to know life beyond her glass skin. If only she could go outside her inside being.
She looked above; there was no glass – an opening to the boundless world. Someday she would jump through the opening, making the whole world kin, multiplying her being.
Life beyond my skin Bath in kinship with strangers Breaking the law of being
I finally have edited several clips into one video of Sonny Boy Terry, Rich DelGrosso & Mike Durbin’s acoustic blues, recorded at Ken’s birthday party, November 8th. I keep learning to do this video thing and may learn to use more light in the future. At least it’s authentic!
FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE POETRY THAT RHYMES,
EAT YOUR HEART OUT
In tomorrow’s New York Times,
There’s a book review that rhymes,
A new book by a “deadline poet,”
Written in verse right up to the minute,
On the two thousand eight election
In a country seeking a new direction. Calvin Trillin is the poet’s name
Writing verse on Palin he did proclaim: “On Russia’s being not too far away
She sounded eerily like Tina Fey.”
If you are one of those who believe
Poetry without rhyme makes one heave
Then run out this week for a copy
And settle down with a glass of brandy
Deciding the Next Decider:
The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme
by Calvin Trillin
As noted in an earlier posting, Ken & Mary’s Blues Project fall gathering had a great line-up, with the Moe Hansum Band, Sonny Boy Terry and Rich DelGrosso. For Rich, this October 25, 2008, Project event was his first time at Ken and Mary’s blues house party, and what a collaboration! One of the evening’s songs was Rich’s, “Get Your Nose Outta My Bizness.” Sonny Boy Terry and the band take the lead from Mr. “Blues Mandolin” delivering a classic country blues sound, proving once again, the more you see it, the more you like it.
As I write this posting, Joy and her mother, Virginia, are driving back after spending a few days visiting their new grand/great-grand daughter in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The reports on the visit have been great. As I await there return, I’m using there visit to the Blue Ridge Mountains to share a very good Settle-based band, Fleet Foxes and the tune, Blue Ridge Mountains. You will find their whimsical-minstrel sound very soothing — kind of Indie Rock with a Crosby, Stills & Nash sound. Plus, I love their CD cover.
Each day I read various blogs to supplement the daily headlines. Today I read across this on the NY Times Cityroom blog, which showed the above image. Sorry, it’s a hoax. The war is not over, at least not yet.
Two weeks after Ken & Mary’s Blues Project House Party, many of the same people got together to help Ken celebrate his 65th birthday. Mike Durben, Rich DelGrosso and Sonny Boy Terry, as usual, put on another great blues evening. It just doesn’t get better!
I will be putting a video on YouTube soon, so for now enjoy this photo set.
“Another Place, and Another Time”
____________
“If there was an answer, he’d find it there.”
This drawing is one of fourteen very beautiful imagination-provoking pictures from the book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg. Each picture inspires the observer to apply one’s own experience in exploring every aspect of the drawing.
Come travel with me
Questioning life without doubt
The road will not end
“…it’s clear that world has lost its confidence in the responsible role of the United States. Iraq is viewed by the world as reckless and self-serving rather than being a necessary step to protect the mutual security.
In the financial sector, the world viewed us as a safe haven because they believed we had effective systems for legality, transparency and security. That’s taken a hard knock. But we are rescued for the moment by the fact that other people’s systems turn out to be even worse. I believe that you can turn a page and that you can rebuild the position of the country in the world community if you do so in a way which is fully credible. New people, new philosophies, new policies.” — James Galbraith
Read more, or watch the Bill Moyers interview of James K. Galbraith. (“The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree!”)
EXCELLENT!
“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slave of some defunct economist.” — JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES If he were alive today, what would Keynes have done?
kenne
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