Archie Bell at Ken & Mary’s Blues Project — Computer Art by kenne
Houston, Texas has a lot of legionary musicians, not the lease is Archie Bell. You all timers, like myself will remember the 50’s & 60’s group, Archie Bell & the Drells. Remember “Tighten Up?” When it comes to great R&B, Archie Bell is among the best! His appearance at Ken & Mary’s Blues Project — The Last Waltz was a real blessing for those of us who have attended the Blues Project concerts over the years.
This week’s Presidential election has reminded me of Marshall McLuhan’s trademark, “The Medium In the Message.” From it, I recall his belief that we go through life looking through the rear-view mirror, and becoming aware of our environment only after we have left it and that what is communicated doesn’t count as much as how it is delivered.
Of course, the medium that exists today is much different than that of the sixties, they still alter our sensory life, therefore what we know. As a result, our society is like the driver who sees neither ahead to the future nor outside the side window to the present but looks only to the past in the rear-view mirror — “Make America great again.”
McLuhan believed that education must serve as a defense to the media fallout. He likened our society to the mariner in Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “A Descent Into the Maelstrom.” The mariner is caught in a whirlpool, but he figures out the relative velocities of currents and saves himself. The question remains whether, as a society, we are educated enough to save ourselves.
“TIME FOR MORE ACTION”
January 17, 2003, Peace Demonstration In Houston, Texas — Photo by Joy
In some ways, I feel as if I may have been in a trance these past eight years, kind of a passive free feeling. It’s now time to stand. Social justice, like art, requires an effort. It’s time for those who have half a heart for poetry, half for life to stand for truth. Those who have continued learning and have been sharpening our weapons by night to clear their throats and stand, becoming the voices of truth.
Jimmy “T99” Nelson At Houston’s Rhythm Room On Washington Street (September 13, 2003) — Computer Art by kenne
Jimmy “T99” Nelson (April 7, 1919 – July 29, 2007)was an American jump blues and rhythm and blues shouter and songwriter.With a recording career that spanned over 50 years, Jimmy “T99” Nelson became a distinguished elder statesman of American music. His best known recordings are “T-99 Blues” and “Meet Me With Your Black Dress On”. Nelson notably worked with Duke Robillard and Otis Grand.
— Source: Wikipedia
is life without making full use of what we already have, because life is given only once?
When I turn to my already gathered knowledge and experience, especially in times of unspeakable destruction that impales our future, I frequently turn to one of the most creative minds of the 20th century, Paul Klee. The title of this blog, “Becoming is Superior to Being,” is a Klee quote.
Among Klee’s paintings are a series of angels. Like in one of his most famous, “Angelus Novus,” Klee’s angels are very fragmented creatures, appearing very elusive. Angelus Novus so took Walter Benjamin that he bought the painting. In his interpretation of the painting, Benjamin seems to see in the angel the despair many of us feel in our not being able to help the victims of yet another unjust war. Benjamin wrote:
“A Klee painting named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling up ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which its back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
“Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible.”
—Paul Klee
“Listen to what you see You are blind to what you hear Listen to what you see Do not fear the truth beneath Reach for roots beneath the trees Listen to the words you seek Don’t listen to a word they say Do NOT listen to a word you’ve heard Do not listen to a word you’ve heard People are people we live for our own Live how you think not by what you’ve been told. . .”
“Shadows at the Backdoor” (09/13/03) — Image by kenne
Blues Legend, Jimmy “T99” Nelson is shadowed by James “Blues Hound” Nagel and Smokin’ Joe Montes
off-stage at the back entrance of the old Washington Street Rhythm Room.
Norman Baxter Signed Print of the 1972 Houston Skyline
“Today something different: can you find Ladybug?” The work of Claudia Galassini, which she posts on her blog, “The Sofi’s World“
One of the blogs I follow is “The Sofi’s World.” Yesterday she posted the above illustration, which immediately reminded me of the Norman Baxter print we have in our study. For years, Baxter’s illustrations appeared on the cover of some cities Yellow Pages, which was the case of the 1972 Houston Yellow Pages.
Archie Bell at Ken & Mary’s Blues Project — Computer Art by kenne
“Self-Portrait” — Image by kenne
“TIME FOR MORE ACTION”
Joy and Kenne (Houston, Texas, June 2001)
Jimmy “T99” Nelson At Houston’s Rhythm Room On Washington Street (September 13, 2003) — Computer Art by kenne
Little Dune Picture by Paul Klee — The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
“Shadows at the Backdoor” (09/13/03) — Image by kenne
Jimmy “T99” Nelson (10/01/01) — Image by kenne
