Lady of the Marsh

 Venus, A Study: sculpture mix; celadon or light jade, transparent brown, and floating blue glazing.

Art class exercise from a few years back: 40 minute session with model.  Practicing, both sculpting and glazing.  I look at her, and I think of what I have learned, what I can learn.

The Gate From The North

Weighing Anchor

ENGLISH 1B --the current plan for Fall 2013

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Kem Nunn, Tapping the Source
Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
Burton Raffel, How To Read A Poem
William Shakespeare, The Tempest


ENGLISH 1A

to be announced

Neptune: A Mask (with Visual Backstory)

Neptune: the latest mask for the wall.

Sculpture mix; transparent brown, floating blue, shino, studio-green, denim, and celadon glazing, splashed and layered.

Sculpture mix, formed and drying before the first firing.

Bisqued, with the raw glazes dripped and splashed . . . .

If you compare Neptune in this last shot to the first one, or to the watery versions I've posted previously, you can see how much lighting and background can influence the captured image.

Neptune works best, so far, if I hold the mask in my hands in direct sunlight and turn it this way and that to appreciate the play of so many colors and so much sparkle from the shiny glazing and the many textures.  A lucky piece, I think.

Hexagon: New Bowl

Stoneware; floating blue and transparent brown glazing.

Neptune: A Close-Up

A comment elsewhere: "I court watery luck with all the ardor I can muster."

I need to make those pool workouts happen again; I need to make that ocean time--free diving or kayaking--happen again.  I need . . . .

Spiral Dreaming

A new bowl from the kiln.

Stoneware; floating blue and transparent brown glazing.

Neptune: A Preview

Neptune: the latest mask for the wall.

Sculpture mix; transparent brown, floating blue, shino, studio-green, denim, and celadon glazing, splashed and layered.

Otter Pelt Short

Keeping track: buzzcut 2013.

Hydrodynamic.

S-P # 51+

Cocktail Party: Eight Fingers of Fun

Octorina, at play, with Ophelia Rising in her background.

Kudos to CL for the octopus.

Lightning Strike: Bob Mould's "Stupid Now"

STUPID NOW

Please listen to me 
And don't disagree
Even as we fight 
It doesn't matter to me
(3x)

Here alone in this place
Here alone in my bed
I feel your warmth on my face
And these thoughts in my head

Everything I say to you feels stupid now
Feelings that I shared with you are over now
Haven't I been enough of a fool for you?
Everything I say to you feels stupid now

(Please listen to me 

And don't disagree

Even as we fight 

It doesn't matter to me)

Everything I say to you feels stupid now

Feelings that I shared with you are over now

Haven't I been enough of a fool for you?

Everything I say to you feels stupid now
(2x)

Let me out let me out let me out

Let me out let me out let me out
Let me out let me out let me out
Let me out let me out let me out

(Everything I say to you feels stupid now)

--Bob Mould, 

the opening song to District Line -----
The words alone, I like, but the music, the music, will take you higher.

As Archilochos said, "The truth is born as lightning strikes."
(Guy Davenport's translation in his excellent 7 Greeks.)

Jaunty Mom!

My mother, back in the late 1960's/early 1970's, in front of our family tent somewhere in Northern California.  I'm thinking, perhaps, Lake Siskiyou?

I think she looks rather jaunty in Dad's hat here.

Batter Up! My Dad As A Young Man

R.I.P.  Dad.  The anniversary has rolled around once again.

My father was always a ball-player.  And, he has "Duckworth" written all over his face.

Bob Mould: "Walls In Time"

Here is another set of lyrics from Bob Mould's oh so excellent District Line, though you should really listen to the song . . . .

WALLS IN TIME

Is it a crime to want to show your soul?

Waste enough time, another black hole

Misguided, not even lost, not even sure

Now find the disease or the cure

Has life lost all its glory and wonder

Sad tales are told again and again

Sleep, toss and turn, my old bed

What a tale, again and again

Now all the stories of the world could fit in a building

In a building high and wide

Filed under headings that no one's quite sure of

Lord knows that everyone tried

When the pen meets the paper

When the mind, it begins to stray

How a soul could lose its will to explain

Oh, explain again and again

Day after day, day after day, day after day

Flowers losing life when picked from the ground

A nice arrangement for the occasion

But flowers, when moved from place to place

Lose all meaning, dislocation, dislocation

In a fit of fitless night, a flame attempts to spark a soul

Ignite, burn, candle light, a waste of time, another dead soul

If these walls around my soul could talk

The words would lose importance

Within these walls I hold so dear these words

We all want to leave a mark somewhere

For those of us who feign to care

In all unfortunate times we find a way

To build up these walls in time

To build up these walls in time

Is it a crime?

--Bob Mould

Bob Mould's "Very Temporary": Very Intense

VERY TEMPORARY

If you want it to be, you've got to stand here by me
But if you wanted to leave, go on and make yourself free
If you want me to plead, you see me down on my knees
You can do as you like, but do you know where it leads?

When I wake from my sleep, outside my window I see
A little robin that sings a little sonnet for me
And every morning, I feel just like that bird in that tree
I'd build a nest out of weeds, but would you share it with me?

This is very temporary, but I can't do without having you around
If it's very temporary, tell me now
Just to please you, I'd blow my brains out, this is it
Cut my heart out with a razor now

You're the one in my dreams, how can I make you believe
It's all that I want, it's all that I want

Now I'm lonely, it's the yearning
You infiltrate my thoughts and places in my home
This is very temporary, I know that's all you want, I know, I know
You're the reason I keep breathing, and I'll give up the fight if you go
Cut my heart out with a razor now

--Bob Mould, lyrics from District Line (2008).

You really should hear the song, but I also like focusing on the words, as I do here.

"Stupid Now," "Again and Again," and "Old Highs, New Lows" are three other songs from this CD well worth digging into.

Wisdom Sleeps

 Wisdom: sculpture mix, unglazed; copper wire.

Practical Reading: Poetry in Motion -- McKay, Teasdale, and Wroth

Poetry Study Notes

--1.  Turn to Claude McKay’s “The Tropics in New York”:
What’s the story?
Who are the characters that we get?
What’s the scene, the physical scene?
What happens?  Is there action? Interior or exterior action?
What’s the mood? How can you tell?
What questions do you have about this poem?  Ask me.
There are three stanzas here: what should we notice about that?
How many sentences are there in this poem?
How do the number of sentences relate to the flow of the poem?
What would happen to the poem if we just had the last stanza?
Or, what if we had stanzas 1 & 2, but not 3?
Do you like this poem? Does it work for you?  Why or why not?


--2.  Turn to Sara Teasdale’s “Night Song at Amalfi”:
How does this poem feel different from McKay’s poem?
What or where is “Amalfi”? Do you know? Can you guess? Does it matter?
What’s the story?
Characters? Scene? Action?
What’s the mood? How can you tell?
What questions do you have about this poem? Ask me.
There are three stanzas in this poem: what should we notice about that?
Do the sentences end with each stanza or flow into the next stanza?
What would happen if we changed all the “night” and “dark” references to “day” and “light” references?
What would happen if we changed all the “I” references to “he” or “she” or even “they”?  What about “we”?  How would this be a different poem?

--3.  Turn to Mary Wroth’s  Sonnet # 1 from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus:
What’s the story?
Who are the characters that we get?
Who is the son of Venus?  Who or what is Venus, by the way?
What seems to be motivating Venus?
Or, what's with all the burning ?  What burns? What does this burning mean?
What’s the situation?  The physical scene if we were making a video?
What questions do you have about the poem?  Ask me.
A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, but notice how the units of the poem work:  1-4; 5-8; 9-14.
          How can I tell that these are the units here?
Does it help to read the poem in those units, pausing after each part to check what it seems to mean?  (I hope so.)
What is a “martyr”?  How is the speaker’s heart “martyred”?
What is the tone of the last three lines?  How can we tell?
Is this love, this being a lover a good thing to the speaker?
We have a dream vision in the poem: why use a dream to express what’s going on?

Poetry in Motion: McKay, Teasdale, and Wroth

THE TROPICS IN NEW YORK

 Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
     Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
     Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Sat in the window, bringing memories
     of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
     In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
     A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
     I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

--Claude McKay



NIGHT SONG AT AMALFI

I asked the heaven of stars
     What I should give my love --
It answered me with silence,
     Silence above.

I asked the darkened sea
     Down where the fishers go --
It answered me with silence,
     Silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping,
     Or I could give him song --
But how can I give silence,
     My whole life long? 

--Sara Teasdale



From PAMPHILIA TO AMPHILANTHUS


When night's black mantle could most darkness prove, 
     And sleep, death's image, did my senses hire 
     From knowledge of myself, then thoughts did move 
     Swifter than those most swiftness need require.
In sleep, a chariot drawn by wing'd desire, 
     I saw, where sate bright Venus, Queen of love, 
     And at her feet her son, still adding fire 
     To burning hearts, which she did hold above.
But one heart flaming more than all the rest, 
     The goddess held, and put it to my breast. 
     "Dear Son, now shoot," she said, "thus must we win."
He her obeyed, and martyr'd my poor heart. 
     I, waking, hoped as dreams it would depart; 
     Yet since, O me, a lover have I been.


--Mary Wroth

Work In Progress: Clay, Glazing

Early Crush: Sophia Loren, Diver

Still shot from Boy On A Dolphin, I believe.

(I happened on this shot by chance this evening, so I feel compelled to share it.  Thanks to the person who checked out my blog via a page with this photo.)

Time to go diving, I am thinking.

Zevon: "All The Salty Margaritas In Los Angeles"

DESPERADOES UNDER THE EAVES

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn't lyin'
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I'm gonna drink 'em up

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

Don't the sun look angry through the trees
Don't the trees look like crucified thieves
Don't you feel like desperadoes under the eaves
Heaven help the one who leaves

Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands
And I'm trying to find a girl who understands me
But except in dreams you're never really free
Don't the sun look angry at me

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was listening to the air conditioner hum
It went mmm... mmm...mmmm...mmmm
Look away
(Look away down Gower Avenue, look away)

--Warren Zevon

The lyrics to that favorite song from that early album.

Surrey's "Green Waves"

COMPLAINT OF THE ABSENCE OF HER LOVER BEING UPON THE SEA

O happy dames! that may embrace
The fruit of your delight,
Help to bewail the woful case
And eke the heavy plight
Of me, that wonted to rejoice
The fortune of my pleasant choice:
Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.

In ship, freight with rememberance
Of thoughts and pleasures past,
He sails that hath in governance
My life while it will last:
With scalding sighs, for lack of gale,
Furthering his hope, that is his sail,
Toward me, the sweet port of his avail.

Alas! how oft in dreams I see
Those eyes that were my food;
Which sometime so delighted me,
That yet they do me good:
Wherewith I wake with his return
Whose absent flame did make me burn:
But when I find the lack, Lord! how I mourn!

When other lovers in arms across
Rejoice their chief delight,
Drowned in tears, to mourn my loss
I stand the bitter night
In my window where I may see
Before the winds how the clouds flee:
Lo! what a mariner love hath made me!

And in green waves when the salt flood
Doth rise by rage of wind,
A thousand fancies in that mood
Assail my restless mind.
Alas! now drencheth my sweet foe,
That with the spoil of my heart did go,
And left me; but alas! why did he so?

And when the seas wax calm again
To chase fro me annoy,
My doubtful hope doth cause me plain;
So dread cuts off my joy.
Thus is my wealth mingled with woe
And of each thought a doubt doth grow;
—Now he comes! Will he come? Alas! no, no. 

--Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Rhymes With Orange IV

Escape!