FIRST DAYS AT THE OFFICE

First days at the office are always just a little strange. You always think that you know more than you do. But the faces area blur, and the names go right by. You've done this before, but everything looks just a little off. Computer out of position. Two monitors and an uncomfortable chair. Nobody Is quite sure of you and you are not sure of anybody. Then you open up your screens. None of the programs are quite the same either! CS instead of CS 5. a new program, vector drawings alright but both similar to ones you've used before, but also just a bit strange. Everyone knows the filing system, and so they assume you do too. There is always new shop vernacular and again they all know it and think you do too! They say things and dart away, leave you sputtering and saying" what, what, he Lat "feeling like a fool, feeling rather dumb. Then you sit down shaking your head and wondering if. oh! They meant you need to use a stroke here, a fill there, a gradient over at the corner. And you think "aha-I can do this." Three days and things begin to look familiar. Memories of other jobs start to merge with this new one.  In fact, after three days the computer and desk area have become yours and are beginning to reflect just a tad of personality.   After a few days you are beginning to get the hang of some things. You remember, if not necessarily names yet, at least the faces and you are getting an idea of who does what. You pay close attention to learn the hierarchies and who is approachable. and all is at least quiet when you leave on Friday afternoon.

freewriting

write draw paint dream have a pee walk the sidewalk hike the mountains you look mahvellous into white this time maybe this time is the winner she dreams and the door opens flies scurry in outside the cutting of grass the moving of stones a truck drives by a truck rumbles loudly shakes the foundation a dog barks the page turns the book falls to the floor a dog barks again this toe this thought the miners in the well the symbol of fate the tripod the bunyon looking at trees what if god mocks us what if who is the pope anyway a man a demigod who knows who cares but they say that he travels in a bulletproof vehicle so how divine can he be the dalai lama now there is a religious leader walks around sometimes with an entourage sometimes not we met once he and I and he told me we knew each other in another life there was a door that opened then just for a moment and I had a dream thought that perhaps he was right so long ago no drifting intrusive beliefs about transmigration now no beliefs really but ideas images thoughts in the head that dazzle like thick music that take me places even as I sit still that cause the world to both grow and diminish that let in the world and shut it out that milling sound in the distance what is that a lathe perhaps in the shop next door or a motor running idling in some rude neighbor’s yard perhaps I was thinking just then of the value of the dollar then and now back when you could buy a whole full meal for a dollar or two when a record album was three dollars and a ticket to a movie was fifty cents back when the illusion of time was in place before the reality of time came in and we were in the symphony hall when the singer sang here time becomes space and it was like a magical phrase because we both joined hands and were somehow distanced from time somehow bound together so that even now with you so far away you intrude into this typewritten memory and if there is a small thought of food and if there is a will to power off on a comet they say the time is an element they say that god and time are somehow in cahoots they say that doctrine is firm and unchanging the don’t know that the map is not the territory and when I think the thoughts are fleeting like butterflies they dart in tickle stealing nectar dart out spurious untrustworthy but gentle and fulfilling just the same and you can look there is a place that is full of roses I can’t remember where it is but it was there when I was young and they kept it cool in there so the roses wouldn’t fade to fast in the cool air you could smell them the air so thick with the perfume johnny sometimes stole one for his ladyfriend it think it was ruthie yes that was it we called her crazy ruthie and I hated that she dated him I wanted to date her myself but you didn’t do that to a friend you couldn’t touch a girl if a buddy had aims on her you just didn’t in the city the castle dominated the hill and everything seemed an extension of it but the bridge I can’t remember which was older the bridge that was made by ancient romans without mortar to hold it sheer brilliant masonry a kind of magic sure sure but the cobbles on the city streets and the dinging of the trolleys ding ding a trying to stay abreast of the hippies who terrified us all of them druggies papa said all of them looking to steal an edge from you all of them cole banged on the door he had the knock just two fast raps tap tap you knew it was him and he’d always bound up the steps knock without hesitating first his hand just fell on the door like that back in jersey the door was outside not this stairwell door and the windowed stairwell you could see out but the apartment oh it was not a giant place but it was sufficient you could sleep in your own room and there was that ancient huge porcelain bathtub fill it up dip into it sink in right up to your nose if you wanted to oops dropped the book and had to set it in the sun three days later it was still damp it was a library book too the hobbit that juanita special ordered for me from the USAREUR central library in frankfurt and that was nearly an hour away it was an endless drive in those day that long long hour but thankfully we rarely went there but the time when glenn drove us in the mercedes to see emerson lake and palmer and I got stuck dead center where the lights mirrored blinding me off of palmer’s bass drum but the music so big and travelling I’m saying oh I didn’t know that one was theirs when I heard tarkus and after for the next few weeks scouring the record stores to find the songs we’d heard so we could deconstruct them learn their lessons like that I was thinking as we drove home that there was an undefineable feeling created by the amber-lit towns and villages we sped past at 100 km but it was an intense feeling and wondering what it was the sounds of other cars hissing by us passing as if we were standing still and the endless smooth beauty of the pitch black autobahn no stones no gravel nothing on the road to impede the drive a bit of perfection a bit of precision finally back to heidelberg and phv and san juan hill into my room to sleep and sleep thankfully tomorrow was sunday no school once we all took a bus there to frankfurt to see Eric Clapton another dream of a show evonne elliman standing on the apron of the stage looking like a beam from god’s own light and at the end all the men rushing forward in hope of touching her and she backing away away no I can’t I just can’t and finally the security men guiding her backwards and forcing the would be suitors away clapton who we’d all thought was dead of heroin years ago now he was there again this time to stay blues and reggae I shot the sherrif ringing out tho none of us had ever heard of bob marley yet that came later there was susie who never talked to me but in the teen club always wanted to slow dance with me the day I graduated she came up and kissed me once on the mouth her lips smooth soft and very warm she said good bye that way  two years later I saw her in sierra vista but she pretended she didn’t know me because her husband would beat her otherwise in those days you walked away and didn’t say anything it was their life after all I saw the ghost of heidelberg in that restaurant in chicago but even though I went in and looked at murals of the castle I never did eat there because it cost too much the day I arrived in waukesha it was cold as cold can be now that is the winter break arrival I was dropped by the bus near the dutchland dairy place with my enormous suitcase and I walked to campus by the back way seemed to take a year my fingers frostbitten I had to keep setting the suitcase down because it was too heavy and I had to warm my hands under my coat in the dark arriving at swarthout just as the first flurries of snow began realizing how lucky I was because an hour later we were in the midst of a blizzard but there I was sitting the television lounge barefoot on the headed floor and I think her name was nikki the girl who transferred from another college nestled against me we were all waiting to see who the last couple would be because they’d get to neck there in the lounge and it ended up being me and nikki I was so tired in the morning because we’d stayed all night because she shown me a new thing something with her mouth and I was still dreaming of it and in the morning I could still smell her on my hands and I didn’t want to wash them but feared embarrassment if anyone else smelled it on me who were you with they’d ask and taunt me when I told them because nikki was a scholarship girl they didn’t know that I was a scholarship guy even though I was always shabby clothed even though I didn’t have a car and couldn’t even afford a barber once a week because everyone effected the hippy look back then it was after all 1975 and the war was over none of us had to register for the draft anymore there was no rotc on campus and everyone was vocal in their love of peace and nixon had resigned everything was good nobody knew that reagan was right around the corner we hadn’t had the hostage crisis yet chevy chase every saturday night aping president ford we laughed so hard we pissed ourselves emily latella boy the nose on the gretal said tony I’d like to take her down but that nose is just too be but I had eyes only for magda she was my daydream once I’d pointed her out to tony and said that she was really cute he said no she isn’t so I assumed that he’d tried to lay her but not succeeded piss on what you can’t have he was that kind of guy although we were friends I could never say that he was nice all those people I can see them if I thnk of them clear as if we’d only parted yesterday but I have to summon the memory have to call it up its like that sometimes and the calling is difficult but once I’ve done it there they are clear as if they’d been with me an hour ago there were nights of such cold air you step outside and if you breathe through your mouth forget it your teeth will just shatter you look at the surface of the snow and every now and then there is a puff and a smokey cloud rises here or there like magic crystals and this snow has a crust so thick you can walk on it its not surprising that the eskimos have so many words for snow its all the same thing and yet its not blessings everywhere in the snowy night or on the nights when rain began but the cold wind froze it into glass coating everything so the ground is slick and we can’t walk safely it took nearly an hour to get from swarthout to old main.

No longer my own boss

Well, as of Monday I’ll be working days for someone else.  I’ve agreed to work for a local signmaker, designing business signs, car wraps and other promotional artwork.  I’ll have access to some great tools – a Roland plotter, diecut vinyl printing, large format plexi and decal printing and so forth.  It’s a small shop, not far from home, with a nice crew.  I’m looking forward to being in a deadline driven position again.  Its nice sometimes to have someone else cracking the whip!

To that end, this weekend I have to launch ancient versions of Photoshop and Illustrator – the shop is still on CS2, and I’ve been working exclusively in CS5 since the beta testing started over a year ago.  It’ll be strange losing some of the terrific workflow tools the newer version offers.  It’ll also be interesting to see just how patient I am with their old computers and slow processors. 

Last night I taught part two of a bookbinding workshop at Cochise College.  In part one, last Wednesday, we covered the coptic bookbinding process, and the participants each bound their books.  Yesterday in the tie-up session, they hardened the covers, primed them for painting and illustration, and we discussed the process of making a fine-art journal, further applications of the techniques they learned on the first book, etc.  When the group left late in the evening, they seemed fired up about the process, and psyched to get to work on their new books.  I’d forgotten how much fun it is to do a participatory class demonstration like that.  I’ve always enjoyed working with other people around – this workshop, I made a book of my own, demonstrating the process.  The students followed along, step by step.  It was gratifying to see twelve tight, evenly bound coptic books! 

So – now I have a weekend to tie up loose ends and get ready for next week.  I think the most difficult thing will be waking up at 5:45 every day.  I’ve been on a darktime schedule this past year, working on my books until 3 or 4 AM   everyday and then sleeping until 9AM each morning.  I’m going to lose my late night hours, hopefully without losing out on productivity.  It will, thankfully, mean not watching hours of television every night – I’ll be doing the book work in the evenings after dinner. 

The Argument for Homemade Books

 

I was working on a book the other day in my favorite venue (the Sierra Vista Public Library’s Café Sierra) Normally I’d have been either writing or painting in my current book, Mind at Work – Mind at Play – or one of the smaller satellite volumes that I carry for when I need to loosen up a bit.  That day however I was actually binding a small new volume, to use as a sample for a bookbinding workshop that I was going to teach that evening. 

A man stopped to watch for a moment, then began to ask questions.  I’m used to most of the questions tossed at me, but one made me stop and think a bit.  After I had explained that I was actually binding a book, he asked me why I didn’t just buy one. 

I think that this is possibly the most complicated question I get. 

On the surface, there is a simple answer.  I enjoy the process.  Binding a book is rather easy to do, doesn’t take an overwhelming amount of time, and is a pleasant break from the much harder work of writing or painting.  I enjoy the entire process, from selecting (or sometimes even making) the paper, to designing the cover, and stitching the spines.  Once you’ve done it a few times, much of the process is done on “automatic”, using the physical memory to work while the mind is free to do other things.  And the end result is very satisfying too.  I love books – all books – but I have a special love for the ones I’ve made from scratch (even some of the early attempts, which have uneven stitching and many glaring flaws in the workmanship!)

I carry a small but complete bindery in a little fishing tackle box, which means that I can make a book anywhere – in a café, out in the desert, on top of a mountain, by a campfire.  That means that I can create memories that go along with the physical object.  One thing I want to do in the near future is to make a book at the Grand Canyon so that every time I open it to work, it will summon the memory of that amazing place.

If I’m traveling, I can buy local papers to give the books I make a regional flavor – especially if there are small papermaking shops that produce unique pages with distinctive surfaces or colors or smells. 

One thing I’ve always loved about the process of art is its transformative qualities.  I studied intaglio printing in college, and the real joy of it for me was in taking a plain metal plate and putting it in acid to watch the magic of chemistry infuse it with my ideas and images.  I used to get breathless watching the plates etch and my heart always beat faster when I cleaned off the etch ground and got the first glimpse of the plate surface. 

I get some of the same thrill making a book.  I always start with large sheets of paper, which I fold score and tear into the dimensions I want.  The flat sheets get smaller as I tear them, but then when the binding begins, they become something oddly much larger than the original sheet.  Something about the way pages work in a book makes its dimensions inside seem infinite.  A page is just a page, but a book can be an entire universe in and of itself.

There are loads of blank books available, some of them not very expensive, some of them even pretty good.  If I have the money to burn, I can even order a hand made book and have in the past, with a fine leather binding and marbled covers and extraordinary Italian paper from Amalfi.  A large book like this is a pleasure to work in, but the cost for one starts at just over $100, and can range as high as $800, if I order all the bells and whistles. 

There are other reasons too, possibly enough for another entry on another day.  Oh – and that guy who asked me why I don’t just buy a book?  I gave him the simplest answer I can:  Because its fun.

When I tried to write or paint while applying thoughts or principles learned studying art history or literature in college, I found it impossible to work. For me, the impulse has to be the guide for creation. Meaning is something that comes later.

A Little Rant about writing that digresses to other things

Wacom tablets are terrific. I'm sitting at a desk with my laptop, writing this by hand with my Wacom  tablet. The software reads my awful handwriting (imagine your doctor's sig. on a very had day!). The software reads it and posts it in moveable type! Better still, If I write a message out as a Photoshop file, I can take the image into a translations program and have a "hand" written image as well as the moveable type version.The best of both worlds! Another item  I'm toying with as an element of my book project is using my iPod touch with a voice translation program (Dragon Dictation) so that I can record thoughts on the go, and have the translator output it as type.  I wonder what James Joyce might have accomplished had he had access to this stuff... He could have actually walked the strand beach and dictated as he went. This will definitely add a new dimension to stream of consciousness writing! Lately work on the physical book has been largely images. Long days painting and little energy for writing with pen and ink. Now with the new software I  can write or dictate my thoughts and use them later as basis for writing in the physical book. A friend suggested printing out the pages on my ink jet and pasting them into the book, but I think instead I may just use in Design or Photoshop to design a print version of the type and then either import scans of drawings and paintings, or add native photoshop images to spice things up. I want to create a bridge between the physical book and the digital one. I also need to think about ways that the digital becomes PURELY digital. I.E., moving images, live recorded segments, animations. A digital book should definitely do things the a physical book cannot. So: Dreamweaver, InDesign, Photoshop, Final Cut should all be a part of it. How Do I: get the two sides to interact in ways that make sense? It should be easy to make a digital copy of the physical volume, but what elements of the digital work world be appropriate to include in the other? I'm enjoying the challenge of trying to do something traditional in a contemporary fashion. So much has evolved over the past few years. The other day it occurred to me that if I attach my computer to my television, I can create imagery in photo shop that is native to a large screen television. I can use my kindle reader to read books on my television. So: my television becomes a book. My laptop becomes a book. My iPod becomes a book. Conversely, my book can become a webpage; my book can become a movie. My book can become an email or a text message, or a sound file (if read aloud) accompanied by a typeset version of the type file. Reading this now. I think that Science Fiction as understood it as a child is no longer FICT ION is no longer fiction. All the things that Dick and Heinlein and Ellison predicted are at our disposal now. Its an amazing time to be an artist, And we haven't even started to make a dent in what we can accomplish. There are new art forms waiting to be born, forms nobody has even dreamed of yet, forms that have entirely in the digital realm, things that are both concrete and ephemeral, art that exists in a new dimension of words and colors and movement and time. In the new art world, we can find ways of communicating ideas and stimulating thought that are immediately more powerful, useful, and accessible than anything we have had in the past. Here is something that I know for a fact. Call it my prophecy or my science fiction if you wish. That in the very near future somebody will create a form of information vehicle which beans no resemblance to a book a but it will be so efficient and easy to interact with that it will move through the human community the a virus.tall. It will function wholly in the digital realm. It will have no pages-and it won't be a scroll. It will take advantage of the sheer depth of memory and retrieval and imaging that a computer has to offer. or, perhaps, will use a new technology that we will not even recognize as a computer Something else that hasn't been thought of or invented yet. Hopefully will get there sooner rather than later. And I also suspect (though I won't say predict) that the mystical transformation that we hear about from the esoteric community will use this new form as its delivery system. For a change of cons Lives ness to occur instantaneously, in "the twinkling of an eye", all that would be necessary is for every human mind to see/ feel/ experience this one idea, P.o.V., image, thought, whatever at the same moment. I think that we are on our way to that, within reach of that, its nearly here. We should make our minds up as a species that we are going to get there. Set a date even, say December 21, 2012. That seems convenient Not the day of the great apocalypse that some are predicting: rather, the great revelation. Forgive my little rant.  If you’ve read it, you should know that all these writings are spurious, extemporaneous, off the cuff, written as I think them, without censoring.   If I am completely wrong on this, I will say that it was just a thought I had, there and gone, no deeply held belief
(beyond, perhaps, a wish that it be true!) If I’m right, I’ll say that I knew it from the start and pretend to be smart. 

Houston

 

When the dark days come, Wendy sits and thinks.  Wendy is thinking of the crust of the world which sits safely on the crust of the universe.  She is thinking about the veils of Isis, how each one is like one of the emanations of the Qabalah.  You were feeding the fire but not the flame and a tourniquet was the benefit.  You cannot be lucid with  your head in the clouds Wendy.  You cannot dream buckets but elicit surrender. 

If the morning comes and the division bell rings,  if the Chapterhouse opens and the king sits on the throne, then an epoxy madness will reveal testy puddles of integers, neither prime not  odd, but illusory just the same.  You can lift the mettle of the significant loss without defending Wendy near her washer.  She has a turnstyle and a trusted friend, but neither gun nor hoe has she.  Wendy is as Wendy is and she sips sultry sodas in a sad café.  Oh roach, or embezzeler of robust carnage heed the sinful simplicity of a statuesque and marvelous martyrdom.  And finally, when Saturday comes, have bananas and sequins.

Hummingbirds

There was a place where the hummingbirds lived, and a place where they drank their nectar and taught their young to fly with the precision of small helicopters. There is no sign there, but the miracle remains to be seen by any who have eyes. Those who cannot see may hear the hummingbirds as they fly close and distant.
 
They make that sound – hum, hum, hum. That’s why they’re called hummingbirds. In the nests of the hummingbirds there are no cellphones or stereos. The talk and music of the world close by is enough for them. They laugh at us with all our tools and devices saying “You don’t need that! Put that down! Look, I have only myself and my wings, and this nectar. I have only what God gave me!” Except of course the ones who are atheists – they say, instead, I have only what I need and I need only what I have. I was hatched this way.” Among hummingbirds, there are often disagreements about who can suck on which flower, but they never argue about religion. They know better than that. And none of them, not a one, is a politician.

Art In The Park, Sierra Vista, Arizona, 10/02/10

My parents with John Vaughn, the sculptor.

Art In the Park is one of the things that Sierra Vista has gotten right!  It’s a well organized, large scale, open air art festival, with artists from all over the Southwest.  Today was a perfect day for it too – not hot, a bit on the cloudy side with bits of blue popping up every now and again.  When we first arrived, there was a sprinkle of rain but it passed quickly. 
The sculpture pictured here was made by a friend of my brother Joe.  I took the shot pretty much off the cuff with my point and shoot Kodak camera,  then added a few flourishes with the Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail filters. 
There was a lot of good work on display - I was surprised at how many more photographers were represented, some of them very, very good.

One of John Vaughn's sculptures - Was a perfect match for the
dark clouds today! see my NAPP Portfolio here

  

Succint

Life has its moments.  While we live them, they seem to be separate and distinct, one from the next. The longer we live, the more moments we accumulate.  Finally, when we begin reaching a certain point, the way we see those moments shifts.  They begin to lose their singularity and to blend together into a larger singularity.  I think that when we reach the end, we finally get to see the thing as a whole, and suddenly the entire life transforms into something unique, succinct and ultimately comprehensible.  Time is not plural.  It is singular.  And our lives are not plural either.  Like all those moments coalescing into a life, all those lives coalesce into a world, also succinct and comprehensible, but to the mind that comprehends the myriad lives as something singular.