Marilyn's paintings; show; opening at Goatshed

Robert Bergman

Robert Bergman and Laurie McConnell were very kind to invite me to visit recently. We spent three or four  hours together.

I felt immediately comfortable with them in their home, which is a bit of a hybrid home, and, for now I will leave it to Bob and Laurie to tell that story.

Before I sat down or took off my jacket, Bob asked to see pictures of my family. This curiosity made me happy- and within a few minutes, he had my Iphone and was browsing the pictures while I watched, and answered questions. We spent most of that time looking at portraits I'd made of Marilyn's paintings in her current show, some of which I will post later.

Although for me the visit was a really really wonderful experience, we should get right to the point, which is his work. Here are some links. There is a recording linked below, for example, of Toni Morrison reading at the opening of his exhibition at the National Gallery. Toward the end of that reading are some profoundly insightful observations that begin: "there are no strangers, only versions of ourselves".

What can I say about work that hasn't been exhibited as yet? I choose not to say much. Robert has only just been born within a few recent years as far as being known for what he is- a wonderful and much accomplished artist, and this despite many decades of producing work that has always been recognized for it's importance when seen-

still,  I'm almost-- but not at all-- alone in the belief that the works that haven't been exhibited yet will have a powerful effect on our sense of what he has done, and our sense of what abstraction and photography can be and do. I hope that the works I saw a few days ago are exhibited soon.




Toni Morrison's reading:
http://www.nga.gov/podcasts/lectures/2009.shtm


http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/10/art/robert-bergman-with-john-yau


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574445390823842348.html


http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2009/10/discovering_robert_bergman.html

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2004/05/art/bergman


http://www.nga.gov/press/exh/3106/


http://www.lemonde.fr/style/article/2013/02/08/arret-sur-visages_1828298_1575563.html


http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-10-13/news/36929403_1_robert-bergman-national-gallery-sarah-greenough

http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/301

http://www.yossimilo.com/exhibitions/2009_11-robe_berg/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/nov/02/robert-bergman-photography

The Fugue of Wog: Excerpt from a letter of Wog to Brenda

(Imagined as Wog's way to try to entertain  the object of his (ultimately failed) wooing, a series of letters to be received well (Brenda eventually says "you are a great writer, but unfortunately, that is the only good thing about you")

•••

This is nice: an icicle bicycle. (just as) Lice love lumps of hairy. Sweet as melted popsicle, our kidvoice Kevin and kidvoice Kim kill time in a hatshop, where the hats are all magic, and produce characters when you turn them up over empty air. These special hats, as is well known, these must be stored carefully, as the characters must be watched, and watched by the watchful eyes of children’s only- one little girl will prevent what happened last Sunday. Last Sunday was Easter.   

You can ride an icicle bicycle one time, maybe, unless you ride it in winter. But this isn’t winter. And the wheels. And the spokes. Tinkle part. Tinky a part. Tinker. The icicle tinker was a lady’s first name. Sasquatch rubberized the special yellow snow for wheels. Sasquatch was a rubbery form of hatred, he wasn’t even a he, or a she, exactly- Sasquatch was of an unborn mutt-hood. But handy- handiness was Sasquatch’s use. The icicle bicycle was just one example, and the way it tinkled lovely was just one purpose, and its flowers of gaping snow-lace were doubled use- they looked and acted lovely- but they also were horns; literal. These snowlace flowerhorns had to be blown, not with bulbs or bellows, bladders- no air-bladders here. The rider of the tinkling-apart icicle bicycle was required to apply lips to the laceflower snow horn’s stem, and literally blow into it to produce one toot, and as the toot was born the snowflower burst apart to a white dust, which had flat iridescent white flakelets to it, many hundreds of dozens. Didn’t the flakelets pause? Or was it the eyes that watched? Didn’t they also find themselves, a cloud, or in a could- a cloud I meant- in a clod of steamy misted vapor- find themselves accompanied by their own sound? A creamy kind of undulating percussive many-toned reverberation? And isn’t this just the trouble in itself?. Questionville was not for nothing named as such, and the (twenty three) tribes of the Questionfolk scratch themselves to this day, whatever the season, I imagine- but who knows who reads and when? Last Sunday was Easter.

The characters when produced unwatched by kids are dangerous, to say the least. Sasquatch dispatched one last Sunday, confusing the Catholic contingency by crucifying him on Easter. There’s nothing to be made of this of course, unless you are a politician, in which case, there’s to be made of any event, some reason to push the music in a direction that most folks otherwise wouldn’t countenance. Was this crucifixon a literal act of an unborn form of hatred? Who’s birthday was on the horizon when the undulations paused on a breath of a Jane’s exhalation, and the steeple drew a shawl of snow tight to shoulders, and muffled its own swinging bell’s clangs? A tongue? Ululating for the steeple’s bell’s a hammer-swinging situation, where you have a cast brass tulip turned over swinging in one frequency; and a great, cast, solid bronze hammer that gets to swinging in its own opposed such. And this is just a walk we took- she and I. Hilda. Pooly. Perfume.

These things that advantage air for its willingness to carry infections; or auras of different sorts (types, varieties, forms, categories, species)- people, characters- they bleed into their own atmospheres- they take these into themselves, and the atmosphere turns them inside out as well, and grabs at their substance- have you noted the hands of air’s particles? All have had air’s fingers pluck water molecules from the outer membrane of very wet lung cells.

Now it must be said: To continue in certain directions is to become oneself a priest- has this occurred to you my dear? Have you ever found a certain starched collar with its intensely dessicating whiteness throttling your windpipe? This has happened many times to the person currently speaking.

Well, it’s a prime number of times. A prime number of times I kissed the feet of our Lord, adding and subtracting from and to the layers of lugubrious saliva that centuries of chanting clergymen shared in a spirit of great and humble daring. These feet that rest below my face as I speak. He is a prime number of inches tall- thirteen- well- the whole carved wood affair of his depiction I mean, including the cross itself, which extends somewhat beyond the part nailed on to it, His body- is thirteen inches total. Don’t say “really?”. Its hard enough to continue, and with gravity on the rise (how many comets have pooped out lately? With the sound of wounded after-thoughts, of wounded missiles, missiles sent from the slingshots of kids, I mean, whistling missiles, the ones that sadly speak when sent against the air’s feathers, against what must be rustled, or raised- the hackles of air being air’s form of Sasquatch’s essential nature, the barbs- that eventually, collaborating with gravity- brings things down. How many comets that used to zip by here without a thought- that would whisk along in their stretched-out oval orbits- how many have piled into us? Adding to the mass? And this building material is foreshortening our legs- it always starts with the legs. Not that any of this is anything to make anything of- something eventually will start tipping things back the other way- just like the tulip-bell pivots, and open’s its mouth, and open’s its throat, and what comes out are more seen than heard events just now- jagged hard-edged shadows. We are grateful for this rain of dark geometry: triangles, purposes, porpoises, pupils- the pupils of the eyes of cows, neatly pressed from the purest and shiniest blacks, the depths of which have been checked carefully by children, and confirmed, as of last Sunday (which was Easter) to be infinite. (In Questionville- assuming the impossible- which a writer must always assume[1]- that you, reading- are not from here- everything is either infinite, or a prime number).

•••

---

[1] these rules, where did they come from? I assume there are a prime number of rules. Can there be an infinitude?

Rupert and Kuspit

Rupert sent some materials that further inform as to his work, and enlarge also upon what Kuspit said in his review.

 My pal Barry near the headwaters of the Kern.

The headwaters looking south.

A water ouzel --  whose story, by Muir, was the progenitor of this set of works.

Chapter 13
The Water-Ouzel

THE waterfalls of the Sierra are frequented by only one bird, —the Ouzel or Water Thrush ( Cinclus Mexicanus , Sw.). He is a singularly joyous and lovable little fellow, about the size of a robin, clad in a plain waterproof suit of bluish gray, with a tinge of chocolate on the head and shoulders. In form he is about as smoothly plump and compact as a pebble that has been whirled in a pot-hole, the flowing contour of his body being interrupted only by his strong feet and bill, the crisp wing-tips, and the up-slanted wren-like tail.

Among all the countless waterfalls I have met in the course of ten years’ exploration in the Sierra, whether among the icy peaks, or warm foot-hills, or in the profound yosemitic cañons of the middle region, not one was found without its Ouzel. No cañon is too cold for this little bird, none too lonely, provided it be rich in falling water. Find a fall, or cascade, or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you will surely find its complementary Ouzel, flitting about in the spray, diving in foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells; ever vigorous and enthusiastic, yet self-contained, and neither seeking nor shunning your company.

WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING.

If distrubed while dipping about in the margin shallows, he either sets off with a rapid whir to some other feeding-ground up or down the stream, or alights on some half-submerged rock or snag out in the current, and immediately begins to nod and courtesy like a wren, turning his head from side to side with many other odd dainty movements that never fail to fix the attention of the observer.

He is the mountain streams’ own darling, the humming-bird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows. Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, —none so unfailingly. For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells. While water sings, so must he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sure accord; low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, but never silent.

During the golden days of Indian summer, after most of the snow has been melted, and the mountain streams have become feeble, —a succession of silent pools, linked together by shallow, transparent currents and strips of silvery lacework, —then the song of the Ouzel is at its lowest ebb. But as soon as the winter clouds have bloomed, and the mountain treasuries are once more replenished with snow, the voices of the streams and ouzels increase in strength and richness until the flood season of early summer. Then the torrents chant their noblest anthems, and then is the flood-time of our songster’s melody. As for weather, dark days and sun days are the same to him. The voices of most song-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; but the Ouzel sings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm. Indeed no storm can be more violent than those of the waterfalls in the midst of which he delights to dwell. However dark and boisterous the weather, snowing, blowing, or cloudy, all the same he sings, and with never a note of sadness. No need of spring sunshine to thaw his song, for it never freezes. Never shall you hear anything wintry from his warm breast; no pinched cheeping, no wavering notes between sorrow and joy; his mellow, fluty voice is ever tuned to downright gladness, as free from dejection as cock-crowing.

It is pitiful to see wee frost-pinched sparrows on cold mornings in the mountain groves shaking the snow from their feathers, and hopping about as if anxious to be cheery, then hastening back to their hidings out of the wind, puffing out their breast-feathers over their toes, and subsiding among the leaves, cold and breakfastless, while the snow continues to fall, and there is no sign of clearing. But the Ouzel never calls forth a single touch of pity; not because he is strong to endure, but rather because he seems to live a charmed life beyond the reach of every influence that makes endurance necessary.

One wild winter morning, when Yosemite Valley was swept its length from west to east by a cordial snow-storm, I sallied forth to see what I might learn and enjoy. A sort of gray, gloaming-like darkness filled the valley, the huge walls were out of sight, all ordinary sounds were smothered, and even the loudest booming of the falls was at times buried beneath the roar of the heavy-laden blast. The loose snow was already over five feet deep on the meadows, making extended walks impossible without the aid of snow-shoes. I found no great difficulty, however, in making my way to a certain ripple on the river where one of my ouzels lived. He was at home, busily gleaning his breakfast among the pebbles of a shallow portion of the margin, apparently unaware of anything extraordinary in the weather. Presently he flew out to a stone against which the icy current was beating, and turning his back to the wind, sang as delightfully as a lark in springtime.

After spending an hour or two with my favorite, I made my way across the valley, boring and wallowing through the drifts, to learn as definitely as possible how the other birds were spending their time. The Yosemite birds are easily found during the winter because all of them excepting the Ouzel are restricted to the sunny north side of the valley, the south side being constantly eclipsed by the great frosty shadow of the wall. And because the Indian Cañon groves, from their peculiar exposure, are the warmest, the birds congregate there, more especially in severe weather.

I found most of the robins cowering on the lee side of the larger branches where the snow could not fall upon them, while two or three of the more enterprising were making desperate efforts to reach the mistletoe berries by clinging nervously to the under side of the snow-crowned masses, back downward, like woodpeckers. Every now and then they would dislodge some of the loose fringes of the snow-crown, which would come sifting down on them and send them screaming back to camp, where they would subside among their companions with a shiver, muttering in low, querulous chatter like hungry children.

Some of the sparrows were busy at the feet of the larger trees gleaning seeds and benumbed insects, joined now and then by a robin weary of his unsuccessful attempts upon the snow-covered berries. The brave woodpeckers were clinging to the snowless sides of the larger boles and overarching branches of the camp trees, making short flights from side to side of the grove, pecking now and then at the acorns they had stored in the bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep still, yet evidently putting in the time in a very dull way, like storm-bound travelers at a country tavern. The hardy nut-hatches were threading the open furrows of the trunks in their usual industrious manner, and uttering their quaint notes, evidently less distressed than their neighbors. The Steller jays were of course making more noisy stir than all the other birds combined; ever coming and going with loud bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, and taking good care to improve the favorable opportunity afforded by the storm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. I also noticed one solitary gray eagle braving the storm on the top of a tall pine-stump just outside the main grove. He was standing bolt upright with his back to the wind, a tuft of snow piled on his square shoulders, a monument of passive endurance. Thus every snow-bound bird seemed more or less uncomfortable if not in positive distress. The storm was reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, not to say song, came from a single bill; their cowering, joyless endurance offering a striking contrast to the spontaneous, irrepressible gladness of the Ouzel, who could no more help exhaling sweet song than a rose sweet fragrance. He must sing though the heavens fall. I remember noticing the distress of a pair of robins during the violent earthquake of the year 1872, when the pines of the Valley, with strange movements, flapped and waved their branches, and beetling rock-brows came thundering down to the meadows in tremendous avalanches. It did not occur to me in the midst of the excitement of other observations to look for the ouzels, but I doubt not they were singing straight on through it all, regarding the terrible rock-thunder as fearlessly as they do the booming of the waterfalls.

What may be regarded as the separate songs of the Ouzel are exceedingly difficult of description, because they are so variable and at the same time so confluent. Though I have been acquainted with my favorite ten years, and during most of this time have heard him sing nearly every day, I still detect notes and strains that seem new to me. Nearly all of his music is sweet and tender, lapsing from his round breast like water over the smooth lip of a pool, then breaking farther on into a sparkling foam of melodious notes, which glow with subdued enthusiasm, yet without expressing much of the strong, gushing ecstasy of the bobolink or skylark.

The more striking strains are perfect arabesques of melody, composed of a few full, round, mellow notes, embroidered with delicate trills which fade and melt in long slender cadences. In a general way his music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil pools.

The Ouzel never sings in chorus with other birds, nor with his kind, but only with the streams. And like flowers that bloom beneath the surface of the ground, some of our favorite’s best song-blossoms never rise above the surface of the heavier music of the water. I have often observed him singing in the midst of beaten spray, his music completely buried beneath the water’s roar; yet I knew he was surely singing by his gestures and the movements of his bill.

His food, as far as I have noticed, consists of all kinds of water insects, which in summer are chiefly procured along shallow margins. Here he wades about ducking his head under water and deftly turning over pebbles and fallen leaves with his bill, seldom choosing to go into deep water where he has to use his wings in diving.

He seems to be especially fond of the larvæ of mosquitos, found in abundance attached to the bottom of smooth rock channels where the current is shallow. When feeding in such places he wades up-stream, and often while his head is under water the swift current is deflected upward along the glossy curves of his neck and shoulders, in the for of a clear, crystalline shell, which fairly incloses him like a bell-glass, the shell being broken and re-formed as he lifts and dips his head; while ever and anon he sidles out to where the too powerful current carries him off his feet; then he dexterously rises on the wing and goes gleaning again in shallower places.

But during the winter, when the stream-banks are embossed in snow, and the streams themselves are chilled nearly to the freezing-point, so that the snow falling into them in stormy weather is not wholly dissolved, but forms a thin, blue sludge, thus rendering the current opaque—then he seeks the deeper portions of the main rivers, where he may dive to clear water beneath the sludge. Or he repairs to some open lake or millpond, at the bottom of which he feeds in safety.

When thus compelled to betake himself to a lake, he does not plunge into it at once like a duck, but always alights in the first place upon some rock or fallen pine along the shore. Then flying out thirty or forty yards, more or less, according to the character of the bottom, he alights with a dainty glint on the surface, swims about, looks down, finally makes up his mind, and disappears with a sharp stroke of his wings. After feeding for two or three minutes he suddenly reappears, showers the water from his wings with one vigorous shake, and rises abruptly into the air as if pushed up from beneath, comes back to his perch, sings a few minutes, and goes out to dive again; thus coming and going, singing and diving at the same place for hours.

ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL.

The Ouzel is usually found singly; rarely in pairs, excepting during the breeding season, and very rarely in threes or fours. I once observed three thus spending a winter morning in company, upon a small glacier lake, on the Upper Merced, about 7500 feet above the level of the sea. Astorm had occurred during the night, but the morning sun shone unclouded, and the shadowy lake, gleaming darkly in its setting of fresh snow, lay smooth and motionless as a mirror. My camp chanced to be within a few feet of the water’s edge, opposite a fallen pine, some of the branches of which leaned out over the lake. Here my three dearly welcome visitors took up their station, and at once began to embroider the frosty air with their delicious melody, doubly delightful to me that particular morning, as I had been somewhat apprehensive of danger in breaking my way down through the snow-choked cañons to the lowlands.

The portion of the lake bottom selected for a feeding-ground lies at a depth of fifteen or twenty feet below the surface, and is covered with a short growth of algæ and other aquatic plants, —facts I had previously determined while sailing over it on a raft. After alighting on the glassy surface, they occasionally indulged in a little play, chasing one another round about in small circles; then all three would suddenly dive together, and then come ashore and sing.

The Ouzel seldom swims more than a few yards on the surface, for, not being web-footed, he makes rather slow progress, but by means of his strong, crisp wings he swims, or rather flies, with celerity under the surface, often to considerable distances. But it is in withstanding the force of heavy rapids that his strength of wing in this respect is most strikingly manifested. The following may be regarded as a fair illustration of his power of sub-aquatic flight. One stormy morning in winter when the Merced River was blue and green with unmelted snow, I observed one of my ouzels perched on a snag out in the midst of a swift-rushing rapid, singing cheerily, as if everything was just to his mind; and while I stood on the bank admiring him, he suddenly plunged into the sludgy current, leaving his song abruptly broken off. After feeding a minute or two at the bottom, and when one would suppose that he must inevitably be swept far down-stream, he emerged just where he went down, alighted on the same snag, showered the water-beads from his feathers, and continued his unfinished song, seemingly in tranquil ease as if it had suffered no interruption.

OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT.

The Ouzel alone of all birds dares to enter a white torrent. And though strictly terrestrial in structure, no other is so inseparably related to water, not even the duck, or the bold ocean albatross, or the stormy-petrel. For ducks go ashore as soon as they finish feeding in undisturbed places, and very often make long flights overland from lake to lake or field to field. The same is true of most other aquatic birds. But the Ouzel, born on the brink of a stream, or on a snag or boulder in the midst of it, seldom leaves it for a single moment. For, notwithstanding he is often on the wing, he never flies overland, but whirs with rapid, quail-like beat above the stream, tracing all its windings. Even when the stream is quite small, say from five to ten feet wide, he seldom shortens his flight by crossing a bend, however abrupt it may be; and even when disturbed by meeting some one on the bank, he prefers to fly over one’s head, to dodging out over the ground. When, therefore, his flight along a crooked stream is viewed endwise, it appears most strikingly wavered—a description on the air of every curve with lightning-like rapidity.

The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents he traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the throng of booming rockets, then darts abruptly upward, and, after alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to feed and sing. His flight is solid and impetuous, without any intermission of wing-beats, —one homogeneous buzz like that of a laden bee on its way home. And while thus buzzing freely from fall to fall, he is frequently heard giving utterance to a long outdrawn train of unmodulated notes, in no way connected with his song, but corresponding closely with his flight in sustained vigor.

Were the flights of all the ouzels in the Sierra traced on a chart, they would indicate the direction of the flow of the entire system of ancient glaciers, from about the period of the breaking up of the ice-sheet until near the close of the glacial winter; because the streams which the ouzels so rigidly follow are, with the unimportant exceptions of a few side tributaries, all flowing in channels eroded for them out of the solid flank of the range by the vanished glaciers, —the streams tracing the ancient glaciers, the ouzels tracing the streams. Nor do we find so complete compliance to glacial conditions in the life of any other mountain bird, or animal of any kind. Bears frequently accept the pathways laid down by glaciers as the easiest to travel; but they often leave them and cross over from cañon to cañon. So also, most of the birds trace the moraines to some extent, because the forests are growing on them. But they wander far, crossing the cañons from grove to grove, and draw exceedingly angular and complicated courses.

The Ouzel’s nest is one of the most extraordinary pieces of bird architecture I ever saw, odd and novel in design, perfectly fresh and beautiful, and in every way worthy of the genius of the little builder. It is about a foot in diameter, round and bossy in outline, with a neatly arched opening near the bottom, somewhat like an old-fashioned brick oven, or Hottentot’s hut. It is built almost exclusively of green and yellow mosses, chiefly the beautiful fronded hypnum that covers the rocks and old drift-logs in the vicinity of waterfalls. These are deftly interwoven, and felted together into a charming little hut; and so situated that many of the outer mosses continue to flourish as if they had not been plucked. A few fine, silky-stemmed grasses are occasionally found interwoven with the mosses, but, with the exception of a thin layer lining the floor, their presence seems accidental, as they are of a species found growing with the mosses and are probably plucked with them. The site chosen for this curious mansion is usually some little rock-shelf within reach of the lighter particles of the spray of a waterfall, so that its walls are kept green and growing, at least during the time of high water.

No harsh lines are presented by any portion of the nest as seen in place, but when removed from its shelf, the back and bottom, and sometimes a portion of the top, is found quite sharply angular, because it is made to conform to the surface of the rock upon which and against which it is built, the little architect always taking advantage of slight crevices and protuberances that may chance to offer, to render his structure stable by means of a kind of gripping and dovetailing.

In choosing a building-spot, concealment does not seem to be taken into consideration; yet notwithstanding the nest is large and guilelessly exposed to view, it is far from being easily detected, chiefly because it swells forward like any other bulging moss-cushion growing naturally in such situations. This is more especially the case where the nest is kept fresh by being well sprinkled. Sometimes these romantic little huts have their beauty enhanced by rock-ferns and grasses that spring up around the mossy walls, or in front of the door-sill, dripping with crystal beads.

Furthermore, at certain hours of the day, when the sunshine is poured down at the required angle, the whole mass of the spray enveloping the fairy establishment is brilliantly irised; and it is through so glorious a rainbow atmosphere as this that some of our blessed ouzels obtain their first peep at the world.

Ouzels seem so completely part and parcel of the streams they inhabit, they scarce suggest any other origin than the streams themselves; and one might almost be pardoned in fancying they come direct from the living waters, like flowers from the ground. At least, from whatever cause, it never occurred to me to look for their nests until more than a year after I had made the acquaintance of the birds themselves, although I found one the very day on which I began the search. In making my way from Yosemite to the glaciers at the heads of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, I camped in a particularly wild and romantic portion of the Nevada cañon where in previous excursions I had never failed to enjoy the company of my favorites, who were attracted here, no doubt, by the safe nesting-places in the shelving rocks, and by the abundance of food and falling water. The river, for miles above and below, consists of a succession of small falls from ten to sixty feet in height, connected by flat, plume-like cascades that go flashing from fall to fall, free and almost channelless, over waving folds of glacier-polished granite.

On the south side of one of the falls, that portion of the precipice which is bathed by the spray presents a series of little shelves and tablets caused by the development of planes of cleavage in the granite, and by the consequent fall of masses through the action of the water. “Now here,” said I, “of all places, is the most charming spot for an Ouzel’s nest.” Then carefully scanning the fretted face of the precipice through the spray, I at length noticed a yellowish moss-cushion, growing on the edge of a level tablet within five or six feet of the outer folds of the fall. But apart from the fact of its being situated where one acquainted with the lives of ouzels would fancy an Ouzel’s nest ought to be, there was nothing in its appearance visible at first sight, to distinguish it from other bosses of rock-moss similarly situated with reference to perennial spray; and it was not until I had scrutinized it again and again, and had removed my shoes and stockings and crept along the face of the rock within eight or ten feet of it, that I could decide certainly whether it was a nest or a natural growth.

In these moss huts three or four eggs are laid, white like foam-bubbles; and well may the little birds hatched from them sing water songs, for they hear them all their lives, and even before they are born.

I have often observed the young just out of the nest making their odd gestures, and seeming in every way as much at home as their experienced parents, like young bees on their first excursions to the flower fields. No amount of familiarity with people and their ways seems to change them in the least. To all appearance their behavior is just the same on seeing a man for the first time, as when they have seen him frequently.  

             THE OUZEL AT HOME.

On the lower reaches of the rivers where mills are built, they sing on through the din of the machinery, and all the noisy confusion of dogs, cattle, and workmen. On one occasion, while a wood-chopper was at work on the river-bank, I observed one cheerily singing within reach of the flying chips. Nor does any kind of unwonted disturbance put him in bad humor, or frighten him out of calm self-possession. In passing through a narrow gorge, I once drove one ahead of me from rapid to rapid, disturbing him four times in quick succession where he could not very well fly past me on account of the narrowness of the channel. Most birds under similar circumstances fancy themselves pursued, and become suspiciously uneasy; but, instead of growing nervous about it, he made his usual dippings, and sang one of his most tranquil strains. When observed within a few yards their eyes are seen to express remarkable gentleness and intelligence; but they seldom allow so near a view unless one wears clothing of about the same color as the rocks and trees, and knows how to sit still. On one occasion, while rambling along the shore of a mountain lake, where the birds, at least those born that season, had never seen a man, I sat down to rest on a large stone close to the water’s edge, upon which it seemed the ouzels and sandpipers were in the habit of alighting when they came to feed on that part of the shore, and some of the other birds also, when they came down to wash or drink. In a few minutes, along came a whirring Ouzel and alighted on the stone beside me, within reach of my hand. Then suddenly observing me, he stooped nervously as if about to fly on the instant, but as I remained as motionless as the stone, he gained confidence, and looked me steadily in the face for about a minute, then flew quietly to the outlet and began to sing. Next came a sandpiper and gazed at me with much the same guileless expression of eye as the Ouzel. Lastly, down with a swoop came a Steller’s jay out of a fir-tree, probably with the intention of moistening his noisy throat. But instead of sitting confidingly as my other visitors had done, he rushed off at once, nearly tumbling heels over head into the lake in his suspicious confusion, and with loud screams roused the neighborhood.

Love for song-birds, with their sweet human voices, appears to be more common and unfailing than love for flowers. Every one loves flowers to some extent, at least in life’s fresh morning, attracted by them as instinctively as humming-birds and bees. Even the young Digger Indians have sufficient love for the brightest of those found growing on the mountains to gather them and braid them as decorations for the hair. And I was glad to discover, through the few Indians that could be induced to talk on the subject, that they have names for the wild rose and the lily, and other conspicuous flowers, whether available as food or otherwise. Most men, however, whether savage or civilized, become apathetic toward all plants that have no other apparent use than the use of beauty. But fortunately one’s first instinctive love of songbirds is never wholly obliterated, no matter what the influences upon our lives may be. I have often been delighted to see a pure, spiritual glow come into the countenances of hard business-men and old miners, when a song-bird chanced to alight near them. Nevertheless, the little mouthful of meat that swells out the breasts of some song-birds is too often the cause of their death. Larks and robins in particular are brought to market in hundreds. But fortunately the Ouzel has no enemy so eager to eat his little body as to follow him into the mountain solitudes. I never knew him to be chased even by hawks.

An acquaintance of mine, a sort of foot-hill mountaineer, had a pet cat, a great, dozy, overgrown creature, about as broad-shouldered as a lynx. During the winter, while the snow lay deep, the mountaineer sat in his lonely cabin among the pines smoking his pipe and wearing the dull time away. Tom was his sole companion, sharing his bed, and sitting beside him on a stool with much the same drowsy expression of eye as his master. The good-natured bachelor was content with his hard fare of soda-bread and bacon, but Tom, the only creature in the world acknowledging dependence on him, must needs be provided with fresh meat. Accordingly he bestirred himself to contrive squirrel-traps, and waded the snowy woods with his gun, making sad havoc among the few winter birds, sparing neither robin, sparrow, nor tiny nuthatch, and the pleasure of seeing Tom eat and grow fat was his great reward.

One cold afternoon, while hunting along the river-bank, he noticed a plain-feathered little bird skipping about in the shallows, and immediately raised his gun. But just then the confiding songster began to sing, and after listening to his summery melody the charmed hunter turned away, saying, “Bless your little heart, I can’t shoot you, not even for Tom.”

Even so far north as icy Alaska, I have found my glad singer. When I was exploring the glaciers between Mount Fairweather and the Stikeen River, one cold day in November, after trying

Where does this type of creativity come from? 


Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/dwC73nofeqM It doesn't seem to turn up in the post.

The software that I am using is in development. I participate in the small online discussion group around the software developer Eric Mootz, a gifted programmer. Thankfully his talents are not limited to engineering. He is a patient teacher. (Just for completions sake: softwares are Mootzoid, Softimage, Modo.)

To get the attention of my advertising clients and to show them my new skills I come up with samples. 

My mind works by rather personal associations. Often it overshoots the conventions of advertising. I can't help it and sometimes don't want to. It is a form of stubborn self expression. To be able to make a living in the field I am thankful for my technical talents and aesthetic sense. It compensates for the unconventionality of my associations. 

Recently I illustrated an image in which letters were formed out of fragments. That's where the metal balls came from. I also illustrated an image with a dog made of silver. So with both experiences floating in mind the animated dog arrived. First I though, there I am putting another hard one before myself. It will take for ever. My problem was to make the dog walk. I learned that animal legs work in similar cycles as human legs. Front and hind legs are synchronized in five ways to form the walk, trot, canter, rotary gallop, transverse gallop.  

An animation is only half alive without sound. Usually one would pick a song or readymade sound clip. For some reason my mind is closed to pop music, I just don't store or remember.  I can work with recordings of sounds of the everyday though. To find material I went to a website which sells such clips and searched for metallic, twinkle and other words, which attempt to put the qualities of sound into words. The sounds of chimes were well articulated, metallic and suggested that they are being made by many. 

this is a wonderful review of Rupert's last show at Nancy Hoffman. I hope we don't get busted for infringement- if so we will try to repost it as a link. Donald Kuspit wrote for Art Forum.

The Fugue of Wog: Prelude

Its all starts with white wall tires, and wind. I mean no wind inside. Inside the machine we were pleased. The machine had its clasps, doors- she- he called her a she: Betsy had heavy and thick doors. She was fleet. Aeordynamic. She leaned, leaned into what was sent her way. Glided. She had confidence, is what it was. Her glass was darkish, greenish- f’you looked through her I mean. Say you see the Fable’s house, through her windows, the lower portion- and the upper portion in plain air- you would say that the whites, and that’s basically what white means, no? Out here on a day with few clouds coming into it, with the sun on his climbs, rolling out into this blue, and we should have something more to say about this blue- ever really ask yourself what it is what it means? What is flat and what is deep? I mean when you look into the sky, into the plain blue sky, when the humidity is not so great? White is when its not too humid, and there are few clouds in the day, white is when the sun falls on a white house. There is a “zero” for white- there is your white balance. Now you look up at the Fable’s house, its clapboarding (no cheap siding for these guys), up there on her bedroom’s outside wall, see the sharpened shadows running parallel to the whole flat expanse of our land-locked empire? Under each of the clapboards, the lapping; tapered boards, primed and painted, that run there neatly, almost, you could say, perfectly- not the shadows, I mean where the sun’s hitting full face on those boards. That is what I mean- and that is white. Now look through Betsey’s glass, at the same basic things, lower on the house- underwater, right? Bluegreens there- Betsey; lets agree right off, she is for fucking real. Many things were real then. What the fuck wasn’t? Gilligan? The moon? I mean, talk about Gilligan’s fucking Island. The moon? Really? Well, if it didn’t really happen, don’t fucking tell me about it. What’s real? What about corpses? Are dead things real? These are the questions I pondered, day in and day out. A Day. A day was a fine thing back then too, can I tell you? Specially summer ones. A day was like a column of the Parthenon. I was told not to refer too much to articles of culture. I have rules sprouting like the worst and most pernicious variety of weeds: shoulds and advisemenents; hesitations and regulations, etc. What should I be doing with all this? How am I to help you come to terms with where you is at? Where is the question that leads me to – what the fuck is my ownly goal, anyways? For one- just to tip my hat- just to tip this fucking humble cap o’mine, to tip it to the times of reality, to the time of confidence- to having a hero for a father; a hero who drove a real car- how about that? To having a real tree to climb, to knowing what snow and mud, weeds, dandelions, pesky neighbors, houses, streets, avenues, cul de sacs full of boxed in pesky people, whom I will in fact allow into this, because how could I manage without them? Betsey had real glass: do you know yet what the fuck I mean? Thick glass, material glass, the glass changed things, it evidences its material nature in its fucking effects. Look look look look look look look. Ok, so the shoulds- I should not beat my reader like the corpse of a horse. Beat a dead horse.

In this instance the horse was an owned creature. Ownership has long been with us. Unlike the heathen savages whom we imagine were the marvy fucking stewards of this “place” we call the Island or what have you. Seriously, seriously- some mother fucker did eventually look upon the last remaining, scraggly, bent-assed piece of shit mother fucking tree, of a certain island civy- but you can find the same books I have read, care you to do so. And you will know what I will know. Together we go, hand in fucking hand. They will take out some of this shit I know. Assuming this ever sees day’s light- and it will- mind you- it will see day’s light. Some skank ass pair of eyes has got to lay down something, regarding this- and there ain’t no other homeless; starved soul I have come across that will take care of you the way this body will do. I will not now utter those particular words. How words have become corpses. In the vast dead zone known to us as “reality”.

°°°

Pretty much every house was with the cheap siding. Say in the new life, or “life”; which is how I see it- when whomever this be that zombied-over the wunderkind you are about to meet- when Gord answered the message, whatever three decades later? You understand right? A ghost returned- this ghost, yours truly, your narrator, your voice, your speaker- me- I- returned there- try to picture what it felt like. I won’t say I named the trees, I nearly did- but they were like lovers of mine. Gord was a real friend too, but lets face it- Gord’s a shell no more substantial than the ghost that I am. The tree- she’s what’s left- she and a few original interior surfaces- she’s herself. Ash trees must be some slow, slow growers. Gord and me, I mean- so good to see him- terribly good you know?- but for your purposes, it may be best to imagine two older guys- two guys gone to seed, so to speak- guys biologically obsolete- make a note of this- guys quite out of the time of life of the father who drove, who tenderly cared for- who gently stroked Betsey’s dash, as she aged- who knew she’d need putting down, that her life was coming to its  last ignitions- Betsey’s back seat (an expansive and accommodating locale, not  like the cockpit-like experiences of today’s confections of plastic and other softwares. The distance between our faces, Gord and I, or my sibs and I, or just my face- how I loved loved loved being driven by my father. Somewhere out there is a road. And a weighty automobile, gliding gracefully. A straight road- endless, really. Scenery is to be had there- a world being measured, in a way- a world presenting itself, turning out from this center, blooming in the furrow of this meeting of her weight: some friction, pneumatics, hydraulics- all simple machines- nothing knowing anything- levers- bearings- grease- everything fucking item is what it is here- the no one who steadies her knobbled wheel- he’s not there- he’s daydreaming, no? Or he’s stressed. Some asshole “foreman” at “the shop” causing unneeded strain? I was saying the distance from our face to the back of his seat, was like a studio apartment in Tokyo these days (what a wonderful term, the shop- very American)  “her” backseat being the place where so much happened- how many hours did I get to spend in there? Gord would get ecstatic- like twice weekly- because my father would do things that made us happy- that was like his mission in life- he would take us camping, take us swimming, take us to collect frogs, when they were trying to bury themselves in the muck for their hibernation- that tray of wet leopard frogs (named for their beautiful leopardlike spots, in their deep green wetsuits, rubbery looking they were, with the golden brown spots, and their bulbs of alert; worried looking eyes) that tray was one of the many things, such as trays of drivein burgers and fries, waxy paper cups sweating along with Gord and I on those two or three days each summer when hot weather came over the flat northern expanses- Gord’s moments of ecstasy were generally expressed in a special kind of handshake that came about between us, the inter-wriggling of our four excited hands, with the energy of four hummingbirds at their deep; nectar providing pitchers of lovely blooms- one of the many things, such as the lumber- never bought; always found- that my father brought to provide us the materials for our fort- reminding me of his special (“ingenuity” would be the word- smile-) strategies- converting Betsey’s back seat, as he often did, being without a pickup truck- to a cargo hold, by pulling the seat out, and leaning it against the oxidized planking of the interior of the garage. Meeting of her weight; the “third” fucking mind, and a road, one which, mind you, was bound to be flat. We did have our ravines (you could still go down); and there was the moraine (two hour’s inside of Betsey to make it) where a generous glacier, noticing how fucking boring and limited the vast extent of the craton’s real meat actually is- a glacier as generous as an uber-farmwife granma- (everything providing and accommodating, everything seeking long term establishments, everything tending to whiteness; to order; to home, is motherly. My father was a motherly man. A glacier had its tricky; destructive; shifty; coyote side to it, but what this glacier destroyed has been long scarred over. Loping through its amalgamated leavings; its selected curiosity cabinet of examples from the different locales it skimmed; steam rollered;  flattened; scooped out; striated; scraped at; shoveled; buried; forgot; forgot; forgot; hid; hid; hid;…. flowed, flowed, flowed, being a real liquid-solid, a real yinynag personality-  like  yours truly- loping through there behind myself, beside myself, before myself, within myself, as Peter no doubt will come along to multiply the angles, to help bring about the foreground/backgroud, multi-valent experience that this must absolutely- ooops- apologies- the first of many, I would wager- fucking “don’t tell”. Don’t explain. Science can drain the life out of it all- leave that to the ones who seek to know.

Marilyn Gold

See details here of Marilyn's opening, and her latest wonderful paintings:

http://www.marilyngold.com/

artist's choice at MoMA

There is an amazing carved pear table by Hector Guimard standing on a low white pedestal, in a small room, buried somewhere in the bowels of MoMA. It would be worth your while, I mean to say, just to get there, and find that table, and take in its elegant tripartite forms, its rather organic manner of flowing in lovely tapers to its contours, and its subtle; intense and sexy presence- the precise and labial; graceful petals of the flowery front triangle. 

I don’t know that you want or need an orientation either, in a situation like the one you will find yourself in, in that particular room. Leave your orientation in the coatcheck, and wander, its free on Friday night, this cavernous Las Vegas of culture; this disorienting and vast (dis)connection of rooms; atriums; vertigo inducing glass-walled drops of what feels like a hundred feet. And so you may, as we did, find yourself enjoying more physical contact than is normal in a “museum”, because there is no elbow room, so to speak- in fact one hot young couple I noticed at one point inches away in peripheral vision were sharing a mutable, two chambered mouth energetically. In the future, it won’t just be the nude couple in Yvonne Ranier’s black and white video undressing in these rooms? When they ask me to do artist’s choice…..

The room’s dominant theme is set by a group of intensely colored; intensely patterned and structured images, on onionskin, brite white paper, in thin polished aluminum frames, and hung somewhat away from the wall, at an angle, with their bottoms some six inches out, and tops maybe two. These are frightening- terrible- (terrablita, recognized by the Pope was it? in Michaelangelo, is here in quantity), they are also gorgeous, sumptuous, fascinating, compelling, incomprehensible to most of us, utterly so- you feel the intense and tyrannical footprint here of a relentlessly utilitarian language, a terrible precision of logic dictating the surprisingly varied forms.

The fact that they tell so much in relation to the central theme show currently running in the same building, Inventing Abstraction, that they encompass decorative patterning and other ways of confirming the forms that many painters distilled long before these diagrams were dreamed up in arroyos in the ad-hoc chunks of continent that were jammed together recently at the western end of Nevada, adds to the impetous you may feel to visit the room soon.

And learning that they were diagrams necessary to the process of manufacturing computer chips, and that these rather large diagrams were created in advance of etching the same patterns onto microscopic bits of silicone, after using photography to reduce them? They aren’t as titillating as the Guimard table, but they are something to see. This only leaves out about ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the exhibition in which these items are currently on display- and its an exhibition that easily lives up to its author’s claim and apology, which says in other words: sorry its so dense, but there is no non-epic item here, and none that feel to me less than necessary.

Trisha Donnelly then is an artist who I look forward to following, an artist who’s work I am entirely unfamiliar with, apart from this exhibition- in itself truly an artwork that rocks.