Moomf and Zarathustra

Please excuse this paragraph's misaligned justification. The solution has so far eluded me)

 After speaking on the phone with my Moomf last night, I was left with the impression that she may give my blog another try, but I doubt she will.   I am not sure what her first impression exactly was, but I suppose it drove her away with it's obliqueness.  I would need to write often about home improvement and occasionally about Bill O'Reilly if I were to retain someone in her demographic.  My entries here may be looping and fragmented, unsubstantiated and speculative, and horribly dilettantish, but the hope is that they become something as a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts - synergy.  I am so happy to have this outlet to send thoughts beyond myself, and if I were born in 13,000 B.C.E., I would be recording thoughts of the day with lines in the dirt.

    Above is a label I created in ohhhhhh...maybe 2000?  It features Moomphy's likeness, as she prepares a batch of her special spaghetti sauce.   I printed these and glued them on empty jars so she could sell it by the bottle, or give it away as gifts.  Its a good thing she never used then because I know now, that inkjet ink is not waterproof.   Its called "Lynne's Oh Jesus Christ God Dammit Spaghetti Sauce", for three reasons.  First, this is her most frequently used quote.  She can be heard saying this while driving, in the grocery store, and sometimes in her sleep.  Reason number two:  I think the idea of unreasonably long titles to be hilarious.  Thirdly, we had not started calling her Moomfy.  

    (Moomfy, if you are reading this, skip the entry called Superman vs. Ubermensch.  Its a transcription of a paper I wrote drawing connections between Nietzsche and the rise of the comic book industry.  It will bore you.  I think I said something about Bill O'Reilly in March.  Talk to you on Sunday!)   

    What Moomfy will not know at first, is that I have a small, but incredibly loyal following in Australia.  They are a silent minority, but I know about them through the Blogger stats.  Also, every once and a while, I get a thoughtful correspondence.  Just the other day, I got a message Adam, in Melborne,  asking why I randomly posted a research paper comparing Friedrich Nietzsche's Ubermensch, a theoretical perfect being, to 1930's Golden Age of Comics legend, Superman.  Well, Adam, I wrote the paper for a History of Comic Book class, and was glad to finally make time to do this research, as an interest in the topic had been simmering for years.  

     Turns out, Nietzsche is much, much, much, more interesting than the story of Superman's rise in popularity in the 1930s which is a story of disenfranchisement and commercialism....and Cleveland is just so...unbiblical.  Ubermensch is invoked by Zarathustra, an imaginary prophet who happens to share the name of the the Persian Zorastrian prophet.  Though named, Ubermensch does not yet exist, and therefore cannot be defined as a character.  Superman is known in the Western world as a character who is vaguely human, but moreover an idealized figure designed to be desirable to all seven sexes. Human susceptibility  to trends like pulp magazines in the 30's or  Cabbage Patch Kids in the 80's  (a more egregious example) are the very thing that Nietzsche stood against. Nietzsche saw followers of religion as cattle, but he was not anti-semetic; he respected the Jews. 

   Nietzsche did not always deny God's existence.  In fact, the grief he felt when God ceased to exist for him fueled his conception of Zarathustra.   Nietzsche labored through life full of unpopular opinions and poor health, but his fiery passion for perfection created a richness in his message. 

   

    

Gingerbread Storage Unit

 

     I am just making my way back to Brooklyn after a week upstate where I watched my friends' kids and worked on some personal projects.  They live near Beacon, and the trees up here are starting to turn. 

    I got it in my head that while I am up here, this would be a good place to store a few things cheaply.  I need to vacate my school studio (super sad face) and figure out a way of storing a few medium-sized highly irregularly shaped works in progress.  Storage is big business these days, complete with brokers, price-matching, and sly little last minute insurance requirements.  I searched for something more "Mom and Pop", if you will.  A place where I could say, 'Hey, you don't mind if I plug in some lights and a Dremel tool for a few minutes, do yah?'  or "sorry about that sticky spot.  I'll clean it tomorrow.'  Steering clear of big commercial outfits, I found an ad for a spot in Poughkeepsie resembling double-decker barn billing itself as "mixed-use industrial" - catnip to us Brooklynites, triggering images of loft-style structures with gantry cranes and 220 power that are also equipped with a place to sleep and eat.  The photos included heavy metal walk-ways and double doors.  It was accompanied by thoughtfully worded copy including a phone number.  I called the number, left a message, and then went about my business with the children, working hard to cultivate a Mary Poppins-sort of affect.   

    The girls are eight and five.  I an not family, but they are to me, the closest thing I have to nieces.  I only know the mechanics of interacting with these ages from 10 minute increments spent drawing them at a Communion, or Bar Mitzvah.  I am a long-distance aunt of three nephews, if that counts for anything.  I often feel confused by modern children's assertion of themselves, as I remember myself to be more like an absorption barrier.  My will was generally only acknowledged after combat.  A sensitivity to the will of the child is difficult to reconcile with a keen interest in guiding them correctly.  These are both good-natured kids, but the five year old is intractable when it comes to eating, sleeping, and screen time. At five, she already knows how to use her beguiling cuteness to her own ends.  She made me laugh with my whole body a few times with her comic timing and Groucho Marx-like expressions. The child-whispering would have gone better if distance-learning were not in the equation. I was aggrieved by the on-line model, and set to gently coerce the two into math and penmanship.  However, there was no outcome to this that would not cast me as the villain: at the end of the day, I was making them do something they did not want to do.  I didn't blame them.  The teachers on Zoom, though doing their best, struggled with technical issues and lighting, and thus creating many chances for the girls' attention to flicker.  

    To take the strain off the teaching component, we spent an afternoon taking a long hike through some nearby land where we walked along RV tracks with grassy purple and yellow wildflowers growing above our heads.  A row of power lines traveled vanishingly in either direction, and hunting cabins suspended aloft in the trees were painted with camouflage.  The eight year old said, "This is a place where deer have lost their lives."  The five year old complained loudly and dramatically most of the way out about not getting to walk the dog as the eight year old was dragged forward by the muscular Boxer-mix.  When we made our turnaround in a sand pit stamped with RV tracks, the leash was passed to the younger girl and it immediately began to slip from her grasp.  Taking the leash from her I tied it in a knot so she could put her hand through a loop, retaining a better grasp.  I knew this could backfire badly, and stayed side by side with her as she leaned all the way back to counter the dog's forward motion, clearly not in control, and loving every second of it.  She laughed maniacally, and upon removal of the binding leash, she declared breathily, in her squeaky five year old voice, "I am SO full of joy right now!"  She was all will, this girl. Fearless. Questionless. Doubtless. 

    I have an expiration time with children, because I am easily fatigued by too much interaction. At a certain point, even if I want to be patient and pleasant, I am totally incapable of it, and have to shut down.  I reached that point very quickly in those last few days, and a hearty desire to forge ahead with non-caretaker-related business, in as much silence as possible, took hold.  I worked on a small illustration project and eventually heard back from "Jim", who had placed the Craigslist ad for the storage unit.  He left an amicable message which was every bit as inviting as the ad.  I called him back and our conversation with him made everything sound pretty peachy. I could almost smell the welding from the neighboring metal shop and muffin bakery that my imagination had edited in. His voice was even-toned and sonorous, but I noticed, after all relevant details had been exchanged, a very difficult time dislodging myself from the conversation.  He went on lengthily about it's "mixed use" status and history.   He elaborated on how he had lived there for 48 years, and all the updates he had made to the property.  I eventually told him I had to call my Mom back and clicked off abruptly, which was the only way that I could.  

    'Extra friendly', I thought. It is Poughkeepsie!  I drove out to meet him,  but the address was on a busy thoroughfare, and I was not able to slow down enough to read the house numbers.  I parked around the corner feeling slightly thrown off by the decidedly non-industrial quality of the neighborhood, a hamlet of Victorian houses with tidy front lawns.  When I approached the specified address, a man in a tweed suit stood at the gate looking at his watch.  When he looked up at me, I saw that his skin looked soft and unlined.  He didn't smile when he asked if I was here to see the unit. 

"Where did you park?" his brows raised in consternation. 

"Around the corner."

"Didn't you see me?"

"No, I was looking for street numbers."

"Did you read the signs?  You might get a ticket."  

"Ok, I will go check on my car."  The street signs were faded beyond legibility, so in grudging obiesance, I pulled around to his driveway down into a small lot amid baby blue double-decker barn houses.  Standing in front of the car, he forcefully waived me in, as I hesitated for fear of hitting him.  Why did he have to stand there?  I parked and after pleasantries he spoke about the layout of the units, their uses over the years, and about the personal details of every person currently renting space there, or who had ever rented space there since World War Two. He tells me about the alley cats he feeds and all their backstories.  When he smiled, his teeth were unnaturally intact and straight. It began to occur to me that he was not going to stop talking this way unless I initiated movement. When I took a step in the direction of the available unit, he bristled.  

"Do you have somewhere to be?"

"No, I am just so excited to see this space!"  He motioned for me to stop while he passed me on the stairs, hobbling a little.  

"I walk very slow and I have a limp."

A beat of silence.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I got a limp?"

    More silence.  He stops and begins to tell me a story about Paul Revere that somehow ends with him falling off a horse and hurting himself.  My head is now vibrating with numbness and I am glad I am wearing sunglasses which will hide my wandering eyes.  

    He looks at me in a way that suggests he is put off by my lack of response.  I smile appreciatively. 

   The unit is one of many along a narrow hallway.  He unlocked the door, and waved me in.  I almost walked through opening, but then I remember all the Criminal Minds episodes which left me angered by scenarios where serial murder victims do stupid things to imperil themselves.  His hand is on the knob and the ring of keys are in the other hand.  He is jerking his head with a crescent smile toward the shadowy interior saying "Go ahead....Go on.."  I put my hands up in protest. 

"I am good.  I see everything I need to see. " 

"You are not going to go in?"

"Nope. I see it fine."  Stepping away. 

"It has a window."

"I see the window. "

He snorts at me and locks the door.  

"Do you have outlets in here?"  I have already abandoned my Dremel tool idea but it is a way to shift the conversation.  He indicates a row of shiny outlets running the length of the storage unit - unprecedented in my personal storage unit history.   He shut off the light switch, and added that this is how he knows if someone is here or not and points out the window to a lighthouse like enclosure at the top floor of his personal residence.  The situation was seeming more and more like a gingerbread house to me, and I sidle out the door and down the stairs while Jim asks me bullet point questions about my art and am I any good, and what am I having for dinner? 

I notice two security cameras mounted to the eves. 

"How many security cameras do you think are here?" 

"Four?"

"I cannot tell you the correct number, but you are wrong."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"Contract with security company."

"Really?  what's the name of the security company?"

"I cannot tell you that either.  Its in the contract."

 I made my way out of there under the pretense of dinner plans and barely escaped without a full description of recipe ingredients and a full guest list. Poor scary guy.  I couldn't tell if renting the space would be renting "Jim"  with it. 

     On my way out of town, I found a nice commercial storage spot.  A blue-eyed girl assisted the transaction with robotic efficiency.  I feel confident that I will never see her again, and I this is a strictly self-service situation.  All the units are ground level, and there are grassy patches all around - perfect for thinking days when there is good weather.  

Ubermensch Versus Superman

 

Ubermensch Versus Superman 
by Marlene Kryza

   

     Between 1883 and 1885, a forty-year old philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche worked on a collection of writings that would become known collectively as Thus Spake Zarathustra.  Seeking comfort for his weak body, he lived itinerantly around Europe teaching and writing copiously about morality, theology, and philology.  He remained a bachelor for the entirety of his life, and felt his works were destined for importance.   Europe was beginning the technological phase of the industrial revolution, and standardization and industrialization were reshaping notions of labor. A harrowing chasm existed between rich and poor.  In his latest work, Nietzsche set out to proselytize, through the voice of a fictional prophet named Zarathustra about eternal recurrence, the death of God, and the role of modern mankind as a bridge between the apes of yesterday and the splendid being that is yet to come -- enter, the Ubermensch.  This German word has been translated a number of ways such as "over-man" or "beyond-man".  When George Bernard Shaw (b.1856) an Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist included the concept in his 1903 play titled, Man and Superman, he introduced the idea/word beyond Nietzsche's initial following. 

      In the early 1930's, in Cleveland, Ohio, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, both born in 1914, were infatuated with pulp fiction magazines - fantastical stories which often included beings from space with superhuman powers. One day, after Siegel spent a sleepless night with recurring visions, they met up and penned the first 12 episodes featuring a new character. They named him "Superman", a word that had been bouncing around the the pulp fan drawing community. Superman and other superheroes that gained popularity during the Golden Age of Comics were social justice warriors borne of left-leaning politics, and emerged from a hotbed of institutional corruption and Depression-era hardship.  Superman was shown in his first appearances foiling a lynching, roughing up war prophiteers, breaking a wrongly accused criminal from death row, and rescuing a lady from from a domestic abuser.  It was the beginning of a genre, and the idea of "hero" was redefined for generations to come. 

     The connection between Nietzsche's Ubermensch and the of  Superman 1930's of pulp fandom may be tenuous, but it is not accidental. Superman "essentially owes his effect to the vanishing remnants of ancient mythology, that collective memory of mankind which has here been combined with Utopian anticipation" said one commentator. That 'anticipation' was also present in Europe at the end of the 19th century, when anarchist communes were established as people observed the rising autocratic right-wing regimes.   This was a time in history where people mobilized themselves in an effort to dictate their own freedom.  Throughout Europe, intrepid deviants formed small communities beyond the mainstream confines in an effort to create their own instantiations of Utopia.  The imaginative impulse to create models of a more perfect system, person, or future has marked many eras of human existence, countering strictures and releasing the pressure of reality. 

    The Nazi party wrongfully subsumed the meaning of Thus Spake Zarathustra as they rose to power in the early 1930s. Nietzsche's utter disdain for the masses of people who seemed to him incapable of thinking for themselves never was never aimed at any one single group of people.  Nietzsche disacknowledged the existence of God, and criticized the Jews' practice of letting God dictate their morals, but was a defender of them as a people.  Nietzsche wished that amid the flaccid European population, that "some pack of blond bests of prey, a conqueror and master race which, organized for war and with the ability to organize, unhesitatingly lays its terrible claws upon a populace." (vi)  Zarathustra delivers parables describing creative evolution wherein the Ubermensch is able to will himself into existence-- the next step in physical and spiritual evolution for mankind, leaving behind the last man, who is the loathsome link between primates and the Ubermensch. 

"I tell you, one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a rising star.  The cosmic.  Superman was from outer space.  Alas, the time is coming when man will give birth to no more stars.  Behold, I shall show you the last man.......The last man is one who specializes not in creation, but in consumption.  The last man is deeply miserable and resentful - stagnant in his nest of comfort.  The misery does not render him impotent though; he seeks to victimize those who are seeking higher values, and subdue him by making him a part of the herd. "   (TSZ)

   Walter Kaufmann, the German-American emigre whose translations of Nietzsche were long the standard versions in English, once declared that the philosopher's writings are "easier to read but harder to understand than those of almost any other thinker." (3) The legibility of Thus Spake Zarathustra, and its prophetic descriptions of how only a select few can rise to the status of Ubermensch lent credence to the Nazi party's philosophies and served to bolster their popularity in the 1920's.  The denigration of "the last man" and the comeuppance of a master race served as a template for the devaluation of undesirables and for the ascension of elite individuals who supersede the slothful gluttonous masses.  

    Simon and Shuster were both early generation Americans whose families had fled the antisemitism of Russia and Eastern Europe.  They emerged into an America of burgeoning commercialism, but high-end illustration work was not available to Jews.  Therefore, many talented Jewish artists gravitated toward the pen and ink of pulp art, seeing its promise, and becoming a significant shaper of it's future.   This was also an era of institutionalized corruption during which mob bosses such as Boss Tweed in New York City and Chicago's Al Capone rendered the public unsure of who was protecting them.  In 1925, Capone became crime czar of Chicago running gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets and expanded his territory by gunning down members of rival gangs.  Capone went largely unpunished, and in 1927, when he was just 28 years old, had amassed a fortune estimated to be 100 million dollars. William McSwiggan, an aggressive prosecutor who tried to indict Capone, failed to do so when witnesses, fearing harm to themselves or to their families, would lose their nerve and "forget" the details of an incident when called upon to recount these in court.  Real life villains such as Capone had carved out a place for themselves in society which operated above the law as a way of vindicating themselves beyond their presumed socio-economic strata. 

    Although the Ubermensch is  described as having superior intellect and intuition, some qualities such as the ability to defy obsolete moral codes and having self-defined virtues make him sound prone to villainy.  Nietzsche had read Freud's The Ego and the Id, published in 1923, where he describes "three agencies of the mind jostling for supremacy: the ego, the id, and the superego.  The ego strives for mastery over both id and superego an ongoing and often fruitless task in the face of the id's wild passion and demand for satisfaction on one hand, and the superego's crushing, even authoritarian demands for submission to its dictates, on the other."  

   The internal duel between the protagonist and the antagonist within an individual manifests itself in their personalities.  It is the intensity of this struggle that creates depth in characters, both in fiction and real life.  The villains faced by Superman are not patterned with much complexity, but they personify the criminal curiosity within the reader.  Superman is a richly textured character who is living a lie by way of a false identity, and operates according to the dictates of law only as much as he personally sees fit.  The presence of a villain in these early comic books sets the stage for redemption, retribution, or justice wherein the reader can be assured of their own moral codes.  This is to compare the villain to the "id", a faltering justice system which places an innocent man on death row or allows another to beat his wife to the "superego", and Superman to the "ego".  A "schizoid split" evinced by Superman's dual identity as Clark Kent "symbolizes a basic split within the American psyche," argued one analyst.  Like Superman, Americans are caught between dream and achievement, and power and weakness."  

    That the darker, passionate, and unruly side that Freud called the id, is aligned with weakness, as one has a weakness for wine, lust, power, or money,  This is called 'weakness' because it is something to be overcome.  Nietzsche seized on this idea of weakness in his description of the Ubermensch to refer not to those that were too weak to control their vices, but that were too intellectually weak to observe the herd-like behavior cultivated in them by religion and traditional morality.  Nietzsche said this in Twilight of the Idols in 1889:  

               The church fights passion with excision in every sense; its practice, its cure,
                castrates.  It never asks: 'How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?' 
                It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on the extirpation of sensuality,
                of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, and vengefulness.  But the attack on the
                roots of passion means an attack on life: the practice of the church is hostile
                to life.

    The distinction here is that untempered passions are a part of the will distinguish him or her from others, thereby avoiding the herd. 

   Originally, Superman was a bald telepathic psychopath intent on eugenic omniscience - a very malevolent main character.  Later in 1933, Shuster and Siegel rethought the character of Superman and recast him as a hero with with a rigid identification with morality.  Superman's modis operandi became the defense of those incapable of defending themselves.  Rendered defenseless by gender, age, or poverty, Superman flew to their rescue, imbued with the powers of modern machinery.  Implicit within the backstory is the source of Superman's desire for justice - his own abandonment by his real parents and the ostensible loneliness that accompanies exceptionalism.  Nietzsche had no compassion for those too weak to fend for themselves and made no secret of his adoration of aristocracy.  He would have been enthralled by Superman's extraordinary capabilities, but put off by his interest in saving the weak. 

    Zarathustra's poetic prose announces the death of God.  Not only did Nietzsche see fit to undermine the very idea of  God, he also made some tweaks to Darwinism.  Nietzsche believed that a factor in man's evolution was his ability to assert himself.  Nietzsche called this the Will to Power.  "Creative evolution" was brought about by creative will - the élan vital.  This, according to Nietzsche was a force pulsing within man to a greater iteration of himself.  The idea of  the greater man is bound up in the idea of self, as in self-discipline and self-cultivation.  Nietzsche promotes in his writings the presence of a different being within us waiting to express itself through the last man's destruction.  Zarathustra declares: 

        I teach you the overman.  Man is something that shall be overcome.  What have
        you done to overcome him?  All creatures hitherto have created something beyond
        themselves: and do you want the ebb of this great tide and return to the animals
        rather than overcome man?"

   Whereas Nietzsche's Ubermensch comes from within, Superman comes from without.  In order to protect and save, he is a surrounding force rather than one that is emergent.  Nietzsche was plagued with health problems and lived a privileged mostly solitary life.  In his solitude he conceived of a hyper-splendid being, perhaps as a way of out of his own yearning for something more.  It was within a prison of poor health that he explored the power of mind of matter. "He was a sufferer for many years from severe ailments, but he brought his indomitable will to bear on his condition and for a while was able to will himself to health." (x)  The 'blond beast' may have been a personification of his own will.  The conception of Superman by Siegel and Shuster may have been more akin to Al Capone operating outside the law and creating his own rules, as their talent was not absorbed by traditional art channels due to their Judaism.  However, by fluidly working around these strictures, they observed and alternative success within themselves, going on to redefine the word "hero" and found an culture-shaping industry for decades to come. 

Ancient Things

        The more insane modern reality becomes, the more compelled I am to fix my gaze on the ancient past.  It is consoling to think of the troubles of other times. That every era is punctuated by its own brand of instability or hardship levels the atrocity curve. The past seems more relevant now, or as Yogi Berra put it, "The future is not what it used to be." 

    Those of my generation came of age during a dizzying ascension of technology.   We know what it is like to see a vintage type-writer and admire its fabrication and materials when compared to it's mass produced successors.  We have also been exposed to science-fiction which prophesied panopticons, rampant drug addiction, and authoritarian regimes.  The future envisioned by George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Aldous Huxley is spinning out in front of our eyes.  The future seems increasingly less interesting and more predictable and it is the past that seems buried in possibility.

    Just as the study of comic book art is largely the study of capitalism, the study of ancient history is largely the study of war.  Its odd that some think of warriors such as Alexander the Great and Napoleon as great men when they were responsible for so much brutality. Both of them lead their charge under the auspices of protecting their people from encroaching empires.  They were protecting the way of life of their subjects.  Many an ancient marvel was created as a signal to enemies, and allies alike, great breadth of power and riches.  Fortunately, a number of these are still in existence.  I noticed while learning about art history that my interest level in a piece corresponds to my chances of actually seeing it someday.  Cognitive bias?  Maybe. Be that as it may, I would like to learn about those places and times before their artifacts are exploded and bulldozed away or subsumed in a money-laundering scheme.

    It is still possible today to look at someone's features and make an educated guess where their ancestors came from.  An acquaintance of mine, though born here in the states, has Lebanese parents.  Because of growing up in USA in the 80's, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Lebanon is the Hezbollah, a radical militant group that was mentioned often in the news during that decade.  Lebanon occupies roughly the same area on a map as ancient Phoenicia. The Phoenicians are thought to be possibly a separate ethnicity from the Canaanites who occupied the Levant during pre-biblical times.  the wording around this material gets very technical but it is suspected that the Lebanese are the most ancient people.  Byblos, thought to be first occupied in the 7th century B.C., is attested as an archaeological site during the Bronze Age (2500-500 B.C.) and is thought to be by UNESCO to be one of the oldest surviving cities.  the Phoenicians distinguished themselves with an alphabet, as a maritime hub,  and with the production of cedar timber and a remarkable purple dye, Tyrian purple, that went on to embellish the garb of the ancient rich and famous.  My Lebanese American friend seems like a marvel when viewed in the light of history the same way that the ginkgo tree I observed earlier today does; our ginkgo trees are among the oldest of species with fossils dating back to 270 million years ago.

    A primer in prehistory is in order. The past is addictive. The further you go, the further you want to go. The facts become hazier and more mysterious.  The point at which man became man happened much much earlier than the establishment of Byblos or any other ancient city.  What was everyone doing for 293,000 years?  I can easily see how scrounging for food can take up your days if there is no pizza place around the corner.

   Yesterday, we celebrated a birthday social-distance-style.  The girl of the hour was scheduled to kayak with a group along the Gowanus Canal.  The route was to pass beneath several low-hanging bridges and we were deployed to designated bridges with instructions to sing or wave.  Situated on the Carroll Street Bridge, we conspired to lower a ceramic Stegosaurus piggy bank (appropriated from my nephew) onto a floating tub, so that the birthday girl would encounter a bizarre surprise.  Best laid plans! The ceramic dinosaur toppled faster than you can say "artifact" , and i could see it's glazed eyes looking up at me as it disappeared under the syrupy Gowanus.  Eventually, it's ceramic body will be replaced by minerals to be examined as a fossil in the future, or maybe heat , pressure, and time will transform it into black gold.  Perhaps it will be found by a worker in the distant future who will give it to his nephew...

Gowanus Manhole Cover with Rat, 2018.  Wood, caulk, yoga mat, and paint.

                                     

Moldilocks - An animation

Moldilocks

I began this animation in an introductory course in Adobe After Effects. The assignment was to animate a short sequence from a fairy-tale. I chose "Goldilocks", but my character is "Moldilocks", a mischievious silver-haired lady. Please note, I continue to develop this and will update regularly her with improvements as i continue to learn the ins and outs of animation. The learning curve is steep A.F., but I'm into it....

Leaving Town, Monuments, the "New Normal", and Oswald Spengler

Again, I find myself on the road.  Thank you universe, for perfect storms.

I started this blog in 2007 while road-tripping around the country for three months.  I spent time in New Orleans, where I helped a man rebuild his house, and bore witness to the devastating fallout that succeeded  hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Thirteen years later, I am on a different road trip, punctuated by its own brand of devastation.   Except this time, its everywhere.  Every media outlet refers to this time as "the new normal".  The constant use of this phrase has a fishy smell.  Shouldn't each of us decide what this is, in our own terms?  The prescriptiveness of it is disconcerting.

"The new normal" refers to the resultant changes from the pandemic, and increasingly, the accompanying civil refusal to tolerate age old forces of nepotism. This current of change has been a slow burn, but the genie is out of the bottle. Most recently, the news has included the dethroning of Confederate monuments in Virginia before cheering crowds.  Not everyone is getting their way.  The night before I drove out of the city, a statue of Fredrick Douglas, the American author and abolitionist, was found in a river gorge in Rochester, debased and destroyed by a cowardly anonymous party.  And now...all these empty pedestals, laden with  all their meaning and potential meaning. New normal in the making.

    Because I am half Irish Catholic, I have a complicated relationship with pedestals. Whether it be a parent, a priest, or a teacher, there is something so comforting about looking up to someone (or something).  All you need to do is know your place. The figure on the pedestal gains so much power, only because you have been conditioned to give it to them.   It is possible, however, to see things another way. With courage and boldness, one can emerge anew, and  the pedestalled figure, looking down, loses it's value.  This is a type of waking up that can happen in a person, when they are ready.  Oswald Spengler, an early 20th century mathematician and philosopher, postulated that mankind is one massive super-organism with a finite lifespan and life stages.  Could this be a growth spurt?

    I  drove out of  Manhattan and through Pennsylvania during a raging Summer storm. Behemoth cargo  trucks raced by blasting water against my windshield in their wake.  My concentration was waning by nightfall.   I slept in my car at a campground off I-80 about an hour outside of Ohio.  In a gas station near my resting place, it was hard to ignore the one person without a mask - a bearded man in a hunting t-shirt playing slots in the candy bar aisle. Throughout the drive, personnel at gas stations and food markets wore masks, but their use was very spotty beyond that.  I wore mine at all times. The few times I almost forgot to wear it, the concern that I would be signifying myself as a Trump supporter was just as alarming as the possibility of violating the social contract into which most of us have hopefully entered as a way of protecting ourselves and each other.

    On day two, it continued to rain hard as I crossed the border into Ohio.  I drove for 8 hours and hoped to cover more ground.  Just as the sun was setting, the engine light came on, followed by a brief deceleration.  The fuel intake lagged, lasting only about a second.  I decided to keep driving with the hope that this would work itself out, as I have successfully wished myself out of automotive troubles before.  So I wished and drove for several more hours in the dark night as the problem grew worse, and the faceless truck drivers signaled their intolerance of the slow-moving impediment with loud groaning honks.

    I stopped at a Quality Inn in Mansfield, Ohio. I perused pamphlets offering guided tours of a local prison while waiting for the concierge to appear.  The young man who emerged from a back room looked like an 18 year old, bleach blond Sean Penn.  I asked him if he knew of any mechanics.  He said he did, and turned out to be a race car enthusiast.  "I've rolled twice," he said.  His turbo-charged Corvette goes from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds, and his father yells at him when he doesn't change his tires before racing.  It "burns lines" on the street and destroys the tires each time the car is raced.

    It is Saturday, and the mechanic is closed until Monday morning.  I drive the length of a vast empty lot and parked in front of my room.  For the two nights that I was there, the only other people I saw were the cleaning crew.  An indoor pool sat half full of water that looked like green gatorade. The patio furniture was strewn about in conversational circles - an echo of more vibrant times.  I began to fear I was stuck in a food desert, and steered in the direction of a  Dominoes Pizza.   I walked passed a lifeless cement factory,  an empty stadium, and over train tracks.   A Mechanics Bank circled by an empty parking lot drew my attention due to its triumvirate of cultural allusions:  Greco-Roman columns, the gabled roof of American suburban aspirations, and the titular designation of the financial institution in service to the working middle class.  Inside the Dominoes, a staff of ten employees took orders over the counter, on the phone, and responded to orders coming over a disruptive omniphonic speaker.  There was no air-conditioning, and the workers sweated into their masks.  I noticed the workers spanned several ages and races, several of them seemingly in their sixties.  I wondered about the circumstances that may cause a person nearing retirement age to have to work in these conditions as I ordered a "cheese steak"  pizza, which I carried back to the hotel, smiling at one of the delivery driver as he passed me with a waving honk.  In the wee hours of the morning, with the air-conditioning while eating pizza in the king-sized bed made up with sheets like white butter, I watched Family Guy, where Peter made a joke about being "more high-maintenance than a white woman on vacation."  Though deeply suspicious of the Dominoes pizza, it won me over with its otherworldly MSG-infused deliciousness.

    Monday morning, I waited in front of 301 Auto Repair as they opened their bay doors.  A pleasant lady in the reception area had me speak with a mechanic who said he would take a look.  While I waited for the verdict, she explained that the Shawshank Redemption had been filmed in Mansfield, and that a newer functioning prison had been built next to the old one used for filming.  I asked her if she was from Mansfield,  She said she was from Portsmouth, 90 minutes west, and that she is never going back.  Portsmouth, she explained, was "the drug capital of the country" and she had there escaped an abusive relationship.  When I asked her about the Portsmouth police, she said they were corrupt and getting paid to help sustain the system.  Nothing new there.

    The mechanic sat down next to me and showed me a printed photo of the solenoid that needed to be replaced and a breakdown of the charges.  $207 for everything.  He presented the information with the greatest of care, like a doctor delivering dubious news to a patient spouse.   I was relieved when he said it would be ready in an hour.  When I signed off on a work order, the lady told me I can keep the pen.  "I have run over mine two times with my jeep, and its still working!" she declared triumphantly.  I am paraphrasing, as she included the year, make, and model including details about its "six-inch lift package".  People in Mansfield know their cars.

    A few minutes of wandering lead to a small civic center.  Workers drove water trucks and drenched  the soil of  flowers arrangements hanging from streetlights. I passed a monument of a European soldier which a few years ago, I would have given no further thought.  In light of recent news concerning the toppling of monuments, I had to wonder: why was this one spared?  Ignored?  Deemed anodyne? The statue was erected in 1998 as a general tribute to soldiers in the area who died fighting for our country.  Around the bend of the wide plaza, a statue of Martin Luther King, erected in 2007.

I photographed a lady watering flowers, whose face struck me with it's Native American features.  Then, I observed two men traversing a grassy hill on their mowers.  One of them posed for me with his cigar dangling in his teeth. He and asked what the picture was for.  I thought about it for a second, and said, "its for my memories".  Content with the answer, he began another lap up the hill, and I pondered how photography is a form of memorialization akin to a bronze facsimile, and noted the shift in my own thinking.  I wanted to retain their images as people alive and functioning - working -today in this changing world.  As if on queue, I noted a small randomly placed  boulder with notable striations - the tell tale signs of geologic time passing glacially, the changes reflected in the different colored bands.

Letter to Believer Magazine

The Young and the Restless

I shot this video footage of my sister in a hotel in Pennsylvania the evening after my aunt's memorial service. In a state of partial dress and infected by the spirit of her Spanks undergarments, my sister, who is a mother of three and a full-time nurse, took on a different persona. I was fortunate enough to capture her alternate persona on video. I added the theme music from "The Young and the Restless" , called "Nadia" as a nod to the drama which pervades many of our familial relationships. Growing up in the 80's, we would run in from school, and throw on the TV to encounter the discordance of this unusual theme music which came to punctuate our days for a short time; we would usually run back outside to play basketball with our older neighbor, John McNulty. Basketball was my sister's obsession, and we would talk about Villanvova's team while practicing dribbling and layups.

Dove (excerpt)

Durt said that Dove’s brain secretes acid, but that doesn't seem fair. There is something incredibly ill-fitting about using the word “secrete” in any kind of sentence containing her name. Then again, Durt doesn't put anyone on a pedestal.  

The night I met her, we were introduced by two close mutual friends on a rooftop.They said, “you know each other”.  And so we did.

She was a curator of experience, sending invitations to meet in a theater, or a rooftop drum circle where a pig roasted on a spit. There were dance parties at Halcyon where each of us knew that we were connected to each other and Dove appeared and disappeared like a puff of smoke throughout the evening and danced in the spirit of her Korean ancestors between cigarette breaks. One Summer night, on rolling green fields between the train and our destination, Dove somersaulted down a hill while the rest of us walked; this being an extension of her martial arts practice. Once, she coordinated a rendezvous at an abandoned communications building on the icy Gowanus Canal. Durt was there with tools to pry off the plywood. We climbed down one by one until the lookouts were in, and the wood was back in place. Dove's communique suggested we come with a poem, or other listenable fare. These were recited from the balconied upper levels of the structure. The floorless shell rose up basilica-like, lending itself to resounding acoustics. We stood in a maze of tags - the ghosts of previous interlopers.   A feather-hatted dandy recited "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" while the Gowanus lapped our sides....

Thoughts on Graduation

                                                 

                                                     

Its May 28th, and I am spending the day thinking about the past two years, and what they have meant.  Granted, I am one class short, but my class graduates today, and I am compelled to share with them in spirit.  I find myself unsure of how to place this event, as my successes seem to occur more on a moment to moment basis, rather than in milestones.  But I would like to try.

My thesis project is comprised of a multi-dimension body of work as an accompaniment to a narrative poem.  The title is "Felcanography".  The poem is called, "Rime of the Dead Science-Man", and it is the story of an ambitious and corrupt geneticist who is inspired to breed a dog with a cat to create the Felcan (feline + canine = Felcan).  He believes it will be "the cutest pet ever."   The Felcan is sexless, albino, slightly amorphous, not so cute, and oddly phlegmatic - that is, unresponsive.  It is also deaf.  It has few instincts, but many superpowers.  It cannot mate, so it is evolved, but endangered.   I do not know what the original impetus was to endow the characters with these qualities, but meaning has revealed itself to me in a great many layers through the time of the project's development.

    If you know me, you know how much going to graduate school meant to me.  Also, you know about the challenges I face as an individual, possibly better than I do.  One of our first readings was "Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes.  This essay is a short summation of the shift in literary critical theory from its emphasis on the writer, to the emphasis on the reader.  That the interpretation of the material supersedes its intent, is an outgrowth of post-modern acknowledgement of the unsung cultures, challenges, and triumphs overshadowed by the hierarchical powers that be, and have been.  I wonder about the ability of the average person to decipher meaning, as much as I wonder about my own.  Is it possible someone can look at my work, or I can look at someone else's work, and have a more profound experience with its expression than the maker had making it?  Different experience, for sure, but more profound, I think not.

I was told the work needed to be "about something".  I cobbled together the narrative, and decided my work would be about the story.  I began  by planning the Felcan to be as pared down of defining qualities as possible.  This was a backlash against the amplified portioning of people into groups that is going on all around us and is propagated by almost all media.  I wanted, through the formlessness of the Felcan  to acknowledge the individual within any group.  It looks like no specific animal, but can be said to resemble a variety of possible animals, including ducks, wombats, and mole rats, or crocodiles.  The felcan has no memory, except for "working memory", therefore it is incapable of judgement.  The thoughts are gone as soon as they come.  This was a nod to objective thinking, which barely exists due to our unavoidable cognitive biases.

I struggled a little with knowing how to conduct myself on a largely minority campus.  I felt silenced in classes when discussion of race came up, because I did not want to even take the chance of saying the wrong thing.  It was suggested to me that I read a book called "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo.  I learned from this book, that to dis-acknowledge race is a mistake that white people make because we have the luxury of not thinking about it.  I felt certain that I was sending out the wrong message, and shored up my championing of the individual.  I am not sure if I was successful in this!

  One of the great things about our program at Brooklyn College is the opportunity through events and visitations to get genuine feedback from other people.  I was tremendously moved by what flowed back to me, and put it back into the work.  There were times I felt like the Felcan was me, all alone and very much misunderstood, or that I was the Science-Man with his hubris and myopic determination.  I got a lesson in humility, that I did not expect.  I was pushed to explain the work, which told me the work does not speak for itself, and this was frustrating and dashed my hopes of art being my only language.

Along with emphasis on the individual came the exploration of the phenomena of "uniqueness".  I truly believe that expression and uniqueness go hand in hand, and that somehow this is connected to freedom.  I deliberately made each piece as distinct from the last as possible.  This created the problem of how to unite them.  So came the poem.

As much as I do not know how to celebrate graduation, I do know that the moments I spent in my school studio, before that time was cut short by Corvid-19, were among the most free and happy I have ever known!  It actually feels good saying that.   I am so grateful that I had a chance to feel that particular way, in a big well-lit studio with lots of tables and room to make a mess.

Love,
Marlene

Corvid Blush, 2020
30" x 22"
Hair dye, Urban Decay Blush, oil paint on Vellum.

                 

Revisiting Disney

Its May 21st, and I am spending the day working on my final animation project, which will bring me one step closer to graduation.  This class was meant to cover Adobe After Effects, specifically.

By the time I fumbled my way through the rudimentaries of navigating the computer lab, Corvid-19 set in, causing Brooklyn College to move to the "distance learning model".  The syllabus for the class changed to accommodate those who are not setup with computers at home.  This was an unexpected boon, which caused me to have a practical understanding of timing in animation that would have taken years to learn on AFX.   We made flip books for an assignment, "the classic bouncing ball." After 47 drawings, I had one and a half seconds worth of bouncing.  My "Jumping Girl" took 138 drawings for 4 seconds.  The computer does something called interpolation between frames, which is the act of filling in the inevitable missing information.  This is a wildly complex process with limitations.  Hence, the many drawings.  The math gets as complicated as you want to make it regarding frame rates, etc.
      During our last class discussion regarding timing, I was experiencing some pleasantly innervating mental triangulation regarding the word "parallax". When the figure in an animation composition or anything is moving, the layers of space behind it move at different speeds, the closest layer moving the slowest.  This is referred to a "parallax", and is also the name for what happens to a shape when viewed from two different positions.  Astronomers use the concept used by to measure space outside of our solar system.

 

We were introduced to Oskar Fischinger's work, "Optical Poem" with its gyrating shapes, Grave of the Fireflies, by Isao Takahata, and we revisited Disney often. There is lots to explore there, when admittedly I had written it off because of the Prince and Princess thing. I watched Wall-E for the first time, and even the bit between the two robots was a bit cloying, although I loved the movie's first half with all the piles of metal, and Wall-E, himself. I didn't need to see all the fat lazy people. The Iron Giant - how come I have never seen this movie?

I am thinking about the kids in my class. I am a graduate student, but the class was undergraduate class, so I very realistically could have been their mother, and was probably older than the teacher. Sadly, I am not good with computers, so it filled me with fear when I saw the other screens in the class fill with After Effects magic, while I was trying to find my file. They are responsible, bright, and so so young! When I think seriously about how my life would have been affected if this plague came when I was in my 20's or 30's, I feel the depth of sadness that I have been able to avoid, due to the distraction of school.

This is my "Goldilocks" who is a silver-haired "Moldilocks". Goldilocks originally had silver hair, but because of reasons, it was changed to gold somewhere along the way. I clearly have things to work out with this 10 seconds of a "walk-cycle". I will replace the video after I work out the bug regarding the table. I decided at the 11th hour that the original table was too small to be for bears, so I had to make a new table and add it in, which I did not leave time to do properly, because I am a spaz.

Love,
Kryzamelah

My Corona

   
      Last night, I posted this image of the Corona virus, on Instagram.  My posting was a little tongue-in-cheek, and I thought better of it afterwards, for fear offending anyone who may see it as a mockery.  However, my experience so far, has been a creative boon, and there are others who share this sentiment.
     To create the image, I referenced the iPhone emoji for viruses, which I had been inadvertently using to decorate my messages.  I was attracted to it before the Corona Virus was even a twinkle in our eye.  In fact, I thought that it resembled none other, than a green twinkle - an erupting spark of life.  Despite various conspiracy theories and the highly disruptive tumult which the virus has caused, I see it as nature striving to cut a hole for itself, much like the weeds that grow out of the cracks in the sidewalk.  I cry along with people on the news at night who are losing jobs and loved ones, and the exhausted medical professionals who cannot hide their emotions while interviewed.  However, stories about lions and bears coming out out of their hiding spots to bask in the sun give me so much hope.

Twinkle

Medieval

4/8/20

       

                                 ...e continue to use the "distance learning model" to advance our studies during the pandemic. Yesterday, I met with Professor Charles on Zoom.  I almost missed our meeting, as I had become engrossed in editing my CV.  I raked my finger nails through my hair and threw on a dress, but was not in the head space to talk about the work I have been making, and which hangs in my bathroom and bedroom now awaiting next steps.  Lack of preparation was no matter, as I have learned preparation often backfires even more than winging it.  

Martin Schongauer The Temptation of St. Anthony

        Professor Charles, a painter, is someone that I do not know well, but like the other teachers, he is totally present during the conversation.  He stated early on that he is surprised that I do not use more text in my work.  This excited me, because I want to use text, and plan on using text, I just haven't quite figured out how to do it yet.  What will the text say?  I love the cryptic, but how will actual language factor into my Cryptopia?  The implication that something is trying to be said, that meaning is lurking just under the surface, like Captcha phrases, is delicious.  The suggestion of meaning, like the suggestion of importance.   He responded to one of the more rectilinear works-in-progress strongly (below), and in fact drifted back to it throughout our conversation.  He saw incipient letters in these "Elevators", and even mentioned that his 12 year old son is now working on an illuminated manuscript-style capital letter for an assignment.  I remembered including a Renaissance engraver, Martin Schongauer,  in my list of artists (on my mind while working through the pandemic at home) in an explanatory pre-meeting email.  This list, cobbled together without much thought at all, may very well have included an entirely different set of names one day earlier or one day later.   But Schongauer was frontal on my frontal that day,  as I had been transcribing notes from an art history lecture I attended recently, and Schongauer's engraving, The Temptation of Saint Anthony  (1470-1475) was mentioned as the inspiration for Michalangelo's piece (1487-88) of the same name.  This happens to be Michelangelo's first known painting.  The fantastic creatures seemed desperately familiar, but I could not at the moment put my finger on where it was that I knew them.  The lecture, which centered on the Medieval hybrids known as satyrs and centaurs, was of interest due to my interest in hybridism as it pertains to the Felcan, emergence, evolution, and fantasy.  It was not until after speaking with Professor Charles about text and Medieval manuscripts that I looked up Schongauer's engraving, thus reigniting waves of hidden childhood fervor, which felt as new as it did the first time.

 
   

Elevators  2020

           As my eyes processed and remembered these beasts- demonic violent companions from a time long ago, tingles overcame me from head to toe.  This image, estranged from my memory somehow, had been an object of much obsession for me for a time in my early youth.  What year?  I am not sure, but my dad was alive, and I can remember the green shag carpet.  I had ravaged it with my youthful eyes and drawn it line for line - painstakingly re-imagining the details too small to make out.  Where did i find it originally?  It had to be in print, as I can tell even with my hazy recollection that this relationship took place well before Google replaced my brain.  In fact, it is likely that I found it in the set of 1981 World Book Encyclopedias my Mom stored behind the sliding door of our coffee table, which was nested in the green shag carpeting.  This was the way I wanted to draw.  This image represented the ultimate in good art, as far as my preteen brain was concerned.  And I made it my masterpiece.  It became my raison d'etre as I carried it rolled in a scroll back and forth.  The memory was coming into focus.  There is escapism and refuge in the act of looking and copying.  A meaningful way to get lost in time.  A parallel memory floats by - the back page of the TV guide, wherein was always included a drawing challenge.  I may or may not have ever actually entered the contest, but the idea of copying something perfectly had come on my radar.  Others who came of age in the 80's and who loved to draw will recognize this:

Tv Guide in the 80's always included this challenge on the back page.

Bonus: "Letter O"

The Rime of the Dead Science-Man

 b   

The Son

The Rime of the Dead Science-Man

In my youth, I wanted nothing than

To be a famous Science-man,

And I'd flown fairly close to the flame.

I was endowed with logic

And had some success with my craft,

But nothing that would carry on my name.

I'd become a geneticist,

A regular Gregor Mendel,
Though I was notable,

Not a one could tell.

Where to go? What to do?

A place to set my science-sights.

Less it be too late, to see

My name in science-lights.

My mindset was this

As I walked the streets

Beneath a starlit sky.

Deep in thought

Wracking my brain, was I.

But the quiet was broken

By a clattering of noises-

These grew louder

Into laughing voices.

Then the ringing of bells

The singing of song.

First one, then two,

Then a glittering throng.

I tried to make out their faces, but alas!

These were belied by animal masks.

Whiskers and fur, bunny ears and snouts,

Braying and barking along with their shouts.

The sight was enthralling!

So many were they

Like a renegade runaway zoo.

There were giraffes and penguins, and bears and sharks-

a goose and a kangaroo!

While the reveling menagerie passed,

I hid behind a wall of stone.

But I knew I had some company

When I heard a whimpering groan.

There lay a man-dog and his lady-cat lover-

Getting it on in grove of clover.

They lifted their lids and caught my eye

While they were rolling over.

Cast as a voyeur, I fled the scene.

The whole thing seemed just like a dream.

From the sour mash of this witch's brew,

The idea that I wanted

Came straight through.

Now I knew just what to do!

I will breed a dog and a cat!

It will be my swan song-

What in the world

Could possibly go wrong?

Inventing a creature-

That's a slippery slope.

But such concerns

Would not wither my scope.

A feline-canine mix-

How unbelievably clever.

The Felcan will be

The cutest pet ever!

The poise of a sphinx,
The devotion of a spaniel,
An impossible combination
Will put me in the annals.

I deployed my lab staff post haste

To fetch a queen and a sire-

To coerce them into mating

We determinedly conspired.

They shared a cage; the dog barked for days,

While she clung to the ceiling.

It proved terribly tricky, indeed,

To create amorous feelings.

Petals were sprinkled-

The lights threw a glow,

They played some

Barry Manilow.

But in time they both came round-

The queen submitted to the tenacious hound.

Gone was the coyness

The both knew their places,

And once they began,

They were off to the races.

Her eggs were tough

but his swimmers swam-

A microscopic

Battering ram.

All of this

Under strict supervision,

And then, Eureka!

Cell division!

The staff was invigorated

and ramped up their testing.

No concern whatsoever,

For the time they're investing.

There were sonograms, and x-rays
Cat scans, of course.
Sedation with tranquilizers
Meant for a horse.

Then one day, amid the fatigue and commotion,

There erupted a violent explosion.

As if I didn't have enough strife,

It was that day, that I lost my life.

But all was not lost

For that same day came,

The offspring we all awaited.

Despite the details of my death,

All were quite elated.

The glee was soon replaced by a fright

They could see that something wasn't right.

Had it all been for naught?

“Oh my God-What hath you wrought?”

This creature wasn't cute or cuddly

But mottled, misshapen, and the color of puddy.

Deaf and mute, comatose and bald-

This thing wasn't cute at all!

The dejected lab staff soon disbanded.

The aborted project was abandoned.

The creature was left to my only son.

With a message saying, “your Felcan”.

“O.K.” He said. “Thats all I get?

My father knew I did not want pets.”

So the felcan waddled underneath the couch

Idling in the cold

Surviving on couch mites

That lived in the velveteen folds.

Now my son never cared when I was there,

But now, I was a ghost.

In life it was true,

but in death more so-

My son was a terrible host!

He typed all day

Working on God know what,

oblivious to me

And the curious mutt.

So blank and unblinking

Was its one good eye

I had to wonder why I tried-

It didn't react

Even when goaded

I could have swore

With poppies t'was loaded!

Did it bleed? Did it fight?

Did it want more from life

Than the couch and those mites?

Did it play?

Did it sit?

I'd never even seen it

Take a shit.

My hope for fame had all but faded.

I hovered before the Felcan

defeated and jaded.

My legacy will be better off

If this beast did not exist-

This I would remedy;

By my hand, it will desist!

I planned to do it at night-

T'will be like it never was.

My dead heart felt the beat,

Of an adrenaline buzz.

A kitchen knife

Raised up high

It stared at me

With its one good eye.

With force my blade on it descended-

Now its life had surely ended.

The beastly head fell to the floor,

Away from its trunk it rolled,

But the blood clotted quickly

And turned right to flesh

And soon a new head replaced the old.

Eureka! Eureka!

The head grew back!

You can say what you want,

But I am not a quack!

I'll fade not,

Into oblivion,

Through the marvel of the Felcan

I'll live again. (And again!)

Now how to spread the word,

This was still a problem.

It would not occur through my distracted son,

Who stepped right over the severed noggin.

Repeated experiments with my knife

Proved the beast could not be snuffed.

I soon learned of another trait,

As if this was not enough.

I had nothing to do with all my hours

Than the Felcan to scrutinize.

During my incessant vigil,

It vanished before my eyes!

It was gone

Didn't leave a trace

As if it had

Just been erased-

At the empty spot,

I incredulously peered

When there beneath the couch,

It reappeared.

Again, beside myself was I,

As it stared at me with its one good eye.

What a perfectly glorious creature!

I say, this is a most salable feature!

In my state of being deceased

My post-life powers soon increased-

I was soon able to share its vision.

I could see now that space, not time

Was the thing that restrained its missions.

I traveling through its optic nerve,

This is where I observed

Wars and famines, death and birth-

I saw the animal parade that came first.

Forwards and backwards in time it traveled

Like Buck Rogers without the swagger.

To think I'd once fancied its death

By the sharp blade of my dagger!

What of that one good eye?

That seemed like half a set-

This is quite a yarn I've spun

The Felcan can see better yet.

So I rested in peace

Such a worthy tribute,

Despite my lack of means

To this ware distribute.

This story is at an impasse,

For now with this I close,

I got what I got

Which was not what I sought,

La-di-da! And so it goes...