Mel’s new Passion



The film is stirring up passion left and right! Just what we need - another crusade. I guess he’ll make his 25 million investment back. I’d rather see The Last Temptation of Christ again.

There’s Nary a Headline Anywhere!

So, I’ll write one.

35 Killed in Suicide Bombings in Baghdad!

Twelve of the thirty-five killed were at the Red Cross. The Red Cross is pulling staff out, but will continue to operate on a reduced basis. Who can blame them. Because of the continued violence in post war Iraq, other agencies have pulled out altogether or have drastic cut back plans.

It is time to take a look at what we are doing wrong in this fight against terrorism on foreign soil. Of course, that’s other than the fact that we shouldn’t have gone there in the first place. However, we’ve blown the place up and as outsiders we do not seem to have a grasp of the local terrain, physical and otherwise. We must ask Iraq citizens for help. We should be calling back former army personnel and bringing them into service. Many of them are unemployable since the war because their expertise is not needed in an Iraq run by the United States Armed Services. Why not employ them. If they haven’t run off to join the Baathists by now, they’re not going to. Let’s employ Iraqis to help sniff out the local Baathist, and foreign insurgents who are trying to destroy reconstruction efforts. Let’s spell it out for Mr. Bush.

1. Iraq’s citizens speak the local language and hardly any of us do. Have we bothered to learn it? (That’s a rhetorical question Mr. President.)

2. A citizen of Iraq is able to recognize a foreigner immediately. Our personnel can’t, primarily because we are foreigners.

3. A former Iraq military intelligence person knows more about the capabilities of terrorists from within Iraq and the surrounding nations than our personnel do.

4. We need more trained military personnel on the streets of Baghdad. And, They are there, unemployed, their families getting hungrier every day. Use them! You have only their economy to improve!

These 4 reasons should be enough. However, a huge list would be fun. Anybody from the cyber void (CV)care to e-mail me with more ammunition? (And, please Mr. Ashcroft, if your men are checking blogs and you stumble on this unimportant blather of an old gay man, don’t ascribe any more meaning to the word “ammunition” than is intended.)

Central Pennsylvania is a chilly and damp quagmire.

I know I could not live in Seattle with 300 cloudy days a year. This weather is driving me MAD!

Birthday Party for Myrtle

We had a huge birthday bash for Myrtle yesterday, complete with cake and alcoholic beverages. The bar was only opened for about an hour. But, I was able to get two watered down scotch’s and soda. Myrtle is 90. How about that. If I were straight I might go for her. She doesn’t bump into walls. No, on second thought - she’s too much of a gossip. Of course Myrtle’s party was nothing like L. Dennis Koslowski’s (former Tyco CEO) 2 million dollar party for his wife Karen’s 40th Birthday in June 2001. We didn’t even have any almost naked men dancing on pedastals, darn it!

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There seem to be 3 strands to my writing here, dear journal. The first is about my life as an 84 year old gay man at the all straight retirement home, Pine Needle Manor. The second is my political and social rage and commentary. The third is my thinking about my art and about art in general. Today's entry is a thread from the third strand. I’ve been running this stuff around in my head for weeks. If there is any art person reading this out there in the cyber void, I’d be happy to receive your thoughts as they relate to mine.

Ferdinand de Saussure: A Comparison of his “Sound Image” with the Art World Concept of the Visual Image


The following depends on a fundamental understanding of Ferdinand de Saussure’s study of linguistics as discussed in his Course in General Linguistics. The Columbia Encyclopedia on line gives a brief and concise summary of Saussure’s ideas. But, for a more thorough understanding go to Earl Jackson Jr’s Introduction to Saussure, or Mary Klag’s Structuralism and Saussure from which I've used the image of Saussure to the left. Of course the Course in General Linguistics is the primary source and offers the most thorough understanding of Saussure.

I am a visual artist, and in the visual arts, physical objects are created as soon as the artist applies paint to canvas, puts pencil to paper, or works clay on the wheel or by hand. It is the intention of the artist to shape these objects as visual images that will be received by other persons. Sometimes these objects are created so as to appeal to one or more of the other senses as well, but for the sake of this brief discussion, I wish to consider only those art objects which are intended solely as visual images. It is a certainty that these visual images will be acted upon by each mind that receives them. Thus, a discussion of the similarities and differences between sound images and visual images is important to an understanding of how visual art is received and understood. Saussure worked with sound images and he named the "concept" and the "sound image" signifier and signified in his treatise Course in General Linguistics.

The sound image is not the physical sound (what your mouth makes and your ear hears) but rather the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression it makes. An illustration of this is talking to yourself--you don't make a sound, but you have an impression of what you're saying1

What is the difference between the physical sound made by lips and voice box, and the received sound as interpreted in the human mind? It may be that the maker of the sound had intent, but the actual physical sound is vibration in the atmosphere, nothing more or less. By example, does a tree falling in a forest devoid of sentient beings make a sound? Well, it makes vibrations in the air. The received sound, Saussure’s “sound image,” is something that another human mind encounters and interprets. Since the background and acquired understandings of each mind are different based on life and experience, the received sound will be interpreted differently by each person. In that respect, the sound image is like a visual image because the visual image received by each mind will also be interpreted by each person according to their individual experience of the universe. It doesn’t matter that the actual physical property of one image is vibrations in the particles (molecules) of air, and the other is vibrations in particles of light (photons). Both sets of vibrations are being perceived, acted upon, and interpreted by individuals.

However, a visual image created in any human mind perceiving an art work is a very different thing from the sound image perceived by any human mind. The sound image is created by a singular unit of sound, one uttered word (actually a phoneme in Saussure’s original work). The word or unit of sound may be singular or one of many words or units put together to create a much more complex group of sound images, a sentence. The visual image created by an artist would be the equivalent of many strings of such sound units put together. Therefore it’s reception by any human mind would be the equivalent to the reception of an essay, poem, or novel, spoken out loud by it’s author. It is important to differentiate between the spoken word and the written word, because the written word is based on symbols for the spoken word. It is in this sense, like the visual image in that it is received by the human mind as vibrating particles of light rather than sound. As such, it is closer to the visual image than is spoken language. However, we assign particular meaning to words and have evolved a type of book designed to solidify those meanings, a dictionary. How is it possible to assign particular meaning to a peachy mauve colored passage of wavy soft lines that proceed from the upper left corner of a canvas to the lower right quadrant? This, my dear diary, might be the topic for another journal entry.

Additionally, why not call the sound image the “sound impression?” Because, the use of the word image implies a visual component that may or may not be present. I understand that the word “tree” for instance will conjure a picture in my mind. It is one that is not necessarily specific however, as in my own mind, I am cataloging trees as to type. I am turning pages as it were, on which are located hundreds of versions of the impression of a tree. However, connecting words like “the,” “and,” “with” do not necessarily contain visual components as part of their perceptual impression. Thus, “image” is perhaps not the best word choice for that which is signified.

Finally, there simply are no universals according to our Post Modern view of the world. Linguistics as proposed by Saussure can be stood on its head. Saussure claimed that all languages are composed of grammatical systems that may differ, but that nonetheless allow words to be put together in order to create meaning. But, what is meaning? Is meaning assigned to sound and word images according to each individual that receives them? Who decides which meaning is correct? In this Twenty-first Century world, I can not make a science of “imigistics.” However, I do know that there are similarities and differences between the terms “sound image” and “visual image” as I have discussed them and my awareness of these will affect the way I look at and understand visual art.


1Klages, Mary, Ph.D. “Structuralism and Saussure, lecture presented English 2010, University of Colorado at Boulder,” Revision: September 6, 2001.
http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html (October 26, 2003)


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Duchamp, Cyber Void, and Sexuality



Based on yesterday’s entry, I must say that the CV (cyber void) is the perfect place to discuss variations of human sexuality. The reason for that is because the CV is a space that is not a space, and as such relates in it’s infinite structure and possibilities to Duchamp’s hinge. It also resonates with my discussion of my own work and the hinge beautifully. More on that later.





Disclaimer

Lest you should think that I feel I am a talent on the scale of Duchamp, dear Journal, I’m not. I know I’m not. It’s just that as I interpret his oeuvre in light of Postmodern praxis my work does relate to it. I can’t help it. So be it!

I still haven’t seen Tarzan.

I will tonight!



He’s such a baby boy! But, look at that tight body. And he can use his limbs like a monkey. I wish I could have my body back. In fact, I'd be happy to have my sixty year old body back. I'm not bad for eighty-four, but, the skin is loose and wrinkled, the joints ache and make crunching noises when I walk. There's not much to be done. It's just going to get worse.

AOL has no headlined news on Iraq

I had to go to the New York Times on line to find any news on Iraq this morning, including the largest protest since Mr. Bush declared hostilities over in Iraq. Are we trying to forget that we’ve made a mess of things?

Isn’t it interesting that the evidence of Iraq’s nuclear threat - the document indicating Iraq’s attempt to buy uranium from Niger - is a forgery. It has been suggested that the forged document was possibly made within the CIA itself.

“Scary ain’t,” as we Pennsylvania Dutch say.


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Duchamp and Me





Back in September I had talked about my interest in Duchamp and how my concerns and my art works relate to his work, dear Journal. I’ve worried that the my gay, male perspective dismisses any relationship I might also have to the trajectory of second wave feminist thought. Specifically, I have recently encountered one, very unsettling book, because it seems to do away with any claim I might make concerning a relationship between my concerns and those of women’s studies. At the same time, the book makes an argument that appears to insist on a patriarchal relationship of my concerns to those of Marcel Duchamp. In that book, Amelia Jones, Postmodernism and the En-Gendering of Marcel Duchamp (1994), describes and critiques a New York based, Postmodern construction of Duchamp as the progenitor of Postmodern art praxis from her unique feminist position. She defines that construction as a reaction to "masculinist definitions of artistic purity and authority perceived in Greenbergian Modernism." Her concern is that the Postmodern, characterized as anti-masculinist, feminist, LGBT , and decentered, cannot possibly coexist with a paternal originator of a Postmodern tradition in the visual arts. Jones exposes the apparent contradiction in my position as a self-congratulatory male describing the way my work resonates with Duchamp’s.

However, my position is based in part on an understanding of Reception Theory. Reception Theory allows that the viewers’ understanding of the art work, in this case, both Jones’ and mine, are equally valid. Jones, however, rejects Reception Theory, though at the same time, she feels that she cannot invalidate any position, including her own, that perceives itself in relation to a Postmodern tradition that includes Duchamp as founding father. Thus, Jones has found her personal version of the Poststructuralist conundrum, in which it is not possible to defend any position with certainty.

Upon further consideration, I found the idea that Marcel Duchamp is the pater familias of the Postmodern visual arts to be simplistic. If one male artist is to be the progenitor of the Postmodern, why shouldn’t we consider Picasso? He was exponentially more prolific than Duchamp. Rene Magritte must also be a contender since he, like Duchamp, demonstrated the idea that Language and Culture are games with rules through his use of cross-signification of images in his painting.1 Additionally, there are any number of other males waiting in line. A progenitrix should be considered as well. Perhaps Georgia O’Keefe fits that position, since she did so much to alter our perception of the American landscape. Perhaps we should consider Frieda Kahlo because of her personal cosmography that illustrated her gender specific concerns. We can certainly locate a number of individuals who have influenced the direction of art production well into the Postmodern, but we will find it extremely difficult to narrow it to one person of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the complex relationship of my work to Duchamp’s oeuvre exists.

In her argument, Jones appropriates Jacques Derrida’s description of the binary opposition of self and other, and of “logocentrism” as a masculinized metaphysics to defend her position, a risky business as demonstrated above.2 Derrida, in Writing and Difference, 1978, discusses and explicates his conceptualization and construction of time within language, the creation of dialogues between and among discourses, and the ways these dialogues can be emptied of meaning through the deconstruction of binary oppositions. He arrives at an infinite space in which the relationship between any and all points of reference is subject to constant alteration. Whether or not one perceives Duchamp as Postmodern progenitor, Duchamp meant for us to understand his oeuvre as being constructed over time, referring to itself regardless of the location of its components in time and place, as reflected variation and conceptualization interrupted and altered by its own performance. Thus, it is an anticipation of Jacques Derrida’s ideas.

Octavio Paz also places a Postmodern (Derridian) “spin” on Duchamp’s work in Apariencia Desnuda: La obra de Marcel Duchamp, 1973. He refers to Duchamp’s use of the hinged mirror in the self-portrat photograph, 1917 mentioned above, as indicative of Duchamp’s use of reflections to interrupt the performance of his work. He interprets the hinged mirror as metaphor to describe the instability of binary oppositions, and he moves toward a Buddhist-like conception of a universe of infinite variations not dissimilar to Derrida’s conception, though his thoughts are the direct result of his observations of and ruminations about Duchamp’s oeuvre.

All these experiments are more an expression of the preoccupation for that which might be called the instability of ideas; left and right, here and there, interior and exterior, backward and forward, up and down. These ideas are spacial forms of the opposition.

The sign of the concordance, upon turning about itself, makes a ring like appearance (second meaning for the Spanish, anular [to turn] is to cancel, to remove from power) enters into itself and is resolved into a pure possibility......What to name this dimension that consists of the reabsorption of all dimensions into a vacuum that might have made the Buddha smile beatifically? ...we encounter a diagonal that turns itself into a vertical. A magical variety of truth that causes
everything through which it turns to disappear until all is the
same, reduced to a uni-dimensional state. It turns one more pirouette, and vanishes.

Thus, time and space are reduced to a primordial particle in motion, one that must include the instant before and after the universe begins and ends. Paz does not say that Duchamp’s work is nihilistic, that is, he is not discussing a state of nothingness (no thing), for this state is inclusive of all possibilities including that of absolute nothingness. In such a universe, dichotomies are not stable. They cannot exist, but must be subsumed within a broad sub-universe of shifting categories and possibilities. It is chaos understood. In that universe the heterosexual versus homosexual dichotomy exists among countless imagined and unimagined possible sexualities. Duchamp’s work embodies the hinge that allows sexual dichotomy of any type to turn upon itself, rotate, describe a diagonal line that rotates about itself in order to become a vertical line, to describe two opposed cones touching at a single point, to fold into that single point, and vanish.

Here’s a link to an animated site that will let you interact with Duchamp’s works and ideas

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Where’s Ruth?


I haven’t seen or heard from Ruth since our argument over the Scott Merritt mixed media pieces. That’s probably not a good thing. Who knows what self serving scheme she’s cooking up. I don’t like feeling paranoid about my own daughter, but I can’t help it. I gave her too much power over my life when I allowed her and James to take over Orchard Hill Farm. I don’t begrudge them living there, after all it had become too much for me to take care of. However, I realize now that I should have cleared Sanctuary (my studio) out and stored everything, because Ruth has always resented my Silver Man Performances, and she has repeatedly opined that she thinks my imagination has born evil fruit in Varnastrama. However, I’m tight and the thought of spending $1500.00 a year for storage prevented me from doing it


I can’t believe it’s cool to say “cool” again!

How often have variations on that word come and gone.? Remember a few years ago, dear Journal, when everything was cauh-oo-oo-l. I don’t understand a lot of the newest jargon because I don’t hear it often enough. I need to spend more time with my great grand children! The last time I was with Abe’s children and I used the term “sweet” meaning cauh-oo-oo-l, I was told “that word’s not cool, Grandpa.” Nobody uses it anymore.”

Well, what can I say? “D-u-u-u-h!”

Speaking of Cool...

Weather’s getting colder - this afternoon the temperature is to be colder than it is now at 6:00 in the morning here in God’s country. The folliage is starting to look great though.

I’m taking Sally and Stan to their doctor’s today. They’re going together now, but nobody’s supposed to know. The heterosexual intrigues around THE BIG NEEDLE are sometimes underwhelming.

So is this entry. I promise to be more interesting next time, dear journal.

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State Department Study Predicted Iraq Military Troubles



The following is from an article written by Eric Schmitt and Joel Brinkley, The New York Times, Saturday, October 18, 2003.

WASHINGTON (Oct. 18) -- A yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials.

Beginning in April 2002, the State Department project assembled more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts into 17 working groups to study topics ranging from creating a new justice system to reorganizing the military to revamping the economy.

Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems than many Pentagon officials assumed. They warned of a society so brutalized by Saddam Hussein's rule that many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society.

Why does this not surprise me? Of course Mr. Bush, puppet of the oil oligarchy, would ignore such a projection from the state department.

So, one-hundred-ninety dead American service personnel later we are struggling to get electricity turned on and clean water to the citizens of Iraq. This will go down in history as the biggest mistake the USA made during the 21st Century!

Wake up America!

We ARE the EVIL EMPIRE in the eyes of the entire world!

Weekend Notes

I missed Tarzan again! The Dragon Lady (Ruth) invaded the apartment Friday afternoon . My “buds” and I were in the middle of a poker game. Of course, Charlie can’t remember what’s in his own hand much less deduce what’s in anyone else's, but we have fun. Ruth scooted around the living room like a nervous moth at a light bulb, picking things up and dusting furniture. She complained about my dirty apartment.

How embarrassing!

She also invited me to dinner at Orchard Hill Farm both Friday and Saturday nights. It was a command performance because “The Professor” - he seems to be getting more and more important - was going to be there as well. He works pretty much around the clock in my studio “Sanctuary” on weekends. I wish he’d quite sorting through my stuff and go away. Ruth says it’s a good thing that “someone has taken an interest in my studio and is straightening out the mess I left.” I think at some level she actually believes The Professor will make straight the history of my extremely slow coming to grips with my sexuality. In reality, his project will make that history crystal clear, I should think.


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Political Sense?

More Commentary on the California Recall Election

I don't pretend to always understand why we do things as an electorate. However, in this case, I don't think it's too hard to figure.

Many pundits seem to believe that predominately democrat California elected Republican movie star Arnold Schwartzenegger as governor because "The People" were upset with democrat Gray Davis for running the state into financial ruin. However, he did not. Instead, we are all in the midst of a major recession, California included. California's problem was created in part because of huge financial expenditures for electricity. Does ENRON ring a bell? California is, as we all are to a lessor extent, caught between the electric companies, Federal undersight of practice, the lack of new power production facilities, and the absence of new research for, and production of alternative power sources. Of course the people of California don't want power plants in their backyards. But, they do want a movie star governor of German origin who was apparently enamored of Hitler as a youth.

A Republican friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) is suggesting that something like the Republican conversion of the South is taking place in California. However, as much as I love the South - I have Southern family - I believe that Southern conversion from Democrat to Republican in the 1960's took place because white southerners saw that the Democrat Party had become the party of the common man including blacks. We lost our middle class white base in the South because of prejudice - prejudice that still exists though it is politically incorrect to express it. The menagerie of Democrat candidates are all fond of saying that the electorate can not be fooled, that voters are smarter than the Republican party gives us credit for. I wonder then, how did we become convinced that Mr. Bush won the last election when he did not? And, how does the greatest part of the population of California become foolish enough to elect this muscle-man-motion-picture-image of a half man, half robot as governor?

Might there be subtext here? What might that subtext be? I leave that for future discussion.


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Getting rid of a double post again!

Scott Merritt Drawings Are Found



When I asked Ruth about the drawings she said, "Really, Dad, I just cleaned up your apartment for you when you were sick. There were some strange, washy looking paintings of a partially nude man that I put in the back of your bedroom closet, at the bottom of the shelves. They’re under some packs of copy paper and art supplies." I checked and they are there, upside down, shoved to the back, "folded, spindled, and mutilated," as they used to say - "don't" - about those IBM punch cards back in the 1950's and 60's.

I'm not sure Ruth damaged them intentionally. If I give her the benefit of the doubt, it's because my sexuality, my work, and the relationship between the two bother her. I think she does things without being aware of why she is doing them, or even that she IS doing them. I know she thinks of me as her slightly addlepated old "Dad," for whom she is trying to do the best she can.

Yesterday at THE BIG NEEDLE was normal

1. Got up a bit earlier than usual, 5:00 A.M. in order to take Joe Smith (Yea, that’s really his name) to a Doctor’s appointment. He could have gotten the Pine Needle Staff to take him, but that’s a pain. There’s all these rules to follow, and you can’t shop on the way home.
2. Played bridge from 10:00 A.M. until lunch<./L2>
3. Went to the BIG NEEDLE dining room for lunch at noon.
4. Around 2:00 P.M. took a drive over to Paradise just to look at Orchard Hill Farm. Sometimes I can’t help myself. I like to see the peach trees when the peaches are full and being picked. I did not stop by to see Ruth and James.
5. 4:30 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. - Worked on trying to repair the mixed media pieces of Scott Merrit on the dining room table.
6. 6:OO P.M. to around 6:30 P.M. Made my own dinner here in the apartment so I could...
7. Write parts of this journal entry.
8. Then I cruised around The Internet from 6:30 P.M. until around 8:OO P.M.
9. I went to bed around 8:30 P.M. because I’m still feeling really tired from the flue bug.

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Flu Bug Bites

Sorry I ignored you for a while, dear journal. I had an awful cold, headache, and stomach mess the past several days. I ran a temperature 102 F over the weekend. It felt as though someone beat me with a large stick all over. Every joint hurt. What a mess? I’m still weak, but feeling much better, thank you. The double entendre in the title of this section is intentional.

What’s She Up To Now?

Ruth fussed like a mother hen, cluck clucking about the apartment, fussing, and generally being in the way since I just wanted to be left alone. She insisted on putting all my art supplies back into my chest of drawers in the bedroom. After two days of total maniacal obsessive compulsive upset she got the doctor to come and see me here in the apartment. He informed her that I would live and she finally went home. I can’t help wondering if she’s feeling guilty about something.

I can’t find the mixed media works of Scott Merritt

But, I’m still too weak to comb through the apartment just now. “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” said Scarlet.

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I must go back and republish my "Ode to Getting Rid of a Post."

If this works, you won't see but one version of today's post.

Things I did Thursday, October 9, 2003

1. got up at 6:30 AM
2. had breakfast in the BIG NEEDLE dining room
3. did arts and crafts
(We made popsickle stick bird houses.)
Boring!
4. had lunch at 12:00 precisely
5. at 1:00 PM the podiatrist trimmed my nails
6. took a nap at about 2:00 PM
7. got up and took Myrtle, Jim, and Peter for a drive - about 3:30 PM
8. ate supper in the BIG NEEDLE dining room - 5:00 PM
9. watched Moulin Rouge on the DVD player alone in my apartment about 7:00 PM
10. now I’m going to bed and it’s about 10:00 PM

What an exciting day!

Just to clarify things. I didn’t make a popsickle stick bird house myself yesterday. Instead, I helped others with theirs. It just sort of evolved. I went to the class last year for the first time to see what it was like and found that most of what they make is just too easy. Even though I shake a little, I still exercise every day, and take long walks. I’m actually in great physical shape for my age. So, I found it was more fun to help others that were having trouble making the projects than to make them myself. I work with people like Henry who has Alzheimers and I thank God while I’m doing it that I don’t have that horribly debilitating disease.

Scott Merritt Drawing



I got an e-mail from Scott. Isn’t that “cool!” He wants to see the work when its done. But, I’ve thrown 3 drawings away because it’s so obvious I’ve copied the photo from the cover of the August 19th issue of TheAdvocate magazine. So, instead, I’ve taken a digital photo of the cover. A friend of mine, Tim, has a large format printer, and I’ve made several 16 by 21 inch prints from the photo. I’m painting into them with watercolor and drawing over top of them. The ink jet printer ink bleeds just like watercolor and I’m getting some interesting effects. I’m making a shambles of my living room. Watercolor tubes are scattered over the coffee table. There are several of the large prints on my couch. Markers, tubs of water, and brushes are scattered over the table in the dining alcove. I’ve also been trying out some gold leafing on the mixed media works and the gold leaf mucilage and foil are on the table next to my big chair (the one I watch TV from). If these mixed media pieces don’t work out, I guess I could e-mail Scott and ask if he has other photographs that I might work with.

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Can the CIA Manufacture WMD?

You bet-cha! David Kay of the CIA said in his report to congress last week that he thought they would find scud missiles and/or WMD because they have examined only 10 of 130 sites so far, and, that 26 of these are critical. He also said that a complete report would be available in 6 to 9 months. I for one, will be pleased and also somewhat mystified if the weapons in question aren’t suddenly found at one of these sites. Actually I’m surprised that they haven’t turned up during the past 5 months. I guess I’m just a skeptic. I think this administration wished to initiate a new era of American Imperialism for whatever twisted and self serving reasons. So, now we reap the benefits.

WMD oh where, oh where can you be?

Haifa Suicide Bomber

Nineteen dead, and fifty-five persons injured in a restaurant in which arabs and jews broke bread together - a symbol of hope. I wonder how its possible for a human being to become so demented that he/she/they are capable of such evil, and I am constantly amazed and appalled at the evil mankind is capable of. Just look at the 19 men who destroyed themselves and killed thousands of innocent men women and children on 911. The creator, should he/she exist in any way remotely as we humans envision him/her does not sanction murder, I’m sure. And, if She/He did, she/he would be a god to whom I personally would be incapable of responding! The suicide bomber in Haifa was a women which proves what second wave feminists have been saying all along. A woman can certainly be in possession of the phallus which is not the same as saying, “Boy does she have balls!”

Of course the fact that the greatest democracy on earth has invaded and destroyed a small, not very powerful, foreign nation supposedly to prevent terrorist activity is in itself an act of terror. And, the fact that we are oil gourmands and in need of Iraq's oil reserves (one of the largest in the world) had nothing to do with it - right?

Each and every one of us is responsible for allowing our president to raise the bar of world wide terror one very large notch higher.

Well, that’s soap box speech number 198. I’m done now.


He's So Good Looking! He's So Young!



I'm talking about the new Tarzan, Travis Fimmel. He's WB's John Clayton on Sunday nights at 9:00 P.M. I understand that a billboard in London actually had to be taken down because the picture of Travis was causing traffic problems. I missed the first show, but you better believe I'm going to watch it next week just to see if it's any good. Of course, the eye candy is important, especially if they have Travis expose his upper torso. But, if the plot is weak, that's it. I also have concerns about our cultural preoccupation with youth. This kid is practically a child. Why not choose a mature Tarzan, someone in his 30's, or even 40's? Some men, and women actually get better looking as they age. Some of us, myself excluded, actually manage to hold onto some of our good looks well into old age. Look at Paul Newman. Mr. Fimmel should be lucky enough to age as well as Paul Newman because that actually takes some work over the course of decades as well as a continually positive approach to life.



Arnold's Back!

Yes indeed! California has a new Hitler loving, woman groping governor. Anything goes, at least in California.

E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

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A-hah! It Worked!

Can't Remove a Post Again

Don't you love it?!?! If putting this post in allows me to republish, then I can remove the post I put in by mistake and you and the Cyber Void won't see it, dear Journal.

Ruth’s Threat

Ruth and the professor’s visit last evening was because I had borrowed my own journal from my own studio. The professor said that he had to have the journal back in order to photograph it digitally, page by page. I said that I still needed it this week to help me with one or two blog entries.

Ruth replied, “You need that journal for some silly old Internet gossip, e-mail kind of thing but the professor needs it to document your life. What’s wrong with this picture, Dad?”

Of course, I said that this silly old internet thing was just as important as anything the professor is doing even though I have no proof that I’m not just doing a variation on Borges “Library,” and sending my heart and soul into the cyber void to be dissolved into meaningless nothing.

We went round and round until, finally, Ruth said that if I didn’t return the journal she would lock me out of Orchard Hill Farm.

I love it! My own house and my own daughter is going to lock me out. The only reason I let Ruth and James move in was because the farm had gotten to be too much for me to take care of. And, to be honest, since Rebecca died, I didn’t really have the interest.

How short sighted!

But, I did give the journal to the professor with the understanding that I will get it back next week.


On a brighter note...
I found a new web site.

Well, it’s new to me dear Journal. It’s the Gay Artist’s Galleries. I cruised around on it for a time last evening, and found my favorite gay aritist couple, Pierre and Gilles. Here’s an example of their work from the web site. Just a bit of strange eye candy.



No Weapons of Mass Destruction

According to an AOL pole, 53% of Americans think that no weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq. It amazes me that 36% still think that they will be found! GW lied! Get used to it America! I still worry that the CIA will plant some out in the desert.

I watched GW’s speech the other day while walking on the treadmill at the health club. I didn’t turn the sound on because I didn’t want to listen to more BS. The visual by itself was horrifying because his facial expressions and body language were frightening! The man looked positively evil! Don’t let him go out Halloween night. He’ll frighten all the trick-or-treaters! On second thought...


E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

Visit my homepage
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Take a look at:

Gay Artist’s Galleries

John Giuffre’s blog Thoughts From A Collapsed Brain

Another Comment about the “Cyber Void”(CV)



This CV is likeJorge Luis Borges “The Library of Babel” from Ficciones in which a library made up of an infinite number of rooms is filled with books composed with meaningless combinations of letters floating in an infinite empty void.

It’s sort of like the sound of one hand clapping.

My Search for Gay and Lesbian Retirement homes

I’ve turned up one retirement community near Sarasota, Forida, the “Palms of Manasota.” I may drive down to visit in October. I’ve sent for literature and I’ll write more after I’ve read about it.

The Professor, Again!

Ruth phoned to tell me that she and the professor are coming to visit this evening, during the dinner hour no less. So, I’ll have to make my own dinner here in the apartment. I’m worried, and I wonder what this visit is about, because whenever it involves the professor, it’s bad news. I did take another volume of my journal from Sanctuary last week. Perhaps they are coming to get it back.

E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

Visit my homepage
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Take a look at:

Gay Artist’s Galleries

John Giuffre’s blog Thoughts From A Collapsed Brain

Darn! It’s Cold

All us old folk here at THE BIG NEEDLE (Pine Needle Retirement Home) are talking about the weather. So what’s new? Well, it feels like the end of October, not the beginning. Myrtle said yesterday, “If it’s this cold now, what’s it gunna be like in January?” I don’t want to think about it. I’m ready to move South.

Comment on my last Entry and the Coined Term "Cyber Void"



Octavio Paz, in Apariencia Desnuda: La obra de Marcel Duchamp, states the following.

Como llamar a esta dimension que consiste en la reabsorcion de todas las dimensiones en un vacio que hubiera hecho sonreir de beatitud al mismo Buddha? ...encontramos un linea diagonal que se transforma en vertical. Una verdadera varita magica que hace desaparecer todo lo que la rodea hasta que ella misma, reducida a un estado unidimensional. gira, da una pirueta mas-- y desaparece.

Paz’ Spanish is more sonorous than my English translation that follows.

What to name this dimension that consists of the reabsorption of all dimensions into a vacuum that might have made the Buddha smile beatifically? ...we encounter a diagonal that turns itself into a vertical. A magical variety of truth that causes everything through which it turns to disappear until all is the
same, reduced to a uni-dimensional state. It turns one more pirouette, and vanishes.

It is all so slippery!

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