painting season

someday i'll have photo editing software againa so the pictures i take dont look really poor, but until that day....

a mess

heres that painting, as it appears right now in the hall

what a lazy guy

I bought a new book! It's called Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard. I know what you're thinking, and you're right. I'll talk about that in a minute, Here's some notes from the last 24 hours.

I will have these nights, moments really, where i can, for just this second, be sure of how i feel. Where there are no questions, no second thoughts, this love is pure and eternal and overflowing out of somewhere in me. On such a night i am always inclined to write it down, to document that "tonight, i was in love - let it be known. If i die tonight, you will all know who to tell that i was thinking of them, that I did, actually, love them." This is my best attempt at a static emotion. One moment. Single nights of assurance amongst a sea of doubt. Always when I'm alone, always with music, always with this fear of an unfulfilled legacy that needs to be appreciated by the rest of the world. This is always supplemented with all of the different ways I could die immediately afterwards.

i have a hard time knowing what to ask people when i meet them for the first time anymore, which is more or less frequent. What could I find out about you that I really want to know and would care about? What should I know, and what will you be able to construct a conversation out of? I have no idea. This is my only chance after all. I frequently say nothing in an attempt to get to know who you are better

dont ever let someone (esp. yourself) make you think you don't deserve the things you want

Most discussions always end in a grey area, an either/or - you should be somewhere in the middle... are we so void of passions, is there anything proven we can take a stand on? Abortion? Well, yes, for some, but no for others. Creation? Well, maybe, but probably with some evolution mixed in with it. Is the world a great big compromise? We don't have any answers. Does it take courage or maybe foolishness
Is there time to consider everything all at once or any one thing for long enough to really understand it

so, yes, this book. I made a painting of a brain connected to a dick that is fucking it from behind...

"pleasure dissappoints; possibility does not

To a knowledge of the truth, I perhaps have come; to salvation, surely not. What shall I do? Be active in the world, people say. Should I then communicate my sorrow to the world, make one more contribution to prove how pitiable and wretched everything is, perhaps discover a new, hitherto undetected stain in human life? I could then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, just like the man who discovered the spots on Jupiter. I still prefer to remain silent

recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality, and it has a security that no actuality possesses."

The either part of this very large volume is the esthetic, as told by a "Mr. A", who by my accounts thus far is a cynical bastard but also smart as hell. This is attractive for obvious reasons, and makes alot of sense most of the time. I wish i could post all of the quotes i highlighted so far, but i am five pints deep and really cant do it. sorry i have been away for so long, i am dissappointed with my mind as well. I bought a book by kierkegaard today, two blank canvases, and a case of beer.... i have every intention to fix this slump in the way i best know how. lots of elliott smith too. cheers folks!

thanks for making me write it down

here are things i wrote down while on my cruise (in chronological order)"pity and shame are the two extremes of pride" - there were alot of people on the boat who were very rich, and who didnt like .... well anything. At lunch one day i sat with these people who had a house in manhattan, and london, and florida, and they were talking shit on these fat people who had been gorging themselves, and the one person was like i feel so bad for them and the other was like they were so gross and i thought "you both are assholes, just in different ways." ive been working with being humble recently, and of course along with that the ability to love people for who they are, as equals. The pastor man with the tattoos said yesterday 'if your head is close enough to the ground, youll never know (or care, i might add) when people are disrespecting you." and i thought that was excellent. close to the ground meaning the level playing field, 'in it', as it were.

"love is either being blind to the facts or having faith in nothing ever going wrong. This is not to say that there is always something wrong, but that's just because that's nothing we like to say." I came up with what i think is a good solution, at least one that made me feel good, which comes at the end.this is chronological, after all.

"....but this isn't true either. Some art speaks without ever speaking of anything at all. Some words are only available when they are being used, when they are being heard in your ears, seen in your eyes - there is no need for you to say 'this is how it is' because it does not matter how it is, only that it IS, and you know it, and I know it. and we know it. and it is."thinking about storytelling in art, making a statement, beauty, believing in this shit. next to these in my sketchbook is a picture of a man in full terrorist garb (scarf over heaf, AK on his shoulder) sitting in a strip club, watching a naked lady. I think i am going to paint this next. because it will be fun.

"i think to mysel 'but what do i know?' and the answer is that I do not know much at all"

and lastly, from my moleskin, which is almost full, on the final day at sea, when the sun was setting over top of the water and i was being the exact feeling i always want to be (i am in love with the ocean, i came to terms with it - and hiroshi sugimoto, by extension, because of the eternity of the ocean, and the horizon line, cutting straight across, and all the colors and the deepness, and the blue of infinity.... anyway thats a tattoo for another day)"These answers come to me, and i don't remember taking time to think about reaching this conclusion - just knew there was a question that needed a solution (maybe this is some kind of proof that without my input there is something above me working and revealing) - Love is the knowledge, or rather the assurance, that no matter what others have had of yourself or her, that we know, beyond measure, that they never can have as much of that other person that we have had and have found. in each other. and that is enough, to pale out all insecurities, to quell all fears."we need to reveal it all, invest the whole mind and body, to find what we are looking for.

somebody pulling on my sleeve

A short story - On sunday afternoon, I went to church one time. A place called Liberti. It was great and I learned alot of important things. I came home and thought "maybe I should go to that other church where all my roommates go." It started at 7. It was 5. I thought another thought "Maybe I'll play zelda instead." So i did. And I played. I defeated the great deku tree, and was just about to learn the plot of the game, when the screen went crazy (see above). I said aloud "huh........well, what time is it?" I look at my phone. It's 7 pm. I say "Alllright already God, I'll go to that damn church!" Who ever heard of this happening? a 64 game? I think alot is happening betwixt me and God, and I am excited but also nervous, because there are some things I don't want to lose.

Notes from church - It doesn't take much effort to condemn yourself.

There isn't anyone else I need to be accountable to for doing anything wrong besides God, because noone else is any authority, noone else can be a perfect judge

we have no other reason to love those around us except because they are there, and we are here

in dreams begin responsibilities

so then I painted today. I couldnt think of anything, and the mirror was right there. I borrowed dante's idea of painting the colors as I saw them. It was fun. and i did more to this: (images taken with camera phone, and as such, are way shitty)

oh and one more thing

my dad would love this, and will, when i show it to him later today.

it's only your life

(taken from 'Socrates to Sartre', Samuel Enoch Stumpf)

".... James argues that certain kinds of truths become possible only when we put ourselves in the position for the truth fully to materialize itself. If we fail to make ourselves 'available', we risk losing the truth. Suppose a young man wants to know whether a certain young lady loves him. Let us also suppose that objectively it is a fact that she loves him but he does not know it. If he assumes that she does not, if, that is, he does not will to believe that she loves him, his doubt will prevent him from saying or doing what would cause her to reveal her love. In this case, he would 'lose the truth'. His will to believe would not necessarily create the love: that is already there. Belief has the effect of making what is already there come full circle. If the young man required evidence before he could know the truth, he would never know it, because the evidence he is looking for can become available only after he willed to believe it is true. In this case, the will to believe would have discovered a fact that already existed. (William) James did not want to argue that the will to believe would 'create' the existence of God as the product of a mere wish. He rather thought that the truth of religion and the power of God in human experience is the discovery, through the will to believe, of what is in fact (already) "there". Some truths forever escape us until we plunge into the stream of experience."

Oh, Pragmatism. William James to be exact. I tried to explain this to Dante last night at 3 am. We agreed that it was a better example if the girl was dead instead of alive.

Here's a painting.

bands that have made july promising -

right away, great captain

made out of babies

coldplay

ray lamontagne

and also the movie 'the assassination of jesse james by yada yada yada'

what i learned last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1imThTYBhZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpT3TqsNqBY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_e7yyloq2o


that last one = the best

and to a lesser extent, here's this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk

if you haven't seen it, its new to you!