0802

August 2, 2022

 Down at 10, up at 5:30, 4 pss.

     Spent quite some time messing around with a wretched attempt to paint a piece aping Munch's Madonna, not the whole figure but rather the upper torso and head.  As I expected the dark eyes, looking like adjacent coal pits, did me in.  Plus I don't know what to do with the skin tones on the torso which looks like a broad sand desert completely unlike the face.  Paint over the whole thing and save the canvas or keep seeing if anything is salvageable?

    Read Elizabeth Bishop's "A Miracle for Breakfast" which I didn't understand at all till I found a couple analyses online.  Also stumbled upon a book review in The Irish Times with a photo of Bishop with a Siamese cat on her lap, which I emailed to Sarah.

    Watched the 'town hall meeting' on Channel 12 last night featuring the Republican candidates in Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary next week.  Rebecca Kleefisch, Tim Michels (endorsed by Trump, multi-millionaire, home in Greenwich, Connecticut), and a nebbishy 3rd candidate, Tim Ramthun, who seems sincere but a bit impaired and delusional.  Michaels appears to have all the psychological makings of a total fascist, with Kleefisch not far behind.  One of them will probably be our next governor.

    We are both going through some pre-grieving, much like I did for months with Kitty.  Lilly will be 13 years old on October 8th if she makes it till then.  Each day or week it seems she shows more lack of energy and strength, especially around her hips and rear legs.  Geri had her in Cheri's backyard, visiting and playing with Oliver who is quite a bit younger than Lilly.  When Lilly got home from Cheri's, i.e., across the street, she was exhausted, panting heavily for 10 or more minutes.  At on point while playing with Oliver, her rear legs splayed outward.  We never assume she will be successful in jumping up on the couch to be next to Geri, or in jumping onto the bed with her.  We take nothing for granted about her presence in our lives, her part of each of us.  

This afternoon, Geri spent time caring for Jimmy (replacing his lost wallet, ID card, etc., shopping, etc.) and then tending her vegetable garden at David and Sharon's.  Lilly was outside for about an hour at her new 'post', in the shade of the west tree in the north yard, looking down County Line Road for Geri to return, declining my invitations to come in the house until I lured her inside by promised treats.  We are living in dread of her declining condition and of maybe soon losing her.  Kitty, Jimmy, Lilly, .. . Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .

0731

July 31, 2022

 Up at 0630.  

    I turned on the TV to check out the guest and panel lineups on the Sunday morning talk shows.  I was, perhaps naively, surprised to see that Joe Manchin is the headliner on every major network. Hero/goat. Everybody is wondering whether Kirsten Sinema will get on board the Manchin/Schumer/Biden climate, prescription costs, etc., bill.  I switched to WITI local news to see how many people were shot and/or killed by gunfire last night and what the weather forecast looks like, realizing that there is a correlation between inner city shootings and homicides and summer heat waves.  The temperature and humidity go up, the killings go up.

    Watching the local newscast, I am struck, as I always am, by the tremendous vapidity of these programs.  All the on-air personnel are so very happy, happy, happy.  "We had 4 overnight shootings in Milwaukee last night, with 3 deaths including an 8-year-old girl" but, as you can tell by our lighthearted banter on the set, we won't let that sort of thing keep us from our perpetual state of on-air lightheartedness and being happy, happy, happy.  Nor will we let the shootings and homicides, the freeway drive-bys, the paralysis in Washington, the slaughter in Ukraine, the fires and floods occasioned by climate change, or anything else, prevent us from pretending to you, our viewing audience, that we are happy, happy, happy, and that we think that you are all gullible idiots.

    Finished watching the film "Memoir of War", the film adaptation of Marguerite Duras's semi-autobiographical novel  'The War: A Memoir.'  Protagonist's (Melanie Thierry) husband was deported to a German concentration camp, a reflection on the emotional turmoil, spiritual death after Germany surrenders and she waits to see if the husband will return.  "This is the end of the world. . . . A foreign land will rise out of this chaos.   Me? No place for me on this earth."   

    I tried again to do a very rough copy of Munch's Madonna, this time using grid lines.  I didn't expect the product to be very good and it isn't but I enjoyed painting it and am not finished yet by any means.  I left the big very dark eyes for tomorrow as well as the very dark bottom of her nose which looks pretty much like just a very dark triangle.  I can see now that the eyes and the nose have the potential for rendering the whole effort an occasion for a total paint over/reuse of the canvas.

0730

 July 30, 2022

A sunny Saturday, warm, humid.  Dinner with J., chicken casserole.  J. asked if he remembered correctly that 'he was moving' or 'being moved'?  Conscious of his lack of control over his life circumstances, thinking for some reason that he was moving to the west coast, to California, rather than to Virginia. Troubled by bladder urgency after dinner, though voided bladder before leaving apartment and had only a bit of iced tea at dinner.  He lives with uncertainty, confusion, discomfort and pain every day of his life, but still has the considerable residual intelligence, cognition, long term memory, and thankfully humor. 

    I drew an image of Pandora's Box in 'The Reign of [T]Error.'  Skulls emerging from the open box, issues to fight over on either side of Pandora image: rape, incest, police reporting, life of mother, health of mother, conception, implantation, fertilization, 6 weeks, 15, 24, first trimester, interstate travel, federal employees/military on federal land, etc.  Trying to find some suitable entry re loss of voting rights, assaults on what passes as 'democracy' in the U.S.

    Earlier attempt at aping Munch's Madonna a bust with lack of drawing skill, use of acrylics but may try again with grid lines, and perhaps oils.

    In bed at 9 after watching half of a pretty vapid movie about an Italian immigrant family who ran a little diner/restaurant.

Am I Still Here???

 Am I still here???

 Wondering whether my blog is still alive.

Nightmares

I read that the Squirrel Hill terrorist wanted to "kill all Jews" even as he was wheeled into the ER at the hospital where the doctor and nurse who treated him were Jews.  In BadDreamLand, I had a vision of the murderer's wish being granted.  Suddenly his treating physician and attending nurse disappeared. Then all the Jewish doctors and nurses that treat and have treated me and my family through a long life disappeared.  Poof.  Then I recalled Itzhak Perlman on the Steven Colbert Show playing "Someone to Watch Over Me" and Itzhak disappeared as did the song's composer, Jacob Gershvin a/k/a George Gershwin,  and the beautiful song itself, along with Rhapsody in Blue and everything else that Jacob/George created to share with the world.  Poof.  Then I thought of Israel Beilin a/k/a Irving Berlin vanishing along with his gifts to the world God Bless America, White Christmas, and hundreds of others.  Gone.  Then I hallucinated Robert Allen Zimmerman a/k/a Bob Dylan disappearing with Blowing in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin', and so much more.  Then Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Billy Joel, Piano Man, My Life, Uptown Girl, Carole Joan Klein a/k/a Carole King,  So Far Away, It's Too Late, Tapestry,  Neil Diamond, Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show, Sweet Caroline, Barbra Streisand, People, The Way We Were. All gone the disappeared Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler. Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein, Benny Goodman, Ziggy Elman, Herbie Mann, so many musicians, so much soul expanding music - gone. And all those humorists  who brought so much joy and laughter to my life - Gilda Radner, Gene Wilder, the Marx brothers, Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Larry David, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, Jack Benny, Mort Sahl,  Lenny Bruce, George Burns, and Al Franklin - so many humorists, so many smiles, chuckles, and belly laughs, taken away - poof.  And all those great scientists, like Abram Saperstein, a/k/a Albert Sabin who gave us oral polio vaccine, Jonas Salk and his polio vaccine, Paul Ehlich who developed the first cure for the worldwide scourge of syphilis and who helped cure diphtheria, Albert Einstein who showed us E=mc squared, relativity and black holes.  Then my frightening dream became even more nightmarish when I saw disappearing all the many Jews who have personally enriched my life with their friendship, those I worked with and those who share and have shared their homes and their hearts with me and my family, who have lovingly shared their wise counsel with me when I most needed it, who have shared their marriages, funerals, britot, b'nai and b'not mitzah, Shabbat services and seders and who have accepted me despite my faults and failings, my spiritual and emotional mishpuchah.  As my nightmare took all of them away from me I couldn't take it any more and woke up trembling and repeating don't go, don't go.  And though I'm not a pray-er, I found myself saying Please God - no, never.

Is the blog still breathing?

Not having posted anything in about 5 years, I wonder if my old blog has any life left in it. Let's see.