Lemon Moment, Personal

Glimmer Nostalgia

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The girls to whom I gifted the chalk yesterday did indeed end up drawing in several places around the creek. It’s mostly obliterated now by the bikes and feet that traversed it in the interim. That’s okay. Not just because chalk is a temporary method of artwork. Rather, glimmers (or lemon moments as I call them), they are transitory, fleeting, and trapped in the amber of memory. I hope when they grow older they remember their loving grandfather who brought them to places like this. And that they do the same for anyone who follows them.

Perhaps due to the August heat, I remembered my grandpa for a bit as the hot surfaces attempted to burn the bottoms of my feet. Grandpa walked with me from the little township of Rich to a commensurate community named Monroe. A long stretch of flat highway, flanked by thousands of acres of crops. Dragonflies buzzing, and the sound of my grandpa’s voice. His voice was mostly silent and though I trick myself into believing I can sometimes remember its resonance in my dreams, that’s probably nostalgic wishful thinking.

The water is cool today, though not as chilly as yesterday. There are no little souls frolicking in the water. None of which thwarted my enjoyment of the moment.

Love, X
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Art, Artist, Opinion, Review / Critique

Picasso

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Picasso was a terrible human being. I can’t look at his paintings or consider any of his allegedly important works without thinking of all the women he destroyed. The works that made him famous and allegedly important were done by being insanely cruel to women. He became rich in the process. At least two of his lovers ended themselves. He kidnapped one, and locked many unwilling ones in his studio. As he got older they got younger and younger. At one point, he adopted a very young girl to use in his nude sketches. She was returned to the convent from where she came when he was done with her. He enjoyed prostitutes, probably because his first experience was with one. Even if you do superficial searches, you will be shocked at how much information is out there. It’s not a secret. Yet, students are shown his work, visitors see his paintings in museums, and most of them are completely unaware that they are looking at a tapestry of sexual deviancy and exploitation.

Years ago when I attended NWACC, a professor really loved a complicated thing I drew that I titled “Elvis Angel.” It was an intricate and preposterous mess but very interesting. Another student said, “It’s like Picasso with pens and pencils.” She didn’t understand when I said, “Thank you. But I don’t know if it’s monstrously sexual enough for that comparison.” The professor asked me about my comment. She was a very engaging and educated professor who enjoyed my nonsense. Even though I didn’t know a lot about Picasso at the time, I told her that he was a monster. It shocked her because despite her education, she had never heard anything like that. After our conversation, she spent time looking it up, just as she had done when I pointed out something related to employment law that she was unaware of.

Even the painting in this post seems innocuous. But if you know what it really depicts, it’s difficult to look at it in the same way. And if you know the woman’s story, the one used in the painting, you can feel nothing except disgusted and sorry that her path intersected with Picasso.

I love history and trivia. This is not one of those cases wherein people take things out of context against the backdrop of history. This is one of those cases where the behavior of the person involved would be universally reviled if it were known.

X

Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal

Chalk

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I went to the creek earlier than normal. It’s trickier to walk the hidden trail in the back now, especially barefoot. The foliage is taking over. The smells are incredible. There were no falls as I walked down the middle of the creek.

As I finished my creek walk, a grandfather came down the incline, followed by two frolicking little girls. The grandfather asked me how slippery it was inside the creek today, so I told him to step into the water on the dam side. Because I sat on the embankment wall with my feet dangling in the air, I could hear him interact with his granddaughters. All I heard was kindness in his voice. Because of the splashing, I surmised that all three of them had taken off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants as I had done, and stepped into the cool water. Such a simple pleasure, even to hear it as it unfolded.

When I walked back across the parking lot to my car, I got out several sticks of thick sidewalk chalk of various colors. I walked down to the creek bed and handed them to the grandfather. He was delighted as he handed them to his granddaughters. “What do you say,” he asked both of them. Both girls turned, smiled, and said thank you. “Draw something crazy,” I said, and wished them all a good evening.

As I walked away, one of the granddaughters asked, “What’s that sound” as the backdrop of insects roared once again. “Let’s draw whatever it is,” the other girl said.

It’s nice to hear good people doing basic things to enjoy the day. It makes me feel less eccentric.

Love, X
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Humor, Music

So, You Know P¡nk?

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So, You Know P¡nk?

NSFW Implications! The post is interesting, but the content might be too far for some people, even though I’ll use faux language to tell it.

Pink’s birthname was Alecia Moore. It became Pink for two reasons. It later became intertwined with Steve Buscemi’s character “Mr. Pink” in Reservoir Dogs. Pink met Steve Buscemi on the streets of New York when her huge 2000 album came out. He didn’t know who she was and she over-excitedly attempted to explain her name and his involvement. Steve ran away, probably in fear of her exuberance. She said he was “scared s***less.”

The original explanation is, well, NSFW. A friend of hers had never seen a white woman’s . Upon seeing it, he commented on the color quite loudly. Her friends started referring to her as “Mr. Pink.” A joke morphed into an outrageously successful alter ego.

Though it pales in comparison to her name as a bit of trivia, Pink is Jewish, which surprises people.

Truth is stranger than fiction!

X

Behavior, Entertainment, Mental Health, Opinion, Psychology, Relationships, TV

Reality TV Is Us

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This is not a post about reality TV per se. Reality TV fascinates me; not as a watcher, but more for the process of misdirection, drama creation, and constant familiar themes to provoke an emotional or shocked reaction. When I do watch reality TV, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking up the people and places to find out what really happened and how the writers and producers repackaged it for entertainment.

Again, this post isn’t about reality TV per se. It’s about the fact that a great number of people are exactly like reality TV. They aren’t living authentically, they don’t say what’s on their mind, emotional connection feels foreign to them, and honesty tends to be in short supply. We tend to be reactionary by nature. And even with legitimate reasons to react with frustration, anger, or emotion, our tendency is to bite our natural response to whatever is happening around us. We watch one another, evaluating what’s going behind the facade. It’s why memes caution us to remember that each of us has things going on that others don’t know about.

Turn off the TV. Surprise yourself and other people. As a self-admitted hypocrite, I can write these words without feeling like a fraud. I hate the disparity between who I am and how I communicate and behave in a lot of situations. All of this artifice we build up around us is a cage. The strange thing is is that we are our own guards. The key is in our pocket.

Love, X

Music, Nostalgia, Personal

Who Knew?

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Who Knew?

I had to pull over and let the music play. It was unexpected. Pink’s song “Who Knew” came on and it took me back a couple of decades. It was only recently that the singer talked extensively about the song originally being about a huge loss she had suffered. The song was featured in a short-lived TV series named “October Road.” I didn’t watch the show but I heard it often in the background, as someone close to me loved the show. Afterward, it was impossible to hear the melody without a bell of melancholy ringing inside me. All these years later to find out that Pink felt a similar loss makes the song much more meaningful. Not all melancholy is bad. It serves as a reminder, too. Especially when you find yourself doing the things you have to do so that you can do the things that you want to do – and can’t always grasp the point or meaning. Most of our days are founded on obligation and routine. While the universe laughs and flies by us.

Love, X

Humor

PSA Prank Temptation

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Public Service Announcement!

It is unwise to leave a stack of traffic cones near the sidewalk. Especially when a creative prankster has to talk himself out of doing something ridiculous with them. I had to literally run away because the urge to be hilarious with these overwhelmed me.

Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal, Psychology

Lemon Moment / Glimmer

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“If you go into the building with that much enthusiasm and energy, you’re going to end up with a nail driven into each palm.” That’s the quip I hollered at someone as they came in this morning and the one which inspired the following words:

When you run into somebody who is so full of enthusiasm and energy, it is either one of the best things in life or a trigger. It’s a trigger if you’re missing those things. But when the mutual laughter and enthusiasm collide, it’s a joyous ball of energy. Probably one that annoys onlookers. For that reason, I carry both Lone Ranger masks and COVID masks for the potential naysayers.  Due to legal issues, they confiscated my taser. My plea that I only used it on myself went unheeded.

Because I didn’t want to miss the opportunity, I took my shoes off in the work parking lot and walked down to the creek nearby instead of one of my usual spots. The water is much cooler than my last visit. Unlike me. I’m as hip as a polyester suit at this point. But my desire to come down here and stand in the water stands among my best decisions. It tickles me as people race by and see me in their peripheral vision. I probably look like a rutabaga with a dumb smile on my face. I look goofy enough to get a nomination to the Supreme Court.
Love, X