Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Billy Collins

Sonnet

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now.
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans,
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the end of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here while we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

Saturday, November 13, 2010


“i think anybody who seriously believes in an afterlife is likely to be slightly mad in this life …” — Brian Eno

Sunday, November 7, 2010

For Mama J

Dreams (Mingus Rude edit) by elijs

Happy Diwali! from Britt

"We are headed to Varanasi tomorrow- the holiest city in India for the Hindus. It is on the Ganges river. People flock there to bathe in its holy waters, as well as to burn bodies, float dead bodies down, brush their teeth, poop, and anything else you can imagine. This place is filthy."

"I have been volunteering at Mother Theresa's charity in Calcutta with veryyy mentally disabled women, and of course I get really worked up about it and cry."






"It is also very exciting! Inexplicably loud and busy. The food is delicious!!!! Sooo good. Jen, lots of vegetarian stuff. I haven't had meat for a month because it sketches me out here, but wowzaas its a tasty place."



Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Love's A Real Thing


From one of my favorite collective Albums,

World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing, relays the funky, fuzzy sounds of West Africa in the 1970s.

Live Forever: Elizabeth Payton

Jackie and John (Jackie fixing John’s hair)">
Elizabeth Peyton, Jackie and John (Jackie fixing John’s hair) , 1999
Oil on board 14 x 11 in. Collection Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey R. Winter [Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr.]

Berlin (Tony)">
Elizabeth Peyton, Berlin (Tony) , 2000
Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in. Private collection [Tony Just, artist]

Ben Drawing">
Elizabeth Peyton, Ben Drawing , 2001
Oil on board 10-1/8 x 8-1/4 in. Collection Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment, 2001 [Ben Brunnemer, Peyton’s assistant from 2000–2004]

John Lennon">
Elizabeth Peyton, John Lennon , 1996
ink on paper 13-1/4 x 11 in. Collection Walker Art Center Miriam and Erwin Kelen Acquisition Fund for Drawings, 1996

Michelle and Sasha Obama Listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention August 2008">
Elizabeth Peyton, Michelle and Sasha Obama Listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention August 2008 , 2008
Oil on board 14-1/4 x 11-1/4 in. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York

I lamented on these images that I saw a couple years ago, and it took me some time to recall the artist's name, Elizabeth Payton. I am attracted to her vibrant color and the narrative that she captures in her portraits, as well as, the reverie she seems to capture of close subjects such as her friends and the cultural content she relays through historical figures and personal heroes.

Bongwater: Power of Pussy from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.