Throwback Thursday: My Best Friend's Funeral

A Personal Reflection

September 1968. The night before our first day of school, junior year. I’d been driving around with Joe LaGreca, a friend with a car. We stopped at Frank Capelli’s to laugh and chat and shoot the bull. My last words to Frank, my best friend in the world at that time, were, “See you tomorrow.” He rode off on his bike, we drove off in the car.

The day of the funeral, for which five of his friends and I had been selected as pall bearers, my mom (bless her heart) said, “Don’t be afraid to cry.” I was too numb inside to hear this sage advice. It was a hard reality we were all dealing with. It wasn’t till 1991, 23 years later, I woke one morning and bawled like a baby. It felt so good to finally get it out.

The trigger event was a boy on a bicycle at dusk the evening beforehand.

That was how Frank had been killed in 1968, hit by a motorist while on his bicycle, 20 minutes after I’d been with him looking forward to the new school year. He’d been with Ian Crosley and Randy Freytag. The three were riding the bikes through an unlit stretch of road to the next neighborhood, and evidently Frank was too far out in the road. The horror of that scene, not only for Randy and Ian but also for the driver, must have been unspeakable as the car came up over a small rise and mauled him with the grill.

The next morning it seemed strange to not see Frank at the start of the day. The strangeness continued through several hours where our shared classes found him absent. At some point I began to hear the rumors that he’d been struck, but no one knew any details. Throughout the afternoon my fears increased and when the school bus dropped me off at school day’s end I bolted home with one aim, to call the hospital.

This was a very difficult moment. I asked if Frank were there, and she said no. I was incredibly relieved and asked when he’d been released. The nurse knew the truth, but was not permitted to tell me. An awkward moment fell over us and then she said, very solemnly, to call the family.

I called the Capellis and when the phone was lifted from the receiver all I could hear was wailing. Whether it was Nancy or her mother I do not know, because both were in a swoon of incomparable anguish. Through incoherent sobs I understood that I should call back later, a gesture that let me know I was still a friend of the family. And why the hospital could not tell me anything more than that "he was not there."

The day of the funeral we were dressed in suits, the six of us, my first time in a Catholic church. The sanctuary was filled, a very large contingent on hand, one of the largest funeral gatherings I have attended from that day to this. Who were all these people? The priest came down the aisle with incense, dressed in vestments like I’d never seen before. We knelt, sat, knelt again… I followed in unison as the others did… all meaningless for me, and I an empty shell. I remember not a word.

Next, we were in a large black limousine, following a train of vehicles to the grave site. It seemed forever and when we arrived the solemn contingent was waiting for us because our vehicle was a little too far from the front. We were hastened to the hearse to lift the casket and place it in the grave.

Like a series of scenes in a strange film or incoherent dream, the next was at a Howard Johnsons. Several adult men in suits ushered us to an ice cream counter. Evidently they sought to soothe us through this kindness because they knew we loved him. They bought us ice cream cones. We sat and ate in silence. No one knew what to say. It was a very strange moment, and the strongest memory I have from my best friend’s funeral.

Throwback Thursday: A Visit with Danny Fox: 2-Time Winner of the Hibbing Dylan Fest Singer/Songwriter Contest

Danny Fox at Sir Ben's.

30 July 2017

"You gotta hear this kid," I was told. "He's got Dylan down," meaning he'd captured the inflections, the attitude, and the other trademarks of Dylan's style, blues harp hung around the neck, even the patter between songs. So I went to hear what the buzz was about and sure enough that winner of the 2008 Dylan Days Singer/Songwriter Contest did indeed reflect the persona of the Nobel Prize-winning troubadour when the Bard was in his youth.

Since that time, Danny Fox has made several trips to the Northland, most recently in early July, performing a few songs live on KUMD and putting on a show for local Dylan Fest fans and friends at Sir Ben's. A few years ago even the Chicago Tribune gave one of his visits some ink.

Now in his mid-twenties, Fox is a seasoned performer. Like many musicians his creative energies have also found other outlets. Dany Fox has taken up painting. Emulating Bob? Could be.

EN: How did you come to take an interest in Bob Dylan?

Danny Fox: My Bob Dylan story... When I was ten years old, My father and his brother, my Uncle Jim, would get together every Sunday at my uncle's house to watch the football game. My brother and I had NO interest in this whatsoever, so we would wander off and draw, play with toys, and partake in all the food that comes with football games. Uncle Jim had several towers of albums. I liked flipping through them to admire the album art. I randomly flipped to Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume One. I had never heard of Bob Dylan, never listened to any of his music, etc. I just liked the dark blue cover with a man's silhouette surrounded by a halo of light and hair. I asked if I could borrow it. On the way home, I put it in my CD player. I don't think I got passed the first track, "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35." I played it over and over and over and over. I was hooked. Musical heroin.

EN: You've won the Dylan Days singer/songwriter contest twice. How many times did you try and what was your plan the first time?

On the stage in Armory... a Dylan Days rarity.

DF: I heard about the Zimmy's songwriter contest in Hibbing in 2007. I was a junior in high school at the time. Dad and I were going to go, but it was already full. Instead, we had to wait until the summer of 2008. So we went and I was amazed. That's a whole other story, though. So I sang "Mr. Tambourine Man" and my original, "(May Be) The Truth About Love." I had no plan. Just sung what I was comfortable with. Lo and behold, I won! Seventeen-year-old me was ecstatic! And for the next two years of winning, I just came back and gave it my all again. Go in with no expectations. Sing from your heart, with passion. Let Dylan bleed right out of you.

EN: How long have you been painting? What led you in this creative direction?

DF: I have been painting for just about a year. Although art, mainly pencil drawing, I have been doing for over twenty years. Not being able to go to college has sort of stagnated my creativity. I've always admired the old masters and their oil paintings ever since I could remember. So, about a year ago, I just decided, DO IT. On a whim, I picked up some oils and, in the paraphrased words of Dylan, never looked back. I highly suspect this will develop into exploring more artistic mediums and that greatly excites me.

As a follow-up to that, I hope my art propels me into infinite possibilities. I'm currently working on a third album. In that respect, I hope to keep making music, designing album covers, making illuminated Bibles, and maybe dabbling in some sculpture or found object art. I don't quite have a plan. I'm at the mercy of where the art wants to take me and that's a-okay.

EN: How many times have you seen Dylan perform? What was your favorite memory?

DF: I have seen Dylan approximately eight or nine times, my first being Halloween of 2004 when I was 14 years old and my latest in June of 2016.

My favourite concert memory was in the mid 2000s where I saw him at a baseball stadium in Alexian Field. Our "seats" were general admission. We arrived incredibly early and ended up standing about five feet from the stage, ten feet from the man himself. During one of the songs, Dylan and I made eye contact. For a good solid ten seconds. I was crying uncontrollably. He sort of gave me a crooked grin. It felt like I was being rebaptized, that the torch was being passed on. Intimate, magical, and profoundly beautiful.

EN: Do you have a favorite album? Favorite song?

DF: My favorite Dylan album, hands down, is Desire. As for a favorite song, you're better off asking me to count every grain of sand on all the world's beaches! But I've always had an affinity for "Changing of the Guards," "Series of Dreams," and all of his early, early folk circa 1961-1963.

EN: What was the moment when you realized that Dylan wasn't just another performer like other performers?

DF: My most memorable instance where Dylan solidified himself as a god for me was when I was around eleven or twelve years old. I was riding in the back of my family's car on our way to the Countyline Orchard in Indiana to pick apples. I had "Masters of War" playing on my CD player. It froze me to the bone. The marrow curdled into a thick soup of astounding fright. This man spoke of grit and grime, of reality and triumph. I knew he was otherworldly and modern simultaneously. What can you say about Dylan that hasn't been said before, yet describes him perfectly? You can't really say anything. He's rough and soft, old and young, mysterious and perfect. The Shakespeare of my lifetime and in countless eons to come.

* * * * 

Danny Fox will be performing this coming Saturday, May 27, from 11:30 till 1:00 at Wussow's Concert Cafe on Central Avenue in West Duluth, followed by another John Bushey Memorial Lecture by Matt Steichen, Bobcats podcaster and contributor to the newly released Bob Dylan in Minnesota.

* * * *
EdNote: For the record, Desire is one of my own fave Dylan records. Thanks, Danny, for sharing your music this summer and your paintings here.

Throwback Thursday: Bob Dylan's Visit to the James Dean Museum

This day in history, 1955: James Dean, a symbol of the confused, restless, and disillusioned youth of the 1950s, died in an automobile crash as he drove to a car rally in Salinas, California. Interestingly, the Salinas Valley was the backdrop for many stories by Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck and James Dean a central character in Steinbeck's East of Eden.

* * * 

It's well-known that Bob Dylan grew up as a fan of motion pictures. His writings make numerous references to films. While on tour in July 1988, Dylan directed the bus to make a detour after a show in Indianapolis. He'd evidently been aware that the James Dean Museum was in the vicinity of where they were traveling. What follows is an excerpt from a 2015 blog post in which I included an account of that event.

* * * 

This week I re-read portions of an unpublished 1999 manuscript by Larry Kegan which at one time was online but was has since been withdrawn. Larry Kegan and Bobby Zimmerman (Dylan) became close friends after meeting at Herzl Camp in their early teens. As a result of a neck injury Kegan was wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. The title of his unpublished book shows his wit and humor about this situation: Some Get The Chair.

Over the course of many years Bob invited Larry to go on tours with him. (See: Remembering Larry Kegan.) In the book he writes about events that show the importance of place. This story is about events that took place after a Friday evening concert at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds on a hot summer night in mid-July 1988. The next stop was to be Detroit, but Dylan gave instructions for the tour bus to take a detour through the small rural town of Fairmount, Indiana. Kegan writes:

Larry Kegan in Belize

Bob had already gotten out of his bus and was heading down the main drag. Dave, the bus driver, came over to the van and I asked him what we were doing here. "This is James Dean's town, where he grew up and where he's buried." "Where's Bob going," I asked? "He's going to check out the High School where he attended," he said. We hung out for a while around my van and Bob's bus.

Next thing you know a couple girls come over -- it's 1:30 in the morning -- and the entourage learns that there's a James Dean Museum in town. (Actual name: The James Dean Gallery.) One thing led to another so that two Fairmount police escorted Bob to the museum which was opened for him and his friends. The place was handicapped accessible so Larry also had the privilege of getting the tour.

The place was a real trip into the Fifties. James Dean stuff everywhere. Posters from all three of his movies, EAST OF EDEN, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and GIANT. Clothes he wore in the movies and around town, They even had the basketball trunks he actually used in high school.

There's something to be said about the importance of place.

* * * *
About fifteen years ago or so I (not Larry talking here) went to a family reunion at Salt Fork, a resort in Southeast Ohio that my parents used to bring us when we were growing up. Our families stayed at lakeside cabins for a week, sharing and making many fond memories. One day I drove into town to pick up some groceries from nearby Cambridge. To my surprise there was a Hopalong Cassidy Museum there. Hopalong Cassidy was a cowboy film and TV star back in the early days of television. William Boyd, the actor who played this fictional good guy cowboy with the black hat, was from Cambridge.

Dylan went out of his way to visit the places where his heroes were from. It's on record that he's been to Liverpool. He has mentioned visiting the childhood home of Neil Young. I don't doubt he's paid a visit to Lubbock, Texas where the Buddy Holly Museum resides.

If a minor character like William Boyd or men with relatively short careers like Buddy Holly and James Dean have places dedicated to their honor in their home towns, it just seems like there should be something more in Duluth than three manhole covers and a section of street designated "Bob Dylan Way." As for getting your photo taken, you can stand in front of a small wall of memorabilia down the hall from the Brewhouse at Fitgers, or in front of the Buddy Holly & the Crickets poster in the entryway of the Armory Annex down on London Road.

It doesn't have to be much, but fortunately there is a circle of friends and fans making an effort to offer more than what we've got. Zimmy's was such a place for Hibbing, and though we mourn the loss, a group called The Hibbing Project will be unveiling a monument there this month. More on that will be coming soon.

* * * *
Photo of Larry Kegan in Belize was sent to me by a friend; photo by David Elwood.

Throwback Thursday: Introduction to Unremembered History of the World

What follows is the introduction to my story Unremembered History of the World, which appeared in my short volume of stories titled Unremembered Histories.
 

Introduction to Unremembered History of the World 

There are some who have proposed that it is sheer vanity for us to imagine our earth as the only heavenly body populated by creatures with intelligence and personality. I propose that it is equally vain to imagine that our history, the one recorded by our historians, the one we know as "recorded history," is the only valid history for mankind here on this earth. 

To imagine life on other galaxies and to search for it are not unrelated. As is well known, steps have already been undertaken to find evidence in support of this hypothesis. 

 
In regards to the notion that there exists the possibility of an infinite series of parallel times, verification of this theory is a task whose path is less self-evident, obscured as it is by mists. And yet, we see glimpses of it, reflected here and there, from the great minds that were not bound to earth by the pettiness that so smothers us.

Goethe noted that his heart contained the capacity for all acts, from the most heinous to the sublime. Could he have been standing on the threshold of those infinite courses that sweep into other avenues of time, unseen, unknown and unremembered?
 
Bernard Yachtmann records instances where people have had glimpses of other histories, reiterating the conviction that time contains an infinite number of parallel streams, and in each there are alternative histories, of an infinite variety.

While not every act leads to significant consequence, many acts do, and what if in an alternate history the consequences of those acts were indeed being played out. Likewise one can find similar references by Marconi, Hasjammer, and Brandt, and an exhaustive treatise along these lines by Don Luis de Nativo.
 
While at the University of Salamanca at the turn of the century, Don Luis de Nativo wrote extensively on this theme. Though his manuscripts remained mostly unpublished and were eventually lost, the man de Nativo is best remembered as an archetype of de Unamuno's "man of passion" as fleshed out in The Tragic Sense of Life, de Unamuno's master work. (I have been told that it was a chance meeting with Joseph Conrad which prompted de Nativo to pseudonymously publish his epic work El Mundo Gordo.)
 

In other words, to get right to my point: my proposition is not original. It has been well documented by others as a reasonable conjecture. No doubt it is my own insecurity that forces me to cite other, more significant voices, as if the testimony of my own experience will be insufficient.
 
Those of you who know me know that I often have unusual dreams. Oftentimes the dreams unfold as detailed stories. I recently dreamt a short skit which became a television commercial. I've had prophetic dreams, including a dream which showed me that my firstborn would be a son. I've also had other dreams which I believe were gifts from God.

In September of 1984 I had a strange dream. As is my custom, I recorded the images of my dream, in as much detail possible, and its effect.

Two months later, while looking for a book by one author or another at one of our local used bookstores, I happened upon a small, Irish green, clothbound book called Flight of Gypsies. It was one of those moments when a decision carries weight, when you feel compelled to act irrationally. The price, eight-fifty, was higher than I would have expected, especially considering the broken binding and what appeared to be several loose and missing pages. Yet when I opened the book and randomly read about five sentences, I knew that I must have the book.

I'd no sooner gotten the book home than I regretted the decision. The volume was more or less a compendium of prophecies by various gypsy seers in England, from 1632 to 1785. The purpose, I could only surmise, was to assemble a record of prophetic utterances for verification purposes. For the most part, the sketchy accounts were repetitive and tedious and I soon found myself bored. There were prophecies about early deaths, unhappy marriages, deformed children, and blights on households to the third and fourth generations, utterances about flea infestations, curses of blindness and baldness, worms, contagion, and dementia. I put the book on a shelf in our garage.
 
The next day I found one of the pages lying on the floor next to my desk. With no intention of reading, I picked it up to toss it in the trash when the name Thomas Olney caught my eye. Olney was the name of the man in my dream. To this man and his family I will return, in order to strengthen my arguments and make plain my case.
 
Not all dreams are stories, nor do all dreams reveal secrets about the nature of the universe -- though many reveal secrets about ourselves, and I am often quite impressed with the power of this magic mirror of our souls. Nevertheless, that night I began a quest, the result being my story about one of our unrecorded and unremembered histories.... one of many, I might add... and one which we may all, with longing, seek to re-attain... if not for ourselves, then for our heirs. Of this I am most serious.

See: Unremembered Histories: Six Stories with a Supernatural Twist

Throwback Thursday: Together Through Life, 10 Years Later

THIS BLOG POST WAS FIRST PUBLISHED 10 YEARS AGO TODAY

I woke about an hour early this morning. As I lay there my mind began planning the day as it often does. Call Mom at eight, as is my custom. Pick up paintings from Homegrown Art Festival at 2:30... visit an artist's studio at three... paint in my studio and listen to Highway 61 Revisited, a.k.a the Dylan Hour, on KUMD at five... make a decision about going to the Million Dollar Bash at Beaners later. 

 

While thinking thus I drifted back to sleep. Then the alarm went off. Whoa! It's Friday!!!! Gotta go to work! 

 

It's been one busy, jam-packed week, and we're not done yet. Tonight there will be a couple more art events and still more Dylan activities. The Open House at Maggie Flowers Interior Design is a three day French Fling based on the European flea market motif. I have a number of new paintings there (Thursday thru Saturday) and will be there myself from 5-7 p.m. Location is at the corner of 15th Avenue East and Superior Street here in Duluth. Visit www.maggieflowers.com for more information. 

From there I will be running over to a one night only art show aptly titled Ten Emerging Artists at the former European Bakery, 109 West First Street, again in Duluth. Ten artists will be on display, or rather their work will be. I strongly encourage anyone who's out and about to drop in to see the art and photography of Adam Rosenthal, Alexander Hanson, Anthony Zappa, Brent Erickson, David Moreira, Justin Iverson, Leon Nyarecha, Rob K-Sm Nicolas Monson and Steven J Read. 

To my dismay I will again miss the singer-songwriter competition at Hibbing Auditorium, perhaps the highlight event of Dylan Days there. But for Duluth-bound fans, the Brewhouse will be putting it all out there as Duluth Does Dylan to their hearts content. 

If you're here from out of town and looking for something to do to kill time till tonight's activities, you might want to drive along our Skyline Drive and take in some of the views of the bay, the ore docks, bridges, ships and Lake Superior. Any time, day or night, Skyline Drive offers great vistas. 

 

You also may want to drive past 519 Third Avenue East and take a peek at the house young Bob Zimmerman once lived in till he was age six and his family moved to Hibbing. The fellow who purchased this house ten years ago is himself a Dylan fan and has been renovating it as time goes by. He maintains one of the most comprehensive Dylan sites on the internet if you need to know anything and everything Dylan, from tour dates to links to stories in the news. This morning there are 24 of the latter. The web address is www.expectingrain.com 

 

In the meantime, enjoy the sun and the moon and the music and your friends. And have a great Memorial Day weekend. Don't forget Sunday's Battle of the Jugbands. Till the morrow.... 

PHOTO Top right: Drawing based on cover of Dylan's Street Legal. I placed it here because it looks like a guy looking for something. This week a lot of people were looking for Dylan. He turned 70, a milestone for any of us, and being a human like the rest of us, he very likely blew out birthday candles like the rest of us. Where did it happen? You can find quite a few articles online this week asking that very question. 

After half a century of listening to Dylan music, you might say we've been Together Through Life.

Throwback Thursday: My 2011 Interview with Artist Paul Klee

THROWBACK THURSDAY

I have always enjoyed interviewing people as a means of sharing their stories. This is one of several imaginary interviews I have done with people such as Honore de Balzac or John S. Hall, the blind poet of Ritchie County. 

* * * *

Swiss-born artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a significant influence in my early art. What excited me about his work was the incredible variety. He seemed like an artist who defied categorization. Modern? Yes, but only in the sense that his work was liberated from everything before it. He worked using a variety of media and a seemingly endless variety of styles. He worked on paper, cloth, canvas, burlap, or what appears to be anything he could find. Like Dylan today, he seems to have been constantly re-inventing himself. 

I caught up with him recently to discuss his life and work, somewhat eager to learn his impressions of mine. 

 
Ennyman: Tell me about your early influences?

Klee: My earliest influence was music. I was raised in a very musical family. My father was a music teacher and my mother a trained singer. I began playing violin at age seven. But my grandmother once gave me a box of sidewalk chalk and it was clear I had a good hand for drawing. As a teen my drawings showed a considerable level of skill and my parents, reluctantly, allowed me to pursue art school at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

Ennyman: My grandmother was an influence, too, in my art development. After college, then what?

Red Balloon. Oil on muslin. Guggenheim Collection

Klee: I went back home and lived with my parents. It was a rueful time, and my work travelled down two paths. My black and white pieces were dark, and so color came to mean something special to me, even began to possess me. I was also doing a lot of experimentation at the time, doing one series of 57 pictures drawing on a blackened pain of glass with a needle.

Ennyman: Interesting technique.

Klee: I still kept up my music and played violin in the orchestra and was writing concert and theater reviews.

Ennyman: Yes, you were also a writer.

Klee: I'd begun a diary very young and never quit that. It's a good way to learn how to capture abstract ideas in words and to develop an understanding of how you observe.

Ennyman: How did you come to be a recognized figure in the European art scene?

Klee: I was doing illustrations for Voltaire's Candide and met Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and other avant garde artists, who became known as The Blue Rider group. Wassily has a keen mind and had been developing theories and ideas about color, as I had. Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible. We both went on to teach at the Bauhaus school of art.

Ennyman: Mr. Kandinsky wrote a number of books as well as opening modern painting to new spaces. I enjoyed his Concerning the Spiritual in Art. You wrote as well, did you not?

Klee: I published my diary in 1918 and also some other writings later.

Ennyman: You once stated that even drawing has changed for you.

Klee: In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better.

Ennyman: Are there any common threads in your world view with other disciplines?

Klee: The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.

Ennyman: Any last thoughts?

Klee: Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface... but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones. Also, when looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.

Ennyman: Thank you for your time.

 This interview is a work of fiction. The information is not fiction, taken from Klee's actual quotes and the entry about his life and work in Wikipedia.

Throwback Thursday: No Country for Old Men, Revisited

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AUGUST 2014

Elements of a Great Film

Essentially, a movie is a series of scenes. And the great movies have incredibly memorable scenes.

The Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men has many. One standout for me is the scene in which Anton Chiguhr (Javier Bardem) is in the gas station with the unsuspecting owner near the beginning of the film. Bardem says, “What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?” The unsuspecting fellow is confused.

“Call it," the cold-blooded Bardem says.

The man behind the counter is clueless that everything he has ever scrimped and saved for is on the line. “We need to know what we’re calling it for here,” he says.

It’s an impeccable scene that foreshadows much that is to come regarding the nature of this character who is the embodiment of relentless evil. The manner in which Bardem is eating nuts, the manner in which the camera cuts to the squashed wrapper as it unfolds, again foreshadowing the unfolding of something frightening, produces compelling cinema, storytelling in film.

A great film is also about great lines. “Baby, things happen. And you can’t take ‘em back.” Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) tells his wife once he realizes the danger she's in.

Great lines are what screenwriters live for. All the great films have great lines in them. You can hardly think of some of these films without immediately recalling a line... Films like Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz are rich with them. Quote the line and everybody knows exactly what you're talking about.

"We'll make him an offer he can't refuse." Brando as The Godfather is impeccable.

“Houston, we have a problem.” ~ Apollo 13

“You can’t handle the truth.” ~ A Few Good Men

“Show me the money.” ~ Jerry Maguire

“Go ahead, make my day” ~ Sudden Impact

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” ~ Cool Hand Luke

Garbo

Another feature of great films is casting. Not only are the main characters right for their jobs, the incidental characters are superbly selected. Casting is a strong feature of all the Coen brothers' films, and No Country is no exception.

When I first reviewed this film in 2008 I was critical of the casting of Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and I was critical of the limited amount of screen time Woody Harrelson carried. I take back both of these criticisms now, having watched the film several times since its first screening in Duluth. At this point I can't even imagine anyone else in the role Jones played. and had Harrelson been given any further screen time it may have detracted from the film simply because he is such a compelling presence. He had to make an early departure only because this story was about the cat and mouse survival game being played out between Brolin and Bardem.

The ending may be a tad confusing for first time viewers, but the story needed to tie up a lot of loose ends quickly or it could have dragged out. The main conflicts in the film were resolved. And Sheriff Ed Tom was shaken to his core.

Another great line, from the mouth of Tommy Lee Jones: "You can't make up stuff like that."

And finally, among other things, there is the story itself. The essence of story is a moment in time in which the ordinary train of events in a character's life is shifted onto a new track. It may be something incidental, but like the railroad it will ultimately result an utterly different destination.

For Llewelyn Moss, his destiny was altered when he accidentally came across the aftermath of a shootout while out hunting in a remote region in West Texas. The former Viet Nam vet makes a decision that alters everything.

The skill with which the story is told makes all the difference in the world. The characters behave in ways that are believable. The sets, settings, pacing all conspire to keep the believability intact. A written story creates a dream in the reader's mind, and in film the dream is visually expressed, which involves risk. The Coen brothers have been pretty effective at it. Makes one wonder what will be next.

* * *

15 April 2021

I decided to re-share this blog post because I just watched No Country again last night. There are a number of takeaways from the story and one of them is this. That there are some real bad people in this world. They are dangerous and we should have no illusions about this.

My 2011 YA novel The Red Scorpion attempted to make this same point. There really is such a thing as evil.   

Throwback Thursday: A Thousand Bad Drawings: My Best Advice as a Young Artist

Every once in a while I like to look at some of my old drawings from high school or college. What I see is interesting work, a creative mind, and (in the case of my high school drawings) a relatively mediocre draftsmanship. Nevertheless, I'm impressed that there were ideas I was trying to convey, and even in my youth there was an "original voice" in my work. Also, I didn't quit. 

I do not recall when I first heard the statement, but it was early on. This one bit of advice is what kept me going: "It takes a thousand bad drawings to make a good one."

For myself, it was a great confidence builder because I knew -- or believed -- that if I just kept at it, I would produce something good some day. As a result, I proceeded to draw relentlessly, aiming to get those first thousand "bad drawings" out of the way as quickly as possible.

I filled more than fifty sketchbooks with drawings in my four years at Ohio University, initially drawing with a ballpoint pen and then filling dozens and dozens of sketchbooks using my favorite weapon of that time, the technical drawing pen. I loved the perfection of line, the controlled manner in which the ink flowed and the clean edges. Over time, the tentative strokes of my high school sketching became bolder, stronger, executed with confidence.

These thoughts have an aim. If you have children, or you work with young people in the arts, some might be frustrated because their skill sets are not yet at the level of their maturing vision of what they want to produce. I'm talking here of older kids in particular who can be so sensitive to criticism. At some point they need to be reminded that we're not "born experts." Whether as writers, as artists, musicians, and even as human beings, we develop through a process that takes time... and usually a lot of mis-steps along the way. 

Everybody has to start somewhere. Start where you're at. Learn by doing. Tell the "critical" part of your self to take a hike, to come back a thousand drawings from now. If you stick with it, you will get better. And even if you never reach the skill levels you aspire to, you can still have a lot of fun along the way. Enjoy the journey.

* * * 

Originally published March 2010

Throwback Thursday: A Poem by Pessoa On Social Media

From the highest window of my house 

I wave farewell with a white handkerchief 

To my poems going out to humanity. 

 

And I'm neither happy nor sad. 

That is the fate of poems. 

I wrote them and must show them to everyone 

Because I cannot do otherwise, 

Even as the flower cannot hide its color, 

Nor the river hide its flowing, 

Nor the tree hide the fruit it bears. 

~ Fernando Pessoa, 1914 

As I read these words last night in my easy I chair, it struck me that they could just as easily apply to bloggers today. 

From the highest window of my house 

I wave farewell with a white handkerchief 

To my blog entries going out to humanity.

...that is the fate of a blog post.

We write them and must show them to everyone....

Pessoa's little stanza shows insight about human nature. First, there is the desire to create. So we produce art, or books or pottery, or maybe a miniature railroad or carved hope chest or a city. We create things. Then, there is the need to share. Just as the tree must give up its fruit, and was not even deigned to cling to it, so we recognize our role and yield to it.

We share for many reasons, but one of them is an innate desire to connect with others.

And so it is that we see the remarkable growth of today's social media. Blogger, Twitter, Facebook. Pessoa continues:

Who knows who might read them?

Who knows into what hands they'll fall?

A flower, I was plucked by fate to be seen.

A tree, my fruit was picked to be eaten.

A river, my water's fate was to flow out of me.

I submit and feel almost happy,

Almost happy like a man tired of being sad.

Go, go away from me!

The tree passes and is scattered throughout Nature.

The flower wilts and its dust lasts forever.

The river flows into the sea and its water is forever the water that was its own.

I pass and I remain, like the Universe.

And if you have read this blog entry today, it is my gift to you for the weekend.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 25, 2011

Throwback Thursday: Rosie the Riveter, R.I.P.

TEN YEARS AGO TODAY

As usual, it has been a year of many significant passings. No "year in review" is complete without noting the persons who have touched us in one way or another. A the beginning of this week, as if to round out the year, Geraldine Hoff Doyle passed away in Michigan. Doyle is not a household name, but her image as "Rosie the Riveter" may be as ubiquitous as a Coca-Cola logo. 

Doyle was 17 when the famous UPI photo was taken. She had been working at a metal pressing plant near Ann Arbor at the time. The U.S. government liked the image so much they used it as a recruiting tool to encourage women to join the workforce and support the war effort. Later it became a popular poster and has been reproduced endlessly, here seen as a metal sign on one of our kitchen cabinets. 

 

During World War II millions of women moved into jobs at factories to produce, among other things, the weapons and ammunition that kept our boys equipped for the fight. But in the aftermath of the war this image probably helped serve as a reminder that "sometimes a woman is the man for the job" serving now as an inspiration for more than half a century. 

 

Other memorable personages who have departed in 2010 include Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, directors Blake Edwards and Irvin Kershner, actors Tony Curtis, Dennis Hopper, Fess Parker, Peter Graves and Leslie Nielson, Beaver's mom Barbara Billingsly, entertainers Lena Horne and Captain Beefheart, and novelist J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye, whose Holden Caulfield proved to be an omen of sorts for the adolescent alienation that that would subsume the Sixties generation. 

None of us is here on earth forever. Therefore, as you move into the new year, make the most of your days. May your 2011 be your best contribution yet.

* * * 

Throwback Thursday: It's a Wonderful Life

 

"You've been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you. " ~Clarence

The celebration of Christmas has resulted in a whole host of traditions that families pass down from one generation to the next. Decorating the Christmas tree, singing carols, reading the Christmas story and exchanging gifts are just a few of the common traditions that extend back many long years through the generations.

In more recent years, because movies and television have more or less emerged during the Boomer generation, a new set of traditions has been added. For some families it's the watching of Charlie Brown's Christmas, created by Charles Schultz near 60 years ago for television. In our family it has been the shared watching of A Christmas Carol, the George C. Scott version.

Before we finally got the DVD we used to watch a VHS version that we taped from television in the late 1980s. Watching this story for ten, fifteen and twenty years has not only brought a continuity to our traditions, but a lot of laughs as we try to say some of the lines just before they're said on the film. "Cratchitt!"... and "Another sound from you... and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation."

Our favorite version of the story.

After the visit by deceased friend and partner Bob Marley, the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future all visit the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas eve and teach him that there are other ways of looking at the world besides the way he sees things. The lessons are many and valuable, and the story richly entertaining and heart-warming to boot.

There's another film that many families share as a tradition. Like A Christmas Carol it's the story of a man who has been seeing things wrong, but instead of ghosts helping him get perspective on his life, it's a quirky guardian angel named Clarence, striving to earn his wings.

This film, too, has so many memorable moments and lines. The scene where Jimmy Stewart is inwardly despondent over the lost money and lashes out at his children is heartbreaking in the extreme. The screenwriting, directing by Frank Capra and the acting are all five star. In honor of the 65th anniversary of this film, the Los Angeles City Council declared this past Friday "It's a Wonderful Life Day." *

One theme common to both these films is the deep insight that our lives are interconnected to others in ways we often don't see because we're caught up in our selves. If we're fortunate, we can begin to grasp the truths contained here without a visitation by ghosts or George Bailey's suicidal despair.

Whatever your traditions as regards Christmas, my prayer is that you will be richly rewarded with new self-understanding this season as regards your role in the bigger scheme of things. For some reason I keep wanting to say thank you.

"You see George, you've really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away?"

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

* This blog post was originally published in 2011

Throwback Thursday: And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

THROWBACK THURSDAY: DECEMBER 2010

Preface: It's been a tough year here for so many people in the world, but it's not the first year in history where people have experienced heartbreak. Yesterday I was talking with someone whose grandfather died in the Spanish Flu epidemic a century ago. This blog post is about horrors from that same decade. 

* * *

This past week I've been listening to a BBC audio book about the decade from 1910-20. The book is primarily recordings of eyewitnesses to history that was being lived at that time. For example, first person accounts from people who were on the Titanic and the responses of political and social observers of that tragedy. The same for the Lusitania, the sinking of another "immortal" ship, which served as a catalyst to bring the U.S.and Britain into the war while simultaneously stirring anti-German sentiment here and on the Isles. The Suffragettes and the Labor movement also have their stories told by people who were there.

 

But the First World War takes up the largest chunk of this period with eyewitness accounts from men who fought in every battle field, from Verdun, Marne, Ypres, Somme and more. The world had never witnessed slaughter and horror on such as scale. Britain buried a million of her young men and left millions scarred. Germany, France and Russia lost millions more.

The experiences of those who fought in the trenches have been repeatedly captured in films so that we get a sense of how bad it was. The stories on this BBC audiobook really amp up the impact. The lice that lived in the seams of their clothes, the foot deep muck that soaked their boots, the first encounters with toxic gases used as a weapon and the terrors it inflicted... The stories told by men who were there are harrowing.

Several share their first reactions to the announcement that Britain was at war. "I was fourteen and a half and we were worried the war would not last very long and we wouldn't be able to get into it because you had to be fifteen to go serve." Yes, war fever was a thrill and it was the young whose eyes glistened as their hearts sprang up.

Against this backdrop comes tale after tale of the nightmare hell of the real war, one of the most terrible battles being Gallipoli and Suvla Bay which was the first major offensive involving the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The green flies covered everything and when you were wounded your wounds were immediately swarmed over. The lice were even worse, but worst of all was the chaos and seeming pointlessness of it all. According to one of the survivors, his division was in total confusion as clumps of soldiers marched about aimlessly not sure what they were to do, their officers dead.

Joan Baez performed and recorded a song about this fragment of history. Based on how often I've played it, it must be a favorite of mine, written by Eric Bogle (ericbogle.net)...

AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA 

When I was a young man I carried my pack 

And I lived the free life of a rover 

From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback 

I waltzed my Matilda all over 

Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son 

It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done 

So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun 

And they sent me away to the war. 

And the band played Waltzing Matilda 

As we sailed away from the quay 

And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers 

We sailed off to Gallipoli. 

How well I remember that terrible day How the blood stained the sand and the water 

And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay 

We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter 

Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well 

He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells 

And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell 

Nearly blew us right back to Australia. 

But the band played Waltzing Matilda 

As we stopped to bury our slain 

We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs 

Then we started all over again. 

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive 

In a mad world of blood, death and fire 

And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive 

But around me the corpses piled higher 

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit 

And when I woke up in my hospital bed 

And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead 

Never knew there were worse things than dying. 

For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda 

All around the green bush far and near 

For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs 

No more waltzing Matilda for me. 

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed 

And they shipped us back home to Australia 

The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane 

Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla 

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay 

I looked at the place where my legs used to be 

And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me 

To grieve and to mourn and to pity. 

And the band played Waltzing Matilda 

As they carried us down the gangway 

But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared 

Then turned all their faces away. 

And now every April I sit on my porch 

And I watch the parade pass before me 

And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march 

Reliving old dreams of past glory 

And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore 

The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war 

And the young people ask, 

"What are they marching for?" 

And I ask myself the same question. 

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda 

And the old men answer to the call 

But year after year their numbers get fewer 

Some day no one will march there at all. 

 Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda 

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me 

And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong 

Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?

 --copyright © Eric Bogle

Throwback Thursday: Basquiat, Revisited

Talented? Yes. Exploited? Yes. Role model? No. Tragedy? Yes.

 

Jean-Michel Basquiat is to art what Jimi Hendrix was to music. Rare, talented, original, producing remarkable work, and dead by age 27, by his own self-destructive instability. I first heard of him through the film Basquiat, starring notables Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and David Bowie. Something about the film was off-putting at the time I began watching it and I turned it off in about twenty minutes. But the name stuck.

As a regular reader of the ArtDaily Newsletter, the recurring themes remind you of who and what are important in the art scene. Sotheby's, Museums of Modern Art, Picasso and Warhol all receive their due portions. And then there's Basquiat. Black. Puerto Rican. Fifteen year old runaway. Graffiti artist who lived hard, died of a heroin overdose like his heroes.

I have been reading Phoebe Hoban's uncomplimentary and thoroughly researched bio called Basquiat: A Quick Killing In Art. I say "uncomplimentary" because it is essentially an honest telling of his life and of those who exploited him. There are a lot of not so pretty pictures in the mix. The book opens with his overdose, an acute mix of heroin and cocaine. At the time he claims to have been doing up to one hundred bags of heroin a day.

In order to properly shed light on a life, one must see the context of that life as well, and Hoban's work is equally devoted to shedding light on the New York art scene. Beneath all the glam is "a pressure-cooker art scene where quantity matters more than quality, aggressive art dealers push prices through the roof, avaricious new collectors speculate wildly, auction houses create instant inflation, and the media magnifies the entire circus through a hyperbolic lens."

Hoban goes on to write that "Basquiat's brief life was a little bang that attracted its own temporary universe of powerful planets, whose orbits were in every way more constant than his own."

"The players who instantly recognized the phenomenon of Jean-Michael Basquiat and knew how to market it were older, more cynical, and ultimately easier to analyze than the lonely, alienated, and disenfranchised artist whose constant need to produce -- out of his own untrammeled creativity, deep-seated desire for approval, and insatiable demand for the cash that would buy him drugs -- became their ready source of profit."

Sound like the troubled street walkers who put out only to have money for another fix. Except the latter are simply used, whereas Basquiat's name has been elevated to the theater marquis, his paintings worth millions each.

His story again raises questions. What gives art its value? If the life is ugly and the work is beautiful, is it beautiful art? If Basquiat had had a religious conversion, survived the drug scene, repudiated Warhol and stopped "playing the art dealers' games" would his work be worth less today? If Basquiat had ceased being a sexually-charged vagabond infecting women with VD, settled into a monogamous relationship, raised a family and made art for twenty five more years, would they have made a major film about him, canonizing his free spirited "life without boundaries"?

Let me say here that I think his paintings are incredible. I enjoy the vibrant colors, the bold statements, the scope of his work. If he had simply been a middle class art major and produced the same paintings, would he have been so lionized?

I remember reading about creative people who were afraid to get therapy because they somehow tied their creative achievements to their unbalanced, inwardly disturbed state-of-mind. Where does this idea come from that creativity and madness go hand-in-hand?

 

Related Links
Was Robert Hughes Right About Basquiat?

Andy Warhol's Elephant in the (Basquiat) Rooom

To Write with a Broken Pencil is Pointless

Throwback Thursday

Over the course of a lifetime I've found it handy to keep a handful of pithy sayings in the back pocket of one's mind. You never know when they might come in handy.

Here are a few that I've found myself repeating over the years, primarily because they are a little less common than "it is what it is" which I also use a bit too frequently.

"Everything is easy for the one who doesn't have to do it."

This one is readily available for any number of situations, especially in the world of work. People often give advice to others and wonder why it isn't immediately jumped on and appreciated. Well, that's because everything is easy for the one who doesn't have to do it. Whether it's meeting deadlines, managing multiple projects, overcoming addictions, or saving for retirement, everything's easy for the one who doesn't have to do it.

This doesn't mean we can't ever give advice, but we ought be sensitive when we're dishing it out. As Eleanor Roosevelt put it, “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”

"The butler who folds his hands spills no tea." 

This one is fun because it takes a moment to process. Bosses generally do not like mistakes, though generally they readily admit that mistakes come with the territory when you're attempting to accomplish things. A batter who fails to get on base six of ten times is considered great. Strikeouts are part of going up and taking your swings. 

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." 

My mom frequently recited this and I know why. She's from Scots heritage and this statement's origin is Sir Walter Scott from one of his novels. With a handful of words it says plenty.

Life is complicated enough without trying to cover our tracks and be deceptive. Sooner or later, it's going to get you. How many times we read stories about people caught embezzling or evading paying taxes.

If you need to arm yourself with some new quip material, there are plenty of websites devoted to collecting these kinds of pearls. Here are a few from a website called Quips, Quotes & Pithy Sayings, which apparently no longer exists.

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

Profanity is the effort of a feeble mind to express itself forcefully.

America is one of the few places you can say what you speak without thinking.

Unless you have never been tempted, don't pass judgment on someone who has yielded.

Don't mistake activity for achievement.

Or you can simply quote lines from Dylan, like I do. I used to rely on this one:

"Meantime life goes on all around you."

 But for 2020 my new go to is:

"People are crazy, times are strange."

* * * *

Photo at top of page is Lena, my 5 month old granddaughter.