The first time I tried to see an art show at the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Duluth Retail Center I gave up in frustration because I foolishly went to 425 East Superior Street. Because it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield related I wrongly assumed it would be located in the vicinity of our primary health care campuses. Eventually I figured it out, and in case you have never been there, it is a nice space which you'll want to be aware of, within walking distance of the Depot (Duluth Art Institute home) and our Duluth Public Library. The art space is located on the ground floor of the Maurices Building. If you're entering from the sidewalk, go left.
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Esther Piszczek's current exhibit is on display for a few more days only and will come down after the 20th. The show is called Discovery, the latest iteration of Esther's Zentangle journey. Discovery features her usual striking designs combined with a new presentation: Origami. This is her first solo show in six years.
Esther is a Certified Zentangle(R) Teacher, a former attorney who now helps promote the local arts through her Twin Ports Art blog. She's developed a strong fan following, in part because of her encouraging manner of teaching and her uplifting spirit. You can learn more about Esther and her work eternalpossibility.com
detail
Artist Statement
This has been a year of great Discovery of things inside of me. I have discovered my worth, value, deservingness. These aren’t states I’ve earned, they have always been there waiting for me to open my heart and mind to their truth and presence. Through the gifts of Zentangle, Heartwork Journaling and channeling, I have opened my heart to the beauty and simplicity of what is and allowed myself to become. Allowing is a process. A process of noticing, accepting, releasing expectation, doubt, fear, and worry. Through the process of allowing, I have learned to trust that the unknown is not a fiend waiting to rob me of my security and joy, but a beautiful present to be acknowledged, savored, and held in gratitude. I have realized that a great, deep well of courage resides inside of me and this well never runs dry. I have accepted that I am enough. I am a fallible, imperfect human being and I am enough. I have acknowledged that my perfection is not required, and never has been. I am because I am. A being of pure light in human form remembering from whence I came and where I will return. Life is too short to wait for perfect, a state that will never come into being. This moment is here now. I am here now. This journey of discovery continues and I am curious to find out what the next moment holds.
Like many if not most kids in high school I was introduced to poetry in one or more of my English classes. I recall, perhaps in my junior year, having to read and study The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I never did get why the word Rhyme was spelled Rime. (Clue: the story involves getting off course and in the vicinity of the South Pole. It was not a typo.)
I think it was while "studying" T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men that I began to take a greater appreciation in poetry. Mr. Harris' English class inspired me even more as he selected lyrics from some of the songs we were listening to; songs by the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and others.
In one of these classes, if not more, we were giving the task of writing poems ourselves. Though nothing remains of the poems--or stories--I wrote as a teen, I do vividly remember the opening lines of a couple of these. The first was a poem about a street gang called the Tigers. It opened like this:
The Tigers are rough, the Tigers are tough, They'll beat you till you've had enough.
I'm pretty sure I came across it several years later somehow and when I read it I had to laugh. It was so bad. As in poor.
The opening line to another poem I wrote went something like this:
Yellow walls in yellow room,
I see no beauty in this wretched place.
The rest is lost but the image I began describing was of an abandoned room at the top of a flight of stairs in an old building, the peeling wallpaper yellowed by age.
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Frankly, I've actually seen some pretty interesting poetry emerge from the last AI program I used (Sudowrite), though the program seemed to rapidly descend to rather dark places at times. Example here: Two Versions of The Comet, Light and Dark
Well, I expected something better from ChatGPT. Then again, maybe the topic I asked it to write a poem about thought the theme too juvenile to be taken seriously. What do you think?
Me: Can you write a poem about football?
ChatGPT:
The field is green, the crowd is loud, The players take the field, proud and proud.
They've trained so hard, for this one game,
To bring their team, eternal fame.
The whistle blows, the ball is kicked,
The players clash, they're all committed.
They fight for yards, they fight for score,
Their hearts are in it, forever more.
With every play, the crowd roars on,
Their team's success, is never gone.
And when the game is finally won,
They'll lift their helmets, to the setting sun.
For football is more than just a sport,
It's a battle fought, with all support.
It brings us together, one and all,
For football, we'll always stand tall.
Now you would think that a machine with super-intelligence would recognize how juvenile this poem is. "For football, we'll always stand tall?" Then again, we all started somewhere, and as these programs learn from their past mistakes it shouldn't be long before.... Wait.
Do you think ChatGPT or another AI can write sonnets like Shakespeare? Will an AI win a Nobel Prize some day? It's hard to wrap my head around that one. The bigger question is will future readers even know the difference between good and bad literature?
C'est la vie.
Illustrations by DreamAI
The football theme was selected because I have been watching the NFL playoffs.
The sun was setting over the small town of Millfield, casting a warm glow over the streets and houses. As Mary sat on her porch, staring out at the scene before her, she couldn't help but feel a sense of regret wash over her.
She had lived in Millfield her entire life, never venturing more than a few miles from her childhood home. She'd always dreamed of seeing the world, of experiencing new cultures and making a name for herself. But as the years passed, she found herself too scared to take the plunge, too comfortable in the familiar surroundings of her small town.
Now, as she approached her 50th birthday, Mary realized that it was too late for her to chase her dreams. She had missed her chance at adventure, at living a life that was truly her own.
Tears welled up in Mary's eyes as she thought about all the opportunities she had let slip through her fingers. She had always played it safe, following the expectations of others instead of following her own heart.
But as the sun set on another day, Mary made a decision. She wasn't going to let her regrets consume her. She was going to start living for herself, even if it meant leaving the safety and comfort of her small town behind.
And so, the next day, Mary packed her bags and set off on a journey of self-discovery. She traveled to far-off lands, experiencing new cultures and making a life for herself that was full of purpose and meaning.
Years passed, and Mary never looked back. She had finally found the courage to chase her dreams, and she had no regrets about the life she had built for herself. She knew that it was never too late to start living for yourself, and she was grateful for the second chance she had been given.
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OK, so I asked ChatGPT, the AI writing program that has gone over-the-top viral, to write a 300-word story about Regret. The preceding story is the product of our gifted thinking machine, unedited.
As I read it, I had a problem when Mary made a decision to "set off on a journey of self-discovery" and was heading off the next day in pursuit of her dreams.
Why was this a problem? Well, there are too many unanswered questions. First, how many people do you know who can pack their bags and leave overnight? It just didn't seem plausible. If she owns the house, who will sell it for her? If she's just renting, who will empty the place and put her things in storage?
Was she a widow? Divorced? I'd like to know more, but then again... I asked for a 300 word story, not a novel.
Does she live alone? One would assume that is the case, but the story doesn't really say this. If she's able to leave the next day, perhaps her parents are still alive and living there. On the hand, it's possible her father died a few years earlier and Mary was taking care of her mother until she died two weeks ago, thereby freeing her of the responsibility she felt was her to bear. With the funeral now behind she stares at a whole new future landscape for her life.
Actually, I've seen this small town phenomenon. People can feel safe in the small towns they grew up in. A number of years ago I met a woman who grew up in a small Wisconsin town. When she went off to college in Madison she was intimidated by the scale of the school and dropped out to return home. I'm curious if she had any regrets like Mary.
I also remember a young woman who gave me a haircut here in Duluth and said she had never been out of the state. "Not even Wisconsin? It's five minutes away?" (You can actually see Superior from half the houses on Duluth's 30 mile hillside.)
"Not even Wisconsin," she said.
With regards to Mary, I was curious where her fears came from that kept her in Millfield. What do you think she found when she set off to find herself?
I first saw Ej Arnold's hyper-focused Dali-esque pen-and-ink drawings in a four person show at Washington Gallery on Duluth's Central Hillside. I was captivated by the detail and shared his work on my blog here in March 2014. I later published our interview on Medium in 2019. In December Ej contacted me to say he was completing a new series of images in The Pinto Bean People collection. Naturally I was eager to see what he was now doing. Here's a note which Ej sent regarding the new work:
This second series started way before its time, with visuals seen seven years before they actually happened, I found myself questioning the placement of these art pieces.
It would be these three art pieces, not in numerical order, but in time of order; meshing together a time line of unfortunate events, but with good outcomes. Told of the days to come, and realizing it, from the past now…
Curtain Call,
* A premonition piece…
* A piece that simmers to a point of almost…
* A piece that is brought spiraling out in between it all
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1. "Curtain Call"
2. "Spiraling Out with a Non-Violent Apple Core"
"Spiraling Out with a Non-Violent Apple Core" (detail)
3. "Warm Progressions"
EN: Where do you live now and what are you currently preoccupied with?
Ej Arnold: I'm still residing in a small but growing town in GA and continuing to "mental shelf" new ideas for upcoming art pieces that will be able to be incorporated with previous pieces that mesh together to keep the collection going. Even with new pieces surfacing in mind and in sketch; they somehow all seem to tie together quite nicely for future viewings. "Compatible pieces" I guess you could say is the word(s) I'm looking for to describe the new ideas for this collection.
EN: What is your preferred medium?
Ej Arnold:Still creating art pieces on 11"x 14" mixed media sheets, and still creating pen and ink surreal images with my favorites of all time, Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens.
"Get me a sword. Cut the baby in half."--King Solomon
One of the things I've observed about social media--especially Twitter, though other platforms as well--is that some people have to weigh in with opinions on every single thing. Many of these people feel compelled to weigh in as quickly as possible, totally forgetting the admonition to be quick to listen but slow to speak.
This means that we don't see a lot of nuanced thinking taking place. People want to react fast and first, which means that quite often there is little thought at all, and seldom any effort to determine if what they're reacting to is even true.
This past weekend I was reading the famous Old Testament story about King Solomon, who was labelled the wisest man that ever lived. This seems like a hard title to live up to, but the Bible illustrates an example here to substantiate this claim. Here's a paraphrase of the story.
Two prostitutes came to the king seeking help resolving a private conflict. The two women lived in the same house and had each had a baby the same week. During the night, the one woman unintentionally crushed or suffocated her baby by lying on him. To solve this matter she switched the babies. Naturally the mother who had her baby stolen recognized that the dead child was not the one she gave birth to. The other woman, however, was adamant and claimed the living one was hers.
They brought their argument to the king, the true mother of the baby telling her side first. The other woman, who accidentally killed her infant son presented her side next. After listening to each Solomon said, "Bring me a sword." He then ordered one of his underlings to cut the living baby in half and give half to each.
The true mother of the living child was practically hysterical and said, "Give her the living baby. Don't kill him!"
The other woman seemed quite satisfied with the verdict and said, "Go ahead, cut him in two."
Solomon announced, "Give the baby to the first woman. Don't kill him; she is his mother."
Within minutes, though, what Solomon had initially said had been posted on Twitter. In less than an hour it had gone viral and had over one million views and re-tweets that went like this: "King requests sword and says 'Kill the baby!'"
Other Tweets said that the Solomon himself killed the baby. By the time the actual true account appeared in the Jerusalem Post, everyone had already concluded that King Solomon was a beast and the Post story must be fake news, probably planted by the Philistines.
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Obviously I made up the last segment here. What this Old Testament passage said at the end was, "When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice."
It would be nice if today's national and global issues were as small as resolving a dispute between two prostitutes. We ourselves could use a little wisdom in our approach to social media. It wouldn't be a bad thing to see a little more wisdom in our leadership right now as well. Then again, in light of the way our media (social and otherwise) distorts everything, would we recognize wisdom if we saw or heard it?
Music journalist and cultural critic Greil Marcus has an eNewsletter called Ask Greil. Readers ask Marcus questions and he responds publicly. This seemed like an interesting way to get to know this writer and cultural observer as other people publicly pick his brain. In addition to being well-read, there's no question he's been around and seen a lot.
Here's a excerpt from his January 3 reply to someone who asked if he planned to review The Last Chairlift by John Irving. (Irving is author of The World According to Garp and more than a dozen other novels.)
"I’m unsure about The Last Chairlift." Marcus replied. "First, I distrust any book that says it’s about the last anything. Second, it’s so long I’m afraid I won’t finish it, or worse, look at it on my nightstand for a year before I realize I’m never going to start it."
I'M USING THAT STATEMENT as a stepping off point into a few thoughts about books. I, too, have a few internal red flags that cause me to distrust certain kinds of marketing lingo. Here are three.
First, I will revise his comment about "the last anything" to encompass "the last word" on anything. Is there really a last word on toppling statues or climate change? We can have convictions, but are we going to close the door on all discussion, even when new evidence comes in? Apart from the either/or manner in which most discussion takes place, there are countless nuances to most issues.
Second, I distrust endorsements by Kirkus Review. Silly me, I used to believe that it actually meant something if a book review cited comments by Kirkus review. It wasn't till I got into self-publishing on Amazon that I discovered I can purchase a Kirkus Review and quote it in my marketing copy on the back of the book, or wherever else. This was a moment of disillusionment for me.
Third, I distrust NYTimes Bestseller status as anything meaningful. Popular does not correspond to quality. Many important books have limited sales for a variety of reasons. Other books never make the Times' bestseller list because the Times only measures bookstore sales.
Marcus also states his reluctance to start a massive tome that will sit unread on his nightstand for a year. Yes, I have a few of those massive volumes and I understand his hesitancy. This doesn't stop me from selecting long books when the urge is present. I usually have several books going at the same time, and the "long one" will be at my end of the dining room table which I'll plod through during my lunch periods. I'm not what it will be this year but last year it was Halberstam's The Fifties, and two or three years ago Solzhenitsyn's August 1014. As much as I love David Foster Wallace's writing, I've thus far managed to dodge Infinite Jest.
Another rule that guides my reading decisions is this: what do other readers think? The critics often praise something they've never read but feel they must weigh in on. Also, like movie critics they embrace what's trendy, which on occasion can be appallingly bad. Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays was her first film as a director. High praise ensued. "Women crossing over into the director's chairs," the said. We walked out after 20 minutes.
A quick peek at the Amazon reviews by readers pretty much tells you that Marcus was probably wise to avoid The Last Chairlift. Here are comments from one reader who has been a big John Irving fan:
I may someday forgive John Irving for this book, but not yet. I gave up about 35% of the way in when I realized that everything in this book that was not a repetition of a theme in his earlier work was badly described sex (and "badly" may be generous). I figured that, if I went any further, I might even lose the will to live.... If I were John Irving, I would probably complain that at 80, he may have used up all his novelist skills. Instead, I will try to pretend this book never happened and continue to list Irving among my top 20 favorite modern authors."
This review feels honest and very likely accurately reflects the contents. Sometimes, when books are political, you might get hostile reactions not because of the quality of the content but because the "other side" simply does not want the book read. That can go either way, if you know what I mean.
Whether writing about them, talking about them or reading them, books are a great gift to all of us. May we never stop supporting our libraries and our authors.
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There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodsky
For what it's worth, the QR code at the top right will bring you to a page describing my books. If you don't have a "Smartphone" you can just click on it with your cursor and reach the same destination.
"In this song your happiness lies beyond the wide sea, and to get there you have to cross the great unknown."--Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song
Dylan fans spent years wondering if and when a Chronicles: Volume 2 would be published. Those who were patient enough have been rewarded. I doubt, however, that a single one of us anticipated the form it would take. I myself, like many, expected more of a memoir. Instead, we were treated to The Philosophy of Modern Song, a book about songs more than about philosophy. In either case, it is pure Dylan.
There's been plenty written about this book already. This website alone has links to more than 130 reviews of the book. Most Dylan fans know that it's essentially Dylan weighing in on 66 songs from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, Nina Simone to Little Walter; "Your Cheatin' Heart" to "Viva Las Vegas."
The first track, I mean chapter, in the book is Bobby Bare's "Detroit City." Now if you are one of the countless fans who listened to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, you can't help but hear Bob's ominous gravelly voice and delivery as you read some of the passages. The opening line for chapter one is "IN THIS SONG YOU'RE THE PRODIGAL SON."
Chapter 19 is "Beyond the Sea," the 1958 version sung by Bobby Darin. Dylan opens this chapter with "IN THIS SONG YOUR HAPPINESS LIES beyond the wide sea, and to get there you have to cross the great unknown." Listen as you read:
You're going out of bounds and you're into the briny deep-navigating by the stars, measuring longitudes and latitudes. You're the captain and you're sailing towards your nerve center, who is waiting in the coastlands upon the rich and rosy beach. She's waiting for you there, biding her time, sitting tight--she's on the lookout for you, checking out every ship. The clipper ships, the schooners and sloops. Onwards and onwards you go sailing over the bounding main, and off into the wild blue yonder. Sailing towards your life--your final destination. You're checking your compass, your almanac and your horoscope. The entire hemisphere is right there at your command, right there in your field of vision.
In writing about the songs he covers, Dylan's approach is imaginative, gliding across cresting waves of the unexpected. The essays and stories alternate between second person and third person. The segment in blue above, introducing Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" for example, is second person.
I really knew very little about Bobby Darin while growing up. For some reason I failed to appreciate his music, perhaps seeing the showmanship as old fashioned. Years later, via karaoke, I came to associate Bobby Darin with "Mack the Knife." But it's Darin's "Beyond the Sea" that Dylan lifts up to shine a light on here.
Of the six pages Dylan devotes to Bobby Darin's song (half of which of which are illustrations or photos), only one sentence is dedicated to the origin of the song. It's an amusing sentence. "THIS IS A FRENCH SONG originally written Charles Trenet, pretty much untranslatabe." Does Dylan mean the French words can't make sense in English? Or that the idea behind the song gets lost in translation?
You can read two translations of "La Mer" here -- one converted into verse and one more literal -- and decide for yourself what Dylan meant: https://www.rougemusic.com/la-mer
What's certain is that the Charles Trenet version has been a favorite of mine since I first heard it sung during the credits for the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The film had already moved my heart. The song welded this story to an emotional connection. Music does that.
The Diving Bell & the Butterfly is an autobiographical memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French journalist and editor of the fashion magazine Elle. His life consisted of fame and style, wealth and women… a lifestyle others only dream of. Then one day, at age 43, Bauby suffered a massive stroke that left him in a condition called “Locked In Syndrome.” His mental faculties were totally intact but his body paralyzed. Though speechless and immobile, he learned to communicate by blinking a single eyelid. By means of blinking, communicating one letter at a time, Bauby produced a book remarkable for its candor and beauty.It's a powerful book, and Julian Schnabel proved he was up to the task of translating this story to the screen.
Until I read this chapter in Dylan's book I never felt all that inclined to learn more about Bobby Darin. I knew he died young, but for some reason I thought he died in a plane crash. The reality is that he had always been sickly since his youth and lived longer than his doctors expected. He was 37 when he died of sepsis.
The song itself brings to mind a quote I'd read two or three decades ago regarding seas and life. If while in England you are unwilling to leave sight of the land for a while, you will never see New York. (This was before air travel, of course.) In other words, to reach other lands you must risk the open sea, a recurring theme in literature related to risk and reward. The failure to accept risks can frequently lead to regrets.
Here's Bobby Darin showing his chops on the 1960 Beech-Nut Show... back when TV performers lip-synced their way through their numbers. You'll notice that the Beatles weren't the first performers to ignite screams from teenaged girls.
Here is Charles Trenet's version of the song for comparison purposes:
The sea that we see dance along the clear bay has reflections of silver.
The sea, changing reflections under the rain.
The sea to the summer sky confounds those white sheep with the angels so pure.
The sea, shepherd of infinite azure.
Look! Near the ponds, those tall reeds! See those white birds and those rusty homes!
The sea, rocks (like in a cradle) them along the clear bay And in a love song, the sea cradled my heart for life.
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TRIVIA The French edition of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was published on March 7, 1997. It sold the first 25,000 copies on the day of publication, reaching 150,000 in a week. It went on to become a number one bestseller across Europe. Its total sales are now in the millions.
On 9 March 1997, three days after the book was published, Bauby died of pneumonia.
