Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

...and this is quite stunning:

 

Faramir at Osgiliath

 

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[Pat Calhoun]

Go Donato ! let's lay it on with a trowel and squeeze in a quick change of venue...

 

Ah the thread moves as fast as life itself and yesterday’s wonder is tomorrow’s memory. The Vermeer essay was exceptional and a supreme visual feast, and to have a Rilke quote from the Elegies thrown in for dessert was sumptuous indeed. It was Rilke’s spirit that guided me up north (only 60 or 70 miles but the change from the Oakland-SF-Jose megalopolis to the more mellow Sonoma County was profound) many years ago.

 

 

Buddha In Glory

 

Center of all centers, core of cores,

almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--

all this universe, to the furthest stars

all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

 

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;

your vast shell reaches into endless space,

and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.

Illuminated in your infinite peace,

 

a billion stars go spinning through the night,

blazing high above your head.

But in you is the presence that

will be, when all the stars are dead.

 

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

 

Met my wife, got married, wrote a bunch of poems and had two kids. We ran a little daycare center out of an old house on a quiet street in Santa Rosa. After a while insurance priced us out of that game, and restaurant cooking paid peanuts, but fortunately Gina’s dad showed up looking for a protégé for his ‘online’ used car parts network: a series of ‘toilet paper’ printers installed in wrecking yards up and down the coast. Thus on a slightly better footing I was able to start collecting again, choosing the low-dollar arena of old PB’s… My literary excursions had covered almost everything but the ‘crime’ genre- but you can hardly collect old paperbacks without getting into it. My wife was a fan, and after she had read one of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe books, I picked it up and found the voice engaging. Soon I was hanging with Perry Mason and Nero Wolfe- having a good time. Now I was ready for the author who I’d known since childhood I would eventually catch up with: Cornell Woolrich.

 

"The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (sung by Bobby Vee) in 1963 (I was a top 40 freak) had got me thinking about the master of suspense (I was 11) but in typical Pat fashion it took 20 years to get around to actually reading him. Well we clicked all right- pictures follow…

 

 

Edited January 13, 2013 by pcalhoun

[Cat-Man_America]

[font:Times New Roman] I'm very much in awe of Donato's approach to fantasy. His work embodies an old world painterly style imbued with modern realism.

 

By contrast much of my own work gravitates toward the surreal and other worldly, with SF and speculative scientific themes. Most of my painterly work involves less human contact, focusing more on desolate unexplored landscapes and alien environments.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have the best reproductions of my work on hand at present so I hope you'll excuse the mediocre scans of IPad photographs...

 

Several of my space themed paintings:

 

Close Encounters #3...

 

 

Spin Fishing...

 

 

Eclipsed...

 

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[Pat Calhoun]

Cat, Cat, just as I hoped the thread grows like the almond in the Rilke Poem. You Rock ! Pat

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

 

 

Great post Pat! Rilke is one of my favourite poets. His Duino Elegies in particular. I didnt know the one you just posted - but it is beautiful - thank you.

 

Regarding the Woolrich book cover above - Is this a story literally about a female vampire?

[Flex Mentallo]

[font:Times New Roman] I'm very much in awe of Donato's approach to fantasy. His work embodies an old world painterly style imbued with modern realism.

 

By contrast much of my own work gravitates toward the surreal and other worldly, with SF and speculative scientific themes. Most of my painterly work involves less human contact, focusing more on desolate unexplored landscapes and alien environments.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have the best reproductions of my work on hand at present so I hope you'll excuse the mediocre scans of IPad photographs...

 

Several of my space themed paintings:

 

Close Encounters #3...

 

 

Spin Fishing...

 

 

Eclipsed...

 

[/font]

 

Great stuff Cat! More please!

[skybolt]

What an amazing thread. I just spent the last 2 hours reading through it and it's so inspirational on so many different levels. Thanks for sharing your wonderful lifetime stories with us Michael, they are definitely eye opening! (thumbs u

[Pat Calhoun]

got to see Stephen read that poem at coming out party for his translations- Berkeley early '80s... 'Black Angel" not female vampire but 'lady in peril' masterpiece...

ps- was an incredible netsuke auction last month. my buddy (lives 120 miles away so haven't held yet) scored this superb (stag antler) mermaid...

 

 

 

 

[Pat Calhoun]

ps- scored a couple there (one via resale from dealer pal) myself...

 

 

 

 

[Pat Calhoun]

what the hey- since I posted a poem for my son Theo, Crane deserves his due...

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Eighth Elegy

 

With all its eyes the creature-world beholds

the open. But our eyes, as though reversed,

encircle it on every side, like traps

set round its unobstructed path to freedom.

What is outside, we know from the brute’s face

alone; for while a child’s quite small we take it

and turn it round and force it to look backwards

at conformation, not that openness

so deep within the brute’s face. Free from death.

We only see death; the free animal

has its decease perpetually behind it

and God in front, and when it moves, it moves

into eternity, like running springs.

We’ve never, no, not for a single day,

pure space before us, such as that which flowers

endlessly open into: always world,

and never nowhere without no: that pure,

unsuperintended element one breaths,

endlessly knows, and never craves. A child

sometimes gets quietly lost there, to be always

jogged back again. Or someone dies and is it.

For, nearing death, one perceives death no longer,

and stares ahead—perhaps with large brute gaze.

Lovers—were not the other present, always

spoiling the view!—draw near to it and wonder. . . .

Behind the other, as though through oversight,

the thing’s revealed . . . But no one gets beyond

the other, and so world returns once more.

Always facing Creation, we perceive there

only a mirroring of the free and open,

dimmed by our breath. Or that a dumb brute’s calmly

raising its head to look us through and through.

That’s what Destiny means: being opposite,

and nothing else, and always opposite.

 

Did consciousness such as we have exist

in the sure animal that moves towards us

upon a different course, the brute would drag us

round in its wake. But its own being for it

is infinite, inapprehensible,

unintrospective, pure, like its outward gaze.

Where we see Future, it sees Everything,

itself in Everything, for ever healed.

 

And yet, within the wakefully-warm beast

there lies the weight and care of a great sadness.

For that which often overwhelms us clings

to him as well,—a kind of memory

that what we’re pressing after now was once

nearer and truer and attached to us

with infinite tenderness. Here all is distance,

there it was breath. Compared with that first home

the second seems ambiguous and draughty.

Oh bliss of tiny creatures that remain

for ever in the womb that brought them forth!

Joy of the gnat, that can still leap within,

even on its wedding-day: for womb is all.

Look at the half-assurance of the bird,

through origin almost aware of both,

like one of those Etruscan souls, escaped

from a dead man enclosed within a space

on which his resting figure forms a lid.

And how dismayed is any womb-born thing

that has to fly! As though it were afraid

of its own self, it zigzags through the air

like crack through cup. The way the track of a bat

goes rending through the evening’s porcelain.

 

And we, spectators always, everywhere,

looking at, never out of, everything!

It fills us. We arrange it. it decays.

We re-arrange it, and decay ourselves.

 

Who’s turned us round like this, so that we always,

do what we may, retain the attitude

of someone who’s departing? Just as he,

on the last hill, that shows him all this valley

for the last time, will turn and stop and linger,

we live our lives, for ever taking leave.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

(translated from German by J.B. Leishman and Stephen Spender)

[Pat Calhoun]

just listened to Bobby Vee first time in ages- pretty schmaltzy... this version

 

Anita Kelsey's recording of "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" found on the Dark City soundtrack, and performed onscreen by Jennifer Connelly.

 

is better (even with truncated lyrics). "Dark City' key sf flick- first time watched it on VHS, late & solo, wanted to hear the 2 songs again... blindly pushed ff stopped right at start of first, blindly pushed stopped right at start of second -it was kewl...

 

 

shorter with JC in action

 

 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2013 by pcalhoun

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

Now I was ready for the author who I’d known since childhood I would eventually catch up with: Cornell Woolrich.

 

 

 

 

 

Another great cover! I've always loved Chandler and devoured all his novels long ago. How does Woolrich compare?

[Flex Mentallo]

just listened to Bobby Vee first time in ages- pretty schmaltzy... this version

 

Anita Kelsey's recording of "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" found on the Dark City soundtrack, and performed onscreen by Jennifer Connelly.

 

is better (even with truncated lyrics). "Dark City' key sf flick- first time watched it on VHS, late & solo, wanted to hear the 2 songs again... blindly pushed ff stopped right at start of first, blindly pushed stopped right at start of second -it was kewl...

 

 

shorter with JC in action

 

 

 

 

Jennifer Connelly

 

And Dark City isnt bad either.