THE BOOK OF PERSONAL REALITY: archives

   I ate a banana today and then noticed my foot trying to walk on the ceiling.  Sooner or later I may defy gravity and discover the way the world looks from this furnitureless landscape.  On the other hand perhaps I will hover in the middle with one foot on the ceiling and the other on the floor.  That may complicate my anatomy but the sensation will be interesting to experience.  If this doesn't work I will examine the contents of the closet to see if there is a suspended ceiling that will be easier to reach.

     The stark glare from a bare 40 watt bulb barely gives enough light to peer into the bottom of your nearly empty detergent box in the vain hope of finding enough grains of Cheer to work up a thin lather for that overdue pile of wadded up shorts, tees and jeans.  Is there nothing more forlorn than a tiny, trashy, deserted apartment laundry room, especially at 2 AM in the morning when there is not enough detergent to do your underwear?

   Some cooks have a favorite cooking utensil with which they are loathe to depart.  This old pie tin has done it all and, although it may be a bit tattered I continue to cook biscuits on it for breakfast.  I keep using it just to see how many more biscuits it will take before it splits into.  Nothing cooks them any better than this split, stained and wobbly piece of cheap tin.
   I celebrate its tenacity and ability to continue on for one more trip into the oven.  I celebrate its many cracks and heat tortured surface that has served me so well.  Cook on you cracked crisper of crust!

   Razors pain you;
   Rivers are damp;
   Acids stain you;
   And drugs cause cramp.
   Guns aren't lawful;
   Nooses give;
   Gas smells awful
   You might as well live.

                           Dorothy Parker

   It's June?  Not possible.  The windows are shut and I'm wearing sweats.  Global warming?  Not likely.  Weird moods are always ignited by a season that is confused about its timing.  The brain looks for a familiar pattern and finding none sets up shop in the twilight zone.  If I step out the door will my feet find a frozen grass, still green but crunchy under foot?  How can skin be burnt yet shiver with goose bumps?  The sun is compressed by the dark of winter lingering at the edge.
   Beside the heat of day the seekers of light are glad to say how they live under the weight of a chilly misstep.  We burn hot underneath this rim of ice, chasing the voices of random motion around until the pressure is too much to resist the breakthrough.  Bursting forth will be such a relief.  

   The pile of dead branches ignited slowly at first but the flames spread until the overhead trees began to sway and dance to the hot rising column of air.  I piled on the well-cured fire wood from the wood shed and we sat back to watch the sparks fly.  The temperature had dropped quickly after sunset and the fire felt good in the cool late spring evening.  We sat in silence and for a long while let our thoughts speak with the dancing red and orange tongues of fire.  
   

American painting by Saul Levine

Under what form of government does America labor now? What do you call a government that has abandoned its original charter and assumed the powers denied to it by its founding constitution? Most Americans continue to call our society the United States of America, the name chosen at its founding. Is it still proper to use this name when the government formed to unite and protect the people and their lands has usurped the rights of the individual and the states?

  This is what can happen if you get to playing around with one of those computer image editors.  I call it, Self Portrait in Blue.  I had planned on using it as part of my homepage but gave it the axe when I came up with my mechanical device.  

   It has been put forward that the first principle of civilized behavior is simply this: Any right that I claim for myself, I must freely grant to all others.  
   So simple, yet so many find it very difficult to follow.  In the name of tolerance it is denied as intolerable to grant freedoms to those who are not one of us.

   It came upon the horizon bright but soon a dark stain stole its luster. 
    Why, look there ma!  What manner of sorcery is this?  The moon is going dark.  Has Robin Hood stole its shine away to give to the day.  Aye, we need more of that shine here abouts, what with all the rain and gloomy clouds.  Here's to Robin Hood!

   Wind in the woods.  
   Wet ground gives to the foot.  
   Dark clouds fast and on the fly.
   Brother in the distance searches
     

   Another Mother's Day has passed but she is not here.  I try not to think about it too much to keep the ache from coming back.  It's been a little over a year since she checked out but I go to my family album to look at her over and over.  I have to convince myself she is really gone but I don't like the feeling I get when I am successful.  There just is no way to avoid it, no matter what, there lies the emptiness.  I guess it won't go away.

   Can anyone identify the subject of this photo?

   It came from the sky, dark at first, but quickly turning to an angry darkest gray.  Then the wind began to blow, rushing ahead of a wall of white.  Everything began to blur and run like watercolor until the entire horizon was consumed in a roaring cacophony of millions of droplets, all heading in the same direction - down.  Blinding jolts of pure energy creased the dark field, glowing white hot in a random, jagged path to oblivion.  
   A sharp cannon blast crushed the ground and the seismic wave extinguished the light.  In darkness I groped for the door and closed up because no one was going to come in after that devastating blow.  Bodies were still floating by as I made my escape into the maw of another spring thunderstorm.

   Whenever I need a little inspiration to continue on I reread this poem, written in 1983 after a difficult period in my life.

Mad journey
Slips into the breech
Abandoned hope
Creeps from its sleep
Clearing the lane
Stands the rising escort
Mercurial mass merchants
Spread their quivering plane
From the corners of leaping die
Whirling points give their secret
Gathering together
The curtains contents
And delivering the bee's honey pie.

   Is there any protection from do-gooders or are we doomed to their endless meddling?  Are they just trying to draw attention away from their own messy lives or do they genuinely believe they are helpful?  
   When they are trying to correct what they perceive as the inequities of mankind, they are in a subtle way creating a greater inequity, for their supposed greater intelligence erroneously assumes their victims are ignorant and powerless to help themselves.
    This C. S. Lewis quote says it all:
   "Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies.  The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Though the thought is closed the frame of whispering lips grins at the back of disappearing feet. Remove the pan of wrapped up courage from the closet of curious wonder and give the preaching skeptic a chance to feed on the bowl of interesting pain.

If a drop of blood is in the end of a simple expression, then realize how to give up a whisper in the kiss of love.

Panthers pace their cage when their hunger is returned by a message in sinking bottles. There is a safe way to discover insecure thieves but when you remove your shirt who will listen to your story of rising fear. Danger jumps at the slumbering sounds of ringing bells which can do no harm behind the frosted door of proper moments.

Once the glance of a secret smile has situated itself on the frustrated shades of a quiet walk, who can know the way a woman feels when passing the strength of the worshipping image.

   I have a friend with very unusual tastes and she likes to decorate her home with odd bits of American culture.  This almost creepy piece of chalkware is just one of her many finds from her weekly scrounging trips into the heartland of America.  I chose it because it had the ability to attract and repel me at the same time.  I figure anything this influential is worthy of passing on to others.

   Since bbq time has finally arrived I decided to kick off the smoky season by showing this fine toy example of a 50s style outdoor pit cooker.  If only I had a real one to use.  Back in the 50s my neighbor had one just like this in his back yard and drove us wild smoking ribs every weekend.  He used a homemade spicey sauce that had orange peels in it and I would give anything to taste it again.  
   BBQ is one of the major food groups that everyone should eat at least once a week.

   Just returned from a retinal review of my local woodsy area.  Since yesterday was the day of the dog wood I hoped to find a good specimen to admire.  Both pink and white earned the gazing eye award but the best moment came during a shower of white blossoms from a fruit tree.  Perfumed snow surrounded me and I was resurrected from the fatigue of a week of hard pressing work.

   I cannot resist photographing odd little pieces of culture.  I am drawn to the stuff like a simpleton to a shiny object.  I found this odd pocket watch in a box of costume jewelry.  It has been abandoned for a lack of usefulness, yet plays with my eye's curiosity and makes me want to keep it.  It has taken up a place on a table nearby and waits for me to pick it up again.  Its appeal defies description.

Wish you didn’t have to go.
I walked my mind along with you.
Its no surprise to me how you fly.
You never walk alone.

I will wait for your return
Until then I’m due to go on
Its very well known
We’ll soon be home

   "Rampant government waste, fraud and abuse only adds insult to the injury inflicted by the income tax," said Geoffrey Neale, national chair of the Libertarian Party. "On tax day, it's time to remind ourselves how right humorist P.J. O'Rourke was when he said giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teen-age boys." 
                                                            

   In celebration of the first blossoms of the spring I built this humble little altar from the dead twigs of winter.  In the warming light of sol I sat cross legged and assembled my miniature shrine of yellow petals in acknowledgment of the greening of our world.  My sentiment was multiplied by the explosion of growth springing up all about in riotous abandon.  Hail to creation and warmth and growth!

   I cannot take credit for this bit of heavy weight humor.  My uncle is quite good at captioning photos and I work to achieve his level of wit.  He eschews the use of a computer so all of his work is done the old-fashioned way - by hand.

   Complexity adds more levels of complexity and the struggle to maintain coherence is strained.  As I accumulate images it becomes more difficult to categorize them in my old folders so I begin adding more folder categories.  Rearrangements begat yet other rearrangements and with such a dense thicket of categories I soon lose track of where to put new incoming images.  In spite of all the databases and technologies I still have to make the decision, usually based on very subjective image elements.  
   Some packrats never develop any system of sorting, preferring to just pile stuff on top of stuff, until the oldest acquisitions become petrified under the weight of the new.  I was born lining things up in neat tidy rows and find great pleasure in making lists and organizing as much as I love to collect.  Since I cannot quit collecting, that means another folder will be added to my list of folders to accommodate this subject.

   Junking is a way of life and in a way, an activity that reflects life.  ( See my article, The Significant Choice )  As a confirmed packrat, I spend a lot of time making significant choices amidst the detritus of our society.  ( See the Cultural Artifacts page for examples of a few of my choices )  
   Thrift stores, flea markets, antique shops and garage sales are a part of my natural environment.  I am at ease within those arenas and swim through them like a shark on the hunt.  My prey is easy for me to locate but I must be quick to scoop it up before my competition has a chance.  
   In the early years of my growth prey was easy to find and competition was scarce, but now, I must concentrate and move swiftly to catch the choice pieces before others can arrive.  23 years of experience have sharpened my pattern recognition to a fine edge and I use this knowledge to intimidate and succeed against my competition.
   Today, experience was to no avail because the pickings were slim.  After leaving 2 thrifts with only 3 small finds, I decided to break off the chase and return to home base.  The  buzzing lights had nothing to reveal.

   Revisited an old favorite tonight, CAT WOMEN ON THE MOON.  This laugher has "a touch of space madness and too much infantile romanticism in its crew."  If you had just landed on the moon would you, (A) conduct scientific research in a professional manner, or, (B) take your compact and mirror out of your desk drawer and comb your hair?  

    Its hard to pick out the best dialog or worst acting but the stupidity is best represented by this choice line of dialog, "something is embedded in our rear section."  If you were on the moon would you take off your space suit and leave it lying in a heap to go off on a tour of the cat house on the moon?  Whoever wrote the script for this opus also had something embedded in their feeble brains.

   curator's note: One of Dr. Snoad's favorite artists is Leonardo.  The associated thumbnail is a handwritten quote from a Leonardo biography.  Its subject of expressing creativity in public is a common theme with Dr. Snoad.  I think this desire for expression is one of the main reasons Dr. Snoad published this site, as he continues to struggle to balance openness with the desire to remain veiled.

   I depart with them
   yet remain behind.
   The wind tussles my hair
   and whispers past my ear.
   I stand alone and watch
   the colors rise and mingle
   with the sky.

   Silence shepherds the far flung vistas
   and I fuse with the world and the cosmos.
   I watch them rise as I watch them fall away.
   The eternal parting merges with the eternal arrival.

   Received a letter from my favorite uncle in Oklahoma City today.  Since my father checked out we have been exchanging letters and art.  I have always been in awe of his creativity and it has not diminished even thought he is in his 80s now.  He has a lot of health problems but is determined to keep on going as best as he can.  
   I also have a lot of respect for his WWII military service as a sailor aboard a destroyer.  He still keeps in touch with his shipmates, at least the ones who are able.  In his letter he was asking about a story he wrote earlier and couldn't remember if he sent it to me.  He lost his copies and had a request from a shipmate to submit it to a newsletter.  His memory is a little fuzzy at times but he has a vivid recall of most of his WWII service.
   At least he was not handicapped by doubt about his decision to go into combat.  He had a clear-cut moral imperative to defend his country and way of life but I'm not so sure how he feels about the current conflict.  Like me he probably has total sympathy for the men who must do their duty but at the same time disapprove of the reasons for which they are sent into battle.
   I have not broached the subject with him as yet and he has not mentioned it either.

  At last the countdown has reached its goal.  Its opening day on the baseball field and once again the boys are hitting the turf to keep alive that grand tradition of summer.  Play ball I say.  Who cares how long the game lasts.  Pass the beer and hot dogs and I will be happy to sit and watch for hours.  Baseball forever.

   All was in readiness.  Conditions of acceptance were optimum when the veil floated lazily down onto the pink palace of victory.  The red face of Mars rotated in its orbit and began a slow descent to the gates of the hidden domain.  Celestial motions telegraphed their intent and the tides of Venus washed up on the ivory slopes of Vesuvius.  
   The gods were pleased and resumed their rest with lazy eyes.

   Her face was lined with the experiences of 55 years of marriage.  I first heard her approaching the door by the clicking of her walker on the front steps.  Her husband helped her through the door and she stepped up to the counter with an expectant look on her face.  From her age I felt she might have something I would want to buy.
   Her husband brought in her offerings and underneath the carefully covered clothing I could see a good possibility.  As I pulled the plastic up to inspect the clothing I listened to her tales of where and when she had worn each piece.  Her  pride and joy was the beautiful slipper satin wedding dress, still in its original box, she wore as a young bride on Aug. 14, 1948.  
   I could tell she really didn't want to part with it or the memories that danced around it in a glowing aura.  Any offer I could make would never be enough to cover her special attachment.   For a moment she wavered as memories battled with necessity and her sad eyes betrayed her as she finally accepted my bid.  
   After 23 years of buying from little old ladies I have had to develop a hard shell to keep from bankrupting myself over sad circumstances and sentimental attachments.  The look in her eye almost penetrated my armor and I told her she didn't have to sell if she didn't want.  I did not enquire into her reasons for selling but I felt she was not doing so for lack of cash.  She had just decided it was time for this particular memory to go on to another who could renew its promise.  
   The click of her walker going out the door tapped out her unspoken lament.

   Sometimes I experience these most incredibly detailed visions in my mind's eye.  As they spring into being I feel a great satisfaction as I view the richness of detail and complexity.  If only I could capture their feeling tone before they disappear.  Perhaps they remain within my consciousness, waiting for the right event to trigger their re-creation as I work with my art.

   Alone and desperate for a temptation to continue, I sought the space where my hat joins my head and floated through the dust of an ancient mystery. Too blank to decipher I lay in the trail of its kaleidoscopic opacity in hopes of absorbing a clue. Sensory input disengaged, I ran up a non-local antenna and read directly from the source. The code was good and clear but my translations switched into the usual channels of distortion before I could map.

   In terms of lives saved, resources conserved and moral dilemmas resolved, cooption beats war every time. Love thy neighbor after correcting his inappropriate thought.

   ".......so take me down to the station and put me on the train.  I got no expectations of passing this way again."
                                       -Beggars Banquet, The Rolling Stones

   In memory of all who have passed this way.

   FrontPage was designed to make artists go mad.  Frustrationpage is a much better title.  I shove here and it puts it there.  Big Bill promises you this but gives you that.  Slowly I move, slower it makes me go.  My deadline to upload this thing is useless.