'POSSUM ART

It’s really difficult to find good ‘possum art. It’s hard to find ‘possum art at all. I mean with armadillos, we’re over-run with armadillos as much as they are run-over by us. Their neat, symmetrical pattern of dermal scoots, a suite of armor, armor that hasn’t quite had enough eons to adapt for car tire impact.

I’ve eaten armadillo meat. Tastes like stringy chicken. Honestly, though, there was so much spice on it, it really tasted only like spice, which makes me believe that anything that needed that much seasoning was probably really nasty. I’ve never had ‘possum. Even my grandfather wouldn’t eat ‘possum. He lived through the Depression and he dined on squirrel steaks and rack of raccoon, but he wouldn’t eat ‘possum. Too much of a dirty animal. A ‘possum’ll eat anything, but mostly in my experience they eat cat food.

‘Possums are like oversized rats with rat-bald tails and a pointed face, but they’re stupid, and they hiss, and should one bite you you’d probably die from the bacteria in its mouth. I found one in a latrine. Tried to help it out with a stick, which it wouldn’t climb because it was too busy playing dead, so had to rope it and drag it out by its noosed head.

I’ll let that story sink in, then I tell you it was a new latrine, hadn’t been used yet. That makes the story not so awful.

But they do that. ‘Possums play dead. Like they’re the biggest cowards on the planet. You swat one with a broom and he lays down, which make him easy to get rid of, but if you don’t go bury him right then and there, he’ll jump up later, and he’ll be gone! To come back the next night and stir up the dog while he’s stealing cat food.

I wonder, though, if there isn’t a jealousy factor going on. ‘Possums are the only marsupials in North America. None of us other mammals here can carry our babies in a pouch. That could explain the lack of ‘possum art, or it could be that ‘possums are the most unliked species on the continent, so unliked, that everybody wants to promote their non-existence, partly through artistic omission. I mean an armadillo isn’t even a Florida native, though it’s the number one road kill on Florida highways. Again, not a terribly bright animal. Armadillos dig holes in yards, compete with the national bird for flight time (off your bumper), and they aren’t very much afraid of you, even when you encounter them in the deep woods. Armadillos go about their business regardless of what’s going on outside their shell. Intellectually, there’s not much difference between an armadillo and a ‘possum, except an armadillo doesn’t tend to hiss at you and behave like a…a…well, a ‘possum.

I thought it would be fun to collect ‘possum art. I didn’t know it’d be impossible. I started ten years ago with a great wood block print by George Meyer, “Mother Possum.” I thought it would be a unique collection because you never see ‘possum art, but that’s the thing: you never see ‘possum art. Among the myriad of armadillo paraphernalia, from psychedelic shells to armadillo earrings, you never see ‘possums among that stuff. Raccoons get a pretty good show, not so much as the armadillo, but descent. I’m not talking the fancy fine art shows, I’m talking the folksy arts and crafts festivals, happen in tents, like a tribe of Bedouins, moving their flock of crap from one small town to the next. I thought surely I’d be able to pick up ‘possum art in that venue. In my ten years’ effort, I have only the one piece. George Meyer has some nice animal wood block prints. I bought an armadillo from him as well, but it’s the ‘possum I really like. He said that one didn’t sell as much. I bought print number twenty-seven of two hundred and ninety-four he couldn’t sell. There’s a real niche in the market, I’m telling you visual art people, it could be the next best thneed. I’m ready for it!

SPENDING TIME

I remember when it was a big deal, I mean a BIG deal to pay fifty bucks to get a clock chip added to your computer. You could use the word processor…or the spreadsheet—not both!—AND see the time displayed. It was a vast luxury, especially if you were in college and you had a wristwatch and a wall clock. I had some explaining to do to my parents. Anyway, is there a computer today manufactured without a clock function? Time may be money, but I think time is getting cheaper. Maybe time is linked with the sub prime market.

(If the above paragraph seems familiar, my point exactly regarding the non-governance to prevent things from happening at once and repeatedly on the Internet.)

If time is money, and money is paper, then time could be a crane or a hippopotamus. Time could be folded into any number of charitable or uncharitable offenses. You could probably fold it into the wrinkles of your skin. An elephant could be a very wealthy animal, especially if he lived on the bank. And he could simultaneously be very cheap.

Time is limited. God is infinite. Elephants get wrinkles for free. Botox costs money. Money is time. Time is limited. Put your hand on the wall and keep turning left.

I drove home one night along the coastal road. The moon lit the topside of the clouds. I caught glimpses of the ocean between the dunes. I took my time about driving. I knew no matter when I got home it would be late. Late had already happened, and it was in the process of happening, and it would continue to happen until the flip side when late became early, but because my vector had started in late, I would still be late even if my arrival occurred in early. Don’t be tense; walk straight ahead.

Sometimes I feel like I’m just on the other side of the wall to one of my stories. I had been thinking about a woman that night while I was driving home, how to write her into a story. I had so many things to write about that night. In the morning though, I could only remember the topics, but not how to write them. I think the woman was writing a history of France called “Memoir of France.” It had a great title is all I can remember, sadly. I wanted to have a character writing a book by that title because it’s a great title, but it’s not a book that I could write. This will all make sense, or it won’t, but if it is compelling to read, read on.

If a bird could fly at the speed of light from Cleveland to Washington, how many feathers would it have by the time it reached Buffalo?

Writing is very easy. You have to tell exactly what’s there. It’s seeing what’s there that’s difficult. You can’t simply give the blocking of a character without the reader’s understanding of the motive behind that blocking, in which case, the blocking is unnecessasary because the reader already knows how the character will move.

I am impressed by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ characters who live exactly in the present. I guess many of them are poor, so that helps. They can be walking down a road, not thinking about laying stores for the future, but walking barefoot, feeling the heat, feeling the sand, hearing the wind in the trees and the birdsong carried on it. They feel their way in the present, a vibrant intake of senses despite if they have been down that road before habitually.

The Bushmen in THE GODS MUST BE CRASY are portrayed as unneeding of added stimulus. They read the tracks in the sand to know what’s happening in the world around them, check the direction of the wind. They live very close to their world, in its immediate season, and enjoy it.

This is how art must be. Perhaps art was not regarded much when people lived more closely with their immediate worlds, but it could have growing importance as we live farther removed from what is physically around us. Art makes us live in the immediate and consider. Good art comes from sitting still. Good art is timeless, its value is priceless, but I wouldn’t mind getting paid.

I’m supposed to be doing something now, while I’m doing something else, which seems like a waste, but in our era, it is revered as multi-tasking, so I keep doing it, its, all of the its at once. Ah the wizardry of the modern age. Technology is driving toward the greater importance of art in our world. Art, like death, makes us stop and consider. It draws our attention to a single thing. I predict that art will increasingly be revered as a luxury, a luxury that everybody needs.

GOOGLING GOD

RE: IN SEARCH OF GOD ON THE INTERNET


There’s no chemical imbalance to blogging. To blog is a mask for seeking God. That talking out into the unknown somewhere…and then see if something answers back. Sure, blogging can be cosmically gratifying, or it could be a good way to meet a sexual predator. God knows where you live; keep your address to yourself.

I tried to post an entry on a WASHINGTON POST webpage that was relentlessly complaining about Christians in the United States. All I was trying to say was that Christians are fine as long as you aren’t threatened by them, except somehow my computer locked up and whirled forward at the same time, and my one simple statement appeared like six times on the page, as if I were some crazed, spastic zealot. I think next time I’ll just stick to door to door proselytizing.

Then I figured why mess around, why play games when the answer could be very simple. When the car stops, check the gas first before you overhaul the motor. I typed “GOD” into my Google search. Here are the results of the first ten listed websites.

#1 – Wikipedia entry of God. You’ve kind of got to wonder which is more ubiquitous, God or Wikipedia.

#2 – God.com. Now that’s as straightforward as it gets, folks. I wonder how many people type “God.com” into their computers. I wish I’d thought of that address. Anyway, it opens into a list of more questions than answers, thereby embracing the mystery of God, but quickly dispels the mystery on its links, neatly wrapped in conservative answers trenched in scripture.

#3 – God is Imaginary – 50 simple proofs. I thought this showed particular non-religious bias on Google’s part. Indeed this site has fifty mini-diatribes and a score of videos as well, and touts, “Why won’t God heal amputees?” as the most important question that we can ask about God. I’d rather know who’s going to win the next World Series.

#4 – Simple English Wikipedia – Wikipedia smotes ignorance again!

#5 – “The Interview with God – official website” – This site had the most legitimacy. It would not load more than a blank screen onto my computer. I loved it! The mystery of God fully intact! (Yet with the acknowledgement that the answers do exist.)

#6 – answers.com – With Catholic and Jewish sponsored links.

#7 – Catholic Encyclopedia – I felt guilty not to read it.

#8 – All About God – The mission is “to share the Good News with the Globe via the World Wide Web.” They publish content on the first few pages of popular search engines. Doesn’t that seem lazy?

#9 – Who is God? – A website from All About God. You can’t get away from them. They’re like Wikipedia.

#10 – doesgodexist.org – Science and faith are friends, not foes. How else could God exist on the Internet, which is driven by the findings of science? And then there’s a lot of stuff to buy, from books and videos and DVD’s and even a correspondence course.

Thus the Internet is no different from any other forum where you might ask about God. It offers a buffet of answers as long or as wrong or as right as you would like them. So where does this bring you and God? Probably right back to where you are, direct link, no secondary sources.

WASTING TIME

God invented dinosaurs first before He figured out how to fold intestines. I figure it was a straight shot, mouth to anus, a really really long digestive track that allowed adequate time for nutrient absorption by virtue of its very length. Then God realized how bad dinosaurs were for the environment. They were huge! They produced huge waste! Then He killed them off and buried the fossil fuels so they wouldn't be a trouble to us.

That was before God figured out how to fold time.

Let us consider the pocket watch. No single technological device has revolutionized fashion and power as much as the pocket watch. The cell phone is simply the upgraded version. The pocket watch necessitated an extra and specialized pocket to be sewn into the waistcoat, wherever waistcoats were worn. Sure Big Ben was visible from the mid-eighteen hundreds up and down the river, but you could be in an interior chamber of an interior chamber waiting for St. Paul’s Cathedral to chime and wondering how long you’d have to wait. If you had a pocket watch, then you had knowledge in the palm of your hand.

If KNOWLEDGE IS POWER and TIME IS MONEY and if you had a pocket watch, then you’ve Ben bringing home the Bacon!

“Knowledge is power.” Francis Bacon 1597
“Time is money.” Benjamin Franklin 1748

If you could fold time into the pocket of your clothes, then travel to anywhen is nearly possible; certainly travel to anywhere along the connections of you wireless Internet device.

(I remember a time when it was a big deal, I mean a BIG deal to pay fifty bucks to get a clock chip added to your computer. You could use the word processor…or the spreadsheet—not both!—AND see the time displayed. It was a vast luxury, especially if you were in college and you had a wristwatch and a wall clock. I had some explaining to do to my parents. Anyway, is there a computer today manufactured without a clock function? Time may be money, but I think time is getting cheaper. Maybe time is somehow linked with the sub prime market.)

American physicist, John Wheeler, coined the term “black hole” and also said that “Time is nature’s way to keep everything from happening at once.” But who’s to stop the Internet? Everything DOES happen at once on the Internet and there’s no clock to stop it! Information is loaded and used and moved without stratigraphy to form any kind of context. For instance, one of the rudest forms of communication is chat format, whereby you can have a conversation with everybody talking at the same time. It’s like a party where you have to shout over the music in order to be heard. But who is really listening? Miss Manners would certainly fail to approve.

Is time natural, as Wheeler infers? From Darwin we understand evolution in terms of change as a function of survival plus time. Who is time’s keeper? Does God make time for us? Or do we make time for God? Where does time come from? Where does time go? Does time walk before it flies? Does time ever land? How many feathers are there in a second? How many clocks are sold in second hand shops? How many minute hands does it take to push the hours along? Is time really ours?

Needless to say, my time management skills are…well that’s why I blog. It’s the perfect use of lack of focus between any given hash marks of the clock face.