The straight dope.

 

Dear Studious,

Yes, I did quit my job, but it isn't over yet, and I am still trying to convince the people that color theory is mutable, consensual, and relative.  I have just now finally found an authority to say it right.  Here's the thing to know about color theory: right here, from a painter.  You may have read the others; continue to enjoy their poetry and ideals, eat them up like the cellophane packaged cookies they are, but know this, Amy Sillman is telling it like it is! 

Study this, if you need further proof of her expertise.

Amy Sillman, Unearth, 2003. Oil on canvas, 66 x 78 inches (167.6 x 198.1 cm)

If you need still more evidence, go to her website and watch her wonderful animated films!

Amy Sillman's 1997 oil painting Ocean 1.

I was.

 

Dear Writers,

I was sorting through some papers, and found "I Was."  It's a little poem, and I am putting it here, for you, if you want it.  

I was.

I was going

To tell you

About how it is here, where I live.

About the beauty of it all.  

The branches, the breeze,

Even the chrome and the people;

But a man was walking 

Across the road and 

His shirt said, his chest read, in big, block letters:

BECAUSE I SAID SO.

Shall we?

H. T. Webster's Caspar Milquetoast.

Dear Ones,

Here is a picture of my mind at this moment:  

Swirling, like smoke or music, is this refrain: 

the silver apples of the moon,

the golden apples of the sun

the silver apples of the moon,

the golden apples of the sun.

Also, in a corner, is M F K Fisher, and she is saying:

"milk toast" and "love apples."

Then also there is very heavy pale green drapery, and a smell of dried roses.  There is also a chattery group of mice, that are saying things in very high, very squeaky voices; saying things like this:

Don't forget!  Don't forget!  Make cookies!  Make cookies!  Call your Mom, call your Mom!  And, get those little scraps of poetry gathered up!

All of this, just to ask you if you think we ought to try, after hearing it used as a derogation* for 50 years, to actually make Milk Toast?  I think I will try it, but first I will have to get some milk, because there isn't any, so that means it will be huevos rancheros for dinner instead, but my day of Milk Toast for supper will come.  And, I think I will get the cookies made, too.

Huevos Rancheros

It's a no-recipe recipe, which as you know, is very now, very of the moment.  Pour a little oil in a sauce pan with a lid.  Heat it to low.  Pour about 1/2 inch or so of red (or green!) salsa, or enchilada sauce into the pan, crack eggs into it, spacing them a few inches apart.  Cover the eggs with some cheese- jack is nice, so is fontina.  Something mild and melty.  Put the lid on the pan and let the eggs poach in the salsa.  When the eggs are opaque, it is done, and you may serve it with tortillas or refried beans or both.  Sour cream is nice, too, if you have it on hand.

Tartine's Shortbread Cookies.

* Milquetoast.

Yeats.

belatedly

 

Dear Listener, Reader, Viewer, and Friend,

I forgot, again, this year, to note on February 10, the anniversary of our little meetings here.  It's been going on for 9 years.  Ain't it funny, how the time slips away? 

Encore. 

Another encore.

Encore again.

the rhymes of the flowers

 

Tiger, Corita Kent, 1965, Serigraph, 23"h x 35"w

Dear Violets Are Blue,

Yesterday, I skated past you, on the walk, over and over.  Ka-tunk, ka-tunk, when the wheels passed over the seams in the concrete.  Each time I could catch that faint scent; and of course, I saw you, too; just a few of you, maybe a dozen blooms?  But the scent see, that is maybe the thing.  Like night, like water, but faintly sweet, medicinal.   Like the smell of lightning.  Yes, and the color, well, it is one of the special purples of flowers- the tiniest hairs making a dense reflective nap like velvet. 

A project that would be fine is to collect these purples when I see them.  To match each one with a bit of paint on a square of paper; yes that would be a fine project.  A kind of world tour of botanical violet hues.

Watermelon, Corita Kent, 1965, Serigraph, 18"h x 24"w

terms and taxonomy

 

Dear Songs,

Oooh, you know what I love?  High context language and specific terms!  Wikipedia is packed with it, and I go there sometimes to look up one thing, and I find a delightful sub-genre or term.  Remember the Narcocorrido?  So great!  Check out this one:  The Power Ballad.  Nope, it's not what you think; it ought to be a story of my one true love going down to the river and falling over the damn, to be churned into electricity to light your night and run your radio.  What it is this, your song of the day!

It's You.

 

Lou Doillon drawing

Dear You,

Here is your song for today, and please do watch the film, as it features Lou Doillon making a large drawing.