TIME OFF

I am taking some time off from The Buddha Diaries. It's a difficult decision for me. On the one hand, there's the fear that readers will abandon me in droves, especially at a moment when my (world-wide!) readership seems to have been building once again. On the other, the blog is an addiction of a kind, and missing even a day is accompanied by a feeling that I have not done something that I should have done.

But there is another call right now, and it has been getting stronger by the day: I have mentioned, I'm sure, that new book of essays I have been working on, a kind of sequel to Persist, whose success has encouraged me to believe that there are readers who would welcome another of its kind. The project has been sitting around in fairly complete manuscript form for a good while now, just begging for attention, and it needs time and patience to work through and bring to completion.

I have watched myself postpone that work from day to day and week to week and have reached the point where I know that I have to clear the head space and the time to get it done. So I need to put my ego-attachment to The Buddha Diaries aside and focus on this other commitment for the next couple of weeks at least. It may be that odd pieces emerge along the way that I'll want to post here, too, but my main thrust is going to have to be elsewhere.

I'm confident that those who are kind and interested enough to follow The Buddha Diaries will be back when I return to it. In the meantime, though, here's sending metta to all, a wish for good health and happiness--not to mention a national return to sanity in time for the election!

BIG DAY AT LACMA

We're back down at the beach this weekend after a two-week stint in the big city. It was actually an easier and friendlier return than we had feared. The house was welcoming and efficient: this time, for a change, we found no malfunctions. The lights worked. The fountain played. The fish swam, happy to see us back...

And we edged our way gingerly back into the world of art and culture. Last weekend, as I noted in The Buddha Diaries, there was a round of galleries with some interesting shows. Then, Thursday, a big press conference at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to introduce the new Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. Designed by the Italian architect, Renzo Piano, and surrounded by an artist-designed palm garden by Robert Irwin, it replaces one of those vast, hideous LA parking structures that we all love to hate. A low-profile, seemingly rather modest single story structure from outside, the pavilion creates a wide open space for what LACMA boasts is "an acre of art."

In his short address at the press conference, the architect described it nicely as a "tolerant space" which seeks to capitalize on one of our chief attributes in this part of the world: light.

Piano is a known maestro in the use of natural light, and the quality he has achieved in the Resnick Exhibition Pavilion is reminiscent of the exquisite serenity of light in the Louis Kahn-designed Kendall Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The three concurrent inaugural installations--more in a moment--are designed to highlight the flexibility (well, "tolerance") of the space, but a wide central swath allows an unobstructed experience of this calm, even distribution of light from the banks of skylights overhead. Art objects of all kinds are hungry for light--even though some have to be protected from it--and spring to life when exposed to it in the most appropriate way. Thus, in the central area, a spectacular collection of ancient objects from the Mesoamerican past is allowed to shimmer with renewed vitality even in the context of the contemporary world.

(My own I-Photo: excuse poor quality)

As noted, the acre of space is for the present divided into three separate and very different exhibition spaces. The central "aisle" is devoted to "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," which in fact features masterworks from roughly 1400 to 400 BC, ranging from the massive stone portrait heads of rulers...

... to quite tiny sculptural objects of both ritual and utilitarian significance...

Documented with a rich resource of historical information, the exhibition is a fine example of what a museum like LACMA should be doing at its best, bringing the past to life and allowing us the opportunity to experience that particular moment in human history through the objects that its people made and left behind them.

(IPhoto: as above)

Confronted with these ancient products of the human imagination, fabricated by human hands no different from my own, I feel both a physical and spiritual connection with those who strove, so many centuries ago, to come to terms with the mystery of their own humanity--and learn that much more about my own. Impossible to stand before those massive, silent presences without a profound emotional response that reaches into the complex depths of consciousness.

To western side of this central corridor is "Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection," a fitting tribute of gratitude to Lynda and Stewart Resnick, whose generous gift supported the construction of the Pavilion. Installed in rococo splendor...

(I-Photo: as above)

... complete with Versailles-sized mirrors, rich wallpapers, chandeliers and fine furniture, the huge collection of paintings and sculptures vies valiantly with the effusion of decorative arts. I have to say that I am not a big fan of (mostly French) art of the period, but my eye was tickled by a couple of sensual extravagances like this Boucher painting...

... and by a naughtily charming Fragonard painting of two pubescent girls with their dogs (no image available in the LACMA press package.)

The area to the east of the Olmec show is devoted to the third installation, "Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915," another exhilarating example of museum work at its best. Beautifully installed along a winding corridor, as though but recently resurrected from their packing crates, these eye-popping exemplars of stitchery and design are at one level a sheer aesthetic pleasure for the eye, on the other a social and economic history of Europe in its heyday. If the Olmec show invites us into the world of Mesoamerica, long before the arrival of Columbus and the European colonizers, "Fashioning Fashion" allows us a glimpse--no, the offer of a prolonged and detailed investigation--of those Europeans and their culture of glorious, even wasteful extravagance.

The exhibition includes a multitude of truly beguiling dresses and magnificently wrought textiles...

But I'm particularly glad that the curators chose to include the support systems for many of the costumes--the bustles and crinolines, petticoats...

... and corsets--since these, it seemed to me, evoked not only the artifice that supported these very beautiful and glamorous garments but also the underlying systems of monarchies and the increasingly wealthy bourgeois classes that predominated.

"Clothes make the man," wrote Mark Twain, echoing the old adage. "Naked people," he added with a twinkle, "have little or no influence on society." What, I wonder, would the Sun King have looked like without his peacock's display of couture, fancy accessories and wigs?

All in all, it is gratifying indeed to have this wonderful new exhibition space on the still-developing LACMA campus. Located at the center of our sprawling mass of cities, it is well placed to be the "town square" for all of Los Angeles that it aspires to be.

Louis

We are celebrating a new addition to our extended family. Meet Louis...

... just last week adopted by my son Jason. His name derives from his shelter name, KaLu. A good deal. Both get a fine new companion with whom to share all the blessings and benefits of affection. There seems to be some bonding going on...

HARVEST MOON...

... over Hollywood, seen from our balcony, through the branches of our eucalyptus tree...

This morning, I'll be attending the big press conference celebrating the opening of the new Resnick Pavillion at the Los Angeles County Museum...

It will take up the better part of the day. Back tomorrow.

Don't Ask...

... me what goes on inside the heads of those Republican senators. Their lockstep vote rejecting the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" can be understood only in terms of petty, revenge politics. With large majorities even of their own supporters backing the repeal, they once again chose the path of "No" to anything proposed by those whose vestigial hold on "power" they seek to grab. This decision clearly had nothing to do with the will of the American people, nothing to do with what's best for the country or even its military forces; it had nothing to do with simple common sense or reason. Spite, I think, would be a good word for their action.

That not one senator on the Republican side was willing to think for him- or herself (at least, alas, a couple of Democrats did!) speaks to a cynicism about their role which in turn reflects poorly on the responsibility with which they address the work they are elected to do. I can find no motive in their action other than the obsession with a defeat of the Democrats and return to power. Unless, of course, they imagine that undisguised homophobia will garner them the even more enthusiastic support of their extreme right-wing base.

I was surprised to hear the media response, that this should be read as a further political setback for Democrats. Admittedly, they lost the battle of Don't Ask, Don't Tell for now; but they may find themselves in a better position to win the war. Well, at least the current war--the November election. I tend to think--or hope, let's say--that this new act of political spite will turn into a defeat for Republicans. At some point, surely, they will overstep the bounds and alienate not only every voting moderate in the country but even the most reliable of their supporters. Such blatant and irrational partisanship is no way to move forward with the country's business.

Pedestal (and Other) Pieces

(for MandT)

Unusually, we stayed this past weekend in town and spent Saturday afternoon catching up with many of the art galleries in the Culver City area. Most had openings scheduled for the evening, but we had committed to break the (Yom Kippur) fast at our friend's house in the evening. And besides, we were just as happy to see the art without the crowds of people.

There were good things to see--and much that will be omitted here. I don't aim to be encyclopedic. Nor am I writing critical "reviews." The following are not by any means the only shows worth seeing, they're simply the ones that seemed to fit in some peculiar way together, and all are shows that appealed particularly to my eye. All happen to be three-dimensional work, and all use glass and/or ceramic as their medium. Two of them happen to be the result of collaborations between two artists, an interesting twist in a culture that generally celebrates the cult of the individual.

Let's start with Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker, who have been working together for a quarter of a century, creating playfully colorful ceramic objects that are at once provocative and cheerfully decorative. In "Pool Toys" at Maloney Fine Art, they use inflatable or plastic pool toys as molds for sculptural elements, which they then assemble into eccentric characters like "Lil Big Gurl"...

or "Landroid":

There's definitely something "retro" about these figures, recalling the decorative styles of the mid-20th century. There's a touch of charming innocence about them that I like, a refusal to be cowed by the mainstream's fear of having fun with pattern and color. Their optimistic energy is a welcome relief, at this moment in our history, to a social, cultural and political climate that seems to be driving us at breakneck speed toward the abyss.

By the same token... When you first step in to the Koplin Del Rio Gallery, you'll be dazzled by the glitz and gleam and the extravagant exuberance of "Animexican," a multifarious assemblage of glass works by the de la Torre brothers, Einar and Jamex...

Including both pedestal and large-scale wall pieces, these over-the-top works comprise a bit of everything, from current political satire to references to ancient Aztec deities, from the kind of Chicanismo represented by tag art, murals and low-riders to folk art, retablos, and the long tradition of Catholic hagiography. So far as I can tell, the brothers employ a whole range of media, from the multi-colored blown glass that predominates in these works to found objects and photography. It's a huge, joyful, uninhibited dance with color and energy, broad humor and polemic, eclectic form and global content, body, soul and spirit which includes the viewer in its passionate embrace of life--and art.

Here's a recent interview with the brothers by James Chute of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In Exiles & Nomads at Angeles Gallery, my friend Micaela Amateau Amato (again, these are not "reviews," so I'm free to talk about my friends) uses both glass...

Micaela Amateau Amato, "Exiles & Nomads" Cameroon figure with yellow hands, 2010. Cast glass on welded steel base, 17 x 11 x 9-1/2 inches and ceramics...

Micaela Amateau Amato, "Exiles & Nomads"

Ceramic figure with bent body-pink face, 2009. Glazed ceramic, 11 x 7 x 9 inches

... to create works that "symbolize people across the globe who have suffered the brutalities of war and tribal ethnic cleansing." The expressions and postures of these small heads and figurines are as eloquent as the glazes Amato employs to suggest distortion, dislocation, fracture and dismemberment. Their references to art historical precedent--from Egyptian funerary sculpture to Mexican santos, tribal African carving and Japanese butoh performers-- remind us that the human diaspora of the 21st century has become a world-wide and sometimes agonizingly problematic phenomenon, as the global climate continues to change and resources deplete. This work is about the commonality of human suffering, human survival and the dignity of the human spirit in a world where religious and cultural differences threaten to become even more destructively divisive. It reminds us that art is still one place where we all can come together.

On another front entirely, I also greatly liked Mark Dean Veca's When the Shit Hits the Fan at Western Project. Here's an installation shot:

Veca is bold in taking on politics in painting, and his slant on the current economic crisis and its effects on our society are funny, crisp, irreverent and, from my point of view, right on the money. Forgive the pun.

That's all, indeed, folks. We're fast coming to the end of this American movie.

AND, FROM LAST SATURDAY'S ART TOUR...

With my attention drawn primarily by the Roland Reiss exhibits, I did skip over another show that does warrant at the very least a mention. It's called Prelude to an Apolcalypse at Pederson Projects in Pomona, and it includes a couple of paintings by each of four artists. Landscape, it seems to me, is making a significant come-back these days, as artists experiment with ways in which they can address this long-standing convention in new and challenging ways. The landscapes in "Prelude" ask us, in different ways, to consider how this artistic tradition can be viable--even compelling-- at a time when all landscape is susceptible to summary obliteration by human-made weaponry or decimated by human-made pollution. The "apocalypse" of the show's title is not some Biblical or mythical fairy-tale; it's a very real, very imminent possibility, and it could be upon us even within the course of the current century. No wonder these paintings are haunted by a sense of imminent threat, whether in explicit imagery or by implication. I'll just append them here and invite your contemplation. Here's Wendell Gladstone, Sanguine, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches:

and Lisa Adams's Privilege Entails Responsibility, 2010, oil on panel, 48 x 40 inches:

Greg Rose, Arcadia 2006, oil and alkyd on canvas, 48 x 72 inches:

and finally Amir H. Fallah's Terminated, 2008, acrylic, watercolor, ink, collage and pencil on paper mounted on canvas, 84 x 60 inches:

The raw quality of image, the sometimes garish color, the dream-like vacancy... all these contribute to the un-ease of these paintings, the dis-quiet with which they leave us. Thanks for joining me on this tour.

Mad Men

This mind-boggling piece of garbage got mostly buried in the jungle of 24-hour news. It should be seen. If you haven't yet seen it, be patient for a moment through the Chris Matthews intro before you get to the red meat. This man, Newt Gingrich, has not until quite recently been widely perceived as a right-wing fanatic; and the fact that he puts himself forward as a rational spokesman for Republican ideals and goals should make us all shudder. Please listen to what he has to say. And note the audience response, cheering the ravings of this mad man as though they were Gospel.

At least Eugene Robinson paid attention, in a Washington Post op-ed piece. The man is out of his mind.

DISTORTION

If you had actually watched President Obama's town hall meeting on the economy yesterday, you would have come away with a very different impression than if you had simply watched the news reports. The latter focused almost exclusively on the questions, many of which came from people who were genuinely--and understandably--disappointed in the administration's progress in solving the country's economic problems, especially unemployment. Pundits, in addition to news reporters, pounced on these questions as evidence of the President's political problems.

What all these people ignored, however, were the answers. I'm convinced that anyone who followed the session, as I did, would have been as impressed as I was by the way in which Obama answered every question thrown at him. He handled them with grace, understanding, empathy, and a wealth of facts and knowledge--a truly impressive performance. He did not skirt issues, but answered difficult questions frankly, with acknowledgement of his own frustration with the intractability of the problems and his failure to address them with greater speed. He came across as the reasonable, practical, fair-minded man I voted for, whose intelligence and thoughtfulness are needed more, in today's political circumstance, than all the nonsense that passes for political discourse.

It's in this way that the "news" is distorted on its way between the source and the listening public. No wonder people are responding as they do to the comedian Jon Stewart's plea for a return to sanity and reason. It takes a satirist to talk common sense. Who'll join me on the Mall, October 30th?

TED Talk

For those interested, here's a link to the video of my TED talk, Heeding the Call, at TEDx Fullerton, hosted by the Fine Arts Division at Fullerton College, Fullerton, CA.

MAD HATTERS...

Tea Party enthusiasts may fervently believe their "movement" to be a grass roots conservative resurgence.

That's questionable, at best.

The truth now appears more likely to be that they are not the freedom advocates they believe themselves to be. Instead, they are the unwitting tools of those who would take advantage of their inchoate rage and disempowerment to achieve goals that are inimical to their best interests.

Their enthusiasm is being bought, converted into political power, and cynically exploited by those who seek to multiply already excessive fortunes. They have been persuaded to transfer their treasured freedoms from the government they hate into the hands of the hidden oligarchs who pull their strings.

The beyond-rich inundate the airwaves with distortions and lies in order to control the outcome of supposedly democratic elections; in increasing numbers, like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina here in California and a multitude of candidates elsewhere, they pour their millions into the funding of their own campaigns, or those of people they can manipulate to do their bidding when elected.

Am I paranoid? You bet!

LEAD EDITORIAL--NYT

The Secret Election

Published: September 18, 2010

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For all the headlines about the Tea Party and blind voter anger, the most disturbing story of this year’s election is embodied in an odd combination of numbers and letters: 501(c)(4). That is the legal designation for the advocacy committees that are sucking in many millions of anonymous corporate dollars, making this the most secretive election cycle since the Watergate years.

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• Times Topic: Campaign Finance

As Michael Luo reported in The Timeslast week, the battle for Congress is largely being financed by a small corps of wealthy individuals and corporations whose names may never be known to the public. And the full brunt of that spending — most of it going to Republican candidates — has yet to be felt in this campaign.

Corporations got the power to pour anonymous money into elections from Supreme Court and Federal Election Commission decisions in the last two years, culminating in the Citizens United opinion earlier this year. The effect is drastic: In 2004 and 2006, virtually all independent groups receiving electioneering donations revealed their donors. In 2008, less than half of the groups reported their donors, according to a study issued last week by the watchdog group Public Citizen. So far this year, only 32 percent of the groups have done so.

Most of the cash has gone to Republican operatives like Karl Rove who have set up tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations. In theory, these groups, with disingenuously innocuous names like American Crossroads and the American Action Network, are meant to promote social welfare. The value to the political operatives is that they are a funnel for anonymous campaign donations.

Mr. Rove’s group, American Crossroads, hopes to spend $50 million, and is already advertising against Democratic candidates in California, Pennsylvania, Nevada and other states. The American Action Network, led by Norm Coleman, the former Republican senator from Minnesota, is spending $25 million, and has been blasting the Democratic senators Patty Murray in Washington and Russell Feingold in Wisconsin.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, still boiling over its failure to stop health care reform, is spending $75 million to defeat the lawmakers who approved it. Their donors need not be revealed. (Labor unions are trying to do the same thing for Democrats, but cannot raise nearly as much money.)

The new secrecy era began with the 2007 Supreme Court decision in the Wisconsin Right to Life case, which tore away federal restrictions on corporate and union political spending in the weeks just before an election. The F.E.C. interpreted that decision to mean that unless an ad explicitly said “elect John Doe” (as if that matters), corporate donors did not have to be disclosed.

Then the Citizens United decision fully legalized such donations under the First Amendment. That new protection has led to the flourishing of the (c)(4) groups, which know they will not be investigated by a deadlocked F.E.C. or an Internal Revenue Service that has bigger issues to deal with.

The Citizens United decision, paradoxically, supported greater disclosure of donors, but Senate Republicans have filibustered a bill that would eliminate the secrecy shield. Just one vote is preventing passage. That act is coming back for another Senate vote. The two Republican senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, might want to read a recent poll by the Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, which showed that 80 percent of the state’s voters support public disclosure.

It is too late for a new law to have any effect on the dark swamp of this year’s elections, but there is still hope that Congress will allow the sun to shine on the elections of 2012 and beyond.

THE BUDDHA DIARIES apologizes to The New York Times for stealing their editorial today.

Please go back to my Manifesto and consider joining me. Otherwise, we're all screwed... Forgive the un-Buddhist language.

RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY

That's it! We're going!

If it takes a pair of comedians to bring us back to our senses, so be it.

I just bought tickets for Ellie and me to go to Washington DC to join the Jon Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity!

Not to mention Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive!

Will you join us on the Mall?

"The Call"

Here's a link to my essay, "The Call," as it appears in today's Cultural Weekly. Please check it out.

The Lowest Form of Humor

We all know, of course, that Barack Obama is directly responsible for this (double dip?) recession. Had he not run for office--and had the temerity to win!--we would never have taken this disastrously socialist path to economic perdition. The wealthy--poor souls!--would still be raking in the wealth, their profits continuing to trickle down in an endlessly munificent stream to the impoverished, who have only themselves to blame for their predicament: it was they who in their crass ignorance elected a man whose primary goal was to destroy this country so that his Muslim terrorist brothers could take over the world!

Today's New York Times headline, "Recession Raises U.S. Poverty Rate To a 15-Year High," comes as no surprise to those of us who are smart enough to recognize Obama's evil intentions and failed policies. Had we only pursued the path that Ronald Reagan--blessed be His memory!--laid out for us; had we only had the good sense to cut taxes for our richest citizens still further than George W. Bush; had we only completed the task of dismantling regulations on financial markets and empowering those corporate leaders who have nothing but our best interests at heart; had we only allowed our oil companies and energy giants to provide for our needs without the stranglehold of government regulation, how much better off we all should be!

So let's return to the straight and narrow this November. Let's elect those untrammeled by knowledge or experience; who'll line the stuffed pockets of the very rich--poor souls!--until they overflow, no longer a trickle but a flood of wealth for all; who'll wisely trust to the munificence of corporations and their lobbyists; who'll finally return government to the hands of "the people"; who'll restore the American health care system to its former profitable glory; and who will save us from the imminent, dire threat of socialism.

Oh, and while we're at it, let's all do what we can to help bring down that tyrannical impostor in the White House, and send him back to the jungle whence he came. Good God, if he hasn't saved the country by now, what does he think we elected him for?

I'm game. Are you?

(Okay, okay. I know that sarcasm is the lowest form of humor. But what else is left?)

My TEDx Talk

I have now posted the text of my TEDx talk from September 10th on Persist: The Blog. You will find a link in the right hand sidebar or click here.

Roland Reiss

I have written a good deal about my friend Roland Reiss over the years. He has made a remarkable contribution to the rich and constantly growing heritage of contemporary art in Southern California as one of a handful of artists whose work successfully extends beyond the studio into the academic realm. In this part of the world I can think only of John Baldessari, whose legendary tenure at CalArts has been as widely influential as Roland's at Claremont Graduate School (now University). Retired from teaching, Roland is now an Emeritus professor of the Art Department, and last Saturday there was a luncheon at the CGU President's residence to celebrate a new Endowed Chair in Painting in his name. Among the guests assembled to celebrate his career were not only CGU board members, administrators and colleagues, but numerous of his former students who have established their own careers throughout the country.

It was a notable occasion, accompanied by no less than four concurrent exhibitions in the area acknowledging the breadth and depth--and indeed the diversity--of Roland's contribution. At the CGU galleries, a selection of his most recent paintings is on show in the main gallery, along with a three-dimensional installation work in the adjacent "Projects" gallery. The paintings, exhibited under the title "Flora: Recent Paintings," could as well have been called "The Defiance of Beauty." It is daring indeed for a contemporary artist to paint large canvases whose dominating foreground image is a bouquet of decorative, exquisitely painted flowers--not to mention the occasional brightly colored butterfly! Yet these paintings bring together many of the themes that Roland has addressed in the course of decades of work. In the background, like fading but persistent memories behind those great bouquets, we find subtle areas of geometric abstraction and linear, architectural planes, along with the silhouettes of miniaturized images of cityscapes and other vestiges of our contemporary civilization. (You'll need to look pretty closely here to see them...)

(All images in this post thanks to the respective galleries)

These are bravura performances by a painter of profound experience and skills acquired over decades of commitment to his art. The paintings are at once powerfully eloquent and moving. It's as though the artist were vigorously asserting the primacy of nature--and of natural beauty--over everything that man has wrought in the past century, from artifact to technology, to institutions and systems of all kinds--all of which fades into a neutral, barely distinguishable background. Except... for the irony that the flowers themselves are rendered in a way that leaves the viewer unsure whether they too are "natural" or "artificial." It seem to me that Reiss is inviting our minds to play with the increasingly blurred distinction between the two.

This play is underscored by the installation in the Projects gallery, "A Garden for Sally..."

In this provocative challenge to our assumptions about art (these are fake flowers, right? Are they, then, Roland's "art"?) and nature (these flowers are fake, right? Don't we despise fake flowers? And how can they be beautiful?) Roland sets up row upon row of fake flowers, a veritable carpet of artifacts which is surprisingly beautiful, even moving. It triggers a good deal of reflection on the way in which we use flowers--those little stands are on sale at Forest Lawn, right? They belong on grave sites?--and our culture's eagerness to replace nature with its own dubious creations. Confronting us with what most of us believe to be kitsch, Roland invites us to meditate on the ways in which the structures created by the artist can transform the way we see things.

Leaving the Claremont Graduate University galleries, we made our way down to what used to be the Claremont Art Museum, but is now the OBJCT Gallery which combines an interest in art with the pleasure of fine design. Their current exhibit, in a back gallery space, is an installation created by Roland in the 1970s--a time when he was making three-dimensional works. His dioramas dating from that time are deservedly well-known--boxes that contain quasi-narrative, quasi-theatrical scenes of mysterious real-world events, recreated in tiny, hand-made, immaculately crafted stage sets, where the view is left not only with the wonder of things made so small, but with the enigma of their placement in these environments. Contrariwise, he made some of these environments in large scale...

"The Castle of Perseverance" (above, today and below in 1978) has been painstakingly recreated for the occasion. Constructed entirely out of fibre board, it could be seen as a large-scale version of those small dioramas. Exquisite in detail, it's one of those works that make the viewer gasp in astonishment at the meticulous workmanship it have required, as well--again!--as the sheer beauty of the installation, whose uniform color and bland, unblemished surfaces bleed out the distracting individuality of our normal world and ask us to look at everything anew.

On to Pomona just a few minutes south, where Andi Campognone has assembled the remarkable "Roland Reiss: Works From the 60s." Back then, California art enthusiasts will recall, artists like Billy Al Bengston, DeWain Valentine, Craig Kaufman and others were exploring new ways of making paintings with surfaces created of metal, glass, or fiberglass. (People who like art to have labels called it "Finish Fetish.") I was actually surprised--I need not have been--by the evidence that Roland was not only engaged in this new art at the time, but that he made some stunning contributions to the genre, as always with an eye for breathtaking beauty:

Our last Roland Reiss stop on this inspiring tour was at the Bunny Gunner Art Gallery, just a block further on from Andi Campognone. This show was called "For Roland," an assemblage of mostly small works by nearly two hundred and fifty former CGU students from throughout the country, ranging from the well-established to the accomplish but obscure (too many of those! So many deserve recognition.)

Organizers of the whole RR celebration had managed to keep this part of the event secret from the honoree until the moment he walked into the gallery on opening night last Friday. I can hardly imagine the emotion he must have felt, seeing this tribute to his life's work beyond his own studio walls. I imagine tears might have been in order. Unhappily, I was not there to witness the event.

Unhappily, too, the gallery was closed the day after the big opening, when I was doing my tour. A note on the door informed me that everyone was so exhausted from the previous night that they were busy recovering. I was, however, able to peer through the window to see a good part of the show, and was amazed by the passion and diversity of talent on display. The gallery sent me these installation shots:

All in all, the Claremont-Pomona exhibitions offer a unique glimpse into the life and work of a man who has given himself over unstintingly to both his own studio work and to the students who have learned from him. They have been fortunate to benefit not only from his eye, his understanding, and his skills, but also from the way in which he has modeled the life of the artist for them, and from the generosity of his heart. I'm delighted not to have missed this opportunity to join in the celebration.

The Motor Bus

You know how you wake up sometimes in the middle of the night with this scrap of a song or a poem in your head and you just can't get rid of it? You can't remember the whole thing, either. It just sits there, teasing your brain and leaving you incapable of further sleep. It happened to me last night with this ridiculous macaronic verse written, I discovered this morning, by the Oxford scholar Alfred Denis Godley, who died in 1925. Godfrey held the post of Public Orator at Oxford--a job that required him to write verses in Latin for momentous occasions.

The piece I woke up with? You won't believe this. I mean, it's a total stretch. Here are the lines: "What is this that roareth thus/Can it be a motor bus?/Yes, that smell and hideous hum/Indicant motorem bum..." I mean, what on earth could have provoked the memory of these lines, learned more than sixty years ago and forgotten since that time? Google provided the answer--not to that question, unfortunately, but to my brain's desperate hunt for the rest of the lines. For your enjoyment:

What is this that roareth thus?

Can it be a Motor Bus?

Yes, the smell and hideous hum

Indicant Motorem Bum!

Implet in the Corn and High

Terror me Motoris Bi:

Bo Motori clamitabo

Ne Motore caedar a Bo---

Dative be or Ablative

So thou only let us live:---

Whither shall thy victims flee?

Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!

Thus I sang; and still anigh

Came in hordes Motores Bi,

Et complebat omne forum

Copia Motorum Borum.

How shall wretches live like us

Cincti Bis Motoribus?

Domine, defende nos

Contra hos Motores Bos!

Make what you will of it. You need to try reading it aloud, I think, and even a non-Latin scholar can latch on to some of the humor. Or maybe not. The poem is a humorous poke, of course, at the arrival of the motor bus on the streets of Oxford in the 1910s, clearly a topic of vital interest to us today, particularly the reference to emissions. It's also a play on the declensions of Latin nouns--nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative--which those of us who are old enough to have been compelled to study such things will surely have gratefully forgotten! I like particularly the last two lines, which I am still able to translate: Lord, defend us from those motor buses!

Where do such things come from? I'm struggling with what I need to learn from this memory, aside from the fact that my brain performs extraordinary feats when I'm not asking to; and too often fails miserably when I ask it to recall a simple memory from yesterday.