Vik Muniz: Waste Land

Following my exchange with the artist Cynda Valle about the movie "Waiting for Hockney," I came upon another movie about an artist that I think is well worth watching. It's called Waste Land, and it follows the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz as he goes to work in what is supposedly the biggest trash dump in the world, the Jardim Granacho in Rio de Janeiro, documenting the labors of a small army of pickers who eke out a bare living there, sorting through mountains of garbage to glean what they can recycle for cash.

I have known about Vik Muniz and his work for quite some time. He is known world-wide for the images he creates using everything from chocolate syrup and peanut butter to odds and end of string and, yes, even garbage. We have in our possession one of his "Medusa Plates"...

... the Medusa's head created of spaghetti and marinara sauce left-overs. It's one of "Christmas Gift" art projects that Peter Norton (of Norton Utilities fame) and his wife, Gwen, send out to a lucky list of recipients each year. Born and raised in poverty in Sao Paulo, Muniz has succeeded in reaching the pinnacle of contemporary art celebrity with work that capitalizes on poverty itself--the poverty of materials that can serve the artists' goals. His work is smart, unafraid of whimsy, and hopefully a reminder to the socially privileged who admire and buy it that there are vast numbers of people in the world who do not share their privilege or wealth.

"Waste Land" documents Muniz's effort to give back to that community in his home land by creating portraits of the men and women whose lives are spent, literally, in society's trash. That they maintain such an admirable sense of human dignity and mutual compassion in such abject circumstances is at once astonishing and humbling. That they are perhaps even more capable of joy and laughter than many who fare much better in life than they is a tribute to their generous spirit of humanity. We come to know and love these people who live so far below the horizon of social acceptability.

There are moments in the film when we worry that Muniz may be coming uncomfortably close to exploiting his subjects, as when he sets them up for photographs in poses that recall art historical icons like "The Death of Marat" by Jacques-Louis David...

... and transforming these icons into reminders of a world where "fine art" is very far removed from the realities of life:

Once the photography is done, however, the workers are invited to become collaborators in the creation of the images, made in huge scale on a warehouse floor to be photographed from high above and transformed into the final images.

How do they benefit the community of pickers? Certainly, at one level, they give face to the faceless. The footage makes clear how much it means to his subjects simply to be seen, and recognized, and heard. They come to life when the camera's eye is trained on them. And then there's money--the life-blood of the art market. Muniz sends the largest of his images--the one above--for sale at a London auction house, the proceeds to benefit the community. After serious debate about the ethical issues involved in so radically uprooting a man from his cultural environment, he invites Tiao, the president of the pickers union and the subject of the Marat picture, to go with him to the sale, and to watch his portrait being auctioned off for some $50,000.

The total proceeds from the project, turned back into the community, reportedly reached $250,000--in a thought-provoking, neatly ironic redistribution of wealth. With the money, a community center was built, an education center, a library. Lives were transformed, as Muniz's subjects found new inspiration in their lives, and new motivation to move on to better circumstances. The scenes in which, at the end, he brought the gift of his pictures of them into their modest homes were particularly touching; attached to the to the walls, the portraits seemed to radiate with a special, transformative significance as families gathered round them with a kind of awe.

This kind of intervention can, of course, easily become patronizing, raising hopes for a single precious moment, then allowing them to crash. This was a worry, for me, in "Waste Land." But the project was saved from this fate, for me, by the possibilities that seem to have opened up for the participants at the end, as the updates scrolled, informing us of new opportunities seized and families reunited. It was rewarding to know that it's possible for an artist with an activist social conscience to produce work that, in turn, produces actual, consequential changes in the world.

Big Brother?

My friend Gary sent me this. I could hardly believe my eyes. If this has not yet reached your attention, it's worth a look. Happy weekend!

Don't ever think you can hide in a crowd.

FASCINATING BUT SCARY!!! If you were there, they would know?

You used to be able to get lost in the crowd, but not anymore. Double click on any area in the picture to bring the person closer. Or, just click the mouse and use the mouse wheel to bring them closer, or click the + for enlargement.

This is a photograph of 2009 Obama Inauguration. You can see IN FOCUS the face of EACH individual in the crowd !!!

You can scan and zoom to any section of the crowd... Wait a few seconds. Double click anywhere, and the focus adjusts to give you a very identifiable close up.

The picture was taken with a robotic 1474 megapixel camera (295 times the standard 5 megapixel camera). Every one attending could be scanned after the event, should something have gone wrong during it.

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c <http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c

A Follow-Up...

This morning I posted a follow-up to Saturday's discussion about what it means to be an artist on Persist: The Blog. I hope you might find it interesting.

Rawhide

A piece on yesterday's CBS Sunday Morning show on the Reagan assassination attempt led me to revisit my conviction that history will eventually see him as a weak President, far from the image of fortitude and strength promoted by his devotees on the American right. He was, in my own estimation, a man who allowed himself to be easily manipulated by wealth and power, and who pandered to the selfishness, narcissism and greed of people who would readily accept simple-minded panaceas at a time when the world was beginning to confront us with ever more complex problems.

Reagan, as I see it, was responsible for ushering this country into a Fantasyland delusion about its exceptionalism with his "shining city on a hill." What bullshit! He used Hollywood-style charm and smoke-and-mirrors to sell this vision with incredible success to gullible American baby boomers, who wanted nothing better than to believe that they were special. If I have the numbers right, as quoted recently by the conservative NYT columnist David Brooks, when asked if they were "very important people," only 12 percent responded "yes" in the early 1950s. By the 1990s, that number had leaped to 8o-something percent.

It was this naive, Hollywood cowboy vision of America that reached its delusional climax, and for all practical purposes died with the George W. Bush debacle in the Middle East. There are those, of course, who persist in attempting to capitalize on it for political gain, but their voices sound absurdly hollow in a world where fear and respect for America have been replaced by the anger of some, the scorn of others. Here at home, Obama's graver and more modest vision of our responsibilities in the world is used as political bait for right-wing voters, but I believe it will prove to be at once wiser and more realistic than the boastful strutting of his predecessor.

It was also Reagan's vision--and supposed modeling--of rugged individualism that led us into the magical thinking at the root the economic plight in which we find ourselves today. On the one hand, his mass firing of air traffic controllers provided the model needed by his corporate sponsors to start out on the anti-labor, union busting orgy we have seen in recent days. On the other, catering to the merely human greed of the American middle class, Reagan's voice was used to persuade them that they could continue to enjoy the excellent government services that supported their unprecedented standard of living--education being the most important amongst them--without paying for them with their taxes.

Reagan, Reaganism and Reagan idolatry have been used by exploitative powers as the fairy dust that clouds the vision of the American electorate. In the long view of history, I predict, they will be seen as the toxins that allowed us to destroy what became, in the 20th century, the most powerful political entity in the history of the world; and perhaps, in its wake--and without exaggeration, if we don't soon wake up to reality--the planet itself. Not an enviable legacy.

Waiting for Hockney

I hope you'll take a look at my entry on Persist: The Blog today. It's about the movie, Waiting for Hockney, which difficult and important issues for creative people of all kinds, I think. You may find that you disagree with me...

The Death of Street Art?

I was interested to see the Banksy film Exit Through the Gift Shop because I had heard it was about street art. It wasn't. And it was. I'll explain in a moment.

Meantime, though, let me say that I do happen to love art that just appears for no apparent reason to trigger the imagination or outrage of unsuspecting passers-by, and disappears almost as quickly as it arrived. It's a great way to bypass the relentless--and to my mind poisonous---commercialism that defines much of the current art scene. It started to happen long before it became fashionable: I think of my old friend Maura Sheehan who, back in the 1970s already, was putting together teams who would go out furtively over the weekend and, say, paint an entire parking lot pink--from the chain link fence to the pavement and every little piece of detritus abandoned there. Imagine driving up to your favorite parking spot on a Monday morning and finding it all pink... And then there were the earlier graffiti artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat prominent amongst them. And Robbie Conal, whose biting, guerilla warfare political posters have been skewering the corrupt and and the incompetent for years. (Actually, if you want to go back to the origins, you need to go back to ancient Greece and Rome. And don't forget Kilroy, of World War II fame. There's a fascinating history of graffiti available on Wikipedia. But I digress.)

Anyway, as I'm sure you know, Banksy is perhaps the most famous of the latest crop of "street artists," as they have come to be known in the past decade or so--along with the likes of Shepard Fairey, whose Obama poster surely made a big contribution in shifting the political winds in favor of the President. I was expecting "Exit Through the Gift Shop" to be a celebration of the wonderfully imaginative work of many of these artists who have been busy thumbing their noses at our society at large and the art world and its values in particular. As it turned out, the film spent relatively little time documenting their work, concentrating instead the meteoric rise of the obsessive French-born Thierry Guetta (aka Mister Brainwash) from Los Angeles trendy shop keeper to video freak and accidental documentarian to, finally, a self-annointed, self-proclaimed street artist.

In a real sense, Banksy's film is a requiem for the recent phenomenon of street art, because it documents its path from marginally criminal--and socially disrespectful--behavior to a boom of collector frenzy and highly profitable commercialism. Guetta himself, initially no more than an rather irritating nerd with a video camera, caught on to the street art phenomenon and started covering the work of some of the artists with countless hours of tape. He was soon in hot pursuit of the ultimate prize, the notoriously elusive Banksy himself, and finally managed to engage his friendship. Following the triumphal exhibition with which Banksy managed to conquer the Los Angeles social and cultural scene, Guetta set about the challenge of becoming a street artist himself. And, though his work could honestly be described as neither "street" nor "art," he brought off a commercial coup which may have delivered a death blow to the spirit behind the movement. With even this mode of expression now debased into mainstream-commerical and with gullible buyers lining up to lay their hands on the stuff, it's hard to imagine how it can continue to be anything but tame.

Even though it was not what I had imagined, though, the film is well worth seeing. Narrated by a hooded, anonymous character in an electronically-altered voice--presumably Banksy--I see it as a cautionary tale about the perils of the human ego when it knows no bounds.

A Surprise Performance

See, I couldn't stay away for long! Despite the disclaimer yesterday, I could not resist a new entry today. The reason is rather a special one. Last night, Ellie and I went out--unusually late in the evening for us--to see our trusty part-time assistant Emily play with her band at a local club. She invited us weeks ago, but we have been away too frequently on Wednesdays, her weekly gig night, to take her up on the invitation. We should have gone sooner... it was great!

The club, 1642, was what she herself describes as a "hole-in-the-wall" in an unlikely spot on Temple Boulevard just west of downtown Los Angeles. It was already crowded by the time we arrived, at nine, just before the band, The Hi-Fi Honeydrops, started its first of three sets. We bought a glass of wine (for me--a sparkling water for Ellie) and settled in at the prime table Emily had kindly reserved for us.

We had no idea, of course, what to expect. I have known Emily only as the wonderful young person who shows up a couple of times a week and does her best to keep me organized. She also comes and stays in the house with George when we go out of town; she has grown to like it here, and finds Ellie's study a good place to practice on her tenor saxophone; for this reason, George is the only one in the family to have heard her play, and he has not let on how good she is.

I knew that Emily was a musician, of course, when she came to work with us a while ago. I just did not know how accomplished a musician she actually is. I had a hard time picturing this very petite young woman with a tenor saxophone, which had to be almost as tall as she is. I'm very glad, now, to have seen and heard her play. Not only, I discovered, does she play the sax with enormous dexterity and skill, she sings with a full-throttle voice I would never have imagined emerging from her throat! I'm certainly no music expert, but to my inexpert ear the band, led by her friend David Elsenbroich, were at once highly disciplined as an ensemble and individually talented musicians. They tackled everything from warmly familiar numbers like "Blue Skies", "Stars Fell on Alabama," and "Stormy Weather" (bravo, Emily!) to Latin and country music. I'm particularly partial to the latter, and loved their lively rendition of Bob Wills's "Rose of San Antone."

Ellie and I both loved the evening, loved the energy, loved the sound. Still somewhat weary from our recent travels, we had forewarned Emily that we'd stay only for the first set. As it turned out, we were so thoroughly engaged, we stayed on for nearly the whole length of the second. As I told Emily before we left, I'll have to treat her now with much greater respect!

Strange Times

These are strange times, here at "The Buddha Diaries." My entries, as you will have noticed, have been unusually irregular these past couple of weeks: there was that unanticipated deadline for a catalogue text, followed shortly by the trip up north to Portland and Seattle. But those are poor excuses. There was a time when neither rain nor shine nor travel to foreign parts would keep me from my daily entries, unless I found myself in some part of the world where I could simply not get online. No, there's something deeper and more puzzling going on--an absence of that motivation that normally keeps me going, no matter where I am or what else is going on.

I think a part of it is that my writing mojo has shifted to other projects. I have another catalogue text due next week and, more challenging, I now have a new book in mind. I woke on the last day of my speaking tour up north with the realization that, while each of my talks is geared to a different audience, there are common threads that run through all of them. Given the enthusiastic response from audiences of all kinds, I know that I have something to say that many people hunger for--and also that it's something more than what I covered in my essays in "Persist." I was up at 3:30 that morning--sleepless in Seattle!--so excited by the ideas that came flooding in that I had to note a few of them down and, indeed, to begin to find the words.

It's finding those beginning words that always leads me to the understanding of what it is I need to say, and for this reason it's important to me to scribble them down when they come into my head. They flow in sequences that I'm unable to reproduce by memory alone, and they give me the edge I need, the first thread. I begin to pull at it and the whole text starts to unravel. It's the unraveling process that engages me, sometimes to the point of obsession, where I can think of nothing else.

So here I am, embarked, in my writing head at least, on something other than "The Buddha Diaries." And yet I do feel a commitment to these pages. Not only a commitment, a sense of gratitude that brings with it a kind of obligation. I'm grateful for the practice the blog has helped me shape, and particularly grateful for the readership. It astounds me that my page views total over a hundred and fifty thousand, and that my hits come in at more than double that rate. This is something I have come to value more than I can say, because I don't write, as some claim, "for myself." I write to be read. Indeed, for me, the very act of writing implies a reader. It makes no sense otherwise.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm allowing myself to be more erratic in my entries than I have been in the past. It feels like a risk--and risks, in my experience, no matter how daunting they feel, have a way of paying off. The bigger the risk, the greater the payoff. This may seem like small potatoes to some. To me it feels like a big one. And, who knows, my addiction might still get the better of me. See you around!

BACK IN L.A.

So, yes, we're back in Los Angeles--returning from the cold and soggy Northwest... to an even colder and soggier Southern California. Really. Our Alaska Airlines flight brought us in through driving rain and unstable air from the west, unusually, down over the Pacific into a bumpy landing at LAX. So bumpy that the passengers all applauded when we finally touched down. The trusty Emily was at the airport, thankfully, to meet us, and drove us home through still pouring rain. George seemed happy enough to see us back, but made his reluctance known when I insisted on taking him our into the downpour for his pee walk.

It was a great trip. We loved Portland, despite the inclement weather, and felt warmly welcomed by a good number of Southern California art world exiles, now very much enjoying their lives in a smaller, more intimate city which is bustling with cultural activity of all kinds. It was great, too, to have the opportunity to get together with my publisher, Paul Gerhards at Parami Press, for the first time. Here we are, at the Portland Art museum lecture.

Paul's blog is When This Is, That Is. One surprise was an email from, and a subsequent telephone conversation with another blogger and a Buddha Diaries faithful, Mark, from whom we used to hear pretty regularly in the "Comments" section. His blog, Dancing Through Life, offers too infrequent insights into the life of a young dancer trying to make ends meet. We had a good talk, but did not manage to find the right time for both of us to sit down together.

I made an entry, as I recall, from the train station in Portland, as we were about to leave for Seattle. One thing I omitted, I believe, was mention of our stop at the famous Powell's "City of Books"--which provided me with a good intro to my lecture at the Portland Art Museum that evening. It is, in fact, a city block with nothing but that good old-fashioned printed material bound by sturdy covers, a treasure house of literature and information ranging throughout history and across the globe. For a writer, as I pointed out in my talk, it's also a nightmare: who would be crazy enough to add to this mountainous pile and, if one were in any case so foolish, how could one expect one's tiny needle to be discovered in this haystack? It's what I write about, the difficult relationship between creativity and commerce.

On from Union Station, then. Riding the train proved infinitely more pleasurable than the alternative--another all too familiar nightmare: air travel. The train offers much more leg room, and much better views...

We could have, should have taken more pictures. There was, notably, a great deal of water everywhere--streams and rivers, tarns, ponds and lakes, and finally, the Puget Sound. Very beautiful landscapes everywhere, and often reminiscent of the English countryside. I suppose it must be the rain... We probably did the trip faster, too, by the time we would have had to allow for the trips to and from the airports, the security lines and the wait for boarding, in addition to the actual flight time. It's nice to be leaving from, and arriving in, a city center.

Our Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle was right next to the vast Convention Center, where the National Art Education Association's conference was held--a gathering of some four thousand art teachers from all across the country...

... who see to the creative education of our youngsters from elementary school through 12th grade. You know, the people we have to blame for all our economic problems...! I would have loved to have put a copy of "Persist"...

... into all four thousand hands--well, I guess eight thousand--but had to be content with those with whom I came in contact. One of the major themes of the conference, to judge from the lecture and workshop offerings, was the need of these creative people to stay in touch with their creative selves despite the challenges of enormously demanding jobs and of course, in many cases, families.

Because our time was short and we wanted to see something of Seattle, we attended only a couple of the conference sessions in addition to a quick tour of the exhibition hall. I was impressed, particularly, with the participants' sense of dedication and enthusiasm for their work. Despite what seems to be a popular misimpression in this country, they are rewarded with far too little respect and money for their service. In addressing the needs of the right side of the brain, art teachers make a largely unrecognized contribution to the spirit of innovation and inventiveness that is sorely needed if we are get out of our current national snit and work towards a better future for this ailing planet.

My two speaking venues in Seattle proved as gratifying as the Portland Art Museum, mentioned in an earlier entry. There was some doubt about what kind of audience we could attract at 11AM on a Saturday morning at the Greg Kucera Gallery in the Pioneer Square district. Need not have worried. The gallery had set out just a few chairs to begin with, not knowing what to expect--they had never done this kind of thing before; but more and more people drifted in, and more and more chairs were added, until the gallery space was actually filled. A great crowd, very informed about the art world and very receptive to my ideas; I gave a half-hour's talk and the question and answer period must have lasted for another half hour after that. I really enjoyed the back-and-forth and was gratified, as always, by the comments as I sat, at the end, and signed a good number of books. (I'm happy to report that, of the box of fifty copies Paul gave me to bring up to Seattle, I had not a single one left to lug back to Los Angeles with me!)

The workshop that brought me to the conference was scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 1PM, leaving me little time between the two. It was, in fact, the brain child of Prof. Amanda Allison, who had invited me to speak at Texas Christian University in Forth Worth last year, and who thought we could collaborate on a useful workshop for teachers. She titled it "Get Back... to the Studio," intending it as a rallying cry for teachers who had lost track of that important artist part of their lives and needed to get back in touch. Amanda provided the framework, allowing me a half hour for my own thoughts about what gets in the way of one's creative life, and what is needed to reclaim it. Again, a gratifying response and challenging questions. I am truly grateful to have discovered this new medium with words, which allows me to connect with people in a very special way.

That's the narrative, then. It was, as I say, a very good trip. I woke early Sunday morning at the Sheraton with a head buzzing with ideas about how to bring this all together in a book...

SEA-TAC

I have been silent, as you may have noticed. Can you believe that the Seattle downtown Sheraton Hotel is wi-fi'ed only in the lobby, a full eighteen floors below our room? Otherwise, it was a matter of using their ethernet connection for a mere $10.95 a day. I was too cheap to shell out for what I thought I should have had for free. And besides, yes, it was a busy couple of days. I'll plan to report in more detail tomorrow, when we get back to Los Angeles.

In the meantime, here I sit at Seattle's Sea-Tac airport...

... nicely wi-fi'ed but with little in my head other than the usual aggravations and humiliations that accompany the experience of being in any airport, anywhere. I had a ghastly oatmeal for breakfast and read the op-ed section of the Sunday New York Times, which scarcely improved my outlook on the world. I hear we're bombing Libya. Dreadful, that it has come to that. Still, what do you do when a tyrant is bent on slaughtering his own people? Shrug it off, and let them die? I see, too, that the Republicans are still hard at their efforts to cut the deficit by further depriving the poor of education and opportunity; and by screwing Mother Nature.

Having spent three days in a throng of four thousand or so art teachers, I do of course know who's to blame for all our pressing problems. Any teacher is fair game, it seems, for those who purport to govern this poor country. As for art teachers... well! We all know that art is a peculiarly useless frill when we have banks to bail out and corporations to subsidize. There are, after all, certain priorities to be observed.

Happy Sunday, then, from Sea-Tac. And welcome back to The Buddha Diaries. More tomorrow.

UNION STATION

Sitting here Thursday morning waiting for our Amtrak train to Seattle. I have a heavy load of books--probably too many--to lug up there for my two Saturday events; plus all the luggage--probably too much, no, certainly much more than we actually needed--that we brought with us. We travel a good deal, but the art of packing still eludes us. We throw it all in... in case. Anyway, we find Union Station nicely Wi-fi'ed, so I can put these few minutes to use while we wait.

Did I mention Monday night? A very pleasant evening, dining in good company at an Italian restaurant where the food was good and the

Yesterday, another cold and rainy day in Portland. We had a lazy start to the day, with room service breakfast, and a good couple of quiet hours for me to get ready for my evening lecture at the Portland Art Museum. Late morning, our friend Clinton MacKenzie picked me up at the hotel and drove me out to his studio, where we spent a good while catching up with his recent paintings--fine abstractions that work with shape, line and color, and even the hint of volume to create complex surfaces for the eye to work with. Then on to a neighboring studio in the same downtown warehouse building, where Trude Parkinson works with large, double-sided images that typically feature figures seen from the rear in wide open landscapes. As always, a real pleasure to visit artists' studios and talk to them about their work.

(Now on board the Cascades 506 bound for Seattle--just left Portland Union station...)

Clinton generously took me out for lunch at Papa Haydn's, where we enjoyed an excellent chicken salad and one (each) of their barely describable, superlative desserts. Mine was a chocolate hazelnut torte with an entirely unnecessary scoop of vanilla ice cream. Through the window, as we indulged our guilty pleasure, we happened to spot our wives indulging theirs: a shopping spree! Ours, I think, was at least a little less expensive.

Back at the hotel, I spent a little more time on my preparation for the evening, and was barely out of the shower when Ellie returned in company--to my surprise--with Paul Gerhards, my publisher at Parami Press. Though we have worked together for a couple of years now, we have not met before, so it was a special pleasure to have the opportunity to get to know him--and, a little later, his wife, Robin.

The talk at the museum went very well, to judge from the response at the reception that followed. I was concerned, at the start, because they had scheduled me in an enormous auditorium, but enough people showed up to make it feel, well, reasonably well attended, especially after I managed to persuade a number of participants to move down from their seats in the back rows to the front. It ended up feeling almost intimate. I was glad to have spent the extra time adapting my chosen topic to this new and different audience, and was rewarded by a good number of people who made a point of seeking me out afterwards to let me know how much the talk had meant to them.

A very pleasant dinner, later, with Paul and Robin, and a good opportunity to get better acquainted. Bed in reasonable time, and up with plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast in the hotel dining room before heading for the station. The hotel staff were so efficient getting us into a taxi that I completely forgot to stop at the desk and pay the bill. Ah, well, I'm sure they'll manage to catch up with me.

For now, I'm going to post, pack this thing away, and enjoy the landscape from the window of our Cascades express. More from Seattle...

PORTLAND

... you'll not be surprised to hear, is wet and cold. But we have felt warmly welcomed, despite the weather. Our friends picked us up at the airport yesterday afternoon and we went with them, in the evening, to a lecture at Reed College on Hieronymus Bosch by the Harvard scholar Joseph Koerner. Like many of us, I suspect, I have always been fascinated by this artist's unbridled imagination and by the enigma of his paintings. And while I greatly respected the depth of Koerner's knowledge and his study of The Garden of Earthly Delights...

... I found myself missing what most intrigues me about the painting--its sheer exuberance, its astounding diversity of image, its seemingly endless delight in the naughtiness of our species, its extraordinary painterly attention to detail. I myself am less interested in what it might have to say--forever debatable and forever moot--than its passionately painted surfaces and figures, its obsessive, visionary, in-your-face, damnable audacity.

Today, we slept unusually long, probably thanks to the heavy drapes in our hotel room. We are used to waking with the light. A leisurely cup of coffee in our room before venturing out, first, to breakfast at Mother's--something of a Portland landmark, we are led to believe. Then on, on foot, to the Pearl district, where we wandered in and of showers to find only a handful of the many galleries in that area; and, on foot again, through sometimes driving wind and rain, to the Portland Art Museum.

The knees were beginning to whine a bit at this point, but we took in the current show called "Portland Collects," with a diversion into the Asian art galleries where we enjoyed an exhibition of Buddhist art and, particularly, some modern Japanese scroll paintings. We had not known that this tradition survived into the twentieth century, and were impressed by the way the artists managed to blend the traditional with the new.

Taking pity on the aching joints, we left the museum earlier than we had intended and scurried back to the hotel, where we are now "resting comfortably"... In a little while, it's out to dinner with friends.

Here We Are...

... nearly a week after I mentioned that an unexpected deadline put The Buddha Diaries on temporary hold. The assignment is now completed and approved. It's a catalogue text about the artist Yisrael K. Feldsott, whose work I wrote about in these pages a couple of months ago. It was a challenging project, devouring a good part of my time over the past few days, only shortly before our departure for the Northwest later this morning. I'm sure that I'll be posting the Feldsott text once it has been published, because the work deserves to be known more widely. This image...

... is just a snapshot taken at the LA Art Fair, but it gives you some idea of the power and passion of the work.

Now our bags are packed and we leave, initially for Portland, Oregon in a couple of hours, and on to Seattle on Thursday. If you're in either city, it would be a great pleasure to meet you. Aside from a conference workshop in Seattle, I have two public events on the schedule: I'll be speaking at the Portland Art Museum at 6PM on Wednesday, and at the Greg Kucera Gallery (212 Third Avenue S) in Seattle on Saturday morning at 11AM.

As usual, when we're traveling, I'm unsure what time I'll get for The Buddha Diaries. I'm feeling a bit cut off from my daily writing practice at the moment--I'm so addicted to the blog that I experience a kind of persistent malaise when I'm not making the regular entries. Ah, well. I'll keep you "posted." Meantime, if you do get to one of those events up north, please be sure to introduce yourself.

Not Quite Ready...

... to get back to The Buddha Diaries yet. I'll try to find time tomorrow to explain what's going on. Meantime, in the spirit of sharing useful information, here's something I received from a friend. I found it of interest, and hope you do, too. Thanks, Marsha!


TIPS ON PUMPING GAS

I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are paying up to $3.75 to $4.10 per gallon. My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon:


Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up; most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.

I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)...and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If It goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would it take?

A Kiss and and Promise

I think it unlikely I'll be posting for the next couple of days; I have a writing assignment that has crept up on me--rather, rushed up on me--and needs to be completed in short order. For today, instead, I offer this charming piece by Emily Beeny from the blog of the J. Paul Getty Museum. I hope she won't mind. It says a lot, with humor, about the perils and delights of writing about art and, particularly, of trying to say a lot in a small space. It's as much a pleasure as the picture she writes about.

That was the kiss. Here's the promise: I'll be back! A bientot...

A Ghastly Dream

So I wake up in the middle of the night. Well, 12:30 might seem like right after bedtime to some people, but to me it felt like the middle of the night. And, after waking, I am having this very hard time getting back to sleep. What's on my mind is next week's trip up north and my speaking gigs there... But there's a transition at some point between having a hard time going to sleep and actually going to sleep and dreaming that I'm having a hard time going to sleep; I'm unaware, then, obviously, that the transition has occurred. Though already asleep, my mind is telling me that I'm still having a hard time going to sleep.

And... for some undetermined reason Ellie and I have decided to change houses in the middle of the night. We are walking from one to the other and Ellie gets into a bit of a snit about the fact that I write a lot about other people's art but I never have anything to say about hers. I'm aware of this but I'm so desperately tired and so desperately in need of sleep that I can barely walk, let alone worry about Ellie's worries. There's just this uncomfortable tension between us...

When we get to the house--it's not actually, from the outside, our house, but it seems to be our house when we get inside--I'm too tired even to get to the main bedroom. I'm in a bit of a snit, too. So I literally fall into the little guest room with its single bed, collapse on the bed, and cover myself with one of our light tartan "blankies"--more comfort than warmth!-- before plunging down into the deepest sleep imaginable. I mean, it's frighteningly deep, and the descent is vertiginously abrupt, like falling over the cliff at the edge of some bottomless pit.

It's not even really sleep. It's all brightness and glare. I find, now, that I'm having difficulty breathing; the breath comes in great desperate gulps, each one more desperate than the last. I begin to think, this is what dying must be like, and panic sets in. I think I should call for Ellie, but I manage to make only these strangled little sounds. She'll never hear me. I think about bashing on the wooden wall, in the hope that she might be awakened by the sound, but that proves equally impossible.

I'm gasping, now, for air; my chest feels like it's about to burst with the effort of catching the next breath, and each breath feels like it could be the last. And finally, with a supreme effort of will, I manage to call out Ellie's name...

... and wake myself, and her, with my cry for help.

(There could be a simple explanation for this dream. As I think I may have mentioned in the past, I sleep with the aid of a CPAP machine, a simple air pump that spares Ellie the sound of the dreadful snore I would otherwise produce and, at the same time, is a prophylactic device for sleep apnea. It requires me to wear a mask, and it's possible, I think, that the mask may in some way have slipped while I was asleep and was obstructing rather than aiding the breath. It's a theory, anyway. Perhaps I was more simply manifesting my fear of death.)

Fingered... But Not Framed

If you haven't already seen it, I'd absolutely recommend director Alex Gibney's documentary Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. It offers new insight into the shocking downfall and disgrace of the one-time Attorney General, one-time Governor of New York, seen from the larger, political perspective at the end of the Bush era and in the light of the financial meltdown that era brought about.

First, be it said that Spitzer was not framed. As he "mans up" (hate that term!) to admitting in his interview appearances in the movie, he was entirely responsible for succumbing to his sexual demons--a failing he shares with more Washington politicians than you can shake a penis at, including, quite obviously and notably, a good number of past Presidents. It was unquestionably his own dismally fateful choice to hang out with the high-end prostitutes of the Emperor's Club, among whose clients were the politicians and business leaders who arrogated unto themselves imperial powers at the apotheosis of the American "Empire," in the bedroom as well as in the boardroom. Who else could afford those services, at minimally a thousand dollars a squeeze? That Eliot Spitzer chose to be among them does not honestly speak well of him. That he chose, as one of his providers attests, the "wham, bang, thank you ma'am" approach does not speak well of his emotional maturity or his ability to comfortably socialize.

The movie does not shrink from portraying him as an awkward and seemingly affectless man, rigid in manner as well as in his dealings with the world. It left this viewer mad at him, not for his tasteless sexual proclivities so much as for their consequence; they resulted in the betrayal of a trust--and of a promise which could have done much to spare the country the ravages of the economic disaster brought about by unregulated wheelers and dealers on Wall Street. As Attorney General, he was the only person in a position of any power to recognize early on, and to confront the excesses and corruption in the financial industry, the outrageous disproportion of executive salaries, and the scantily veiled dishonesty of their business practices.

Uncowed by the power of these "emperors," he used his legal authority to go after criminal activity where he saw it and to advocate for the regulation that might just have deflected the rapidly approaching meltdown, had others chosen to follow his example. In doing so, he made himself unpopular with unscrupulous and vindictive people: the villains of this piece include Hank Greenberg, CEO of the "too big to fail" and soon-to-be ill-fated AIG; the billionaire investment banker Ken Langone; and the eventually disgraced head of the New York Stock Exchange, Dick Grasso--all of whom managed to enrich themselves obscenely at the expense of the millions of Americans who suffered mightily as a result of their unbounded greed. (In a footnote to the movie, Greenberg is shown lamenting that his share in AIG had become "worthless" as a result of his company's collapse, and the federal bailout his mismanagement necessitated. "Worthless," in Greenberg's estimation, turned out to be a measly $160 million. Poor guy, left with barely enough to live on.)

Spitzer capitalized on the popularity his actions earned him by running for the governorship of the state--not a good move, in retrospect, for the rest of us. We needed an Eliot Spitzer to keep doing the Eliot Ness work in the financial sector. As the movie tells the story--I think with accuracy--his abrasive, uncompromising style was ill-suited to the wheel-and-deal political world of Albany. His inflexibility (some would call it honesty) earned him more enemies, notably the Republican President Pro-Tem of the New York State Senate, Joe Bruno (later convicted on mail and wire fraud charges) and his minion, the sleazy political operative Roger Stone, who claimed to have set in motion the probing that eventually led to Spitzer's exposure and disgrace.

The movie suggests, persuasively, that the federal investigation of the Emperor's Club was selective and politically motivated in its pursuit of Eliot Spitzer, the only "john" to suffer as a result of his involvement. The US Justice Department, as the still fairly recent resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales showed, had been suborned to serve the political purposes of the Bush administration and the Republican party. Spitzer was not only a thorn in the flesh of the business establishment and a threat to their unbridled abuse of the financial system, but also a rapidly-rising inspiration for progressive politicians and voters. He had to be discredited.

His enemies took undisguised delight in his unmasking as the patron of expensive whores. Unproven was the very real possibility that they were also instrumental in fingering the object of their hatred. I continue to suspect that Bill Clinton was framed, in the sense that those who wished him ill and knew of his susceptibilities were able to plant a willing morsel of bait within easy sniffing distance of the Oval Office. But there's a difference between pointing the finger and setting a trap, and I'm equally sure that Spitzer had the right mixture of arrogance and undernourished lust to walk into his own. More's the pity. And what a squandered opportunity to thwart the real evil-doers. It's galling that not a single one of them has been held accountable for their actions, nor been required to repay those whom they cheated.

There ought to be a special dungeon for these people, but it's the petty criminals and addicts in our society who get thrown in jail. This it is that the rich criminals get rewarded with further riches--and corrupt politicians with sweet returns on their corruption. Let's not forget the anomaly that Newt Gingrich, who brought about the impeachment of a philandering President even as he was grubbily philandering backstage himself, now has the gall to be strutting the political stage again as he tests out another run for President, while Eliot Spitzer--surely a hero for those of us who believe in accountability and long for justice--continues to languish in disgrace.

The story of this movie is as outrageous as any told by Michael Moore, but without the bombast and the posturing. The meticulous, low-key narrative deserves our attention in this strangest and most desperate of times.

Madman

It's unspeakably sad that our species has learned so little, in this world, that a single madman is still free to massacre his people and wreak such havoc with impunity. It is astounding that this man, Muammar Khaddafi, no matter how you spell his name, continues to control the situation in Libya, despite the fact that the entire world has known him to be delusional for years.

We have lived through many of his kind--and uncountable numbers have been slaughtered by their hands. History teaches us about them. Their names live in infamy. We should by now be able to spot them when they come along. And still we seem to be able to do nothing, when they do, but watch the terror from the sidelines.

I was writing the other day about the ruthlessness of certain politicians. I guess this is the quality that also gives these men their power. If you can awaken enough fear in the hearts of your fellow humans, if you are ready to torture, dispossess and kill without a single moment of compunction, it's possible to bend your countrymen to your will. If I order the execution of my lieutenant for a minor disagreement, the next one in line will not be so ready to disobey.

Is it not extraordinary that we human beings have not as yet developed either the skill or the will to deprive such people of their power? Clearly, once it has rooted itself deeply enough--as it has in the forty-years rule of this tyrant in Libya--it becomes impossible to root out. Outside intervention, no matter the source, is likely only to make matters worse.

So we stand by powerlessly, and wring our hands, and watch, as the same ugly drama is replayed yet one more time. Shame on us!

God Hates...

Oh, and regarding that Supreme Court decision yesterday, which hateful people are hailing as a victory for their hate-inspired cause: I happen to agree with this painful decision, even while deploring the fact that it can be interpreted as a victory for despicable bigots.

On the other hand, I'm quite sure that God, if there were one, would, if he hated anyone, hate people who hate.

Rats!

Ellie noticed it first--a scattered heap of fresh wood chips...

... outside her studio. Our first thought that they were the result of some odd carpentry work on the part of one of our handyman neighbors, so Ellie swept up the debris and we thought that would be the end of it.

Well, no... the next day, more chips. All over the place. We explored further, and found the evidence: animal chew marks on numerous small branches and twigs of the old bougainvillea growth on either side of our balcony...

And small brown turds...

They looked like rat droppings, but I always thought rat droppings were black. I was puzzled.

What do you do in such circumstances? These days, of course, you head for the computer and go online. I googled "small animal droppings" and found a site called All Experts. I sent in my question, and got an answer before the end of the day. Yes, indeed this was likely to be rats, and rats do poop brown sometimes, depending on what kind of nuts they have been eating.

These ones hadn't been eating nuts, they'd been eating our treasured bougainvillea plants--and had inflicted, we discovered on closer examination, extensive damage. We wonder whether the plants will survive this attack.

We wondered, too, how all this had been happening without our noticing. This character...

... whose job it should be to warn us of intruders, has been sleeping soundly in the sitting room all evening, and has not uttered a word of protest while the rats have been busy, gnawing away right outside the window. He claims that he has more important things to do.

And now we are faced with that familiar, troubling question: as with ants and cockroaches and other pests who choose to invade our territory, how do we address this problem? As one who likes to take the dharma seriously, I shrink from taking life. It's possible, my friendly All Expert expert informed me, to trap the critters live; they have to be taken at least five miles from the point of origin before being released. This prospect leaves me squeamish for other-than-Buddhist reasons. I fear I might be about to implement the death penalty. Is there anyone out there who can save me from myself?

Parade Syncope! And... Into the Pool!

Well, I had to chuckle when I heard back from my doctor about the dizzy spell that I experienced at our meditation sit last Sunday. Among other things, he said the symptoms I described--chills, dizziness, nausea accompanied by an unfamiliar feeling of panic are "experienced by another group of people who are required to remain motionless for prolonged periods--the guards at Buckingham Palace in London. The guards are trained to systematically contract their leg and arm muscles in order to maintain brain circulation. If this is not done, they experience so called 'Parade Syncope.'"

Useful knowledge, then. I'm happy to pass it on to other sitters, for their use. When feeling light-headed during meditation, contract the arm and leg muscles.

My friend Gary at ChiSphere has been after me to get into the water. He recommends it as a great form of exercise, and one that spares the arthritic joint pain I've been experiencing in my knee. I know that this is good advice, but I have been stalling--partly, I'm sure, out of sheer habit. I'm used to my daily walk and, when we're down in Laguna, my visits to the gym. The faces there are familiar, the exercises well known and often practiced. I am--like most humans, I suspect--a creature of habit. I do not like to wander too far from my comfort zone. So I have been stalling. Until yesterday...

I showed up at the Laguna Beach city pool and talked to the trainer there. I had been thinking to try swimming some laps, but the lanes, I noticed, were all occupied when I arrived. I'm not a strong swimmer, but I know that I have the basics to build on and that, like running--which I did for years--it's a mug's game. Put in enough practice and you'll develop more stamina each day. (It's those years of running, perhaps, that are taking a toll on the joints these days.) But I still thought it might be good to take a couple of lessons, and asked about those, too.

Instead, though, the pool attendant suggested joining the pool exercise class, which was due to start at that very hour. I hurried off to the men's changing room, slipped on my swimsuit, and was in the pool before I knew it. The class consisted mainly of women--mostly, I thought, a little younger than myself. They were obviously old hands at this, and were complaining that the water was colder than usual, and the sun was hidden behind clouds. Still, we were put through our paces unsparingly by an amiable coach, who stood poolside and yelled her instructions over the blare of bracing rock music, with particular kind attention to the single newbie in this class--myself. I needed a good deal of correction.

It was, I have to say, a full-body workout. For me, at least. There was a good deal of genial, inattentive chatter going on amongst the ladies, who seemed to like their torture attenuated by a little gossip. I wondered when the coffee would be served. All in all, though, it was a good experience, and it left me with enough surplus energy to venture into the now less crowded lanes to try a few laps. I was right about the stamina: I managed only three laps, with a rest between each. But I think I will be back to try some more.

Anyway, thanks to Gary for the gentle prodding. I notice the benefits of the exercise as I write, a not unpleasant ache in every muscle of the body. And less pain in the knee...

So much new to be learned, every passing day! They just go by too quickly!

Doc Martin

We have a new addiction. We're hooked on "Doc Martin," and have been busy downloading episodes from Netflix every night. I guess you could class it with the "Britcom" genre, but it also belongs in the same general category as those many American medical series--none of which I have followed. This one has the added flavor of the English country village and the gorgeous green landscape and rocky shoreline of the south west. And delightfully eccentric characters.

The "Doc" of the title, in case you haven't come across him yet, is a brilliant surgeon from the big city, whose mid-life onset of hemophobia has driven him from his London practice to this rural setting. To say he's deficient in bedside manner would be an understatement. The man is totally lacking in the social graces needed to make life comfortable in an environment where everyone knows everyone; his gaffes make him the unfortunate laughing stock of the village, a victim of his own short fuse and intolerance of ignorance and stupidity--of which there is plenty to be had. And yet...

The man has incredible skills and dedication as a physician. And even though it remains for the most part well hidden, he has a heart. Though he's careful not to show it, he cares for his patients, and is vulnerable to their barbs. His sense of humor--the driest of the dry, an irony bordering frequently on sarcasm--is excruciating, and he is unable to take a tease. We watch in agony as he sabotages every attempt to get close to him, notably from the charming local school teacher. Their mutual attraction, though unmistakable to viewers, remains thus far (we're in the middle of the second season) unconfessed on either side. Again, a wild understatement to say that their relationship is prickly. We await further developments.

The cast of characters--villagers, all--manage to be quirky in that British way, without being stereotypes. The schoolteacher, the local PC (police constable,) the publican, the odd-job man, the pharmacist... they all weave in and out of the complex--yet coherent, intelligently worked out--plots in a manner familiar to anyone who has lived in such a village. From the outside, I suspect, it merely seems quaint. It's Agatha Christie without murders and Miss Marple. The only character who is glaringly absent from the mix is the local vicar. The village does not even seem to have a church. Perhaps times have changed since my own rural English days.

The episode we watched last night made me think of the spectacle of Charlie Sheen on the morning television news rounds. The patient in question was a radio talk show host whose slurred speech--along with her enjoyment of a glass of cool Chablis--suggested that she had a drinking problem. Turned out, in her case, to be a case of undiagnosed diabetes. The good doctor cottoned to it just in time to save her life. As for Charlie Sheen, it is sad to watch a man so clearly "in denial," as they say, so unable to curb his out-of-control grandiosity and his anger. In attempting to address what appeared to be her alcoholism, in last night's show, Doc Martin asked his patient a test question: did she find herself getting angry when asked about her drinking habit. She flew into a rage. "I suppose," he said tersely, "that qualifies as a Yes."

Asked about his anger by an interviewer, Sheen was quick to deny it--angrily. His very public, very obvious cries for help are wonderful fodder for the news media, which greedily caters to the actor's mania. It's a pathetic sight. I sat on a bicycling machine in the gym yesterday, next to a man who is now nineteen years sober. He told his story as though it were yesterday--I'm sure for the thousandth time--with the gratitude of one whose life was literally saved by AA. Addiction is clearly a dreadful disease. We can be thankful to be addicted to nothing more harmful than Doc Martin.