sjwny

By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

Art is personal. What speaks to one person is silent to another. There are two artists whose vision speaks to me: Mark Rothko (1903-1970) & Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543.) Rothko’s paintings speak with color, Holbein’s drawings with black on white.

Rothko is most famous for multiforms, blocks of colors on one canvas. He wrote of their “breath of life” & they do pulsate from within. I was struck quite young at the fact these paintings live. They evoke emotion, thought. Rothko was a troubled man who eventually committed suicide but he poured life into these artworks which project the complexity of life.

Hans Holbein the Younger is best known as the Court Painter to Henry VIII of England. Remember the oversize King, hand on hip, feet apart firmly planted? That’s a Holbein. His paintings are masterful but his “breath of life” exists in his drawings. They are spookily alive; the sitter’s stare directly gazing out through the centuries in unseeing eyes that saw all. Holbein’s drawings captured the person alive.

In recent years art has come to be seen as frivolous to some taxpayers. What they fail to see is the breath of life art inspires in minds & creativity, curiosity, skepticism to the “known” truths; perhaps these very reasons explain their mindset. An expanded mind questions & acts; a closed mind accepts what it is told.

Please support your local artists, galleries & especially teachers who give of themselves to open minds. All are needed, all are important to democracy & progress. Inquire as to whether candidates support art. Their answers will be quite illuminating.

More Posts by SYWNY

If ponies rode men & grass ate cows,
And cats were chased into holes by the mouse …
If summer were spring & the other way round
Then all the world would be upside down.

By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

If you had a pulse during history class, you would recognize that passage from the Revolutionary War era, specifically the Battle of Yorktown. It was a popular drinking song & was played as the Americans defeated the British, which was one of those “who’d a thunk it” moments. Whichever musician thought about playing that song & the time, the place, the situation, I salute him.

The rise of Donald Trump in 2016 & his subsequent election brought that song back to me. Who’d a thunk it, seriously. Wasn’t Hillary Rodham Clinton’s election a DONE DEAL? I also think of it now, with all the talking heads & hyperventilating social media/blogosphere folks climaxing over the Mueller investigations. Uh, excuse me, please … we’re talking about President Donald J. Trump, who lives, thrives, expands, glows on negativity. There is a chance (speaking softly here) he may slither out of this, freedom intact. 

This is a man elected to the highest office after the Access Hollywood tapes. Why this still astounds me is silly, but it does. The Russians can be blamed for a lot but ultimately Mr & Ms American cast his/her ballot on election day. The Republicans are masterful at enabling whatever/whomever propels the means to the ends of their agenda production.

There is no moral compass in the GOP. They are proactive while the Democrats are reactive. Grab the oars of the boat first & you can steer it anywhere you please. If it is leaky, find some sucker to keep bailing.

I do hope President Trump pays the price for what he has done to our government, our country. But will he? He has a habit of not paying any price. Others do, not him. I will not be surprised if this is one more situation where he doesn’t. Nothing surprises me about this man or the Republicans.

Commonsense plays no part in modern day politics. Looking at it from a logical view point is unnatural, does not compute. This is the new normal.

Cue the pipes & drums, please.

More Posts by SJWNY

By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.

Lee had one bit of additional business he wanted to conclude with Grant. Explaining first that he had more than a thousand Federal prisoners whom he could not feed, he added glumly, “Indeed, I have nothing for my own men.” Without hesitation, Grant proposed sending rations for the 25,000 men across the lines. Was that enough? he asked. “Plenty,” Lee said. “An abundance, I assure you.”

 After the two men had signed preliminary papers, Grant proceeded to introduce Lee to his staff. As he shook hands with Grant’s military secretary, Ely Parker, a Seneca Indian, Lee stared for a moment at Parker’s dark features and finally said, “I am glad to see one real American here.” If this account is true, Parker responded to the general, “We are all Americans.”

…… By now, a crowd of anxious sightseers was clustered around the front porch to catch a glimpse of the Confederate general. His face flushed a deep crimson, Lee emerged onto the porch, carrying his hat and gloves. Here he paused, put on his hat, and slowly drew on his gloves, absentmindedly gazing out into the field beyond. Once, then twice, then a third time, he unconsciously balled his left hand and pumped the fist into the palm of his right. Still seemingly oblivious to his surroundings, he automatically returned the salute given to him by the Union officers crowding around the porch, then descended the stairs. Now, as if drawing himself back from a daze, he glanced deliberately in one direction and then the next. Not seeing his horse, he called out in a half-choked and more than half-tired voice, “Orderly! Orderly.” The horse was brought around. The general smoothed Traveller’s forelocks as the orderly fit the bridle, then with a slow, exhausted tug, pulled himself on the horse, letting out a long, deep sigh, almost a groan. By then, Grant had walked out on the porch, too, and as Lee rode past him, their eyes met. Each silently lifted his hat to the other. On the porch and in the yard, countless other Federals also returned the gesture.

 In no small measure, this one poignant moment captured the spirit of Appomattox more than words ever written about that day. But this didn’t stop participants from trying to give voice to the event, including Grant himself. “I felt sad and depressed,” Grant later explained of this moment, “at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought.”

Two of Grant’s aides put it thus: “This will live in history,” one wrote. Another commented, “Such a scene only happens once in centuries …”

From April 1865, The Month That Saved America by Jay Winik, pages 189-191, Harper Collins 2001

********************

Once in a while reality meets up with reason, providing a defining moment in history featuring a perfect cast of people born to court destiny.

More Posts by SJWNY

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel

Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon

Like a carousel that’s turning running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face

And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.

*************

By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

The Thomas Crown Affair was filmed in ’68

Steve McQueen & Faye Dunaway were sexy, young & great

When cool was cool they defined it to the max

Robbery’s a crime but the heist’s a game, relax

When love intrudes on lust can law win out, you see

Man flies away & leaves lover in the cemetery

Bring the money & join him -or keep the car & weep.

*************

When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware

That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel

As the images unwind, like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind.

*************

Creativity & artwork enhance life. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) is a sexy, creative, adult film. Celebrate the good, expand your horizons.

Thank You, Norman Jewison, Hal Ashby, Michel Legrand, Alan Bergman.

More Posts by SJWNY

Roscoe Conkling looked out the window of his Wall Street Law Office & cursed the weather. His home was three miles away. The Great Blizzard of 1888 was enveloping New York City, with 40 inches of snow piling up. I will walk home, he thought. And out into the tempest he went. The date was March 12th.

By SJYWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

This March 11th marks the 130th Anniversary of the start of the Great Blizzard of 1888. This was a horrible event that claimed over 400 lives in the Northeast, 200 in New York City alone. Drifts of snow were recorded over 30 feet high. The storm finally subsided on the 14th.

Trudge, trudge, thank goodness you kept yourself in shape, Mr. Conkling. 

Roscoe Conkling was a fascinatingly complex figure in our political history, being a kingpin in 1870’s – 1880’s government. He was a Stalwart Republican. Patronage was mother’s milk & he was fighting against the Half-Breed Republicans, who favored Civil Service reforms. Conkling et al supported Ulysses Grant for President. Stalwarts were a political machine.

This storm is very bad. I am having trouble moving forward. Was going out a mistake? Too late now – I must keep going. I do not give up.

Roscoe Conkling & Chester Arthur were very close. Conkling helped Arthur get plum positions in the government. The Election of 1880 saw Arthur being placed on the ticket with eventual Presidential winner James Garfield. After the President’s assassination Arthur assumed office & Conkling thought his old friend would help him out politically. However things had changed. Chester Arthur, a Stalwart, had evolved into a Half-Breed reformer. Their friendship ended – as eventually did the Stalwarts & Conkling’s influence.

Onlookers saw the distinguished man collapse in the snow at Union Square. Please take me home, the stricken man said. I live near Madison Square.

The decision to venture out into the Great Blizzard eventually cost Roscoe Conkling his life. He died of pneumonia on April 18,1888. As with most everything in his life he believed himself to be unstoppable. This time a more powerful force of nature won out.

His breathing labored on, growing slower. Ghosts of long dead friends & enemies visited his brain, James Blaine, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, old Chet Arthur. Will I be remembered? Of course I will. I shaped those men, brought them great fame, glory, infamy. Power was mine.

Breathe in, breathe out. In …. out.

More Posts by SJWNY