my sad eyes - a drawing from the old blog

A wisp of hair, a slant of lid
a memory our Agnus hid.

Somedays bleak is the thing - grey sky, a chill cast to the air. No snow, no wind, just the blahs. Not today though. This entry, (though not this picture) , was originally made on 2/28/07, on the old gallery blog.

"This is a digital drawing done with a drawing tablet. It was on the splash page to my website back in the days when it was on Prodigy's servers. having a difficult week. more later."

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Confession: I'm a low budget economic news junkie

"Are you really listening to that?" Maisy always asks when she comes into the room and I have CNBC on the tube. Usually I don't appear to be watching - but I am listening while I write or work at whatever home-bound efforts I am making. "They don't know what they are talking about" she says "who knows if any of them are right."

She has a point, but I am not a trader of any sort. It's the drama I love, the "now," the minute to minute throb of announcements. The fed, the traders reactions, the analysts statements the retorts and rebuttals. It's the struggles and trends of businesses and industries that employ people all over the globe.

There's crime and fraud, greed and indignation, buearocratic remedies and legal strictures, wisdom and foolishness, new products and expensive flops, hysteria and prudence. It's like a soap-opera only it involves real events, people and the future of business and technology around the world, as they are engaged in trying to make a living. It's like a reality TV except the scope is far greater then any of the individual players.

There's no doubt about it. I'm hooked even tough I'm not a player.

New Milford street reflections

I have a minor obsession with reflected and hidden images. This classic New England street, from New Milford CT is an example. It was posted on my gallery blog, which I am merging with this one. For most posts, I am using the same date as it was posted on that blog. This entry had just one line, so i thought I'd add to the text and post it with today's date.

Virtual Biopsy - Doctor McCoy move over!

Found this wild note in Science Daily. Read more by clicking on the head line up there.
Sounds like Doc McCoy on Star Trek!

ScienceDaily (2008-01-19) -- A non-invasive diagnostic tool to detect surface cancers quickly and painlessly using technology currently employed by gyms to calculate body composition has been developed by a medical physics researcher. The new diagnostic technique uses bioimpedance spectroscopy to diagnose cervical and skin cancers.

Power & risk of focus

Let's say you have a couple of million gallons of water on the move...

The stuff could be spread out over acres and acres in a shallow flood. It could bleed off in to a network of irrigation ditches to feed the needs of others, or detour in to four or five isolated rivulets, each on its own path. Or it could drain furiously down one channel that gets deeper and cleaner as the flow progresses picking up momentum on its way to the ocean at the end of everything.

Lately my life feels a lot like the first option. I have been a wide stream on a gentle incline - acres and acres wide - covering a lot of ground very slowly, without particular direction. I have washed a lot of silt along with a lot of trash, all going nowhere in particular, going nowhere in leisurely cluttered way without momentum of any kind.

Yesterday I got out my shovel and started digging a more focused path for this flow of life force. As I was digging there were shovels of stuff I threw over my shoulder onto the banks. There were at least three people who only call when they need something, a few activities like shallow ditches heading off in the wrong direction that needed to be filled in, and a couple of financial drains I plugged up with a shovelful of determination and a firm NO! It was work, but it's a start. Well see how it works out, and if I can resist the big sucking effect when things that are sinking, or just flowing off in the wrong direction, try to pull you back...

-- Mar Walker

Moving Metaphoratorium files to this blog

I am gradually moving my old files from the Metaphoratorium to this blog. Since they have been posted for a while, I am posting them with older dates so they are in this blog but not at the top. So, if it seems like you have missed a few posts - that's why.

I wish there were a way to merge blogs. I'd merge this with my Metaphoratorium Gallery.

Sci-fi illustrator Michael Whelan at library

Fantasy and sci-fi illustrator Michael Whelan whose wild artwork has graced the covers of many a sci-fi tome will be giving an "illustrated lecture" at Danbury Library this coming Sunday from 2-4 pm.

I remember years and years ago, attending the opening reception for a show of his work at Gallery 7 with the artist in attendance. I think this could be a really exciting lecture. He is going to talk about the creative process and his career using slides of his work. His work usually involves symbolic or metaphoric scenarios rendered with a photo-realist's meticulous approach.

Perhaps that's a lesson for metaphor of all sorts - pick the right metaphor and use exact details out of reality to flesh it out......

Dead rat hearts, fluffy snow

• A dead rat's heart was scientifically renewed - it's" ALIVE" and the news outlets are crazy for it. However, the euphemism Dead Rat is just too strong to ignore. And you know, when you or I need a new rat heart, the insurance company will tell us to go whistle in the dark somewhere.

• The want ads have been thinner and thinner. So have the Danbury listings on Craig's list. I don't know about the country as a whole - but the Hat City employment situation seems bleak. "Don't worry. Everyday is a day," Maisy told me but I am not sure what she means by that. Since I have turned down two jobs in the last year, and quit one, this makes me nervous. I like having options. Oh well.

• This morning the snow lined every limb, clumped up on every line, and fence rail, looking bright and fresh.

Maisy and I visit the Mohegan Sun

This year Maisy asked for a couple of chauffeured trips to the Mohegan Sun instead of a Christmas present. ( Chauffeured by me, I mean.) She can't drive that far anymore but loves to go for a half a day. It's something she wouldn't otherwise get to do. Since I am without pressing appointments at the moment, I agreed.

Yesterday we went off into a grey, low-light sort of morning. There were spots on Route 16 and Route 2 where low clouds, fog-over-swamp and water reflecting the winter sky all blended into one shade of white. Stands of dead and limb-less trees poked though erie white air. Despite the surreal scenery, it's a long haul, but we pulled into the garage around 11 a.m.

It's peculiar to me to visit a casino. I am not a money gambler, and am simply not wired for this particular thrill. In all my life, I have only played the slots once or twice for five minutes. Once, I tried keno and won ten bucks. Even the win seemed, well, uninteresting. So for me, a visit to a casino means people-watching, reading or scribbling down a poem or a sketch.

After we arrived Maisy got settled in the penny parlor, leaned her cane up against the machine, took off her glasses, put her gratuity card in the slot and started pressing buttons like mad. I took off on two laps around the circular building. The crowd was still light for the start of a weekend, and floor seemed thick with attendants.

One thing at the Sun, there are mechanical wolves, high up, looking down at you. Their heads move around and sometimes seem to follow you as you walk. Sometimes one will wag its tale as you approach, flex its ears, and seems to follow your progress down an isle. I figure there must be cameras in the eyes. I swore one was watching me as a sat cross-legged on a bench for half an hour watching the flocks of passers-by.

After a while, we had lunch, just sandwiches at the food court, then Maisy headed for the quarter machines to get serious. I went to the Birches, ordered an after lunch Amaretto and orange juice at the bar. I sat in a cushy chair by the walkway to read my new Harper's. I think I heard thunder several times that afternoon, though it was hard to tell over the hysterical beep and jingle of hundreds of slot machines.

I had checked on her several times, made two final laps around the casino, and she was finally ready to roll. Around 3 p.m. we left under a bleak sky and promptly missed the entrance from 395 to onto Rt. 2. We shot way north in the wrong direction without realizing it, then had to back track in the rain. Finally on 16 we drove out from under the clouds into a brighter, reddish sunset.

Merry Christmas Maisy

Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 2, No 1 now online!

The January 2008 issue is now live - view the table of contents and follow the links:
http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2008/01/january-2008-contents-with-links.html

NOTE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:
http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

the home landfill

I have been cultivating a landfill in the front room, an archeologic wonder, fully stratified. This construction is not as threatening as say, the Collier brother's looming magazine stacks, but it certainly is confusing. (This concept comes fully recommended and tested by the cartoon bird/journalist Shoe, who has one, quite similar to mine, covering his his desk. )

This has happened to me, or more correctly - I have created this sort of problem, many times over the years. Usually I move and in the process I box or toss the stuff. Wherever i set up shop, eventually new strata deepen around me. The paper is endless - unopened junk mail, multiple copies of poems that were marked up by workshop participants or printed out for readings, article clips, old newspapers, magazines, instructions for various devices or software, sales slips, drawings, notes. Then there is the actual stuff - the collection of odd items that are saved because someday I might glue them together in a 3D collage. (My level of delusion is fairly high, though I occasionally do make one....)

Periodically I can't stand it - usually just before a big project. Or to avoid beginning a new project I choose to dig, shift, toss and codify rather than start what must be done.

This is a short note. I am making progress on a project and it will be out by the Jan 13 deadline now posted on the site. I am making progress on the landfill too. Everything in its time.

Oil Pastel: Preoccupied

Like many of my works on this blog - this piece is partially physical and partially digital. The base work is an oil pastel, with some small alterations made digitally -  ie filling in around the edges with black.

The surreal state of late

Everything goes a different way than anticipated. Usually later. With all my writing about late publications, I am late too, so late in so many ways.

Hope you all had a satisfactory New Year's eve. Old acquaintences have an annual party, and this year I was thinking I would go. Looked up from working too late. I was trying to get the magazine out, and at the same time upload stuff to a new youtube channel my boss created.  This divided flipping continued long into the night.

Some notes of the evening:


• Bent Pin is going to be a week late due to software glitches, ticks and odd computer behaviors  and me. I don't charge for Bent Pin though. I am tired and am spending way more time than I want on computer woe. My brain is late.

• After midnight on Jan 1 around 2:45 or so, I heard something outside and looked out to see what it was - the DANBURY NEWS TIMES HAD ARRIVED EARLY ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR!

• Had a reasonable view of the fireworks out that window earlier in the evening. Pretty colorful. Saw the little dipper between the clouds while walking the dog tonight.

• Did I make any resolutions? uhhhh. My resolutions are going to be late also. I can't figure out what to resolve. EXCEPT MAYBE THIS I resolve to do more real things and fewer unnecessary cyber things. Right now I am going to do something very real - I am going to sleep.