Ode to a $9 chair, cups of tea & Slambovia

The other day, I went to meet a few friends to see Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. They gave a concert as a part of the CT Film Festival - right on the Danbury Green under the sundry band shell.

As I was preparing to go to this free FREE FREE concert (did I mention it was FREE?) my mom mentioned that there was a nine dollar folding canvas chair in the garage and I ought to bring it to sit in.... I poked my head into the garage looked around, surveying various items that might be a chair sticking out of a pile of boxes or rakes or lawn mower attachments. I didn't see anything but standard lawn chairs which were hung on the wall. So I brought one of those, but then I left it in the car anyway - and it's just as well as these chairs are relics from my youth, are at least 40 years old, making them the frail elderly of lawn chairs. Their aluminum ribs are willing but the synthetic webbing is weak and frayed too.

I had parked on Main Street near Escape to the Arts. I put every quarter I could scrounge out of my purse into the parking meter (I think now I didn't need to do this as it was after hours.) I think I put in $1.75 in quarters into that meter.

As I went round the corner down White Street, a guy asked me if could spare a quarter. I said I didn't have any left. He began to berate me. "What's the matter with you? You can't reach in there and come up with just one little quarter? What kind of person are you.?" he ask indignantly. Now here I was, totally unemployed, wearing pants and shirt I got from Goodwill and a $5 hat from Walmart, having just put my last damn quarter in a parking meter. Yet this guy was absolutely sure I must have a quarter.... Sigh.

So I get to the green and finally found my friends on square blanket down front. And what a concert. I had never heard Gandolf Murphy before. They have the wackiest collection of instruments. They have the standard rhythm, lead & bass guitars and drums. But they also have an accordion, a xylophone, an electric slide mandolin, a cello, a theremin ( that spooky space music generator from old scifi flicks), bunch of shakeable gords and other items etc etc. Apparently, The New York Times called them a sort of a hillbilly-PinkFloyd. What a great sound!!!! I am a fan. Give a listen:  http://www.youtube.com/v/VAc7KWA0YKg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

So the next day, my mother felt the necessity to point me to the CHAIR the nine dollar chair. It was in a carry sack with a strap and I had assumed it was a leaf bag attachment for the lawn mower. Once it was found, I felt compelled to check it out. After all what kind of monstrosity must a nine dollar chair be? Rickety? Uncomfortable?Unsightly?

None of the above. This is most comfortable versatile and lovely chair in a handsome tweedy beigy color - an unbelievable deal for $9.99. I can drag it in front of the screen door and pretend I have a porch, or in front of the TV now that I have lost the remote again. Here I sit with complete lower lumbar support secure and comfy, a drink holder, and laptop in lap typing away in the nine dollar collapsable chair. ANd next to me on my right the dog is neatly folded up in ball on the cushion to an abandon chase lounge, to my left, the cat sits folded in ball on a footstool (really the seat of an old office chair, now a backless footstool with wheels), and next to me, on an unfolded folding tv table is tea - lushly unfolding its fragrance into the air. A free concert. A nine dollar folding chair. Life is odd, but for someone with no income, surprisingly good.

1,000 marigolds of peace - Faith's Statement

Among the plantings in Poet Faith Vicinanza's garden in Wolcott, CT are 1,000 marigolds forming the word peace in letters three feet high. It's right on the road so all who pass can see it.

Another ER sortie - blood pressure, the theme park

After Mom's weekly 2PM trip to the Wound Clinic, we were sent to the ER since her blood pressure was 220/115. At 4:50PM, the reading was  up to 249/134. YIKES!  Now, they tried administering meds slowly. Every time her BP went down briefly and then started back up again.

BUT .....  nonetheless by 11:30pm the cumulative does of HEAVY blood pressure meds finally took full effect. (Or perhaps her sodium levels had ebbed over the course of the day.) Her pressure tanked to 93/43 and they were afraid she would faint in the night as she had several weeks ago (Her last ER trip was because her BP was too low and she had fainted on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Go Figure.. )

So after spending from 2:30 PM to 12:15 AM sitting in ER cube 14, they admitted her. They let her go at 11:30 AM the following day Thursday (yesterday) when her BP was finally normal again.

Oil Painting: Odd dome of slopes

This is oil on canvas. I was thinking about skiing when I painted it.

I don't ski - anymore.  I tried it once and learned two things:  First: Don't do anything strenuous on the last run of the day when you are tired. Second, my date was an inconsiderate narcissist.

After a day practicing on the kiddy slopes while he skiied, the last run of the day he took me up to a real trail. He should have known better. I lost control, fell head over teakettle, tore a ligament and couldn't stand up. He screamed at me to get up, because  I was embarrassing him by lying there in the way.

You don't have to tell me twice. Prince Charming was a a hideous troll under the skin. The Ski patrol was much more accommodating and polite.  You really don't know someone until something goes wrong.

Another murderer made in god's image....

Dr. George Tiller, a father and grandfather, as well as a doctor who's abortion clinic performed late term abortions, was murdered in his own church where he was an usher.

My question is this: Why does it surprise us when those who say they are "god"s messengers whip out guns and start shooting?

The following is a list of murders ordered or carried out by "god" in the old testament. I found this on several websites but I am not sure it is a complete listing....

• All men, women & children on earth except for Noah's immediate family(Genesis 7:23)
• All inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah except a single family, (and he turned one of the spared family into a pillar of salt...) (Genesis 19:24)
• The first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29)
• The hosts of the Pharaoh, including 600 chariot-captains (Exodus 14:27,28)
• Amalek & all his people (Exodus 17:11,16)
• 3,000 Israelites (Exodus 32:27)
• 250 Levite princes who'd challenged Moses (Numbers 16:1-40)
• 14,700 Jews killed with a plague (they'd rebelled against Moses following the killing of the princes) (Numbers 16:41-49)
• All subjects of Og (Numbers 21:34, 35)
• 24,000 Israelites who'd shacked up with Moabite women (Numbers 25:4, 9)
• All males, kings, and non-virgin females of the Midianites (Numbers 31:7, 8)
• The Ammonites (Deuteronomy 2:19-21)
• The Horims (Deuteronomy 2:22)
• All inhabitants of Jericho, except for a prostitute and her family (Joshua 6)
• 12,000 residents of Ai. Joshua hung the king on a tree. (Joshua 8:1-30)
• The population of Makkedah (Joshua 10:28)
• The people of Libnah (Joshua 10:29, 30)
• All inhabitants of Gezer (Joshua 10:33)
• All of Lachish (Joshua 10:32)
• The entire people of Eglon (Joshua 10:34, 35)
• The population of Hebron (Joshua 10:36, 37)
• All inhabitants of the "country of the hills", and (of course there's more), of the south, and the vale, and of the springs and all their kings (Joshua 10:40)
• 31 kings and inhabitants of their countries, and south country, and the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, & the valley of the same from Mt. Halak to Mt. Hermon (Joshua 11:12, 16, 17, 12:24)
• 10,000 Moabites (Judges 3:29)
• 10,000 Perizzites and Canaanites (Judges 1:4)
• 600 Phillistines (Judges 3:31)
• All from Sisera (Judges 4:16)
• 120,000 Midianites (Judges 8:10)
• 25,100 Benjaminites (Judges 20:35)
• 50,070 from Bethshemesh (I Samuel 6:19)
• The Amalekites (I Samuel 15:3, 7)
• The armies & the 5 kings of the Amorites (Amos 3:2)
• The Moabites, plus 22,000 Syrians (II Samuel 8:2, 5, 6, 14)
• 40,000 Syrian horsemen (II Samuel 10:18)
• 100,000 Syrian footmen, plus by 27,000 who are all crushed by a wall (I Kings 20:28, 29, 30)
• 42 children, (god sends a bear to eat them)(II Kings 2:23, 24)
• 185,000 Assyrians killed by an angel (II Kings 19:35)
• 10,000 Edomites, followed by 10,000 more whose killers threw them from a rock so they were broken in pieces (II Chronicles 28)
• 120,000 Judeans (II Chronicles 28)
• 75,000 Persians (Esther 9:16)

Enough said.

Crazy art & a Sound Collage

This video is comprised of small pictures I created in SpinArt a $1.99 iPhone App.  It's meant to make more cirucular pictures (which I have al lot of) but is also useful for other oddities. I like it because it has a certain splashy messy feel as a medium. Things don't go on neatly and unexpected things happen.

The soundscape has a tapping track, a singing track and a Yamaha Keyboard track, there is a short paper crunching track. THe tracks were cooked in various ways in the iMove HD audio editor, and the keyboard track was send over to garageband where a double filter effect was applied.

Just as an addendum - this week's page in Bent Pin is titled "• retest daily" and the two items make you wonder who is being tested daily - the students or the teachers.....

Ralph Nazareth at Wed poetry, Chris Flowers & Francis Raven in Bent Pin

Last weeks Bent Pin page included video interviews with Ralph Nazareth who read at Wednesday Night Poetry Series two days ago. He is incredible both in his poetry and in his philosophy. A large contingent of outstanding folks from his home team at Curley's Diner in Stamford came to see him and to read in our open mic! Ralph is the founder of the weekly reading at Curley's which is on Tuesday Nights. All in all the past Wednesday had a great open mic, a fabulous feature and a really enlightening Q&A.

Note: a couple weeks later I interviewed Ralph for Bent Pin. Here is one of the videos of his ideas on Poetry.

ALSO This week a new page is up on Bent Pin.   The new  page is called capitalist method and it features a poem by Christopher Flowers and one by Francis Raven, both somewhat surreal and referencing the multi-faceted maladaptive corporate hold on our lives...