Masked Lady

Who is that masked lady?

Ave Atque Vale

hail and farewell

Nuclear Burial

I gave my skateboard a facelift today. I scraped and sanded off the stickers, primed it and went to work with the acrylics. I need a new can of spray varnish and it'll be good to ride.

War Prayer

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Lunch

It's feeding time for the leader of the Visitors.

Archimedes of Syracuse

Archimedes of Syracuse (287 BC - 212 BC) was the greatest mathematician of his age. His contributions in geometry revolutionised the subject and his methods anticipated the integral calculus 2,000 years before Newton and Leibniz. He was also a thoroughly practical man who invented a wide variety of machines including pulleys and the Archimidean screw pumping device.

There's a very insightful NOVA special on his life called Infinite Secrets which I bought from Amazon.com. You can also view it free on youtube.

Dies Irae

Dreaded day, that day of ire,
When the world shall melt in fire,
Told by Sybil and David's Lyre.

Fright men's hearts shall rudely shift,
As the judge through gleaming rift
Comes each soul to closely sift.

Then the trumpet's shrill refrain,
Piercing tombs by hill and plain,
Souls to judgment shall arraign....

When the judge his seat shall gain,
All that's hidden shall be plain,
Nothing shall unjudged remain.

~~ "Dies Irae", 13th Century, Thomas of Celano

Blossoms

When Phebus was entered the signe of the ramm,

In the month of march when all Doth springe,

Lying in my bed, an old man to me came.

Laying his hand on my buysy head slumbringe,

"I am," he said, "Tyme, producer of cunninge.

Awake & rise, prepare thy selfe quickly;

My entent is to bring thee to [the Campe of] philosophy.

"Bloomes & blossomes plentiful in that feild

Bynn pleasantly flourishinge, vernant with collers gay.

Liuely water fountaines, eke beastes both tame & wild

Ouershadowed with trees fruitful, & on euery spray

Melodiously singinge, the birdes doe sitt & say:

'Father, sonn, & holy ghoste, to one god [in] persons three;

Impery & honor be to the holy trinitye.'"

Lo! thus when he had said, I arose swiftly,

Doeing on my clothes in haste with agility

Towardes the camp, wee went, of philosophi,

The wonderful sightes there for to see.

To a large greate gate, father tyme first brought me,

Which closed was; then he to me saide,

"Each thing his time hath; be thou nothing Dismaied."

The great admiracion I tooke into my selue,

With sore & huge perturbacions of minde,

Beholdinge the gate fastned with lockes twelue.

I fantasied but smalle that time should be my freind.

"Why studiest thou, man," quoth he; "art thou blind?"

With a rodd he touched me, whereat I Did Downe fall

Into a straunge sleepe, & In a Dreame he showed me all.

~~ the start of a written account in alchemical sciences from Mr Willm Blomefeld, philosopher and bachelor of physick, 1557

the Beast of Chicago

America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes, the Beast of Chicago, the Devil in the White City, and his murderous castle maze.

acrylic on cardstock.

Doctor Procession

Zenith

Witchy Woman

Strings

I haven't had much time to paint this last week. Between planning this visionary excursion to Brazil and studying Portugese, I've had nothing resembling free time. But I did manage to whip out this cruddy puppeted figure above a city. Done with acrylic, guache, ink, pencil on bristol board.

Something Wicked This Way

Bill & Tony

Bill Burroughs and Antony Balch cut up on film.

Stranger Than

acrylic on index card with tape.

Gas

Russian gas mask on a fu dog... with dog skull.

Psychic TV

I'm taking the night off, so no new art tonight, but here's a couple of old videos from Psychic TV.

JIGSAW

UNCLEAN

Multi-Tasked

acrylic, gouache, pencil, brush pens on cardstock.

REvolted

The Creature From The Black Lagoon

Texarkana

She loves the High Life.

Gnashville

Red Reader

Zombies read too.

Gas, Gas, Gas

Today I bought a Russian gas mask for $11.

Flamenco

Master guitarist Vicente Gomez performs an Alegrias of his own composition.

Curtsy

Wondering Rose

Dinosauria, we

"Dinosauria, we"
by Charles Bukowski

The Haunt

The Messenger

The thing, he said, would come in the night at three
From the old churchyard on the hill below;
But crouching by an oak fire's wholesome glow,
I tried to tell myself it could not be.
Surely, I mused, it was pleasantry
Devised by one who did not truly know
The Elder Sign, bequeathed from long ago,
That sets the fumbling forms of darkness free.
He had not meant it - no - but still I lit
Another lamp as starry Leo climbed
Out of the Seekonk, and a steeple chimed
Three - and the firelight faded, bit by bit.
Then at the door that cautious rattling came -
And the mad truth devoured me like a flame!

-- H. P. Lovecraft

Fear

The host, he says that all is well

And the fire-wood glow is bright;

The food has a warm and tempting smell,—

But on the window licks the night.

Pile on the logs... Give me your hands,

Friends! No,— it is not fright...

But hold me... somewhere I heard demands...

And on the window licks the night.

~ "Fear" by Hart Crane

The Wash

The Escapist

They used to call me an escape artist because I had an uncanny talent for sneaking quietly out of any party. The truth is this. I hate the goodbyes. The enforced niceties and final handshakes are unnecessary when you know you'll see that person again soon enough.
It's my Houdini act.
I have 100 ways to ninja out of your good time.

La Señora Muerte

Svengali

Interface

Strange Fruit

I'm painting. I'm not sure if I'll complete anything worth posting tonight, but I have a nice relaxing playlist. Here's one of the songs from what I'm listening to and also a sketch of Jeff Buckley I did a couple years ago.

This is Jeff Buckley singing Strange Fruit.

Legend of a Mind

"Legend of a Mind" - Moody Blues (1968)...

For Johnny Pole

FOR JOHNNY POLE, ON THE FORGOTTEN BEACH

by~ Anne Sexton ~

In his tenth July some instinct

taught him to arm the waiting wave,

a giant where its mouth hung open.

He rode on the lip that buoyed him there

and buckled him under. The beach was strung

with children paddling their ages in,

under the glare od noon chipping

its light out. He stood up, anonymous

and straight among them, between

their sand pails and nursery crafts.

The breakers cartwheeled in and over

to puddle their toes and test their perfect

skin. He was my brother, my small

Johnny brother, almost ten. We flopped

down upon a towel to grind the sand

under us and watched the Atlantic sea

move fire, like night sparklers;

and lost our weight in the festival

season. He dreamed, he said, to be

a man designed like a balanced wave...

how someday he would wait, giantand straight.

Johnny, your dream moves summersinside my mind.

He was tall and twenty that July,

but there was no balance to help;

only the shells came straight and even.

This was the first beach of assault;

the odor of death hung in the air

like rotting potatoes, the junkyard

of landing craft waited open and rusting.

The bodies were strung out as if they were

still reaching for each other, where they lay

to blacken, to burst through their perfect

skin. And Johnny Pole was one of them.

He gave in like a small wave, a sudden

hole in his belly and the years all gone

where the Pacific noon chipped its light out.

Like a bean bag, outflung, head loose

and anonymous, he lay. Did the sea move fire

for its battle season? Does he lie there

forever, where his rifle waits, giant

and straight?...I think you die again

and live again,

Johnny, each summer that moves inside

my mind.

Superduper

Tædium Vitae

Tædium Vitae

To stab my youth with desperate knife, to wear 
This paltry age’s gaudy livery, 
To let each base hand filch my treasury,
To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,
And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom,— I swear, 
I love it not! these things are less to me 
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,
Less than the thistle-down of summer air 
Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof
Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life 
Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof
Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,
Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife
Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.

~ Oscar Wilde

Xray

"Sometimes he wonders what zone of transit he himself was entering, sure that his own withdrawal was symptomatic not of a dormant schizophrenia, but of a careful preparation for a radically new environment, with its own internal landscape and logic, where old categories of thought would be merely an encumbrance."

(J.G. Ballard~ The Drowned World, 1962)

The Dance of the Seven Veils

King Herod frolics in Ken Russell's "Salome's Last Dance" based on the Oscar Wilde play ~1988

The Dance of the Seven Veils from Claude D'Anna's "Salome" ~1985

The Devils

This is one of the creepier scenes from Ken Russell's 1971 film, The Devils. Set in the Spanish Inquisition, a convent of sexually repressed nuns share a moment of ecstasy and later, the suffrages of witch trial. It is based in the true history of Urbain Grandier, a philandering priest accused of seducing sisters of the cloth with his black magic.

Red Devil

Ophion

Peep Show

Coffin Joe

Midas

Midas had been a wealthy king of Phrygia, known more for his rose garden than for any desire for gold. One day the Satyr Silenus was found drunk in the garden. Midas entertained him for 10 days, then returned him to Dionysius, the god of wine and revelry, who, out of gratitude, granted Midas a single wish. Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. At first he was pleased with the gift. On his way home he turned a twig, a stone, a piece of sod, and an apple into gold. Unfortunately, when he had a feast prepared on his return, he found that he could not control his new power - everything turned to gold - including the food he wanted to eat. Realizing that he would starve to death if he did not do something, he returned to Dionysius and asked him to take away the power. Dionysius granted his wish and told him to wash in the waters of the Pactolus, the river that flowed by the city Gordion, the capital of Phrygia. According to local legend the power washed into the river and the sands of the Pactolus began to produce gold from that day forward, earning it the name the Golden Pactolus. It would supply Greece with much of her gold between 650 and 550 B.C..

The legend of King Midas may have been embellished by Greek storytellers, but he was a real king. He was the last of the royal line of the Phrygians, who had settled in the region around 1200 B.C.. His reign ended around 695 B.C., when invaders from the Caucasus region, called Cimmerians, conquered the Phrygian kingdom. Midas is said to have committed suicide by drinking bull's blood. Archaeologists believe that his tomb and what remains of the city of Gordion are located at Yassihoyuk, to the east of the Sakarya River. The Cimmerians would be defeated by the Lydian king Alyattes in 600 B.C.. While the Lydians established their capital at Sardis, the Pactolus still served as the source of their silver and gold.

the Witchfinder

the Hellblazer

Thunderbird

This is a legend of long, long ago times. Two Indians desired to find the origin of thunder. They traveled north and came to a high mountain. These mountains performed magically. They drew apart, back and forth, then closed together very quickly.
One Indian said, “I will leap through the cleft before it closes. If I am caught, you continue to find the origin of thunder.” The first one succeeded in going through the cleft before it closed, but the second one was caught and squashed.
On the other side, the first Indian saw a large plain with a group of wigwams, and a number of Indians playing a ball game. After a little while, these players said to each other, “It is time to go.” They disappeared into their wigwams to put on wings, and came out with their bows and arrows and flew away over the mountains to the south. This was how the Passamaquoddy Indian discovered the homes of the thunderbirds.
The remaining old men of that tribe asked the Passamaquoddy Indian, “What do you want? Who are you?” He replied with the story of his mission. The old men deliberated how they could help him.
They decided to put the lone Indian into a large mortar, and they pounded him until all of his bones were broken. They molded him into a new body with wings like thunderbird, and gave him a bow and some arrows and sent him away in flight. They warned him not to fly close to trees, as he would fly so fast he could not stop in time to avoid them, and he would be killed.
The lone Indian could not reach his home because the huge enemy bird, Wochowsen, at that time made such a damaging wind. Thunderbird is an Indian and he or his lightning would never harm another Indian. But Wochowsen, great bird from the south, tried hard to rival Thunderbird. So Passamaquoddies feared Wochowsen, whose wings Glooscap once had broken, because he used too much power.
A result was that for a long time air became stagnant, the sea was full of slime, and all of the fish died. But Glooscap saw what was happening to his people and repaired the wings of Wochowsen to the extent of controlling and alternating strong winds with calm.
Legend tells us this is how the new Passamaquoddy thunderbird, the lone Indian who passed through the cleft, in time became the great and powerful Thunderbird, who always has kept a watchful eye upon the good Indians.

~~"The Origin of the Thunderbird" among the Passamaquoddy tribe.

The Plague Doctor

Sometime in the early 1300s, The Black Death arrived to Europe from the East. It had began a century before in the lungs of Chinese marmots and then spread out through fleas to others of the mammal population, including humans. It spread all over Europe very quickly with the help of medieval ships and their rat-swarming holds, preferring rodent-dwelling fleas as their means of travel. Hungry fleas subsequently transmitted the infection to humans. As a result, in short time the plague ravaged every single country of Western Europe; even Greenland was not left aside. Plague was moving at horse’s speed – the most common way of transportation of those times. No one was insured against plague. The disease killed French King Louis IX, the daughter of Louis X, Jeanne Navarre, and other outstanding figures. It claimed 30-60% of Europe's population during its reign.

Medieval doctors could not diagnose the disease properly at the times. Not seeing the relationship between plague and flea bites, they swiftly ordered the culling of all dogs and cats. This was a huge mistake since it left no predators to keep the rats in check, and the plague numbers exploded. At the time, it was generally believed that the disease was transmitted through a physical contact, via clothes and bed linen, even through the air itself.

The most infernal costume of the Middle Ages, the Plague Doctor costume, was constructed with these things in mind. Doctors were supposed to don these costumes to visit their plague patients. The mask of the plague doctor – the bird beak and the leather hat – was actually a protective device to save the doctor from the unbearable infected stench of rotting flesh. The beak was filled with medical herbs to ease the breathing process. The mask had two vent holes and glass inserts to protect the eyes. The doctor was also wearing a long waxed raincoat and leather or thick fabric clothes to help him avoid flea bites and physical contacts with patients.

Michel de Nostredame was probably the most renowned Plague Doctor – he is widely known as Nostradamus. He recommended his patients to drink only boiled water, to sleep in clean beds and to leave infected towns as soon as it was possible.

the Pierced Nymph

Jude

At Sea

(acrylic on index card)



AT SEA by Aleister Crowley, 1910-14

As night hath stars, more rare than ships
In ocean, faint from pole to pole,
So all the wonder of her lips
Hints her innavigable soul.

Such lights she gives as guide my bark;
But I am swallowed in the swell
Of her heart's ocean, sagely dark,
That holds my heaven and holds my hell.

In her I live, a mote minute
Dancing a moment in the sun:
In her I die, a sterile shoot
Of nightshade in oblivion.

In her my self dissolves, a grain
Of salt cast careless in the sea;
My passion purifies my pain
To peace past personality.

Love of my life,
God grant the years
Confirm the chrism --- rose to rood!
Anointing loves, asperging tears
In sanctifying solitude!

Man is so infinitely small
In all these stars, determinate.
Maker and moulder of them all,
Man is so infinitely great!

Birdcall