The stool on wheels had a distracting reflection

I had to put the Henry Miller novel back on the shelf after 50 pages.

Recreational Drollery

I have been feeling profoundly discombobulated. My mouth sores are getting worse, I had a slight fever this weekend, I lost seven pounds, and I am coming down with hand-foot syndrome. Consequently, the doctors have backed off on my chemo levels. According to the glorious comments here and on facebook, I need to apply my sense of humor to the situation as well. I must admit that I wasn't sure what constituted a "sense of humor" and Wikipedia was extremely helpful. The entry under "humor" is a really brief read that acts as a springboard for many rabbit holes? (Ooo, what a horrible metaphor mix.) The entry acts as an opportunity to Zoom and Bloom on the topic. But what it eventually comes down to, like painting I suppose is: "Some claim that humour cannot or should not be explained. Author E.B. White once said, 'Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.'"

Then I found "The 3 Variable Funny Test". My results came in at 57% dark, 35% spontaneous, and 21% vulgar. I constitute a "wit" with a sense of humor that is apparently clean, complex, and dark. It was a weird test. I couldn't answer some of the questions sincerely and I only laughed at one image. Take the test for yourself by clicking here.

During a moment of complete space out, I tried to think of what really made me laugh recently. It sure wasn't the movie G-Force. While The Hangover elicited some chuckles. I was completely in awe of the moving painting that is Jarmusch's The Limits of Control, but I don't think I laughed. As far as YouTube videos go, I remember thinking that the Baman Piderman video was funny but when I went looking for it, I discovered that the kid has a whole channel now, but no way to embed the videos from it. Oh well. "A Town Called Panic" looks fantastic however. Their website is found here. I'll have to put more thought into this as my bed is sounding really funny right now. ps. thanks for all the support everybody.

Cancer update

That is the hose that is tapped into me. 24/7 chemo pumps from a bag with an occasional whir-click sound. My main complaint until recently has been the itchy chest hair growing back. I'm considering a wax job when this is all done. And push ups. I'm into my third week of six and besides the prickly and squishy chest, everything has been rather mild on the chemo front. Well, that is, until the past couple of days when the canker sores kicked in. I can't even look at the box of holiday satsumas on the counter. As far as the radiation goes, I can't feel a thing. . . yet. They keep warning me that it is going to get "hot and uncomfortable" down there. But for now, I strip down to my underwear and get fed into the core reactor and fall asleep. I have never paid so much attention to my underwear in my life. I actually have paint stains on a couple pairs. Sheesh. I have a growing cancer collection of cards from some of my friends. Chris Rywalt sent the three above and Chris Stearns sent the one below.Whiting sent five in a row that finally made sense with the last card.Thanks fellas.

Third Quarter Action Shot

This painting is sure giving me a run for my money. I sense an end in sight however. I even have a title for it already. And I tell you what, looking at it as a little jpg is fascinating. In fact, I am thinking "a photograph is a wonderful way to step back from your painting." (Then I twiddle my fingers like Elmer Fudd messing with his tie).

Dear Studio:

Listen, I'm sorry. I mean, I keep trippin' over all that stuff that has accumulated on the floor and it is bloody cold down there. Its in the teens at night. My heater sparked and tripped the circuit breaker in a cartoonish poof of smoke. I will get a replacement in the next couple of days. I promise. Plus, yesterday was the last day of my teaching for awhile. So maybe we will be spending some time together again. I'm feeling great and have only minor side-effects (at the moment) so I am looking forward to diving back into the big painting. By the way, I've visited a dozen different doctor's offices this past month and I have taken an informal survey of what qualifies as Art in these arenas. I have distilled the formula down to four elements and ultimately did a thumbnail sketch (see above) of my version of a Doctor's Office Painting. I hope you are not offended. I'll see you soon,
Steve

Holotypes

"A holotype is one of several possible biological types. A type is what fixes a name to a taxon. A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype." - Wikipedia. Each specimen was designated in the Fall of 2009 and is made of ink on watercolor paper and measure 5 x 7 inches. Click on the illustrations for a larger view.

Wrath of God type stuff

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Hold a Candle To

Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting (906-2), 2008
Oil on wood, 15 3/4 x 15 3/4 in. (source)

Red text source

Green text source

"What's the point of being alive," she said, "if you're not going to communicate?" (p. 39)

"But the academies proved that everyone with a modicum of talent can make an impeccably proportioned figure, if they are trained to do so. The tens of thousands of drawings by Baroque academy students held in museums throughout Europe and America, show that basically anyone can learn to draw a figure with reasonably correct proportions. A proportionally correct drawing is not really a matter of skill, and only marginally a question of training. Everything difficult about drawing begins after proportions are not longer an issue." (p. 20)

"That's the secret of how to enjoy writing and how to make yourself meet high standards," said Mrs. Berman. "You don't write for the whole world, and you don't write for ten people, or two. You write for just one person." (p. 65)

"Later in the century Whistler said, 'I don't teach art; with that I cannot interfere; but I teach the scientific application of paint and brushes.'" (p. 30)

". . . because simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions." (p. 82)

"Out of a thousand art students, maybe five will make a living off their art, and perhaps one will be known outside her city. That's not a condemnation. It's the nature of fame, real quality, and genuine influence to be rare." (p. 67)

"How can you tell a good painting from a bad one?" he said. This is the son of a Hungarian horse trainer. He has a magnificent handlebar mustache. "All you have to do my dear," he said, "is look at a million paintings, and then you can never be mistaken." (p. 165)

"Too much drive and engagement narrows the possibilities of art just as much as an excess of insouciance. Unfortunately studio art instruction nearly always privileges and rewards the deadly serious students over all the others." (p. 81)

"And what is literature, Rabo," he said, "but an insider's newsletter about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in the Universe but a few molecules who have the disease called 'thought.'" (p. 210)

"It is also said that art itself is ineffable, and people teach 'around' it or 'up to' it. Oscar Wilde says the same thing, a bit less ponderously: 'Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.'" (p. 99)

"The whole magical thing abut our painting, Mrs. Berman, and this was old stuff in music, but it was brand new in painting: it was pure essence of human wonder, and wholly apart from food, from sex, from clothes, from houses, from drugs, from cars, from news, from money, from crime, from punishment, from games, from war, from peace -- and surely apart from the universal human impulse among painters and plumbers alike toward inexplicable despair and self-destruction!" (p. 312)

Elizabeth Neel, Come and Gone, 2009
Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 48 cm (source)