I've got an architectural scale, its a neat tool for these times and quite different from a ruler or a yardstick. Mine is red at one end and teal on the other, red being the measurement representing various levels of lies and teal for degrees of truth. My scale happens to be sitting with me today as I make the rounds of blogs and news sites. The red end is glowing like hot chunky coals in our fireplace. I hope its not melting, but it could because everything out there suggests Bernie M. , whom I'm guessing surely must be in the distant acquaintance of Bernie K., isn't going to see one day in the pokey. No Way! Why? Because while Bernie K. counts his blessings in taser growth, along comes a Junior-Bernie M., in the physical body of "one bad pilot", Investor Shrencker, captured in the bloody act of wrist slashing. I held the scale over this story. Neon red. I decided to hold the scale over the widely viewed, original photo of Bernie M. and watched the red jump the way mercury does in a thermometer - until it paused at pale teal.
It must be the degree, I thought. Big Bernie M. wrapped up his spoils and gifted his blood relations while the minor league Schrencker burned his own Mother and Father out of their $135K retirement. How wicked! Worse than what we've heard is the most wicked ripoff in history.
I told you there were more Bernies to come. It does not stop here. At this very moment there are New York waterbugs nesting and breeding right in your very own attics, you just haven't met them yet.
The peculiar manner in which Schrencker's tale is told could be laid bare immediately if someone would just say whether or not his aerial windshield was shattered, or didn't they notice? Oh, why go to such laborious detail when the drama is so much better as law enforcement saves criminal investor to face judgement day? Anyway, none of that matters, what matters is the scale here and its might just be too hot to touch. The mini-Madoff's morals make "Big Bernie the Ripper" look sweet and almost innocent by comparison. As in innocent mistakes.
The architectural scale is an extended triangle, ever seen one? You can turn it over and then over again, each side and each end reveals increasingly smaller ways to measure something real and come up with a perfect representation of that thing except it is not real at all, but to the casual observer it just looks real. One inch equals one foot, or one-half inch equals one foot, or one-eighth inch equals one foot and so forth, there are metrics included as well. I know you've seen one.
I lifted up the glowing end to the Geithner appointment and it quivered. I moved in closer and held it to his photo. The scale flew out of my grip like hot ash. Now, you would really think after Bernie Kerick, Sopranos wannabe, notoriously flubbed the opportunity to taser the nation, reportedly due to nannygate escapades that Richard Gere, I mean Geithner should have
known better, wouldn't you? This is when you get one of those monkey fist in the cookie jar mental pictures. Well, its okay, Obie Wan Kanobe has waved the scale, Geithner soon enough will be superior to the IRS. They will overlook his innocent inattentiveness to those tax years 2001-04. And we are to just calm down now because nannygate episodes and stuffing away three years of taxes are always innocent mistakes. Besides, he's paid now, knowing what magnificence lay ahead. We need Mister G., he's gonna fix the money mess as apparently no one else out of three hundred million Americans has the economic wizardry to do... except, and I hate to say this, Bernie Madoff.
known better, wouldn't you? This is when you get one of those monkey fist in the cookie jar mental pictures. Well, its okay, Obie Wan Kanobe has waved the scale, Geithner soon enough will be superior to the IRS. They will overlook his innocent inattentiveness to those tax years 2001-04. And we are to just calm down now because nannygate episodes and stuffing away three years of taxes are always innocent mistakes. Besides, he's paid now, knowing what magnificence lay ahead. We need Mister G., he's gonna fix the money mess as apparently no one else out of three hundred million Americans has the economic wizardry to do... except, and I hate to say this, Bernie Madoff.
My scale shows he's much closer to the truth with a pale teal reading, at least he understood the issues enough to ensure that Mrs. Madoff hired and pays for his round-the-clock court-ordered guardians preventing his flight from justice or contact with the Postal authority. To date, he has not been indicted.
In the magic land of Golden Rule bedtime stories, Bernie M. will someday surface as the King of
the New World Order. Can you see it? With a staff glowing red and the teal, gone. There will be no teal, no Gaza, no Iraq and whomever is leftover holidays in timeshares on beautiful Lake Afghanistan.
I don't recommend troubling your brain wondering just how it is the future will wind up in Cracked magazine, we're already off to a great start. Whenever we are witness to something genuinely puke-worthy, just remind yourself something worse is suffering birth pangs.
20 comments:
It has been a long time since a painting has completely taken my breath away.
The actual pots, the designs on the pots, the spacing between them, the mountains behind them, the space within them.
God Nina, this is beautiful.
Three Peruvian Buddhas--deal or no deal--they are there--they are everywhere--I don't know why three--I don't have the program or instructions that came with the game--but then again, they were written by someone who has never played the game--you know, the game that has no end--
Or, maybe they are just cookie jars--or maybe if you rub them a genie pops out--or maybe we should just look at them and smile because they are not really what we are seeing at all--
I don't know how you do it Nina, I just know that you do-- that your hand is guided --quicker than the eye--
layer upon layer--it's not that the jars are there, or the background, or what may or may not be inside-or under the shell game-it's something else--
that makes me smile and wonder--
Thank you for continuing to share oh wise one!!
Jj
Woos stoves:Well,it's -13F here this morning--looks like the break will come tom'w it's supposed to get to about 20F--shorts and t-shirts time!!
Getting 4cords of wood delivered today or tom'w--I hope tom'w-- schools are closed as the wind chill bring the temp to -24F or something like that--
A note--When we put the wood stove in I went to the hardware store and bought a temperature gauge that has a magnet on it--sticks to the outside of the stove and has a coil inside that expands and contracts showing the temperature--works great for keeping the temp above creosote range--I also burn very hot--red line in the morning for 15 -30 minutes to burn off what may have accumulated the day before--time to go and tamp the fire down now as a matter of fact--
Not planning on moving much today unless the wood gets here--will have to keep moving then--something reassuring about knowing you have a stack of good wood--
By the way--GOOD MORNING--if you have not seen it, Les has a new Origami up--
Jj
Hi Su! Jj!
Sorry I am late to the party. In the mornings lately, there are so many things to do that getting to sit down with coffeemug in hand and get serious with you all hasn't happened like it needs to happen. Like I LIKE it to happen.
Well, we know why of course, wood gathering and such, but then by night time I'm pretty much blown out. I grab a little webbing wherever I can and then some other emergency bursts forth leaving a lot of important things undone.
I am heartened the Peruvians is so well-received. I never really know how someone will react, and interestingly don't get criticism, even when I know it must exist, somewhere. The Peruvians was one of those I thought was lost beyond repair in the making, remedied by a thorough dunking in the bathtub, drying outdoors in the sunshine and a little repainting on the highlights. You can see how nicely the background fuzzed in the washing.
All life is about learning.
Thank you Su, thank you Jj. XO,XO
I read yesterday on WRH that there are no records of Madoff's investment fund ever making a single trade. It was always pure Ponzi.
RE the Peruvians: The spiral is so ancient; found in the oldest rock art and the newest sunflower that just bloomed today. And the spiral is what catches my eye in these. The simplest on the right, the peak of its evolution on the left, the vesica pisces in the middle.
Ancient Celtic art had three design elements: the interlacing knot, the fret, and the spiral. All three were brought to an incredibly high level of development by around the time of the Roman conquests. I have examples carved in bone or ivory from 11,000 BC that were already quite complex.
Over time I have studied the knot and the fretwork enough to make them my own, to feel comfortable using them in original design. The spiral, not yet. Haven't even dipped my toe into those waters.
In addition I am learning that perhaps knowing how to "fix" things is as possible and as important in watercolor as it is in working wood and stone. (How does one fix a mistake carved in stone? It can be done, up to a point.)
I am inspired now to create something today; perhaps I'll get the sawhorses out and spend the afternoon in the sunshine on the roof deck.
Beautiful writing nina. Well done.
Thank you Michael. Your comment redeems you one-hundred percent and more after your most recent deletion fit. Heh, not to mention your publishing fit. Cough, cough.
Such interesting characters we all are, between us, we mirror humanity's foibles and interconnectedness. There is no place safe so its best just to be naked to begin with.
Ah, back to the post, it really IS starting to appear algebraic in comparisons. If a negative is followed with another negative, somehow it becomes a positive. I had big problems with that in college algebra. It would be better to introduce Probability and Statistics before twisting negatives into positives since that is how the world really works.
Okay, these vases: cheap little unfired pieces of painted clay that fade to beige, seemingly done by an artisans' factory where the boss is a dude named Julio. Julio does the exotic stuff. Julio in glazes. I will put it up today just for you because I am grateful to no longer be briefly ungrateful. I think the Peruvian artisans have patterns just like the Chinese Old Masters factories.
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I have wanted to suggest for awhile now that you put up some of your work on your blog because people have no idea there is this other Michael. You are not so mysterious as you are extraordinarily complex and creative.
One more thing, about the 30 years of Ponzi, well, his BIG BIG crime was the confession. He broke the code through highly likely self-flattery to his sons, those grownup men still living with him in the 7 million dollar pentpad. Naughty, but not naughty enough for the big house. So much for family values...
I hate snow. mutter mutter, but hey I can't complain , well I could but no one would listen, it did go up to a balmy -18c today and me without my suntan lotion. Oh shucks darn.
Nina, you mean if you hit someone twice it doesn't take the first one away?
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They may be cheap Peruvian pots, knockoffs, but at least they steal from the best. Bad pun on Julio, nina. Bad. But I like the spiral.
I did go up to the roof deck and play around this afternoon. Worked out the Celtic two-coil spiral and drew a small one on a piece of pine, then tried carving it; too small, too soft a wood for the detail so it won't be a keeper but I get how it's done, like a yin-yang symbol that keeps on spiraling outwards.
Funny you should mention doing an online gallery as I was thinking the same today. One problem is that I didn't get a digital camera until 2004 and took very few photos before that, so I don't have any record of around 95% of my work.
This link isn't a gallery but it's a rather fun before and after slideshow of an apartment I did here in Venezuela last year. Check out the wall that is supposed to look like the beach.
http://www.slide.com/r/zvYz7tag4D8yAtw5Ks6ci-DI49weTkPa
So do I need to do more deleting? You want my bombs defused and removed? Just say the word.
Love you.
No more deleting. The way to prevent a delete is to pause awhile before the publishing. I hate to think what we left behind on Liberty Forum... but there's no possibility we can ever go back which we can't really say about carving in marble. Its just not fixable unless you start all over again and make it into something it looks like in the error. Maybe that's what they meant in Algebra, negatives turning into positives.
In art, I just call them happy accidents.
Your link appears to be encrypted. It won't open. I would so love to see. I am sure all of us want to see.
Hi Silver, I never expected you to reply to me over here, but considering your subject today, it fits in well. Life drawing, the perfection of the human body in quick study. Straight out of Nicolaides.
I'm not clear on centigrade, does 18c mean you've really got flowers in January?
This one has to work; I just checked it twice:
http://www.slide.com/r/EwXzJ7ir7T9l0K6oi013stE_hzlNHlmM
If you copy the one above and paste it into a new window it will work. I don't know why it won't make a link, but it won't.
Happy accidents. I have had my share of them. One can always try "that's what I wanted it to look like" too. :p
Really the only chance you have to fix an "oops" in stone is if you are doing relief carving, where you can just carve the whole piece deeper. Thick super glue will sometimes work too, for chips. Fillers never work for long, they always discolor and show sooner or later. All of the above applies to wood as well but one has more glue choices.
Really bad net connection in Venz. tonight; I'm having to send pages three or four times.
Archive.org has some libertyforum pages, not many. I have a feeling, though, that somewhere every bit of the internet is being archived and we will get it all back someday.
I totally flubbed on the link. Oh, I got to your page, registered and signed in and then ... nothing happened.
Maybe in the morning? Thank you, I know you went to a lot of effort there.
Where there is a will, etc.
"There is no place safe so its best just to be naked to begin with."
Nina, I like this one so much. It has been on my mind since I read it yesterday. If you don't mind, I'd like to try it out as a sig line somewhere and see what the reaction is.
I am truly honored. Yes, use it.
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