It's been a while since we blah blah balh..... As we take this journey together we shoul blah blah blah and even more ....

It's been a while since we blah blah balh..... As we take this journey together we shoul blah blah blah and even more ....

It is very difficult to surrender the day to sleep. It tries to oppose The Night. Perhaps Death is like going into the Night. Perhaps sleep practices us for the Nether World that may not be as bad as they say. Who the fuck knows" "Nobody" I scream ye fuckers! The priests tell us it"s a place above or one below, although the Pope excluded the belief of Limbo recently. Other religions have similar themes. Buddhism has added a heaven too to appease the masses. But Death ends each of us and we are unaware. I think as I get nearer to Death that it may be a mysterious transformation of soul dissolved spiritually and miraculously perfect to exit until another being arises of that entity most naturally with a few alterations of genes to influence the birth. If this makes sense you, you are representative of The "Chosen Ones" who will save mankind from Him or Herself. You Are "The Few." "The Many" have simply moved on unnoticed. Perhaps that"s the best way. In this manner they avoid my sincere bullshit.

Andrew Wyeth died. I stood in a line that went around he block in 1962 for an exhibition of his at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I remember I admired him in my youth until other sensibilities about visual art prevailed: early on Soutine, Lebrun, French Impressionists, Picasso, German Expressionists, Kolwitz, Ernst, Kirshner, New York Expressionists followed later by Morandi, Ernst, Picasso, Diebenkorn, Hopper and significantly Guston. Of course, many others influenced me and I"ve forgotten a few I should have mentioned. But Wyeth remained a champion to many art lovers. I always regarded him as a gifted illustrator who created a sense of nostalgia about an agrarian past that was quintessentially American and innocent, despite the loneliness and ascetic hardness of it all. This appealed to many who sought representational fidelity, a return to simplicity and a sort of Epicurean idealism, the garden life of the country, the return to nature. He work is solid and technically precise, a craftsman and storyteller in the footsteps of his father. As such it rises above much USA art of the twentieth century, especially the so-called fine art that reduces to garbage, however stylistically popular. Vapid and theoretical studies along with shallow and sentimental products, and purely decorative deconstructionist excitements have long been dismissed by this critic, albeit an amateur one. Much of the art I"ve admired and sought to emulate over the years has elements of unique imagination, aesthetic integrity and strong ties to the classical Western Canon. While this stance remains challenged in a culturally diverse world of a new century, it remains my influence for better or worse. I"d like to think of Wyeth as one of my early teachers. I grew very critical of him for a period and regret I was so harsh. He certainly influenced many of the direct study portraits I did in the seventies. As I age I am pulling out the few remaining drawings of retarded individuals and old folk along with a few of young friends of mine from of all places, Chester County, the seat of the Brandywine School. I won a prize in drawing at Chester Springs, the old retreat of Thomas Eakins, one summer and got a nice easel, which I still have. That drawing won other prizes too. It is a small sketch in charcoal of a young black man who I worked with at a facility near Downingtown. My daughter has hung it proudly in her home for years. Perhaps I"ll do a few more portraits in the period ahead, God willing.

Sent to Father Charles in early May, "08: In regard to my smugness and boredom concerning the various duties I had as a teacher: relating to children, and their parents, and the various supervisors, principals etc.: I handled it very efficiently. It could be said I excelled at patience. But inwardly I preferred my alone time, fuck "em all! I think now in my pre-dotage that if history had been different and I was ordained in 1935, for example, I would have been considered a good priest. I may have masturbated a lot and got used to that, (rationalized a justification; perhaps took two-week vacations incognito to Portugal to party for days on end ), and found relief in reading, or a few good friends with whom to share good whiskey. But I would have been noted as Father Murphy, a good and patient man, our pastor or teacher or confessor, whatever! My cross in life would have been the common folk like Mrs. McKerney wanting to know if I got anymore mass cards with the eternal blessing and absolution of the Pope or Mr. McFadden and his scrupulosity, desiring counseling in the rectory twice a week. I can"t wash my hands enough, Father. He gave us thousands of dollars so I had to entertain him. That"s how I think I would have been. Or perhaps I would have found the perfect life in a monastery, like Joe Young. I am now redirected to my book. And my art. Both areas are challenging and worthy labors now. The most difficult task is dealing with others. I cannot predict the book"s or art"s impact, if any. I say, it"s all process and the results can wait. Perhaps I"ll be dead before all my poetry is retrieved via back-up disks, old binders of unedited material, my daughter"s and wife"s care to save it all and get someone to review it. The old problem. I am reclusive. In a crowd my anxiety turns me manic and I can become most obnoxious. Your Dear Confrere, Jim

I am aware of the soreness of my body. I feel it especially in my lower back and hips, "the cradle" so to speak. The core is sore. I feel it especially when I get out of bed or out of chair or the car. These aches are almost my friends I"ve know them so long but now they are getting downright rude. I know many suffer far worse than me but Christ this is how it feels to be wearing out" I think I will quit the gym and spend my time at the pool. I"ll join the seniors for water arobics,lounge in the hot whirlpool, take steam baths and gossip. I"ll have good company. We"ll surely have a contest concerning our arthritis, the gout, flatulence, kidney stones, coranaries, bypasses and new knees, not including ungrateful children, memories of dead in-laws, pensions, health plans, doctors and pain. I am also aware of the torpor of my spirit. Does it too dwindle with age" I depend upon my activities. I rarely sit alone doing absolutely nothing. I am aware I must have a distraction at all times, even sleep has it"s imaginary rituals and my dreams testify to my neuroticism. I generally wander from my studio to my typer, an old term which should be properly called The Word Processor. My art and my writing, however enjoyable, are "projects" in my mind. They are life-long ambitions in the process of fulfillment. As such this is only natural. But I work often from an inner emptiness. The nagging hollowness within demands escapes from what is. It takes the form of depression, drinking and smoking. My vanity demands attention if only that of the two or three I write to. I am constantly checking the E-mail. It"s pathetic. I see the dependency. It results in a psychological state of inner division, conflict, cognitive distortions, and obsession with becoming somebody if even the odd codger with an odd website, a couple of self-published thinly veiled homosexual novels, an attic of poetry voluminously arranged in looseleaf binders, each a different perversity, and a collection of weird art, none of it ever sold. I don"t believe this is negativity or self-pity, although the latter has been a visitor too. Rather the awareness I am living a vain life. This insight frees me.

*K&A was just an ordinary neighborhood as I realize now. Today it is rundown and another world. But in my childhood each street could have been paved in gold, such was the richness I observed without knowing. "Under the El" was such a wonderful and thrilling experience. The neon, the salesmen out on the pavement calling the public to buy the latest radio or TV, the best washer, the potions inside. Demure neighborhood bars with ladies" entrances. The winos, the spastic who writhed and negotiated the EL each day all dressed up in a dark suit, the old men spitting and smoking, arguing and watching the scene. And up on the streets the final years of horse-drawn carriages, ragmen, hucksters, insurance men with their thick black books, bibles to prosperity, proper and bitchy old spinsters who write letters to your parents, and the churches always full and prosperous. Like most neighborhoods back then. Like a small town within a city of rivaling towns or districts up against one another. My memories are sacred. I was "there" and not "over there" in Harrogate or, God forbid, The Northeast Village. We hated Port Richmond but they"re the same as us but a little more narrow. * Kensington Avenue at Allegheny where there is an El stop.