"...When I look at a work of Art I ask myself: does it challenge me, does it touch, move and inspire me? Do I learn something from it, does it startle or amaze me - do I get excited, upset? That is the test any artwork has to pass: can it create an emotional impact on a human being even when he has no education or any information about art? I’ve always had a problem with art that you can only understand if you have a degree in art history, and I have a problem with theories in general. Most of them are bullshit anyway. Most critics and theorists have little respect for artists, and I think the importance of theory in art is totally overrated. Real art is self-evident. Real art is intense, challenging, enchanting, exciting and unsettling; it has a quality and magic that you cannot explain. Like the Blues, a poem of Rimbaud or Rembrandt's late self-portraits. Art is not logic, and if you really want to experience it, your mind and rational thinking will be of little help. Art is something spiritual that you can only experience with your senses, your heart, your soul. Think of Bob Dylan, Mozart, Howling Wolf, Goya, Bukowski and Robert Crumb - do you need to know the theories that some busybodies might attach to their art in order to experience it? Marcel Duchamp said: "The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity." These two poles is all you need - you don't need a third one.

-Gottfried Helnwein

"They had been in love once—equally and passionately. Like a spider web that you walk into, it is not so easy to get all the tendrils of real love off after you have passed through it."

- from the new novel

Hello Mr. Carroll, it's David Tedeschi in Spring Lake, NJ again.

Yesternight, my wife and I had a 'Jonathan Carroll' moment - at least I'd like to think it was.

To me, a 'JC' moment is when a person - a stranger, usually - transcends the typically shallow, civil interactions we all share on a daily basis. They show themselves as they really are, with no warning, with no apology, for good or ill.

We were waiting on line at our local A&P, stocking up for the blizzard which now rages outside. I expressed out loud, to my wife, that I loved to look and see what people buy in the supermarket, especially before a storm.

The woman ahead of me in line snapped around and smiled, locking her eyes with mine.

"It always makes me feel strong", she said.

"Excuse me?", said I, confused.

"It makes me feel strong. Shopping for food. I raised two boys, both in college now, both over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. I loved to shop for them. I loved to feed them. We never had cable TV, and I never had a new car, or a really nice pair of shoes, but I knew that if I could get them fresh oranges, the best meat we could afford...I knew I was in control, and that I was a good mother."

She smiled at me then, deeply, warmly. It was a smile I couldn't help but return, because I knew, being the son of a single mom, what she meant.

See?

Hope you're well in the New Year - can't WAIT for that book!

Take care-
David

"There is an old Neapolitan expression meaning that someone is crazy, "Da i numeri" ("He gives numbers"). It comes from the lottery. Superstitious ticket buyers in Naples would ask asylum inmates to shout out numbers and then bet on whatever came to those unbalanced minds."

In front of a beautiful bamboo painting:

"Bamboo without mind,  
yet sends thoughts soaring among the clouds.  
Standing on the lone mountain, quiet, dignified, it typifies the will of a gentleman."

Nearby is a movie theater that used to show films in English. We went there a lot because they always showed first run films, had a great big screen (and some smaller ones), and it was a seven minute walk from the apartment. Out of the blue, the theater closed one day because business had apparently been lousy for a long time. It was surprising and sad but what could you do? The place stood empty and forlorn for about six months, its billboard still showing times movies were shown. The other day I walked by and saw men working on the billboard, facade, etcetera. When I passed later, I saw that they were turning the theater into a discount women's shoe store. The idea of that transformation has haunted me ever since I saw what was going on.

"Dogs are our links to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit on a hillside with a dog on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring, it was peace."

-Milan Kundera

He was as loud and useless as a leaf blower.

She is one of those women who is always changing their hairdo. Like a dog constantly changing its sleeping position, trying to find the perfect spot.

He said he couldn't live without her, now that she was
gone. His friend answered you can't live without her or is it just that life is darker and has more teeth?

At her funeral, there wasn't a wet eye in the house.

"Love is the potent force that tears off all masks, and
men who run away from love do so in order that
they may preserve their masks."

-PD Ouspensky

Alas Jeffrey Thomas wrote in and pointed out, via the always reliable Snopes/Urban Legend website, that the nice story about the runners in the Special Olympics I posted yesterday is only partly true. It did happen, but only a couple of the contestants stopped, turned around and went back to help the fallen runner. I guess that's better than none. But it was nice to think, if only for a few hours, that such things really do happen 100%. 

Apparently this is a true story:

Recently at the Seattle Special Olympics nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun they started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the track, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back......every one of them. One girl with Down's Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said,"This will make it better." Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. Everyone in the stadium stood, the cheering went on for several minutes.

Six boys are playing basketball together on a court in the park. All of them are absolutely terrible at it and their game is more wrestling match than anything else. They are having a wonderful time.

Often when I walk around I see very young women pushing baby strollers. What's interesting is how many of them, sometimes not much older than girls, have a similar expression on their faces or look in their eye. I guess you could best describe it as a look of surprise, sometimes almost of shock. It's a look that says how did I get here?

After Christmas there are designated places around town where people can dump their Christmas tree and the city will dispose of it for you. Suddenly you'll come upon one of these large piles of trees and it's like a weird, totally unexpected forest in the middle of Vienna. Pine tree after pine tree piled on top of each other, the stray bit of silver or gold tinsel waving in the wind. When I first saw these seasonal piles years ago I thought they were sad. Christmas was over, dump the tree unceremoniously on a pile, blah blah. But now I like them, like their surreal appearance and their just as fast disappearance after a week or two.  

In the supermarket I am an inveterate snoop into other's people's shopping baskets. You can get a pretty good insight into a person's life by checking what sorts of things they choose to buy. At the checkout counter today there are two people in front of me. A teenage boy with spiked hair, a 'Foo Fighters' t-shirt, and camouflage pants is buying a case of beer, a huge box of chocolate marshmallow cookies called "Super Dickman" (a double entendre in any language), and a jumbo bottle of ketchup. When he pays he takes a small tightly wadded ball of bills out of his pocket. Behind him is a sour faced middle aged woman who has a basket filled with health this, lo-cal that, three bunches of celery, two different kinds of toilet cleaner, and biggest of all, a blue and white bag of cat litter. She pays with two brand new bills out of what looks like a brand new wallet.   

Polish proverbs:

"Wherever you go, you can't get rid of yourself.

The greatest love is a mother's, then your dog's, then a sweetheart's.

Love enters a man through his eyes, a woman through her ears.

"All my teachers have been women. Though several men have taken me aside for an hour to tell me the things they know." - Don Paterson

In Tanzania, the normal greeting is "Habari," which means "How are you?"

The typical answer to that is "Imara" which means "Strong."