The blossoms were only half there and so is this video. My first impression done fresh after the fact and some wine and waiting till tuesday when the blossoms will really be out and the Botanical Gardens free. Come join me and we’ll finish the film.

The pages of moby are falling wet in the studio like the little white petals are falling on the black street outside. Petals and pages become one and I call them Pagels in the Rain and flowers and mad drawing of whales and zeppelins. Fortunately I have some mp3s of Bob Dylan’s satellite radio show (whith all it’s themes, dreams and schemes) to keep me company into the wee small hours of the morning. I will be taking a break to see the cherry blossoms at Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. I suggest you do the same.

The clip is from a 1949 educational film. It is my contribution to a Vimeo “clipdub”Project. The painting is another variation on this cigar box.

Spring is exlopoding around me like fireworks. Had to take a break from the drawing and scanning to go look at magnolias and run.I wish you could smell this entry as well as see it… magnolias are sweet and the circus is in town. It’s also Charles Mingus’ birthday today. He would have been 85.

The other day I did a vlog muttering to myself about architecture. I think I said Finial (the ornament atop a peaked roof) for Cornice (the ornament on top of a flat roof)… so in the interest of errata… Here’s a cornince from Park Slope and a cornice/finial with Buddhist Libierty motiff from Greenpoint.

a drawing on a chase manhattan deposit slip… as good as cash, right? And another cigar box painting in progress.

A baby Minkie whale swam into the Gowanus Canal. Like Ahab, I tried to find her, but found instead a beautifully battered landscape; populated by people doing interesting jobs. I’m working on a painting to go with the vid…. check back later.

addenda: In a sad note, the news reports that the little whale beached itself and died lastnight. Somehow in trying to move it, the whale sank to the bottom of the shipping channel. Having no luck seeing it, I’d convinced myself it had escaped harm, rather it had escaped this mortal coil…. like moby mouse.

In the morning He wakes up and she is already in the mirror and he is coming in and out of sleep and seeing her seeing her and not seeing him seeing. It’s all so beautiful and mixes up with dreams… untill she leaves.

Temple Hall is the name of a cigar that once lived in the wonderful cedar smelling box on which I painted This abstraction. I named it “Temple Hall”. Below that is some Coltrane I found on Youtube and below that is another cigar box (that was Place de La Concordesky)… presently called Mud Luscious in honor of how I feel with all the rain and of course e.e. cummings.

“Why?” the dog says. “Why?”
and I say, “Its the weather.”

The morning never really started as the evening never ended. I came back from a whrilwind tour of Greater NYC art districts caught a cat nap in time to put the better half on a jet to Boston. Alone in the lumbering day with a nagging fear of Brain Tumors, I fell upon the strange shores of old frineds and young minds. We decided we should make a movie and drew a map of it and more or less acted silly. The kids ate healthy snaks and the adults got to have A 88 Sauternne with blue cheese. I’d like to state for the record that officially I’m not really in favor of blue cheese or dessert wine, but in this case it was jaw dropping oh wow good.

This is the signature of Kurt Vonnegut that the better half got in two books a couple of years ago. What will the world be like without him? Not as good, I’m certain. I read him first in the south of France… in a Chateau…. I was in Paradise…so is he, now.

vlogging again after Alabaster Alabaster with Alabaster Alabaster and Remi and the delivery of the long crowd scroll. The music here is Piaf meets Eno with thoughts on Patti Smith.

this is a vlog response to two seperate Vimeo Clip requests about art. They came from
Mary and alabaster alabaster who is trying to use create something for a college thesis or something… ergo it is tagged: “Help Virginia Graduate”.

Of course it is also just my regular moby vlog… as I’m still only half way through the animation. This weekend a lot of friends had birthdays… mostly jews, including dead Jesus. I’m turning forty next month and the whole spring vibe of it all has me thinking how humans are more or less like sheep, or ducks, or any othe animal that chooses, or feels compelled to live in groups or tribes. They seem to birth babies in the spring.

I’ve been in a bit of a whirlwind of blustry spring day work and wonder. Here is a run in the local thousand acre wood with thoughts on film and beauty and russia and love. This is birthday greetings and salutations to several wonderful people. You know who you are.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about vanity and Narcicuss by way of Moby Dick and cinema. I’ve been drawing a lot of what might have historically been termed Vanitas… you know, hot nude chicks in the mirror… doing la toilette as the French say. I love that half of the history of art is just a way of trying to see naked women… The other half is trying to see God. As anyone with any sense will tell you, they are one and the same thing. In the interest of my own vanity, Here are some links toward lavish praise: The Daily Reel and a comment now writ large on ifbook.Not that any of this flattery is going to my head. As the better half says: “Yes, yes, nice words and two dollars will get you a subway ride. Talk to me when they’re buying something.” But who wants a subway ride? I want to fly Concorde again. Sadly the only one flying is a Russian knock off that Nasa put back in the sky… and fankly that was a while ago…. no sst for me.

The video is my play on Wallace Shawn and Shakespeare along the way to Orson Welles doing Lear and Mobydick…. The drawing of what seems to be Italy with Chinese is from Imagination in The Library. I think he hails from China. The kicked by Sexy Italian Boot Sicily is from my brush wiping page next to the moby ink pot. It’s random, but I thought sort of pretty. It is from the pages of an old book on chess strategy. The Chinese say, “Life is Chess (war); Living is strategy and tactics.

Another vlog while I scan and scan. This remix has a lot of Goddard clips and a Brian Eno mash up. The drawing is a finish of a Carloine VK start from The Library Project. Stangely today Moby Dick came on TCM. I missed, however, Orson’s Sermon.

Yesterday was a strange and wonderful fluke. Palm Sunday, April Fools, Pasover, firs day in baseball season, and first day of spring. Partly inspired by Orson Welles, the better half and I decided to taste white wines. As tempting as the vintage Dom Perignon sitting in the fridge was to me (aaaaaaaaaaaah the French Champagne), we went rather towards a Gewurtztiminer from Alsace Lorraine (sweent Low Rain low rain….lorraine) and Burgundy Chablis. We watched a dvd of Avatar (our new favorite t.v. show by way of the cutest buddhist) and ate cheese and Chacuterie. It was decadent and terribly Pagan. The music is Bowie from Aladdin Sane and is just a remix of the last vlog.