Circles; running around in...

Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) started getting enamored of the spherical form in about 1926, and this painting was one of the results. I’m not totally enamored of spheres but this one certainly caught my eye last December at an exhibit of his work at the Guggenheim Museum. It’s called “Several Circles” (actually being more than 30) and they jumped off the canvas at me. Seemingly simple but with dynamic juxtapositions of color and light, it’s an inspiring work of art.

So I was inspired to steal his idea(s) and, since it was the Christmas season, I got out the acrylics and a couple of boxes of old, and deteriorating (I was actually going to dump them) Christmas tree balls and dipped them in white semi-gloss paint as a background color and to cover-up all the dings and crackles. Over the last couple of months I’ve been whaling away at Kandinsky-izing tree ornaments. It was intriguing and fun for about two weeks but then I started realizing I wasn’t really creating “art.” What I was doing was turning my living room into a crafts fair and my project was turning into a friggin’ hobby! Of course I am incapable of keeping things simple and went overboard with my colors and couldn’t stop myself from being overly ornamental with my own spheres and spirals. I never learn. I’ll finish up the project (the tunnel light is now beckoning) but I’ve got to learn that an inspirational work of art does not necessarily mean I have to bring it home with me.

Unfortunately I still have boxes of old ornaments I will never use and, hey, both eyeballs and olives are round. Satan, get thee behind me.

Update 3/1/10: The siren call of artsy/craftsy activity took hold of my humanoid persona and the results are hereat recorded. I have gouged out six eyeballs and impregnated six olives with faux pimento. Want one?

Rubber Diplomacy

For the last four years around this time NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has held a condom-wrapper design contest and then, in the fall, distributes tons of free condoms to bars and gyms and other usual suspects where the unprotected deer and antelope (and bear and buffalo) roam. They have narrowed this year’s 600 or-so entries down to five and you can vote for your favorite at www.nyc.gov/condoms. Although I like all five finalists I voted for the one shown here.

Cheesy Commentary on Rye

If you haven’t read J.D. Salinger’s the Catcher in the Rye I have some sage advice: Don’t. If you have read it and remember it fondly, don’t read it again now (like I did) just because Salinger passed away last month. Or, if you must, try to remember the era in which it was published, that being the early 1950’s. Hailed as a “classic” almost immediately upon publication it became a popular sensation and Holden Caulfield, its narrator, a symbol of disaffected youth. After reading it again over 50 years later it can only be considered a curiosity trapped in its own history and that of its reclusive author. It’s essentially still a bummer but nowadays we know too much about mental illness and it’s so easy to practice armchair psychology and label young Mr. Caulfield as definitely bi-polar, if not totally manic-depressive.

Also, this time, I felt ripped off (it took me about ten minutes to read, give or take an hour or so) even though I bought the book extra-cheapo on Amazon.com. It’s easy to read not only because the type-font is big but Catcher is presented as if it was written by a 17-year-old who, although privately and expensively schooled, just doesn’t have all that good a way with words, with all the “you knows” and “all that’s” that annoy the hell out of normal human beings. Holden is a total jerk and completely incomprehensible to somebody reared under completely different circumstances at the same age; on a different coast and with a totally different financial background. How could I relate to someone so hateful, so self-entitled, self-deluded and a chronic liar to boot? My tear ducts were bereft of liquid this time although I don’t really remember crying over that spilt milk originally. I was not a bully in school but I think I might have been tempted to take a sock at this whining, wimpy character if he had been my classmate.

There are two things that made me laugh; both jokes on myself really. 1) There is still a typographical error in the book that I can remember spotting (honest!) 50 years ago and 2) one of Holden’s made-up names for himself is Jim Steele, which is the name I used when playing super-hero detectives with my brother (Bob Steele) when we were kids. A third observation that I have somehow dredged up from the slime at the bottom of my brain is that the cover-illustration for the book; a rampant, red carousel horse, has nothing at all to do with anything at all. Oh, there is a carousel (with horses) near the end of the book but this illustration didn’t seem all that applicable in the 50’s and it doesn’t now.

Anyway, in my opinion the Catcher in the Rye is a book of its time and the year 2010 needn’t apply.

Painted Nephew

After months and months of being shrouded in mysterioso drapery, the new façade of my nephew’s house in San Francisco has emerged from the shadows. Pretty cool, huh? He purchased his home in 2005 or 6 (or 4; I forget) and last year I guess he was feeling solvent enough to attempt to return the house to the glory from which it originally sprang and/or sprung and hired a designer/architect/restorer named Skeeter to accomplish the feat. Months passed and costs accelerated which, of course, is the norm for this kind of project. Having made a huge dent in my nephew’s discretionary income, Skeeter is now gone and in a couple of weeks the painters will descend on the site and ascend the scaffolding for their shot at painterly glory and the other half of his retirement portfolio.

San Francisco has a tradition of painting restorations in colorful ways and these houses have come to be known as “painted ladies.” I dunno if my nephew has the testicles to own a painted lady but it will be interesting to see the results of whatever color scheme emerges.

Update 2/16/10--Several of my uppity, but valued, readers have pointed out to me that they have no reference point to judge, or form an opinion on, the renovation. I have, therefore, attached a "before" photo.




Update 3/24/10--Painting done. Now what to do with the fence, gate, stone-finish on front stairs, and retaining wall.

Frank Palmieri: 1914 - 2010

I inherited a new set of parents in, I think, about 1993. My own parents had not withstood the sands of time very well and left me, the shiftless waif that I am, in 1991 (mother) and 1981 (father).

Frank and Dorothy Palmieri became my “parental units” (although they had no idea I referred to them that way, it being a term right out of the Conehead skits on Saturday Night Live) but I think they also began to think of me as some sort of bastard offspring in 1999 when they noticed I seemed to be sticking around as their friend, snow-shovel-wielding maniac, opinionated gardener (I wouldn’t grow vegetables), light-bulb changer, basement scrubber, jokester, computer dabbler, and general reference point for all things The New York Times and Jeopardy!

It could not last forever, of course, and Frank passed away on January 16, 2010 at the age of 95. Up until the last few days he remained mentally cognizant even though his body was letting him down dramatically. I know it’s a cliché but Frank truly deserves to be called salt-of-the-earth. Although unschooled he was smart in the ways of the world and full of joy and pizzazz and had an up-front interest in all that was going on about him. He was fun to be around and just tickled the hell out of me on many occasions with his sage commentaries, one-liners and eye-rolling opinions about the basic idiocies that surround us daily. He was a life-long fairly-liberal Democrat and just didn’t understand anybody who wasn’t.

I will miss him but, you know, 95 years is a long time to be on this planet and the rest of us should be so lucky to have his life and the honor and love of his extended family (albeit exponentially small since he outlived almost everybody) including me, the son-in-law he never really knew he had (although I always suspected he might have wised-up early on).

I salute you Frank Palmieri; and don’t worry about Dottie--I’ve got her back the rest of the way.