Post Confessional Blues

So. I confessed here at Signify back in October (2010) to the strangely large number of books that I read all at the same time. The sad thing is, I found another stack of three or four more books that I failed to round up in my counting, so it’s even worse than I confessed at first.

Since then, I have honesty been trying to do better. My usual MO is to have about six or seven books, constantly jumping between them, with a backup bunch of nine or ten that I can switch in and out of the "current" reading if I feel the need, with a bunch more in strategic places like the car, for instance, which I read while waiting for the kids or whatever. And I have some larger books that are almost like textbooks, on history and art and such, that I often read in bits and pieces. And then I have the things I read for my work, which are many.

But I have been trying to do better. I have stacked up all the books in one spot. I selected three of them. One for next to the bed, which I think of as my “fun” read: a novel or biography, that kind of thing. Another one to go with me wherever I am around the house, which I think of as my “learning” read, which is the science or art or whatever book. And then one current “read for work” book, which is tough because I have a lot of things I need to keep up on with my work. Three books maximum. And I’ve really been trying to stick with this. I’m trying very consciously to NOT read the other books in the stack until I’ve finished one of the three. I’m trying to keep it at three, which seems reasonable.

I’m serious about this. But it’s hard to do.

I honestly find myself almost accidentally taking a book from the stack, you know, almost by reflex. They haunt me. So I have to stop myself. Sit it back down. Move on. And, on top of that, I just got a new book that I have to wait to read, which I don’t want to do. I just don’t. And if I choose to read it next, that means the things in the stack stay in the stack even longer.

Sigh.

I’m going to try to stick with this, but I know it’s not going to be easy. And I don’t even have a compelling moral reason to do it. I wish I did, as that helps me most of the time. I have no problem at all with the idea of doing some things simply because they are the right thing to do. There is a lot of peace in that. But in this case it's just about trying to discipline myself and be more productive and less scatter brained than I already am.

Oh, the humanity.



Romans 7:14-8:4
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

My Problem

Hey!


I have this problem.

When I go to museums I always, and let me stress the word – ALWAYS – get into trouble. Last summer I went with my buddy Joe to the Detroit Institute of Arts. On the way in I warned him that I ALWAYS get in trouble when I go to a museum. I ALWAYS get yelled at no matter how hard I try not to.

I confess. I have this compulsion to touch the paintings. I know it’s baaaaad. I know they’re worth millions of dollars. I know I shouldn’t do it. I don’t mean to do it. I don’t try to do it. But in my heart I want to do it and as hard as I try not to, I discover that I’m doing it again when the guards yell at me to get away from the paintings. It happens every time. It happened with van Gogh. It happened with Dali and Picasso. And it happened again last summer. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

We went into the DIA. They had a display of paintings by Norman Rockwell. A very humble and kind man who was an astounding painter. If you ever get the chance to see his paintings up close and personal be sure to do it. The colors are amazing. The expression and realism are incredible. He’s a modern magical realist of the painting world.

Are those enough superlatives for you?

The thing is that paintings are tactile things. They are a product of touch. A brush is just an extension of the hand. And when you see a painting up close you see how it was so carefully touched. You can see the brush strokes and the movement used to make shape and shadow. Light and the lack of it imitated on a flat surface. On some of the paintings by Rockwell, you could almost feel his hand moving across the canvas. There were also tiny little lines where a brush wouldn’t work so he took a pencil or a pen and used that instead. Sometimes you could vaguely see the shape of his original sketch behind the paint on the canvas.

From a distance you can’t see any of that. So you want to move in. You want to touch the canvas like Rockwell did when he painted it. Well, maybe you don’t want to, but...

It’s like looking at the paintings of the impressionists. The paintings seem to be a splash of odd shaped pixels across the canvas to make an image. The farther you stand from the painting the more “concrete” the image becomes. But if you really want to enjoy the painting, you also need to see it up close and get a feel for how the image was formed, piece by piece. You have to get your eyes right on the canvas. Your hand just wants to . . . touch it.

Which is when the security guards start yelling at you. Trust me, I know. And it seems almost criminal to me that we would have an art form that is so tactile, but you can’t touch it! It’s like torture! Oh, the humanity! The colors cry out to my phalanges!

You can pray for me on this. I thank you in advance.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010