Juxtaposition

I wonder if there would’ve been a Stairway To Heaven if it weren’t for a Child In Time. It ain’t all B-flat, that’s for sure. Maybe the stairway child could’ve listened to Rory’s licks. Oh well, born a pagan and a slave, now sweetly sleeps a Christian in his grave.

“I ain’t never been to heaben but Ah been told,
“Comin’ fuh to carry me home,
“Dat de streets in heaben am paved wif gold,
“Comin’ to carry me home.”

The Night Watch —Rembrandt -
Guernica —Picasso -

Careful

The term AWAS has an Arabic origin and means something like "beware!" or "look out!" Written in capitals and without the exclamation point (the way I prefer to see it) it looks like an acronym or an initialism. This led me to toying with it in a word-association kind of way. Staying as closely as possible to its essential meaning, I came up with "awareness," "watchfulness," "attention," and "skepticism" (seems I didn’t quite know what to do with the "s").

The more I thought about it, the more the meaning of the separate words shifted in the direction of the object of vigilance. Finally, it led to the question: What enhances my vigilance? Could it be my somewhat dim view of society that requires a constant sense of awareness? Has it something to do with an overall sense of suspicion, with skepticism as a result of that? (Not just to give the "s" a prominent place in the listing.)

Maybe, by putting it on the edge, I could make it interesting in a visual sense. Thus, converting AWAS to a visual element has gradually become my trademark. Oftentimes, the element serves as the basis of a composition on which I can build an image. AWAS is intertwined with JagLep, so you’d better beware when this cat is on the prowl.

just to be on the safe side

Words of prey

for fear of something worse:
... i find myself in a situation ... where sound and image, image and sound interpenetrate ... their clocks disagree, yet they read the same times ... god, she’s beautiful ... man, she's a dog ... i focus on the tear rather than the eye from which it has issued ... of course, this doesn’t come without a price ... why good? ... why evil? ... i'm kind of at a loss here ...

"since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things ..."
—e.e. cummings

Think you're exempt?

It happens not only to people,
it happens to the individual as well.

"la commedia è finita"

Intolerably oblique

OncaPardus — what a name to evoke the drama of the past! The caged cat was supposed to lure his family into captivity. They speculated that he might have escaped, might have been captured. Trouble was, the weather poured down and became a tragedy. Relentlessly closing in on one particularly formidable tree, the monster grabbed its base. The river slipped into civilized degradation, chocking its aquatic life, alienating its people. The weather never repeats itself exactly, but the parallels suggest something to look for. This time the anger had exploded in violent abuse. Little remains of that long-gone era, or later ones for that matter. Development is needed.

current situation

Old routine

Out of hand

Betwixt

"Between one and none there is an infinity."
—Nietzsche

No rebound

"It is good to swim in the waters of tradition,
but to sink in them is suicide."
—Mahatma Gandhi

Softly killing the pundit

Karmic path

seffie
"He set out on an inner voyage, seized his prize, and then realized that by its very nature he couldn't give it to anyone else."

What’s a seffie?
I plead guilty to not taking the world of make-believe all that seriously, but I don’t just take it for granted either — I know there’s a thin line there. The same goes for the realm of seriousness. As it happens, my recent endeavors relate to both of these concepts. I can’t apply one without the other because of who I am. Thus, any piece of work that I recognize as me is a seffie. But what’s in a name?

---

"What the hell difference does it matter what I think! It's yours. I mean, you make art because you have to. Because you got no choice."
—from Life Lessons (New York Stories)

another reality label

JungleCat declawed

The king sits on a leopard skin draped over an armchair in his palace. On fashion runways, in magazines and along city streets, fur is back, only it is not your grandmother’s mink. Imported by the tens of thousands from tropical forests, this commodity holds both beauty and signs of poverty. You can’t get it out of your blood once you get it in. He’s an animal breeder creating a featherless chicken better able to survive in hot climates.

catwalk gossip

swlabr

so many fantastic colors .... but the rainbow has a beard

Cream -

All last night

"Don't it make you feel bad,
"When you're trying to find your way home,
"You don't know which way to go?
"If you're goin' down South, there ain't no work to do;
"If you're goin' North, there's Chicago."

What do you do? You’re a mountain man, and the threat of the levee breaking is forcing you to move. But you don’t know which way to go. If you’re going down South… how is that going to secure your future? If you're going North… how are you supposed to make your home in the industrialized world? — you’re a mountain man, remember?

I think this song is all about being stuck in a no-win situation. A great song, both a tribute to the blues and an homage to Memphis Minnie (whom Led Zeppelin borrowed the basic lyrics from). Is there any reference to the Great Migration? Yes! Any sexual innuendo? I don’t think so.

When The Levee Breaks —Led Zeppelin

Plight of the Redman

"Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, whatever necessary!
"We must now manage our own affaires, and control our own lives.
"And, through it all, remain to be the true American."

—Tom Bee

Throw me a line

Phantomized image

Adaptability

JagLep's torrid snowprint

The JagLep

JagLep is a variant of jagulep and jagleop, the designations for a cross between a (male) jaguar and a (female) leopard — two medium- to big-sized species of wild cat, both of whom are also known as panther. This kind of hybrid does not occur in the wild, since the jaguar is found in the New World (the Americas) and the leopard in the Old (Africa and Asia). Thus, JagLep is a panther that could only have been bred in captivity — it is a zoo and a circus animal that is sometimes kept as a pet in a cage.

In a visual sense, JagLep is the hybrid produced by fusing the two heterogeneous elements that form the basis of a composition. It seeks to strike a balance between unity and variety, and shows itself by means of character and behavior of the applied forms. JagLep is captured in the image, so to speak, and it will try to find its way out through the eye of the beholder.