More discarded art

On one of our outings I found this old yard with plenty of old and discarded sculptures, hidden behind a fence. "A junkyard  for art". The most striking was this lone and sad rider, so downtrodden and so permanent.

I took this rider and colored him into  a vivid red with a glow and positioned him as background on some ice on the Hudson. Well I thought some lights in the background would add a good contrast and express the doom.

Once finished, I had it put on canvas in an enlarged format. Well, it looks good although, as always, But I am the only one who thinks so.

It conveys the looks of a painting — thanks to some unknown modern technology.

Is this macabre?

I mentioned before that I once discovered this yard.
It was fenced in and all cluttered with old discarded art,
Yes, it was a junkyard with art!
Boy this was a feast for my camera. 

And here it is now and I like it. 

Everybody else thinks it's sad and sick. 

Bad luck!

This same old friend of mine who had many mishaps in her life approached me again a few days ago. She had fallen for a scam and thought to make quick money. Of course it did not work like this. She was requested to do some surveys and as payment received two huge checks. She opened immediately a saving account and deposited the money. She also cashed $300 against it and spent the money. But bingo it did not work of course  and the checks bounced and she had to repay the $300 plus fees. Crooks!

A long long winter it is this time.

The first snow came down before Christmas and ever since then the world is white. The snow is shoveled into big mountains waiting to melt in Spring. The river was frozen many times. And it is plenty cold. One yearns for summer. At least I do. You cannot argue — it's pretty alright — but a summer day is pretty alright also. This here is a sampling of non-stop winter; simply said: "Enough already" (and we only have February. Well.

Winter time. Time to create.

Boy, none of my jobs seem to work out. A few months ago I was invited to make a billboard on top of a store in Weehawken. The owner, it's a Marble and Granite store, wanted to expand his business and he certainly needed some good art on his old building. The most surprising thing was that he offered me some money beforehand, $100. He also promised me the future design of stationery and business cards, etc. Why not, I grabbed it and immediately bought myself a black parka for the winter. Then I went to work. Looked good, I was happy ... and then it got stuck. He ran out of money. I called and called and called and it has been postponed. Apparently... apparently just for the time being. But again, bad luck. Here is the store billboard as I envisioned it for him. But it is still not mounted.

And so it goes all the time. I was asked to help out the last moment at press time of a newspaper, production time. Ok I came, I worked 13 hours and submitted my bill. Never heard from them again. Upon my inquiry I heard that the newspaper folded the next day, this had been the last issue. The end. I was not too surprised to hear that since I was laid off from my job a while ago at a newspaper and knew how difficult it is to survive.

So I do lots of free work to stay with it ... but where are we all going. Sort of frightening.

Books I liked

Once I get hold of a book that captures my interest, I bury, virtually bury, myself in it and "disappear," I read and read. I get terribly involved every time; search the internet, check out the subject matter, look up what this or that person looked like, compare how truthful a story is. Most of what I read is not fiction — and since my brain is what it is —  sometimes a title, the name of an author slips my mind. And for the longest time I jot down a few words what it was that I liked so much about a specific book; for later reference — but honestly now what "later reference" do I have in mind? I never know exactly what carries me on to pick from the many reviews here and there and what my 'red thread' is for picking up a particular book. It definitely is the time of the Twenties; it definitely is the time before and during and after WWII;  it definitely is dealing with contemporary issues and of course it always is about other countries. This said, here are three books that I was unable to put down this month. I felt guilty that I just continued reading when I should be doing something else. So what. Fortunately I have more time now then I ever had before — no commute/work/troubling about business problems/parents/children and similars!

The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun — translated from German, a bestseller in 1932 and  later banned by the Nazis because of anti-German tendencies. Portrait of a young woman in Berlin in the days before the Nazis came to power. Dreams to strike it big of course in Berlin after she arrives from Cologne. She sees the world in pictures, images and perceives the world less in words. The ups and downs, plotting her life towards Hollywood success, the raw realities of life of the lower class in Berlin with the wish to succeed. Below all of it there is the core of a young girl that wants to be good and wants to succeed, but she has her limits. A great picture of Berlin during that time and it fits the world of George Grosz, the painter, and Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Siberia by Ian Frazier — I had read a chapter about his travels in Siberia in the New Yorker and was hooked; maybe this was because of my own father's Siberian story and the many open questions, or is it was just my basic curiosity about such a vast land area practically unknown. The book has hardly any photos, and they are not sufficient anyway, but it holds lots of Frazier's own sketches that underline everything in a subtle way. He also drew a Siberian map,  and once I had finished the book and after constant returns to the map with all these towns with hard to pronounce names, I ended up with  quiet a good understanding about the geography. The country is huge, seven time zones, and he criss-crosses it several times. He talks about summers and  the vicious loads of mosquitoes, the beauty,  and the loneliest and coldest winters imaginable, about the Gulags, about the history and also today's environmental issues. He talks about Russian men and women. My physical therapist Natascha comes from Russia and we discussed her country many times and it always surprised me how strong she was in her opinion to never never go back.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers — now this refers to my recent trip to New Orleans and the great disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Here is the Kafkaesque story of a man from Syria, Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his wife Kathy, both Moslems, idealistic Americans, hardworking and successful. His wife and four children decide to leave New Orleans for a "few days" to avoid the storm while Zeitoun decides to stay behind to look at their properties since he is a contractor and wants to make sure that things are under control. He paddles around in a canoe, rescues some people, lives on top of his roof in a tent, prays five times a day, and feels quiet good about his decision to stay behind. Until he and a few other are taken into custody under gunpoint, from his own house, on account of looting as he finds out much much later. He disappears from the world, is stowed away in a prison, not allowed a single phone call out ever, not allowed a trial or a lawyer, nor does he know why he is in custody. Denied medical care he is only offered MRE rations that contain mainly pork that he refuses to eat. In short, he is caught between America's two policy disasters, the war on terror and the response to the hurricane. Emphasis of the Government is on the National Guards and they are empowered. It takes months and months until his wife in her trips around the country finds out that he still might be alive. She gets him out on a $75,000 bail! It is a sour story that makes you choke. Is this America? Zeitoun has his doubt also but he continues living here to my surprise.

A walk in the afternoon

This is a long weekend thanks to Martin Luther King. Relatively late in the afternoon Jay and I decided to take a walk and since it was getting dark soon, we parked our car at Exit 2 on the Palisades Parkway. Everything was beautiful and shiny and clear and cold! We walked for about an hour alongside the Hudson which was partially frozen; the many tankers and barges who did not make it into New York before the weekend anchored in the middle of the Hudson. So we went, up and down, up and down along the Palisades. Nobody else was there, it was so quiet and lonesome and refreshing. Jay was cold (and he claimed that his fingers would fall off sooner or later) but I was just happy to march along. I am home now and think I should cook a meal.