Never Did

Didn't lose power, this time, because the front didn't get violent until it was well off to the SE and my power comes in from the NW. Rolling thunder, sheets of lightning, rain in discreet waves. I get back up, roll a smoke, get a drink, and sit in the dark. The thunder woke me, the way sound shakes the house, the base line. I put on Edgar Meyer, the Cello Suites, I'm nothing if not indulgent, and there's something about listening to Bach in the dark, with flashes of lightning, and rolling thunder moving off to the leeward, that leads to an introspection. Call it positive denial or 'need to know' but it's a very real thing. I have this in check. Three moves from now, you'll see how I achieved another stalemate. I rarely win, but I rarely lose, it's just something I learned to do. You could argue it was something I smoked, or drank, or otherwise ingested, but I hate to lose and I'm never proud of winning. Winning is always losing. Consider the odds. Not unlike something you'd imagine, once in a blue moon, when things were perfectly clear, a rare occasion, but something that occurs, now and again, but I could have won. I played to a draw only because it drew less attention. It's better to appear slightly stupid, a more believable character, than to always be the winner. I was staff today. TR at the desk. My phone was out at home, so I logged onto AOL to check my mail. I have the Messer book on Munch open to the full-page colorplate of "Madonna", there are a lot of them, this is the one that's at the Munch-museet in Oslo; and I get an email from Mac wondering if I'd seen Munch's "Madonna". It's a magnificent painting. Check it out, she's smoking hot, it's the one from 1893-94. Nice coincidence, Mac asking. Read more of Mary's letters, she'd finally had her hysterectomy, and was in the midst of a very long recovery. Boring, but nice little nuggets here and there. C sold 16 paintings at an exhibit (this was 1952) and I know he sold more the 48 the year before. Safe to say they were doing all right, but you wouldn't know it from Mary's whining. I haven't read any fiction in a while, which is strange for me, but I've sure been burning through the non-fiction, and because of poets I know, reading a lot of poetry. I'll hear something on NPR (I've always done this but it's become even more time consuming) and I'll make a note, then, later, make an effort to find out about whatever it was. The whole landscape of finding out about something has changed so radically. You can see the roof of my house on Google Earth, my fucking driveway; next they'll have stealth drones that can look in windows, see me pleasuring myself with cookies and milk. Munch painted (not the correct word, because he worked in so many mediums) a lot of vampires, also hob-knobbed with Ibsen and Strindberg, also worked on the edge of nervous collapse. Did break-down, 1908, and there's a great full-length portrait of his shrink. This period, 1880 to 1920, in terms of the art world, engages me completely. Representation was out, physiological insight was in, and expressionism burst onto the scene. Representation had ruled the roost for thousands of years, and suddenly, we had to deal with Van Gogh, and Balthus, for god's sake; the Impressionists, Picasso and Braque hit their stride. A complete shift in the manner of seeing. What is signified. I keep coming back to that. I could explain what I mean, over a pint at the pub, but it's more difficult, in the light of day. It involves both the iconic and the mythic, where you draw the line, and it's not a simple demarcation, but a gray zone between the two. Sara called, at the end of the day, as I was sure she would, and we agreed to work another extra day, the three years D has been pursuing his MFA I worked an extra 120 days, you know, filling in, and I don't begrudge that, I roll him cigarettes, and argue, just to keep the dialog alive. But this whole MFA thing is bullshit, a marker in a senseless game.