autumn null

A leaf falls
Like a soldier’s
Life in a breath—
One brushing wind
Seeing to it an end,
Succumbing to another season,
Asking nothing of Summer
Or the worth of a war.

death in tandem

Two Wednesdays ago a moment of surprise came over me at first glance of the newspaper when I learned the Italian filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni had died. My astonishment was not because he had passed at 94, but by the timing of his death, being on the same day (Monday, July 30th) as Ingmar Bergman’s, the legendary Swedish auteur. Reading their obituaries side by side seemed coincidentally mysterious, shedding a new light on each’s oeuvre, which spoke predominantly of anguish and the impermanence of life. While contemplating the irony of death in tandem, I revisited the obituary page of the day before and noticed the relationship between the two persons featured on page B9-Tom Snyder, late-night television pioneer, and Bill Walsh, famed coach of the 49er’s, who both died on the same day in San Francisco of Leukemia related causes.
In a recent conversation with my mother, she shared some personal news in that the father of a co-worker of my Dad’s, an 80 year old man, was hit and killed by an SUV while crossing the street. The driver was a man who also happened to be 80 years of age.
Then came the headlines about the collapse of an eight-lane bridge in Minneapolis that connected the Twin cities of Minnesota killing seven people. The Star Tribune there cites six victims still missing.
I recently learned about the work of the new Poet Laureate, Charles Simic. Dubbed a “Surrealist With A Dark View” by columnist Motoko Rich, his poem, “Paradise Motel,” is from his new collection of poems out in February, entitled, “That Little Something” (Harcourt).
Paradise Motel
Millions were dead;
everybody was innocent.
I stayed in my room. The
President
Spoke of war as of a magic
love potion.
My eyes were opened in
astonishment.
In a mirror my face
appeared to me
Like a twice-canceled
postage stamp.
I lived well, but life was
awful.
There were so many soldiers
That day,
So many refugees crowding
the roads.
Naturally, they all vanished
With a touch of the hand.
History licked the corners of
its bloody mouth.
On the pay channel, a man
and a woman
Were trading hungry kisses
and tearing off
Each other’s clothes while I
looked on
With the sound off and the
room dark
Except for the screen where
the color
Had too much red in it, too
much pink.

from street sense to paris

Street Sense took the Kentucky Derby by storm on Saturday rallying from next-to-last in a 20 horse field, in what is known as the fastest two minutes in sports. The two-year old dark bay colt won by 2 and 1/4 lengths while Hard Spun finished second and Curlin came in third. Imawildandcrazyguy was another half-length back in fourth and Sedgefield was fifth. Circular Quay was sixth and Tiago was seventh followed by Any Given Saturday, Sam P. and Nobiz Like Showbiz. Dominican was 11th, then Zanjero, Great Hunter, Liquidity and Bwana Bull (15th). Storm in May, who is blind in his right eye, was 16th, trailed by Teuflesberg, Scat Daddy, Stormello and Cowtown Cat in last.
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip had bird's eye views of the finish line and were among the 156,635 racing fans in attendance at Churchill Downs in Louisville on Saturday. They are expected to visit the Bush's at the White House in Washington today.
France's presidential race came to a final close Sunday afternoon when the right-winged Nicolas Sarkozy edged the Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal thwarting her dream of becoming the country’s first female president.
Although Mr. Sarkozy promises a new style of leadership, many, like New York Times writer Craig S. Smith, believe the French are stuck in their ways and notoriously resistant to change. In his Week In Review article, "Forget Who'll Win in France. Change Is a Loser.,"Mr. Smith states, "In months leading up to today's presidential voting in France, there was a lot of talk about breaking with the past. Don't bet it will happen."
Paris Hilton also made front-page headlines last week when she was harshly sentenced with a 45-day jail term for driving with a suspended license.

a warm impression

Temperatures yesterday, the day after Earth Day, reached 84º in sunny Central Park, twice as hot as it was two weeks ago. Last week's Nor'easter dropped nearly 8 inches of rain, flooding homes and roadways and canceling over 500 flights in the tri-state area- these being only recent local signs in our eco-system’s decline.
Far more revealing statistics were presented by Al Gore in his film 'An Inconvenient Truth,' now available on DVD, which site that the ten hottest years in Earth's history occurred in the last 15, with 2005 being the hottest.
On channel 13 Sunday night I watched the BBC's factual drama 'The Impressionists,’ an insightful story about the lives of the French painters, Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renior, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Frédéric Bazille and Claude Monet, as told from the point of view of Monet, the father of Impressionism.
The sun was Monet's muse, the film claimed, as the artist, dramatically portrayed by Julian Glover, lamented on how life is full of fleeting moments, like unfinished canvases.
In the opening shot from ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ a serene river in the woods somewhere, fades in and Mr. Gore seems to feel a similar poetic angst as he softly narrates at a slow pace over the landscape; “You look at that river.. gently flowing by.. you notice the leaves rustling with the wind.. you hear the birds.. you hear the tree-frogs, in the distance you hear a cow.. you feel the grass.. the mud gives a little bit on the river bank.. its quiet.. its peaceful, and all of a sudden, it’s a gear shift inside you, and its like taking a deep breath and going.. (breathing).. oh yeah, I forgot about this!”

nappy headed hos and so it goes

Do you think it ever occurred to Don Imus that the slanderous shock jock vernacular that made him a popular talk radio personality over the last 36 years, would be his fast ticket for getting booted off the air?
In Friday's New York Post, Andy Geller wrote that Kurt Vonnegut, who died last Wednesday from brain injuries endured in a fall, once said, when speaking of nearing the end, that he'd prefer to die in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.
In the middle of last week, I thought my blog had been hijacked. My old url, (drawg.blogspot.com), suddenly featured drawings done on Post-its by LA artists, Sue and Danny, using the same, 'drawg' title. My Blogger identity was no where to be found, so I began tracking my posts on the web by way of Google. In the process I discovered the illustrators group, drawger.com, doing a similar drawing and blogging thing. Needless to say, my blog was restored on Thursday, 3 days after it disappeared.
I thought of moving my blog to my MySpace page, but I realized that their loud interface and noisy, sexually harassing advertisements can be a distraction and obnoxious. Not to mention the endless annoying friend requests from people I don't know.
That said, I've decided to start anew here under thomas lib.
The empty birdcage is a symbolic element in Kurt Vonnegut's writing, and the featured image on his website, vonnegut.com.

sweet jesus come barack

A subtle buzz has been stirring surrounding stories of sculptural Jesus’.
Last Saturday an exhibition of a life-size chocolate Jesus was cancelled, initially supposed to be on view from April 1st to Easter at a midtown gallery here in Manhattan.
Just a few days ago a papier maché messiah created by a student at the Art Institute of Chicago went on view in a downtown gallery in Chicago. The work depicted Barack Obama in a Jesus robe and neon halo.
The 6 ft., 200 lb. chocolate Jesus received a barrage of complaints and threats, mainly from New York Catholics, stating that it was insulting and sacrilegious.
It reminded me of the time Mayor Rudy Giuliani protested the blockbuster ‘Sensation’ exhibition, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art back in 1999 when he deemed a to be included painting by the British artist Chris Ofili, of a black Madonna slung with elephant dung, unfit.
Giuliani was unsuccessful in his attempt to get the Sensation show cancelled, but Cardinal Edward Egan and Catholic officials managed to smother the chocolate christ and it's creator, Cosimo Cavallaro.
I suppose if we were all on Valium and very open-minded, having a mutual understanding that each of us are on our own personal journey when it comes to spirituality and religion, we would be able to accept the innumerable ways people express themselves, whether or not directed towards God.
Imagining absurd gestures, like Keith Richards' bizarre and over-indulgent drug habit, snorting his dead father's ashes mixed together with cocaine, not as a publicity stunt in order to hype up the Rolling Stones' upcoming concert tour, but rather as a recipe of a unique spiritual involvement- an attempt at becoming one with his father, in unity.
Equal open mindedness and additional drugs might be necessary to console President Bush and stand behind him in his failing war in Iraq.
In such a state of mind we would expect greater sensitivity from great institutions too, like that of the Catholic Church, of which has the power to canonize a person into sainthood, (as in the soon to be Pope John Paul II), but not the capacity to let every man exercise the art he knows.
Like with a complex wine, we can learn to appreciate a range of nuances.
We can also take a leap of faith while drinking from the same glass and believe that we are experiencing the blood of Christ.

fall 2007

This week, New York designers showed their fall fashions, of which some popular looks consisted of abbreviated jackets and cascading dresses, as seen here by BCBG.