More efficient exercise

By Nietzsche's postulate, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger", I am approximately 10000 whiffle ball bats away from making Superman my bitch.

Back to work.

A snap shot of my mind

I love sketch books. In them is an insight into the thought process, how the artist builds from a base. The essence of art is raw, fascinating and can be excruciatingly personal.  

As artists improve their technical skills, it is common for them to lose the connection with the essence, or soul if you will, of the piece as they finish it.  This can frustrate the journeyman artist as they have worked hard to improve their technical skills, but suddenly their work becomes stilted, frozen and lifeless. 

Good artists keep the fire of the piece burning the entire time, retracing steps when the embers start to cool.  A great artist can take a piece where the fire has died and rekindle it.  This is very hard, which is why a great artist also knows when the time has come to start over.  

I often pester my artist friends to look at their sketch books. Some are open, most are some to very reluctant. Sketch books, doodle pads etc are usually quite far away from the final product the artist can deliver and most have been burned by being judged on the early stages of a piece or experiments that didn't pan out. Also some are embarrassed to admit that even after years of excellent work, they still have to practice and experiment.

So in the spirit of reciprocity I offer this mental doodle.  It was a handout in church, the idea being we would write down the bad things and then throw them away at the end of the service thus ridding ourselves of the burdens.  I kept mine, most pitched theirs.  Propriety (and my wife) kept me from reading others.

For those that can't read my hand writing.

The mole on your toe looks like a fat unicorn.
You smell funny, like a clown, a stinky stinky clown ... with an ugly hat.
You should shave your tongue.
DO NOT EAT THE BIRTHDAY CAKE WHILE THE CANDLES ARE LIT.
Don't wipe that off that bird had the right idea.
Tie on another pork chop the dog still won't play with him.
What a nice picture of a leper, it's a self portrait?
 Bannana, Bannana, apple, apple pear, onion.
T-Rex's arms are too short to brush his own teeth.
When I saw you and heard your voice I realized how blessed Hellen Keller was.
I see your're bleeding, but not nearly fast enough.
The cape will let you fly, try again.
Quit wiggling and splashing or I won't take my foot off your head.

The Rottening

Sara, a friend of mine, told me of a classroom incident where a non-native English speaker used the word "rottening".  She imagined a 50's B movie with the bold dripping letters "The Rottening"  in technicolor.

I mused upon it and felt that rottening seemed like a poetic word, so I donned my Shel Silverstein hat and produced the following. 

I agonized a bit on the 2008 reference since it might date the poem poorly, but in the end decided to leave it.  When this surfaces after the apocalypse and is taught to the offspring of radioactive men-fish (much like the Iliad) the date will help them plot the important dates of decline toward the inevitable holocaust.

The Rottening

by Dan Judd  

December 4, 2008

In twenty-oh-eight young Cynthia Straight

wrote notes in a class barely listening.

So shocked was her ear, her pen snapped in fear

of language dredged from her forgottening.

The horror, the sin, of the Rottening.

Her eyes bulged and strained as all her blood drained

to her feet as her chest began tightening.

A wet blackened sand discharged from her hand 

from piercing pen parts painful pistoning.

The ebony paste of the Rottening.

Miss Straight rose and fled. The Rottening spread,

wrist arm elbow shoulder succumbing.

She came through her door black shuffling gore

and bandaged herself in fine cottoning.

Mummified she studied the Rottening.

Behind tarnished locks on Grandma's fell box 

lurked The Book with necrotic bindings.

Scouring ardently her awful ancestry

brought clues betwixt births and begottenings

aeons all ending in Rottenings.

She needed more flesh, in volume quite fresh

to replenish her horrid unfastening.

A logical start, the Capitol's heart, 

to force her curse into remissioning

rebuffing this outbreak of Rottening.

As governor fair addressed congress there

heinous spells commenced mass liquefying.

Then from the mayhem, a phoenix of phlegm,

the unbonded spawned new legislationing.

A being born free of the Rottening.

Cynthia was healed by congress congealed,

an act legal and charnelly binding.

Which forced her to stay in a governing way

for the time until the electioning.

A blessing bestowed by the Rottening.

Miss Straight became wed, changed names and it's said

brought six little girls in for christening.

But one turned her head, the water was shed,

and voided the purificationing.

The curse still endures. Fear The Rottening.