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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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Archive for December, 2008
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
cosmic turtle graffiti Oaxaca Mexico – foto by smithWe spent the afternoon at a Temazcal, an Indigenous herbal steam bath. The ceremony was used by the Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Mayans, and other indigenous groups as a therapeutic and purifying ritual.
After being served tea, we were ritually cleansed by our host rubbing and tapping us top to bottom front and back with long plants of basil, rosemary and mint while softly chanting. After this symbolic cleansing, he drank from a glass and lifted our shirts and spat chilled mezcal on our backs, stomachs and bare feet. Then he made a third pass around us covering us in incense smoke while chanting again.
We disrobed down to our underwear and crawled into a low sweat box made of adobe brick. Ambient drum & flute music played as we sat in total blackness while our host poured water scented with herbs over heated stones and fanned us with the hot scented steam. Stayed in there a long time, possibly 45 minutes sweating toxins out in rivers of sweat. I had shaved my head and this morning, and I was sweat wet top to bottom, slicker than a used CEO’s bailout plan. He lay us down and shocked us with sprinkled cooler water then beat us front and back top to bottom with plants, which felt absolutely delightfully invigorating. Once we’re rich, I may hire folk to whip me daily as I lie in hot heat.
After the sweat lodge we lay flat on the carpeted floor covered by heavy blankets while we relaxed and waited to stop sweating. Then we each were massaged with heated herbal oils. This is only my second massage. Once decades ago I had a sports masseuse work over my wrenched back, but this time it was pure pleasure. I could get used to having saunas and massages.
Reminded me how much I enjoyed the public bath hammams in Essaouira Morocco with their three steamed rooms of cool, hot and hottest. Something healthy in sweating out our flesh poisons.
Cost us 50 dollars each for 90 minute ceremony.
supplication – Oaxaca Mexico wall graffiti – foto by smith |
Posted in Mexico | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
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Yesterday was weird, rough. Even though my brain is normally filled with dark thoughts, dread, and foreboding, basically I’m usually a romantic optimist. But yesterday a massive depression fell over me. Couldn’t sleep, feared for my mind, and started feeling claustrophobic. Even the weed failed to lighten my load. Gave me more of an appreciation for the chronically depressed – how do they ever NOT kill themselves?
I did manual things to help – went for a walk, read a lot to kill the time, sat in the sun. But the best thing I did was force myself to work on the non-fiction proposal a literary agent has asked to look at. I find my depressions normally come because I’m not doing enough, not producing, so I find the best way to work through them is to force myself to do constructive work – write a poem, make art, wash dishes, exercise, do the unpleasant tasks I’ve been putting off.
My blog title comes from one of my 1972 poems:
Suicide Note
Poor naked ape, melancholy Dane
Dying the silent, sinking orange
I offer my praise to mad Ophelia’s black mass
Receiving Laertes’ pain poisoned harangue
I’ll soon join that fortunate lass
Morpheusly oblivious of pain
(Camus’ first question of philosophy re
weaves Thane Hamlet’s “or not to beâ€
brings Kant’s “progressive unification of
sense manifold†to termination: total
psychic expiration. Hence our sole
existential goal becomes fervently wishing
good death’s black ghoul to sensually become
as one with our whole)
Where God assumes skull Yorick’s reign
Stay yet awhile Horatio and give lie to my name
Anyway today I’m way way better. Here’s yesterday’s fotos.
1st world festival – foto by smith
Madonna with a gun – foto by smith
justice – foto by smith |
Posted in Being, Mexico | No Comments »
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
Lady’s 2 page spread in epitome – foto by smithLady has a two page spread in latest issue of epitome, a Cleveland magazine for “The Arts, Minds, and Ambitions of NE Ohio Women.” It’s free, so look for it. She got the center spread.
The spread included this:
Lady In Her Own Words:
I edit The City Poetry zine. In 2006, I left the U.S. to make art, write poetry, and share adventures with my husband, poet and artist S. B. Smith. We have lived in England, Amsterdam, Krakow, Croatia, France and Morocco while documenting our endeavors on our blog “Walking on Thin Ice.” We currently reside in Mexico in a relaxing, yet creatively productive environment.
My collages are inspired by materials I find around me. I like to use things I find while walking on the street, or in nature. Weathered garbage is particularly interesting. I arrange items on custom canvasses such as tiles or rusted pieces of metal, playing with the material until the visual arrangement is interesting to me.
In my photography, I aim to capture scenes that are particularly otherworldly, punk, or exciting. I am lucky enough to travel, so many of the pictures examine details of construction or life in other countries from a visitor’s perspective. I’m interested in animals as metaphors for the human condition. This was particularly true in my photos from Morocco, where I tried to avoid taking pictures of people so as not to offend their religious sensibilities.
An undercurrent of my art and photography is my worry for the environment and the living conditions of people with whom I share this planet.
- Lady page 8 epitome Vol 6 Num 2.
Here are some close-ups. Magazine can be accessed at epitomemag.com.
Lady foto – foto by smith
Lady assemblage – foto by smith
Lady foto – foto by smith
Lady foto – foto by smith
Lady assemblage – foto by smith
Lady assemblage – foto by smith
Lady foto – foto by smith
Lady foto – foto by smith |
Posted in Lady | 1 Comment »
Saturday, December 27th, 2008
People seem fundamentally unknowable, unless you live with them 24/7. Even so, if they do not write or talk deeply, they still seem fundamentally unknowable. Still, I’m struggling with this. I do not know if words are important other than for immediate needs.
Most talk about politics, academic subjects, seems lame, pretentious–a pointless echo chamber.
All small talk seems to just serve the purpose of lubricating social gatherings. Most talk is small talk.
I am most interested in talk about pushing past boundaries and adventures, or talk that struggles with philosophy and religion. These are particularly vital subjects for our time, considering our probable impending self-destruction. I’m constantly zoomed out on this plane.
I find it hard to comment on any blogs, even ones that seem brilliant. I literally do not have anything to contribute other than the obvious.
I want to be sure that I am being genuine, that I am not commenting merely for reciprocity’s sake. That I really have something to say, that I’m not just trying to be polite. I often can’t tell the difference.
Perhaps the ideal blog would push my mental space past uncomfortable boundaries, make me see reality with expanded parameters. I wish to be stimulated.
To argue rather than agree or praise seems more genuine, because all agreement seems banal in the era of blogging and compelled reciprocity.
I do not wish my friendship banal, so maybe I’m holding back from a lot of electronic communication until I can get back to the States and recalibrate my reality. Genuine friendship without the taint of reciprocity involved in artificial social networking. It’s difficult for me to tell up from down because I am so socially isolated in Mexico. E-communication is not sufficient.
Words are coming back to me, but I feel that I’m rebuilding myself from scratch.
Lady
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
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