AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

art by anna arnold, lady k, mother dwarf, cat, smith


art by (left to right) Anna Arnold, Smith, Lady K Smith – foto by Smith

Wanted to show Anna Arnold where we hung her painting that Lady K bought, but my links to FaceBook are fluxed up and don’t work, so I put it here.

The Neon Hair Boys, 5″ x 5″, 2010, Anna Arnold
The Coca-Cola Wars, 7″ x 9″, 2007, Steven B. Smith
Space Worm, 5″ x 6″, 2006, Lady K. Smith

Here are some more of the approximately 100 art pieces we have around the house by Mother Dwarf Smith (1926-2005), Cat Smith (1957-1987), Lady K Smith (1972-?) and myself (1946-?).


Bluebird of Happiness – foto by Smith

Bluebird of Happiness by Mother Dwarf Smith and Cat Smith, 20″ x 20″ x 6″, 1996. Mom took an uncompleted piece by Cat who committed suicide in 1987 at the age of 30 and made this piece 9 years after his death


Vampires on the Beach – foto by Smith

Vampires on the Beach, 18″ x 13″, 2003 by Steven B. Smith. This is what I envision happens when vampires sit on the beach and watch the sun come up – they explode.






Mystery Box – fotos by Smith

This is Mystery Box which Lady K Smith made down in Mexico in 2008. It is 2″ x 4″ x 2″ and contains a mystery object which rattles.

22 years of wendy shaffer life


Wendy Shaffer & Jean Brandt at 12-hour Snoetry Festival – foto by Smith

Lady just asked me to read the proof copy of the soon to be released

22 Years by Wendy Shaffer
Selected Poems 1988 – 2010
(88 poems, 200 pages, published by The City Poetry press)

It is a a superb collection. This is the second time I’ve proof-read 22 Years and the second time I’ve been awed. Wendy’s the best living poet I know and this is the best book of poetry I’ve read; it abounds in lines like

and the wasps sing about love / to all the empty bottles of champagne

&

your voice can be soft / as my thighs / or hollow and hard / as a cheap plywood door

&

but now your car’s stalled in the middle of the bridge / and you’ve forgotten which side is home

&

but he serves me / human / just a cow with an evil brain

I’ll leave you with a whole poem:

god & the cleaning lady

everyone needs god & a cleaning lady
in their life
not to mention
an iguana to come home to
a box of candy-coated rules
and some ocean in a bottle
life under any other conditions
just wouldn’t be right
life is more than one toilet
that flushes
more than an angry place to sleep
sometimes you can find god
in cleaning ladies
sometimes you need a prescription
for quiet water
feeding local rocks
sometimes the bottle is empty
and the iguana is sick
sometimes you can only trust
the night
and wrap yourself deep in its mink arms
waiting to be born

– by Wendy Shaffer

Disclosure – Wendy has been in 4 issues of ArtCrimes, she gave us our loaner cat Mandy, and we’ve known her for years. But even so, I wouldn’t say nice things about her if they weren’t true, unless she paid me a lot of cash money (which she doesn’t have – so buy this book when it comes out so she can pay me for my nice words).


video Wendy, Snoetry, 1-16-2010 – foto by Smith

yesterday









yesterday – fotos by Smith

Judgement Day

Worked on my projections yesterday to try and untangle some psychological knots. Very good to project what it is that I want for everyone, which is for me to not critique them or myself, but to know their underlying goodness. The most interesting part was working with the new house for my parents, which I am visualizing as a kind of Heaven on Earth for them (with my understanding that I should wish well for everyone, and not wish well for my parents at the expense of others, but to let this be up to the God concept of underlying equality and goodness between all “beings.”)

So yesterday I saw a ballet of grace played out depending on what my expectations and fears and hopes were.

It became a bit overwhelming, so I tried to give it up to my God concept and follow what I thought was the right thing to do, which was to not judge, and to just ask for the good and what I perceive to be as good.

At one point I took grandma to explore my parents’ barn and this like, little cottage on the property. I was worrying that by holding her hand, worrying about her tripping, I was projecting my psychic need for her to be old, or some such thing. But I realized that she is old, at least according to my perception, and that I could hope for her to not trip, but the responsible thing to do according to the history of the ‘illusion’ as I know it is to hold her hand, because I love her very much and if indeed she were to trip, I would like to prevent it. And I love the feeling of her hand in mine.

It’s been a constant battle of my ultimate will for a better me, a better universe, a better way to see, and at times it becomes frightening, because I worry about unseen ramifications of my good intent.

Visualization of important symbolism seems to be important, and exploring the weird wonderful possibilities that could be, such as talking candidly without fear about fear, such as taking that extra step to explore an area one would really like to explore… and to try to have faith that one’s good intent for oneself and everyone else is taken care of, but to also perform actions real and symbolic to carry the load one feels is appropriate at the moment.

The barn has stairs up to a loft type thing. I found some gold leaves. I took two of them, one for me, and one for Grandma. Grandma is someone I see as having a special tie to me. I have thought that we have a psychic connection, and this is what I project on to her and myself. I have been tied up in the Christ symbology/mythology, but I have tried to be ethical about my ego and to not seed this unless it needs to be seeded. (I believe we are all manifestations of Christ/Buddha/God/each other etc.)

Anyways, where I am going with this is that Grandma seemed to be constantly alluding to my Christ visualization of myself, which I tried not to encourage with words but I’m sure I projected that image onto everyone yesterday. When I gave her the gold leaf, she said it was like Christmas. I can’t quite remember the other allusions she made to me yesterday, but they were Christ allusions.

In the cottage, we found a big carpet, which was dirty. Grandma was talking about taking the carpet and putting it under the dining room table. On the carpet, we saw a weird thing that looked like a giant kitchen implement–I don’t know the name of the implement–I think it is used to thrash eggs or some such thing. Grandma said it is used to thrash carpets, to beat dust out of them. So I started teasing the carpet, hitting it with the thrasher. I said we could hang the carpet from the barn and clean it. But that seemed like a lot of work to me, so I revised my thought to something more logical, which was that Mom and Dad could possibly think about renting a machine to clean the carpet and bring it into the house, under the dining room table.

On the carpet, we also found two rolled up smaller carpets. (Carpet symbolism is important to me as I have asked for magic carpet rides.) I thought, “is it appropriate for me to ask my parents about putting these carpets in their new home?” But then I thought, well, it would be very nice for them, as were I them, I would like the carpets. So I gave the smaller carpet for my grandma to carry, and I gave the larger carpet to myself to carry, and I tried to not worry about her falling, as she is often taking loads upon herself and most likely she would not fall.

Other very interesting things happened in the cottage, but I don’t feel like going into them now.

Into the cottage walked my husband and the family friend. Grandma and I mosied around for a while, and I was fearful about my husband feeling a bit neglected by me at the expense of my concern for grandma. But I am trying to not project the feeling of neglection upon my husband, just trying to do the things I should do to respect him as my husband concept, as I love him very much and have met in him God (concept) for the first time and like, the ultimate Friend/Companion/Mentor who I’ve always wished for.

Grandma and I were carrying these small carpets. Up came this new ponytail dude and his gentle wife, my parents’ friends who I first met yesterday. The ponytail dude was very nice and seemed to want to take care of my grandma. So I let him, seeing him as an extension of myself who would do logical things to help my grandma along so that she wouldn’t fall, etc. (I worry but am trying to not project need onto others, although I think it is responsible to do what one can do to help the seemingly needy.)

The ponytail dude was eating an apple–said there was an apple and peach tree behind the cottage. I thought about bringing my grandma through the lawn to the trees as I want her to be able to experience as much nature as possible, but she was already making her way down the path back to the house, carpet in arms, with the ponytail dude. Steve, however, was right there, and it seemed appropriate for us to go look at the trees. I wanted to try an apple or a peach.

As I am experiencing the Christ/Eve ‘complex’ (I was born on Christmas Eve and have always recognized a Christ ‘complex’ within myself)–I was worried about the ‘Eve’ part of this, but a large part of my philosophy as of late is to shift my perspective to try to expect good things within reason, and to not fear, and to ask my God concept what the right thing to do is.

The peach tree was not suitable. The peaches were not yet ripe, and Steve said they have ‘blight.’

The apples, on the other hand, looked very good. Well, a lot of them had insect holes/mars/etc., but they seemed good to me. Yet I was worried about the underlying implications of eating an apple in this ‘state’ which I understand as a spiritual journey/contact with the divine. “I” let everything be up to “Steve” – ironically I also see Steve as a male version of Eve. He is a man with a highly ‘feminine’ mindset.

Unfortunately for my fear at that time, I also see Steve as a snake symbol, which I can go into at another time.

I was worried that my eating the apple would unleash bad consequences for the world, and that Steve was the snake.

If Steve was the Eve concept, perhaps that would unleash bad consequences for the world.

If I was the Eve concept, perhaps I would be unleashing bad consequences for the world by messing with the apple and speculating about its divine nature.

I decided that I could see the apple as a kind of reverse apple–an apple that would reduce fear of about the nature of knowledge of good and evil, although I do not think it is responsible to abandon the concept of addressing the ‘bad’–more on this later.

Yet I felt that I needed to eat this reverse apple to help take away my judgement and rectify the myth of the apple/tree/knowledge/good-evil paradigm.

I think that yesterday was about fear, and about reducing fear, and reconciliation, and reason and faith.

Steve found a good apple for me. “Be careful,” he said. “It’s got a hole here and here, and pointed to two small indentations on either end of the good part of the flesh where one might bite down.”

I took a bite and recognized that it was a good apple, and quite tasty, maybe a Gala?

“Take a bite for me so I don’t have to bite down into the apple,” Steve said.

So I did, and got a nice bite and took it out of my mouth and gave it to him.

We walked back to the house and I ate the rest of the apple, but I wasn’t really hungry, so I didn’t eat down to the quick of the core.

I buried the apple in a geranium pot in front of my parents’ porch, and Steve and I sat on the porch for a while, and I realized that I was feeling much relief. The constant stream of data/worry seemed to be lifted, although if I ‘squinted’ my ears and thought deeply about it, I could still hear/see/feel my God concept.

Yet my worry about lack of connection seemed to be lifted, and like, this load that I’d been carrying about worrying about Grandma and Steve seemed to be lifted, and some of the constant stream of God-data seemed to be lifted. The God-data can be pretty relentless, but I think it is for the best sometimes, that it is trying to tell me there are issues that need to be resolved. Mostly the issue is about my fear and projection of fear upon reality, yet it is also about faith and balancing one’s responsibility toward the planet and toward the ‘individuals’ one loves and the rest of the perceiving entities of the universe. It’s about wishing well for everyone and doing what one could (can) within reason, dream and faith.

Love,

Lady

P.S. Earlier yesterday, I went running and asked a question of my God concept, who was throwing a constant stream of data at me, a stream beyond a reasonable doubt. I am ever skeptical of the ego/Christ complex ‘thing,’ but I said, “OK, God, how would I recognize that if ‘I’ am Christ? What would it take?” And immediately after asking that I looked into a store window and saw three Barbie dolls. The packages were a Holiday/Christmas theme. In the first package, I saw a beautiful Barbie doll dressed up in a Santa outfit. The other package had two dolls, who I didn’t stare at very long (I am every discounting the special when it regards myself)–but these dolls were also in Holiday theme. I was born on Christmas eve.

Weird, huh?

mirror lady


Lady at Wall Eye Gallery 8-2010 opening – foto by Smith

“I am Mirjam, the Lady who dances with the mirror. The dinosaurs dreamed of birds. The humans dreamed angels.” – Lady K





recent Lady – foto by Smith

Work the inside out

To examine our intentions, we need to look at our aversions and wishes. I believe we all want a happy ending. This is why so many movies have resolution, happy endings.

I hope we can use the ultimate wish for a happy ending as a way to resolve psychological beasties such as wanting to punish people who we perceive as bad, such as the Dick Cheneys of the world. We have to realize that in the wrong circumstance, we could be a potential Dick Cheney or Hitler. They are examples of ego run amok.

The wish to create a Heaven solely for “good” people might be based on an incomplete understanding of the nature of “good.”

By accepting inequality and rejecting connectedness, “we good people” could inadvertantly condemn billions of souls to slavery to serve us according to “our” projected idea of Heaven, if it is split into a Heaven/Hell dichotomy. Metaphors: slave labor camps, wage slavery, excessive capitalism, prisons, etc. I do not want my heaven to come at the expense of some one else, but my conception of dichotomy might inadvertently create Hell. It is important, then, to not condemn those one sees as hellish, because those people could actually be seen as extensions of what any one of us are capable of in the wrong circumstances.

This is why the question of Heaven/Hell, the subconscious, cultural nuances, the shadow, and the innate ideal and hope for an ultimate good (one that integrates forgiveness and the ‘bad’) are so very important.

I am most familiar with the “Christian” framework of looking at things, and hope to resolve my anger at “Christians” in order to rectify the evil I have inflicted upon “them” by “my” projected anger onto them.

I have a theory that working the inside of the perceived/projected failed “parent” culture by adopting that culture and addressing its ills is a useful way to understand what it is “we” project and what “we” expect.

– –

Smith says that the quotes around I, we, you, etc., makes my message cumbersome to read. It is also cumbersome to type. I think it would be good for me to keep this in my mindset when I need it as I think it is the fundamental, underlying, collaborative reality–that of a mass, shared mind. However, I can understand his point of view.

— –

‘Lady’

10 years ago


not for individual consumption – foto by Smith

A ten year old tirade of news, facts, and word doodles found today in a forgotten file.

~ ~ ~

4/5 Tirade 2000

Jesus as carpenter was a wood worker.
Jesus as Christ is a would worker.

Today’s news, 3.27.2000 – super fish: scientists are trying to
force grow fish twice as fast. Say it’ll save the
world’s food population. Evidently they never watched
the Roger Corman film “Humanoids From The Deep“.
Scientists there said the same thing, and the big, fast fish
came upon the land and ate and raped the humans.
It did solve the fish food problem, so it wasn’t a total waste.

If we have to, as we have had to,
and we want to, we will.
Put one foot in foot of the other,
the other in front of the one.

Queen Elizabeth and Barbra Streisand are both traveling to
Australia this month. The Queen’s entourage numbers 28;
Streisand’s is 100.

To satisfy one’s required 2500 daily calorie intake, you could eat
2 cheeseburgers, or 15 pounds of fresh strawberries.

The oil & chemical industries have introduced 70,000 synthetic
chemicals into the environment this century increasing the
concentration of carbon dioxide to 30% – on the other hand, last
century one hectare of land fed 3; today it feeds 80.

Life per time in the U.S.A.:
Population: 1900 = 76 million | 2000 = 270 mil
Life expectation women: 1900 = 48 | 2000 = 79
Life expectation men: 1900 = 46 | 2000 = 74
people in average household: 1900 = 4.8 | 2000 = 2.6
14-17 yr olds in school: 1900 = 11% | 2000 = 93%
% of population that is white: 1900 = 88% | 2000 = 62%
Average family’s income: 1900 = $3,000 | 2000 = $45,000

Notice 100 yrs ago women lived 2 yrs longer than men.
Today they live 5 yrs longer.

Joseph Heller (author of “Catch 22“) summed it up: “Frankly I
think the whole society is nuts – and the question is: What does
a sane man do in an insane society?”

“Well, back to the Resolution” – that’s what my Phoenix Arizona Indian
friend would say to me every time he’s head out to the Indian Reservation.

Israel is building a walkway just under the surface of the Sea of Galilee
so pilgrims can pay to walk in Christ’s watermarks.

Humans have damned up so much water that geophysicists say it has
perceptibly altered the way the planet rotates.

The special task force investigating L.A.’s police corruption has
uncovered unjustified shootings, beatings, drug dealing,
evidence planting, false arrests, witness intimidation and perjury.

This is a long road to whore.
We’ve become the curse of our mummy’s womb.
We can take nothing for granted, not even granite.
Night has fallen, and it can’t get up.

There are 2 “Jack Frost” films out.
In one, Michael Keaton is the well meaning dad who’s never
home cuz he’s touring in his rock band – he gives his son a
magic harmonica n sez play it and I’ll come…dad dies, kid
plays, dad comes back as the snowman in the front yard.
Warm fuzzies ensue.
In the 2nd, serial killer on way to execution crashes into
biogen truck and as he dies his evil life force combines with
the toxic bioshit and he becomes a serial killing snowman
who in one scene disguises himself as a hot bath so he can
molest the naked she bather.
I missed the 1st movie, bought the 2nd for its 3-D cover.

God says to Satan: “What do you do about a political party
that favors insurance companies over patients, tobacco over
kids, guns over victims, & then cheers wildly after voting
for the spread of nuclear weapons?”
Satan relies: “Hey, that’s why I became a Republican”.
That was in quotes in my notebook, so I stole it somewhere.

At our Ku Klux Klan rally last year, Cleveland had 0 arrests,
40 Klansmen on stage, 30 supporters in the audience, 300
anti-klan demonstrators, 119 reporters and 600 police.
489 of everyone else versus 600 police.
(Q: How many police does it take to make an honest man?
A: None – it can’t be done.)

“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric;
but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry”.
William Butler Yeats

A cockroach can live 9 days without its head.
Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts,
white worms like pork rinds.
People are basically dark meat (we’re all black inside).
A blue whale’s tongue weighs 6,500 pounds.
70% of house dust consists of dead skin flakes.
A 4 year old’s brain is twice as active as an adult’s.
Vegetarians live 10 years longer.
People who attend church more than twice a week
live 7 years longer.
Women live 7 years longer than men.
Whites live 7 years longer than blacks.
Couples in long term relationships have higher levels of
endorphins – a morphine like pain killer… so it must be true,
love does hurt.

Learn and live.
Know need to no.
“The eyes will never be full” – the Bible.


past, present, future – foto by Smith

Illusion

Play City of Wonder

lurch limp lurch


walk like a man – foto by Smith

I now walk like my polio father, and my crippled-knee mom.

With each left step I take, I flow to the left and up, then with each right step lurch down and to the right, like one of Dr Moreau’s four-legged animal experiments trying to walk upright as a Frankensteined two-legged man.

My dad — aka Pappy Smith — contracted polio as a child and his left leg was shorter and half as thick as his right leg, so he walked with a rolling gait, bobbing up and down as he swang from side to side.

Mom — aka Mother Dwarf — in 1999 was struck by a car that had passed her and then stopped in the middle of the intersection and decided to back up without looking to park in a spot it had just passed at the exact time mom stepped into the crosswalk to cross the street. Since she was only a poor old woman on Medicare, the doctors put her leg back together less than professionally so when she healed she started walking like dad with an up-down side-to-side roll. The driver who had no insurance fled back to Poland with nary an apology.

In late 2004, mom collapsed on the floor due to a blood bone infection in her ever-degrading knee. She used to be over 300 pounds but over a two year period had gotten down to 210 pounds before she collapsed. I tried to lift her up, but because she was my mom and overweight and I couldn’t bring myself to put my arms under her armpits and grab her chest to lift her properly because I was unwilling to grab her breasts, I lifted wrong and pulled something in my upper thigh groin area.

Not having insurance, I just lived with it for two years. When Lady and I left the country in 2006, we did nothing but walk everywhere around Europe, Africa and Mexico for 31 months, frequently with heavy backpacks, and my injury got worse. But even though it was more painful, the constant walking kept me fairly walkable and limber.

Then 19 months ago we moved back to Cleveland and got a car and stopped most of my daily exercise and I degenerated quickly to the point where I was having trouble walking from the living room to the kitchen.

Went to the doc and got a prescription for Meloxicam, an inexpensive once-a-day anti-inflammatory pill that made me fairly walkable again.

Then came last winter where I walked almost nowhere, rode my bicycle seldom, and it just got worse to the point where I lurch up down right left as I walk and every time I do I think of how ironic it is I’ve become a caricature of my dead dad and mom.

In 7 months I will be covered by Medicare and will get some help with this. One doctor told me it could be fixed via physical therapy, so there’s hope I can get my life back and be a fuller physical companion to my Lady, maybe take dancing lessons with her and lightly sweep her around the floor to the bounce of a Viennese waltz.

So even though I’m in constant pain and become tired and sore faster than I should, I still have this positive outlook that this hell is temporary, that good times will return again.

And if I can maintain this positive hopeful attitude for the future while living within my own constant personal pain, perhaps I can expand my thought system to encompass this fluxed up world I live in that seems to be rapidly going down the drain humanity-wise, and just maybe I can attain the Zen goal of living a happy life in an unhappy world.

The world’s always been a hard, unhappy, unfair place with the strong taking what they want from the weak, the fast eating the slow, and the sneaky backstabbing the rest — you know, your basic Corporate philosophy of the survival of the shittiest.

My Lady is currently trying to find an ethical philosophy for a happy life. I hope she formulates it. If it works, I’ll steal it from her and live happily ever after.

If not, I will continue to endure, in hope of brighter future.


watch step – foto by Smith

buried words unnecessarily excavated


my case load’s full – foto by Smith

It’s truly strange the words I find lurking in my own forgotten computer files. Going through my folders looking for a specific file, I kept coming across blurbs I wrote and forgot. Most are too negative or unworthy of development, but together they’re bloggable.

~ ~ ~

The dead in archeology gather
grow windows past imperfect
smeared in cleaner mud

~ ~ ~

“I am pinching my nipples with long pairs of pliers. I am slowly pulling my armpit hair one at a time. It feels so bad it’s good. I am combing my hair with a chicken cock’s comb. Call, call me for fun! I will talk *dirty* to you-oo. I am massaging my labia with a latin Barbie doll. I inserts small animals into my openings…”

~ ~ ~

Trojan Whores

this culture is a Trojan Whore awaiting entry to the city of the soul.

let them be tyrants. let them lie. let them kill and cheat and steal and hypocriphize. let the heaven and hell they profess belief in be – let hell be real so all these self righteous limp dicks walking around washington like real erections all go to the hell they believe in, for that is where invaders and mass murders and killers of babies and women and the old must go – not to purgatory, but to hell. and not to no nice parts of hell either. want the worst for the worst, for i am an angry godling.

~ ~ ~

This Nebulous

How long
How many lines
What space
Or place
Or case
Can be made
For future poetry
Or present pain?

~ ~

I ate a phoenix once. With a lizard for dessert. Everybody knows that phoenixes regenerate through self-destruction, and lizards grow new tails.

Once I assimilated this meal, I found each night, I could break off my penis and a new one would grow. That way I have a new penis for each sexual act. I no longer have to wash it.

Unfortunately, I haven’t quite figured out what the factor is, but sometimes I grow little penises, and sometimes I grow big penii. Usually have foreskin. Once I had a black penis, another a snake’s.

When I date, I can only go out after dark, to make sure my penis has grown back. Once I tried to have sex during lunch, and I only had a little stub with an eye in it. Scared the woman. She became a lesbian.

So I’ve done my bit for women’s rights, and wrongs.

~ ~ ~


stuff on my mind – foto by Smith