The Sunday Series: Sunday May 3, 2015

The Sunday Series:
Sunday May 3, 2015

Due to a medical condition, I need to walk as much as possible.  Usually one has a route where they go from "here" to "there."  I decided not to follow that sort of logic, and I kept my mind free of distance or direction.  I just walked down my stairs and turned in the direction of the wind.  I almost get a vertigo feeling looking down the long street. It's hot, and I try to stay as much as possible in the shade.  I have sensitive skin, and I do have a fear of aging.  There is one part of my body that really bugs me, and that is the inner elbow area, where I have this ugly aging wrinkling skin.  No one notices it except me, and it is the one thing I think about when I'm wearing a short-sleeve shirt or t-shirt.  

To focus, I look at the pavement while walking.  To be honest with you, I prefer concrete to nature.  I'm fascinated with the way the street-walk is paved in squares, like a puzzle.  The shadows that reflect on the pavement are also beautiful to me.  I wonder what it would be like if someone painted the shadows on the sidewalk, so they are there all year-round.  That type of perfection appeals to my aesthetic.

I come upon a fountain in the front yard of a house on Franklin Avenue.  Due to the fact that there is a draught in Southern California, it is rare to see these fountains with running water.  So what is left is just the statue itself.   The bottom level is three baby angels (I presume that is what they are), holding up another level with two other angels grasping a stone, where on a good day, water would be coming out.  There is something fantastic about watching water flowing from a fountain.  Small or large, it doesn't make a difference, but just to see water flowing is like life going on.  Without the flow, one feels close to a state of death.

About two blocks from this fountain, I see another statue on a lawn, except that this lawn and statue, with the house, is huge.  In every sense, I try to imagine living in this house.  No doubt, I would hate to cut the lawn, but if you live here, more likely you can afford a gardener or an army of gardeners to cut the lawn for you.   The house itself is not beautiful, but just big.  It seems obscene to be that huge, yet I can imagine myself living there alone, so I can wander through each room without a care in the world.  If I died there alone, it would probably take days for someone to find my body.   Oddly enough, that gives me a sense of comfort.

The statue on the lawn, besides the house, captures my attention.   Again, there is an angel motif, and she (it seems to be that gender) is help supporting the bigger version of the angel, or is it just a woman?   Does this statue have any real meaning?  Or is it just something decorative on the biggest front yard I have ever seen in person.  I projected the image that I'm sitting in the balcony, reading "Against Nature" and glancing at the statue from its behind.  Being an 'ass' man, I fully appreciate the back side of a good statue.

As I walk on Franklin, heading west, I see a small home that has a pair of lions looking over the entrance to the house.   Compared to the fountain and statue, this lion is chipped and in need of a paint job - but part of its charm is in the state it is in.  The expression on the lion's face is not one of danger or 'beware, ' but a sense of peace or understanding.   The more I look at it, the more I find the bust of this lion beautiful.

Further down the road, I located another home with a lawn, but this one has nothing but weeds. Yet the house seems to be in order.   A mansion in terms, but there seems to be something more homey compared to the palace I just saw back a little ways.  I imagine the person who lives here has done so for many years.  Perhaps a recluse who is so close to civilization, that he or she can just breathe through it, by opening their windows.  My guess these windows haven't been open for many years.  Or perhaps there are children in there - maybe a brother and sister, and they don't know the outside world at all.

Two or three doors down, there is a home that seems Mayan-style, and I can imagine sessions of torture and pain being done in that location.   In theory the design of this home wouldn't fit in the neighborhood, but alas, it does.  It seems perfectly natural to be here on Franklin.  When I walk by, I can feel the difference in temperature.  There is a chill in the air, and once I pass it, the weather gets warmer. I walk back to it again, and yes, for sure a chill hangs in that area like a woman wearing a heavy dark dress in the winter of Los Angeles.

As I glance at the entrance and its staircase, I feel that it's possible that one entered here, knowing that they will never leave.   The beauty of the place is seductive, but then so is death.  Once you embrace the body of your killer, then you know, or at least, hope there is a better life somewhere else.   As for me, I just walk on.

May 3, 2014

May 3, 2014

I was listening to Isidore Isou’s short sound text piece, “Rituel Somptueux pour la Selection des Especes, ” this morning and I thought how remarkable it is to be aware of one’s existence in a world that has no meaning whatsoever.   I am listening to something in French, a language I don’t know, and yet, I can appreciate the sound poem, without fully understanding its meaning, if there is even a meaning behind the work.  I woke up this morning, since it is May 3, with the image of Goya’s painting “The Third of May 1808.” Is it a creative work of art, or just reporting an incident or even an image.  I seem to be confused between the artificial and what is real.

I read various newspaper accounts of Emmett Dalton, who was part of the legendary Dalton gang of bank robbers during the wild west.  Emmett was shot 23 times during a robbery that failed of course, but he did recover from his wounds and ended up in prison.  The governor gave him a pardon, where Dalton eventually ended up as an entertainer with a message for his audience.  He made a film in 1912 called “The Last Stand of the Dalton Boys, ” which was made as three-reeler.   Emmett played himself in the film, and not only that, but he also toured with the film, giving a speech before and after the screening.  His basic message was that crime doesn’t pay.   To quote “the biggest fool on earth is the one who thinks he can beat the law.” The irony is I think he did beat the law, or used his past profession as a new profession.  He died in 1937 in South Central Los Angeles, which ironically enough is the same neighborhood that Western legend Wyatt Earp also lived and died. They say there are no second acts in life, but alas that is not true.

One has to keep in mind what Niccolò Machiavelli has said “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” This is profoundly true on so many accounts.  Personally people approach me as what they think I am. The truth is I’m not that person whatsoever, but I never tell them that.  I let them decide or define who I’m. Emmett was an individual who played with his image, and to confuse that identity by being in a film or even in a book is role playing.  I'm more impressed with people like François Coty who was a French perfumer, who didn't hit it big with his product till he accidently dropped a bottle of perfume in a busy Parisian department store.   His empire was built on a smell, an odor, yet it was the scent that built up a right-wing force in 20th century France.  He eventually purchased Le Figuro, the national newspaper, and when he did he remove "Le" from the title, and it became the voice for right-wing causes.  Although a horrible racist, he was also a brilliant business man who realized that a scent doesn't always have to appeal to a certain price or even class.  He made various versions of his scent, at different prices and therefore it was a scent that went around the world.  He also owned all aspects of his perfume production, by owning the flower fields that originated the scent as well as the printing presses that made the labeling and the delivery vehicles that brought the product to the stores and distributors.   In a sense, he had it all, and he defined the world in his own image.  Not that far off from someone like David Koch, who not only was a libertarian but also made sure his name was on every building that he made as well as his various hospitals and medical centers that he had built.   The powerful are often the most honest, and Machiavelli knew how to worm inside such a person's head to make him or her insecure.

The most honest man, with respect to his art or presence is Bing Crosby.  A superb vocalist, but what he contributes to the world was the multitrack reel-to-reel tape machine.  He was likewise the first person to pre-record his radio shows and put them on magnetic tape.  Therefore he can choose his first love, golf playing, and not having it interfere with his ‘radio’ work.   The beauty of all of this for me was that he could destroy the sense of actual time, and make one up, or give an appearance that everything is placed in “real time.” Which comes back to “The Third of May 1808, ” is that reportage or is that a work of art?