Sunset, Saturday, 21 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

It takes me the longest time to understand some things, things that are obvious to other people. 

Today I was listening to the Beatles/John Lennon sing “Because” from Abbey Road. 

Because the sky is blue
It makes me cry

That of course is a play on the sky feeling ‘blue’ ... but it was only a few years ago that I finally realized it.

My reaction always had been, “Hey – makes me cry too ... ”

Sunset, Wednesday, 23 September 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

The sun came out today and pretty much set everything straight, as we’d always suspected it could. For one of the first times this year, late morning and early afternoon saw the high blue sky and pure white clouds of midsummer. The Mexican guys cut the fields again, this time without having to inadvertently run over any rabbits, turtles or snakes. Myanmar was restored as Burma, and the people of Honduras got their president back. Antonin Scalia revealed all the secrets Dick Cheney had told him over shotguns. John and George came back to tour in support of the remastered box set. My parents called, as I expect yours did as well. The sun set, and every heart was at peace.

Sunset, Saturday, 5 September 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Not necessarily recommended: Reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” at midnight, by an open bedroom window, with a full moon, while coyotes start yipping madly just a mile away in the woods, like Shakespeare’s witches, and underneath those spectral sounds an owl begins calling, nearby, over and over, one of those with a long descending trill like a whippoorwill in reverse – and Lily, our 17-year-old blind cat, starts howling on the back porch.

It’s not even Halloween ...

In the story, I kept going back over a passage that made me think for a moment maybe Poe had anticipated hip hop, or at least the talking blues. Here the narrator speaks of the weird music Usher makes playing his guitar; I’ve added the italics:

... the fantastic character of his performances ... the fervid facility of his impromptus ... must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration ... observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement.

Then I thought – wait a minute. What about “I Am The Walrus”?

The author anticipated, in 1839, the nature of the very song in which he’s mentioned!

Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe

I was going to say I hope bats don’t fly out of the sunset for you, but actually we get them here a lot at twilight and they’re good to have around. And I think they’d be nice to Edgar, too.

Sunset, Thursday, 16 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Actual random soundtrack for the process of this painting included “She’s Coming Home” (Zombies) (she was, even though she worked late), “Annie Get Your Gun” (Squeeze), “Sh-Boom” (The Chords), “Phonograph Blues” (RJ), “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (Buddy Holly), “The Luck Of The Irish” (John Lennon), “Watch The Tapes” (LCD Soundsystem), but no “Twilight Time” even though there were two completely different spectacular twilight skies right after this one – and, most appropriately, “Virginia” (Clipse), which includes a reference to “heat like Caribbean summers.”

Indeed.