Soft Green Scene

Today's Weather: in the valleys and on the plains the temperature inversion continues, -5C to -10C, fog and ice-rain. With my paints I dream of summer. In real outdoor life there may be a slight improvement in the weather according to forecasts. After the recent snow race my running feet find themselves itching for more . . . 

Hard Boiled Egg

Early Frost on Window Pane

Blue Guitar

Wallace Stevens wrote a poem called The Man with the Blue Guitar. 

The Man with the Blue Guitar,The Emperor of Ice Cream and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird are possibly his three most famous poems. 

Not long ago there was a painting of a Blue Guitar in mumok. The work showed the artist Hockney drawing a blue guitar.

Here is my photo, especially for you Rachel: 

David Hockney - Blue Guitar (detail) 

At the Julius Koller Ping-Pong Club

There's a great deal of material to view and muse upon at the Julius Koller One Man Anti Show at Vienna's mumok in the MQ complex.

This exhibition runs until 17th April. 

As an annual ticket holder I pop in when I'm passing, even when I've only a few minutes to spare.

Time spent in mumok is never wasted. 

With his passion for ufos, modern art, sport, and fairness I reckon Julius Koller is my kind of guy. I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition, even though I didn't get to play ping-pong!  

To learn more about Julius Koller and why he's important, and to learn about the other exhibitions currently to be seen at mumok simply click on the link under the image below. 

"Aiming to enrich the present reality . . . "

Visit mumok website HERE

Salvador Dali, Angels and Me

The Assumption is an elevator. 
It ascends because of the 
weight of the dead Christ.

On 1st September 1952 Salvador Dali wrote in his diary that he was trying to take down his painting of the Assumption in order to paint the upper parts when the pulleys on the machine he used for the purpose failed to function properly and the canvas became unfastened, and fell from a height of ten feet and disappeared into "the trench". 

The artist feared that the painting would be scratched, probably even torn, and that three months of work would be wasted. The best that he envisaged was that he would have to spend wasteful time "in wearisome efforts at restoration".  

The painting was retrieved with the assistance of a man who descended into "the trench". 

Dali spoke of "a miracle!"

The masterpiece was intact. There was not a scratch or a single speck of dirt on the canvas. "No-one who has tried to reconstruct the event can understand how this could have been possible, if the intervention of angels be excluded," he wrote.

Less than 48 hours after my reading of Dali's account of the so-called "miracle" a strange event took place.

I was standing on a small stepladder reaching up to hang a painting above my bookcase. I was making use of an old and slightly deformed brass picture hook I had just come across in a box of miscellaneous nails and screws.

Suddenly the picture plunged down the wall and disappeared into a narrow gap between the back of the bookcase and the wall - there was the ominous crash of breaking glass!  

Like Dali's painting mine had also fallen from a height of about ten feet.

I glanced up at the hook and saw it was no longer a hook but a straight piece of lustrous metal. 

When I retrieved the broken frame, the several pieces of glass and the painting (on 300gm cotton paper) from behind the bookcase I was surprised to discover that my painting, which was a Crucifixion of Christ, was also unharmed.

Dali's angels are apparently my angels too. 

Humbly I thank them.

UFO Clip Released By Chilean Navy 6th Jan 2017

                                             "This is the real deal" 

Something is going on. Watch all the way through!

Phantom

a manifestation  

appears in the scene

a little grey ghost 

How? 

From where? 

I have no idea!

My Lucky 13 and Wallace Stevens

In Austria they counting the birds. 

Volunteers are sent an instruction package and are expected to devote three hours; an hour a day over three consecutive days.

Elderly spinsters and widows and outnumbered old men will hide behind net curtains and patiently peer in the direction of bird feeders and nesting boxes, and hardier souls, some with parties of enthusiastic children, wrapped up against the bitter weather (it's -20C in mountain valleys today - but here it's a relatively mild -7C) will march into parks and fields suitably armed with notebooks and pencils, binoculars and perhaps a little appropriate sustenance. 

The annual bird counting exercise reminds me of a wonderful poem called 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. It's by Wallace Stevens.  

We can look at four parts of the poem: the first, the second, the fourth, and the seventh.

Here they are: 

I - 
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird. 

II -
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds. 

IV -
A man and a woman 
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one. 

VII - 
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you? 

The reason for choosing the above verses lies in the intricacies of the bird counting system. My chosen example of how to count birds involves blackbirds. 

Here it is:
Let's say you take up your position in the park and you see two blackbirds in a tree. You make a note of the time and date. The next day there are four blackbirds. You also record this event. On the third day there is one blackbird. You make a note of it. Now you calculate how many blackbirds you have seen. The total number of blackbirds you have seen is four blackbirds. It is not seven. Seven would be too many. 

Now you can work out why I selected the above stanzas. And don't forget - the result is IV. 


In my picture (below) I have drawn 13 birds, none of them black. And they all count. They are the Lucky 13. 

The uncaged blackbird is many people's best-loved songbird. Mine too. 

Have a good day! And be kind to yourselves. 

You can discover more about Wallace Stevens and his poetry HERE at the Poem Hunter website. 


There are several posts on Wallace Stevens at my Poet-in-Residence blog. These are available to be viewed simply by entering the term Wallace Stevens in the P-i-R search box. At the outset it has to be said: Stevens is not easy poet. I offer the posts titled "Wallace Stevens meets R S Thomas (parts 1,2, and 3)" as your starting point.

Birdbrains (cartoon)

" Are we flying to Europe this year?"

NOW 

in glorious colour at 

Poet-in-Residence  

New Year's Eve Run part 2 . . . Buildings along the route

The Vienna State Opera Building is near the Start. 

The run is over a 5.4km circular route known as 'the Inner Ring' which is closed to traffic for the duration of the event. Runners and spectators have the opportunity to see many fine buildings along the way. This post features a handful of them:

Team Building

Natural History Museum Building

Parliament Building

City Hall Building

University Building

Building the Finish Line

Oracle Reading for 2017

World Oracle for 2017 

This oracle was cast on the morning of 1st of January 2017. The message revealed is that the world should focus on:

The Law of Equality. The well-being, welfare and happiness of the peoples of the world and the individual are one and the same. Progress is not possible if people are causing harm to others or to themselves. Attempts to make progress will only lead to harm, injury and wrong, if the universal law is not followed.