I Know, I Know

Posted on June 5, 2007 by Varg

– I know I just blogspotted him two posts ago but I wanted to send everyone back to the ‘Dish for his image depicting the extended family of Dollar Bill Jefferson. He said he has a Power Point presentation that goes into more detail but this will have to do for now.

– I looked and looked for a copy of the full indictment against Jefferson but couldn’t find it. Then Adrastos proved that a citizen journalist is only as good as his or her citizen sources.

– Kudos to Maitri who hooked herself up with a snappy new design for the Vatul Blog and continues to operate more bells and whistles on her site than you can shake a stick at. That girl is wired man! She even had a Twitter link on her site before I even knew what it was. Also, I like the new masthead, it’s supposed to look like one of those visual confirmations we see on all the blog services methinks.

– Then there is Schroeder, who had a quick tet-a-tet with Dollar Bill in the days leading up to his indictment. Any day now indeed! You gave him the kiss of death man!

– And of course, everyone should check Squandered Heritage daily. I know I do.

5 thoughts on “I Know, I Know”

jeffrey says:

June 5, 2007 at 7:43 pm

MySpace may be “gay” but Twitter is just plain evil. More on this at a later date.
Varg says:

June 5, 2007 at 8:15 pm

I know, I think it might be the last vestiges of Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes prophecy finally coming to pass.
liprap says:

June 6, 2007 at 5:54 am

More like 15 nanoseconds…
Maitri says:

June 6, 2007 at 9:13 am

Thanks, Varg! This is so sweet of you. Which masthead are you talking about? The title or the image?

Jeffrey, as with any technology, it is good or evil only based on how you use it, young Jedi. Twitter has been great for passing notes back and forth to other technologists when you don’t want to write an email or a blog post every single time.
Varg says:

June 6, 2007 at 9:17 am

The type, it’s visual confirmation font yes?

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.