The Tears of Things

Cruelty In Color

by Jerome du Bois

[What follows is a review of a review, but I have seen a representative sample of Michael Eastman's Havana work, though not at Mesa Arts Center. Catherine and I saw four large prints out at the ArtsScottsdale thingerdoo in late March.]

Another instance of The Rebarb. Another happy stab at the heart of civilized life, followed by a stream of stinging salt for the fresh red wound.

I don't know what's worse, a blind fool or a sighted one, but worse than both is the person who knowingly perpetuates human suffering for the sake of transient pleasures --and money.

Photographer Michael Eastman is one of these people. And so is local art reviewer Lilia Menconi. Neither one can justifiably plead ignorance of the average Cuban's daily hell --nobody can anymore-- but they do plead such ignorance. Or they simply don't want to know. And then they blithely turn away from this hell to talk about the pretty things. This is deeply disingenuous.

But Eastman says he tries to avoid making any political comment in his work because, as he puts it, he doesn't know enough about the politics of Cuba to do so.

I cannot forgive this vampire. The simple fact of his continuing presence on the island, over four years of visits, perpetuates the horror. Everywhere he puts his feet he steps on some Cuban's back. Every dollar he spends feeds a Cuban prison guard. He must know these things. If he claims ignorance, he's a damned liar. He doesn't talk about the politics because he wants to maintain access. He doesn't want to queer his deal.

The politics of Cuba are simple. An entire island of people has been held hostage for almost fifty years by an extended crime family I call the eFe, complete with bonebreaker protection rackets, contacts with other international gangsters, the protracted squeezing of a disarmed population, and the ideological sideshow called the Revolution, brainwashing the children with newspeak: "To die for The Revolution is to live." The eFe will keep trying to turn the people into toys for tourists, and against each other, until Cuba is just North Korea minus the special meat. It's an old scenario, Mr. Eastman, and you're a willing player on the side of evil. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should burn your Cuba series, and you should never return to the Island until the people are free. Yes, I'm preaching here, but not to the choir, liar.

Now on to fisking this dishonest review.

Lilia Menconi's review begins:

This guy knows how to take a photo.

This woman knows how to write a sentence.

That was my first thought--

--this is gonna be deep--

--when I entered the gallery space at Mesa Arts Center. Fine-art photographer Michael Eastman's interiors of crumbling Cuban mansions are breathtaking --and they're enormous, about 5x4 feet on average.

That word crumbling, with its whiff of quiet decay . . . In Cuba, the word is derrumbe, and it means collapse. Not gently flaking away in the salmon-pink evening while you raise your mojito when struck with one of life's little vagaries. No. It means KABOOM the whole fucking building has fallen in on your family, killing them all, and taking their breath, indeed.

Each work, with its large scale and intricate detail, is designed to be experienced like the grand paintings of the old masters. The large prints invite the viewer to step into the photograph and visually "walk around" the space. The exhibition "Cuba -- Havana Interiors" was created over a period of four years, as Eastman traveled to Cuba and explored the dilapidated architecture of Havana's Ambassador Row.

As I wandered the old mansions, I learned more about Cuba than I could from any textbook.

Bullshit. What she learned wouldn't fill a teaspoon.

Fidel's Stairway offers the ghost of a grand aristocratic estate. This photo captures the ascending architecture of the elite --only now it is cracked, moldy and broken. The stained, crumbling wall frames each stair step. The partial handrail ends at an elaborate pedestal, supporting a statue --a classically draped female figure-- with no head.

I can provide an alternate stairway photo which more accurately reflects the bizarre disparities of Cuban reality, complete with one of the "elite." Here it is:

This is Kcho, a rich Cuban artist, having fun in his own mansion, reportedly a gift from eFe himself. I wrote about it here. Maybe if Ms. Menconi read it, she would learn something worthwhile.

Dining Room makes me thankful for the invention of color photography. From a sunlit window off-frame, the sea-foam-green walls bounce off one another and create an incredible glow. It is easy to imagine that Eastman's skin looked green as he took the photo. He showcases his skill by capturing the light --anyone who has snapped a photo of an Arizona sunset knows how challenging it is.

After the novelty of the outrageous color wears off, the curious facets of the space come to light. Again, each splinter, water streak, and structural bruise is captured in such fine detail that you can almost smell the dank atmosphere. But each surface is freshly dusted. White, unfaded paperwork is neatly stacked on the table, and --is that a bag of takeout in the background? And yet, the racks of books under the archway are riddled with curling covers and browned pages.

Each splinter, water streak and structural bruise is there because nobody can afford to repair them. And the surfaces are dusted because people live there. How do you keep your house, Ms. Menconi? The "bag of takeout" is a jaba vinyl, the plastic bag ordinary Cubans carry everywhere in their daily scavenging for food. Often they have to scavenge for the plastic bags themselves, and use them over and over and over.

Notice she doesn't mention the television in the lower right corner. Why should she? She sees them everywhere she goes, here in the States. But in Cuba televisions cost more than they do here, and in dollars. While people in the free world vie with each other to show off the biggest plasma screen, Cubans must pay more for a little old Sony than they earn in three years. And then most of what they get to see is the Dictator droning on and on and on.

As for the books, you can be sure they are State-approved and harmless. Dozens of imprisoned independent librarians could testify to that fact. Look around at your own books, Ms. Menconi, and realize that even one of them could land you in a filthy hole for years.

The photographs in this exhibition are amazing, but left me wanting. The decaying interiors sprinkled with evidence of habitation create a mystery, and I wanted to know more, to know the stories behind the people living between [?] them.

So she got on the internet and went to The Real Cuba, right? Then Val Prieto's Babalu Blog, or any of the Cuba blogs on his sidebar? No. That's reality. That's the truth. The inconvenient truth. Instead, she went to the horse's ass's mouth.

So I called Eastman. I found out that, yes, people live in these spaces --with much love and care. I also learned that Eastman does not change a thing when he takes a photograph. His background is in landscape and architecture photography, and with this work, he emphasizes the "pride in poverty" that he noticed during his time in Cuba --creating a portrait of the people by photographing their homes.

Here's the salt in the wound. "Pride in poverty." He casually trashes the ragged dignity of people who are among the most inventive and resourceful in the world. They are not proud of being poor. They are proud despite being made poor by a filthy murderer who has stolen more than half a billion dollars from them. And then Eastman comes along and tries to steal their very souls.

He met Cubans who were both pro-American and pro-Castro, obviously a curious contradiction.

That's because somebody's always listening, either electronically or undercover. And what Cubans did he meet, anyway? Contact with all non-Cubans is strictly regulated by the government. I doubt he met with any real dissidents; they would give him a wide berth, since their very lives are in daily danger, and they don't need his kind of light on them.

But Eastman says he tries to avoid making any political comments in his work because, as he puts it, he doesn't know enough about the politics of Cuba to do so. Eastman wanted to simply present a moment --the place in which the Cuban citizens were during the time of his visit.

Which Cuban citizens? At this moment, thousands of Cuban citizens languish in one of 300+ prisons in La Isla Cárcel.

He does it successfully. His technical skill allows him to capture visual moments that are usually only seen firsthand. The light and colors are so brilliant, it's almost as if you're seeing these images through his eyeball instead of his camera.

"I believe in honesty," Eastman says. "I never set up a photograph. I just try to record the subject in a documentary style."

I must say, I've never seen a documentary look so good.

I must say, Ms. Menconi, I've often seen writing as lazy and pedestrian as yours, reflecting your unreflective mind.

People are so easily impressed. The guy can set up a tripod, frame an obvious static scene, choose a lens, focus, and read numbers on a light meter. Technical skills from a six-week community college course. I'm referring to the Havana series, remember. Time, and light, and the ghostly imprints of real people's lives, do all the work. Cuba does all the work here--with no reward. Michael Eastman goes click, click, click, gears up the artmachine, and cranks 'em out in three sizes.

And steals some more of Cuba's soul in the process. He is dishonest and dishonorable.

A succe$$ful photographer who really cared about Cuba would be willing to burn his ticket there forever if he could bring back images of truth. He would ignore the picturesque irrelevancies of Ambassador Row. He would invest in several of the latest high-tech, hi-res miniaturized cameras, along with the accessories and software to connect to the internet. Then he would do as Ben Corbett did, and slip into the real Cuba. He would have guides take him as close as they could to attacks by the Rapid Response Brigades, or the walls and barbed wire of hellholes like Red Ceramic and Kilo18, or the blatant hypocrisies of Omnipotent Tourists. He would then send this electronic samizdat out anonymously into the world. He would keep working like this until the heat was just around the corner, and then he would entrust his equipment to the next brave photographer, and go back to the States with MININT none the wiser.

But that would have to be a different Michael Eastman than the safe, smug one we have now.

CODA: Minor technical note about color. One of Eastman's galleries rhapsodizes about how Eastman is so good at color that color is the true subject of his work. I don't think so. If he really valued color quality (and print longevity), he wouldn't use the cheapest method of photographic printing, the C-Type print; not when Cibachrome and Fuji Color Crystal Archive are available. It's just that Eastman and his gallerists are cheap.

Rational Hostility Is Not Islamophobia

by Jerome du Bois

While updating our moribund blogroll, I dropped Dean's World, and here's why.

Dean Esmay has blinders on when it comes to Islam. When I read his recent "Fisking The Islamophobes" piece, I was appalled at the lowball. He chose some bozo from Pluto to go after. Dean Esmay, binary genius, picks on a guy even Keith Olberman could handle. When I was done reading it I asked myself, Hasn't this guy ever heard of Robert Spencer?

Bingo. Not long after that Spencer posted a response, and Spencer whupped him. Then it went back and forth in a typical blogospheric roundelay, and readers may follow the links at their leisure; but let me get back to that first posting.

Out of all the postings by all the anti-Islam commenters in all the world, including me, he picks the easiest target of them all.

Them's some cojones, Dean Esmay. And that's a tell.

Sad to say, I think he's afraid of Muslims. Afraid of misunderstanding them. Afraid of offending them.

They have a word for that nowadays, don't they? Islamophobia. Fear of Islam. Oh, wait, Dean Esmay wants to slap that label on people like me.

Let me be clear. I am not afraid of Islam or any Muslim. After watching thousands of my fellow innocent Americans murdered on live television by Muslims --after much reading and research and study --and beheadings-- I rationally concluded that this religion and millions of its adherents hate every way of life which is not theirs, and theirs is anti-freedom, anti-life, and dreadfully misogynistic. These true believers are strangers to reason. So it is rational, in the name of free life, to hate them right back. And I do.

And, Dean Esmay? There's nowhere to run to, baby, no place to hide.

Ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Then ask Theo van Gogh.

DEPART!

Captured by Catherine King. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form.

by Catherine King

"... depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire..."
-Matthew 25:4

HOUSEFULL OF PHANTOMS

Captured May 14, 2006. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form.

by Catherine King

On July 4th, 2003, I explained to you in "Roomfull of Phantoms" that "I could no longer compartmentalize in my life and mind between my personal space and my paranormal laboratory. But I was sure not to begin the photographic series that was to become Roomfull of Phantoms until I could handle the breaking of that boundary.

Almost three years has gone by, a lot of water has passed under the bridge, and I have a different home now. I'm using a different camera from the one I used back then and there, in the Haunted Apartment.

Much has changed with this series I bring you now-- my Housefull of Phantoms. A different era, a new phase begins...

SPEAKING FOR MYSELF

by Catherine King

It appears that I'm going to be doing The Tears of Things blogging for a while. The Tears of Things-- how well named our blog is.

We are so damn serious. Jerome has written some really funny pieces now and then, but sadly, I don't have much of a sense of humor. As I indicated in Introducing the House of Not For Sale: Three Flags, I've been pretty much on the verge of Catastrophe Mode (or Code Red, take your choice) since I was a kid. It's not easy going through life lugging a sense of impending doom around everywhere.

I must resist the tendency to fall in love with Sadness. But I'm not the only one who struggles with that, am I? For example; are there not others who are deeply moved when looking at my little friend Hard Times? I met this woefull creature only once, yet he tore my heart into little pieces. I'm very much afraid Hard Times is with us no more. I just hope he didn't suffer too much in the end.

These are the kinds of things I think about all the time. It weighs on me so. Nothing you see or read here is frivolous. Not the flowers-- see UNHEALED, TOO. Not even the fashion, for as Jerome told you in Three Years On, Still Going Strong:

"...we two, who should be dead by now, and who know that every moment in this broken world is precious, will continue to develop our high style of substance. What is fashion to us? Glamourous armor."

And where has Jerome taken his inimitable style these days, and why are you hearing from the long-silent mysterious me?

At the present, Jerome is concentrating on La Pionera and the New Mango (see the sidebar) exclusively. He feels that The Tears of Things has brought us nothing but pain. Regretfully, I've had a lot to do with that perception. I've been unable to "just roll" with things. Reading Phase Why: The Making of Crazy Quilt' II, you can see that I definitely tend to get overwrought, working so hard on my projects.

I had to agree with Jerome about the pain thing, but when I evaluated my priorities and options with an open mind, I determined that I must continue just as I have been, with the art and the writing and the projects, and all. As I confessed in Phase Why:

"To show my anger at the world for mocking all my efforts, I tried to do nothing. But that was by far the worst of all."

You see, my hands are the prototype for Kiku Ybarra's hands (of The New Mango)...hands that won't stop moving, even when she's asleep. I can't stop doing these things, even if that makes me the biggest chump in the world.

But though I feel compelled to set these tremendous tasks for myself, I always finish them, nonetheless. Remember Roomfull of Phantoms:

"I knew that no matter what might happen in the near future (here I hoped that nothing horribly, earth-shatteringly bad would), nothing was going to prevent me from finishing Roomfull of Phantoms." And I did.

Just as I finished the Crazy Quilt'.

And The Psychedelic Leprechaun.

And now I'm working on my Sugar-Frosted Half-Jacket and it's coming along very well, if I do say so myself. Here are front and back views, photographed just yesterday.

Observant news watchers will have noticed that they just keep on pinkin', no matter how much Jerome and I complain, so in order to protest constructively, I am working on PINKLANDIA, which, when finished, will expunge the insipid Pink Plague once and for all (please, praise Goddess).

Let's see, what else am I working on? Well, with all of these parrot photographs, I figured I could make a couple of digital photocollages. I'll call them The Birds Looked At Me As If I Were Living In A Cage and Tree with Birds and Bells.

Of course I help Jerome with La Pionera and the New Mango. The Beauty Shop scene, which you'll be reading soon, is one that I've written all myself. It was so much fun and I'm really proud of it. It's my little HairStory.

But enough with the fun. I've entered the world of Spirit Photography again. Besides regular postings of daily captures, I will soon be bringing you another couple of digital photocollages-- The Tree of Everlasting Life and The Goodbye Quilt.

So goodbye, for now.

UPDATED SPOOK TREE

Captured by Catherine King, early May 12, 2006. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form.

Here is a larger version.

Actually, the little mango tree was behaving rather spookily, as well, this morning.

Spook Tree by evening, May 12, 2006.

Spook Tree early May 13, 2006.

Gothic Formality

by Jerome du Bois

Browsing through the sitemeter spanning the last week or so, I noticed an unusual amount of interest --from Addison (IL), Agincourt (Ontario), Amsterdam, Budapest, Brussels, Burgas (Belgium), Copenhagen, Corpus Christi, Don Mills (Ontario), Elmhurst (IL), Granby (Quebec), Graz (Austria), Hampton (NH), Istanbul, Kortenberg (Belgium), Kristianstad (Sweden), Lelystad (Netherlands), Levittown (PA), Libya, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Muscat (Oman), Newmarket (Queensland, AUS), New York City, Penonom (Panama), Procoio Nuovo (Italy), Rabat (Morocco), Riyadh (?!), Rome, Ryde (NSW), San Leandro (CA), Santander (Spain), Seacroft (Leeds, UK), Stockholm, Tehran (!), Tividar (Hungary), Toronto, and Vilnius (Lithuania)-- in the two Portraits of Catherine below.

Secret-Keepers (l.) and Better 'N Bets

Curious. Why these two for a microblogburst? So I decided to set them up side by side and try to figure it out. (By the way, note the far-flung locations on the list, most from overseas, and the dearth of locals on it as well. Nobody from our own backyard. I'm not surprised; we're talking about Beauty and Haute Couture here.)

The general look of both of Catherine's concepts here is New Formality: fine fabrics, dark colors, real tailoring, elegance over busyness, use of vintage clothing or pattern, and unique but tasteful accents and accessories: lace, fans, fingerless gloves, cameo.

Looking longer, a darker, Gothic chord begins to sound. Note that neither ensemble would look out of place at a funeral (with a black jacket or cape for Catherine in Better 'N Bets).

Secret-Keepers contains three women, not one, in a reference to the classic pagan theme of the three stages marking the arc of a woman's lifespan: maiden (cameo), mother (Catherine), crone (Korean woman on small fan). Every object in the ensemble, including the exquisite jacket --made of heavy black pique with ivory damask panels, with crisp black lace trim-- came from a dead woman. Each is memento mori. Each is haunted.

(By the way, the front of the jacket, like the Betsey Johnson below, fell a little short in the finishing. Only five buttons held it together, which wasn't trim enough for Catherine. So she added five snaps and eight hooks and eyes.)

What, you think fashion plus art plus photography isn't serious?

In her posting on Better 'N Bets --the first piece of Upgraded Couture from The House of Note For Sale--Catherine wrote:

The silk is a very deep wine-colored very small plaid. I feel I remember it from the Nineteenth Century. It's so evocative it makes me want to play some Civil War music and cry. . .

That's the mood exactly.

But what could be the meaning or meanings behind the positions of her hands? On first reading, they refer to the focus of Catherine's upgrading, the lace additions top and bottom. But because I know Catherine never works on one level, and using her statements above as clues, I am free to search for deeper interpretations. Such as:

It's a short drop from life to death. With her head shrouded, she draws the viewer's attention to the figure's torso. As we all know, Anatomy is Destiny-- especially for a woman. Any Woman, all Women. Look further than the personal. She is pointing to a universal Truth. Do not focus on Catherine's finger. Instead, follow in the direction to which she points.

Her delicate wrists, encased in the dead woman's gloves, echo the tender torso sheathed in the bones of Betsey's corset. Her wrists bend both forward and backward-- this woman is bound, and determined, to use her hands to death. They must express that which she requires, as an artist, as an actress. After all, her time in this body is limited, as well she knows.

Finally, why the proponderance of visits from Europe, by far the majority? I think it's because they recognize style better than Americans do, but also because Europeans have a lot longer history than we do of mourning, and of living with the innocent dead.

CODA: A couple of notes about why Catherine keeps custody of her features in these portraits. First I have to share the unwitting paradoxical irony of a comment I ran across somewhere: "I thought I saw Catherine King at the supermarket, but I couldn't be sure because she didn't have anything covering her face." Good. She has local enemies, and she wants to stay safe. But the practice is also consistent with these photographs, which she designs. They are not about her, herself --they are about Woman.

Three Years On, Still Going Strong

I've got this blog, and I know how to use it.
--Catherine King

by The Tears Of Things

Today we mark the third anniversary of The Tears Of Things. We're still quite small by most blogospheric standards, but we were never about generating a wide audience. We still aren't. The key to our strategy, whatever the subject, is to direct the relevant eyes to the relevant ideas. Keywords plus google equals focus. Consider the Dennett quote fixed in the sidebar since the beginning, under WHY:

We are here to play a more direct role in changing what is ignorable by whom.

This means that anyone looking for information about art big shots like Glen Lineberry and Lisa Greve of Bentley Projects (and Greve's husband, lawyer Ed Rubacha), and Lisa Sette of Sette Gallery, art collector and taste maven Kathleen Vanesian, ASU professor Neil Lester, New Times editor Amy Silverman, artists like Santiago Sierra, Leslie Dill, Jon Haddock, Sue Chenoweth, Beverly McIver, Mark Rubin-Toles, Gregory Sale, Cindy Dach, Greg Esser, and Heidi Hesse, and bureaucrats like Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker, will encounter our postings on the first search page, sometimes as the first posting, some of them from as long ago as the very beginning of this blog. (See, for example, Catherine's coverage of the HairStories and Arizona Biennial '03 art exhibtions. A year later, the "Democracy in America At ASU" series.) Still there, still near the top. Somebody's reading us, and none of the people named above can do a damned thing about it. Then there are those behind the Phoenix Artist Storefront Program, and key members Christine Schild, Molly Holzer, and Jennifer Petersen of the Scottsdale Unified School District. Welcome to the blogosphere, pals.

This isn't self-aggrandizement. This isn't promotion. The searchers are not interested in us, they're interested in the names above. When I point my finger at the moon, don't mistake my finger for the moon. Simple. Then they judge for themselves the veracity of our postings, and compare what we've written with whatever other information is available, online and elsewhere. It isn't about our popularity, it's about finally having a voice. It's about being unignorable, and having a more direct role in the discourse. It's about not letting them get away with it, whatever it is: bad business ethics, Islamic lies, anti-Semitism, illegal immigration spin, Cuban art sycophancy, misogyny, racism, talentless artists, or all-American anti-American success stories. As Catherine wrote in her series on our sickening experience with Bentley Projects:

Historically, when the little guys get screwed by the big guys, the little guys just have to eat it. I know I sure have, many times over. But it's different this time, because of our blog.

It's been called "the power of the long tail." We don't know how it works, but we're sure grateful it works the way it does. In fact, we'd call it the long arm, with the most precise and delicate fingers at the end, pointing at the exact thing you're looking for.

But The Tears Of Things is not just about polemics --and here's where the bragging begins.

We're proud of this work: the Portraits of Catherine and other fashion postings (the fashion boards), the flower photographs, the ongoing paranormal explorations, the digital net art (see the banner above, then on the sidebar), the parrot photographs, the public art project ideas, and, of course, our ongoing online Cuban novel, La Pionera and The New Mango.

Fashion. This is Jerome. I've been lucky to witness the development of Catherine's extraordinary wardrobe over the last five years, and to learn the reasons for her selections and rejections. (After a few years, I felt competent enough to draw her attention to a few items that have caught my eye, and I've been thrilled when she agreed each time.) I've been amazed when, time after time, she shows me a picture in Vogue, or Elle, or Bazaar, or Spanish Moda of the kind of outfit she had already worn the previous season. She has anticipated and trumped so many trends, from silhouettes to accessories to textures, especially high-touch. As for where the elements of these ensembles come from, of course I won't tell you, but it sure ain't Dillards or Anthropologie.

Naturally, as a lifelong artist, she creates her own pieces for this wardrobe, which you can read about on the sidebar, crowned by the gorgeous, world-class Psychedelic Leprechaun. Right now she's finishing Sugar-Frosted Half-Jacket, which you can catch a glimpse of in progress here. I'm looking at it now on the dress form, with its rows and rows and columns and columns of delicate hand-sewn lace, and it resembles nothing so much as a Renaissance courtier's jacket which stepped forward through time, foaming and fizzing in restrained but expanding cascades. The way it flares . . . I can hardly wait to post the Portrait.

Oh, about those Portraits. Lately I've been cropping some of them --what we call the Handbag Series-- for banners, and again I've been amazed at Catherine's talent, this time as a model. Cropping emphasizes both the elegance of her gestures and the consistency of her style. I'm thinking especially of the "metallic" piece with the vintage brocade coat, starfish necklace (actually a belt), and copper beaded frame handbag. (By the way, two days after we posted that banner --which we called "I've Seen The Future, Baby --It Is Beauty"-- YES ran a cover feature on "metallic" fashion. This kind of stuff happens all the time around here.)

Catherine also created my own style. When we met, I'm abashed to admit, I dressed high-end thrift-store hip: BC Ethic, Dragonfly, Diesel jeans, lugged shoes, short hair. Bo-ring. But all that turned when Catherine bought me an aubergine Moschino sport jacket with subtle Western features, such as black-leather, curved double-headed arrow accents and rounded pockets. I loved it.

It's taken awhile, but now, as my interpretation of the New Formality, I normally dress in what I alternately call Cosmic American (after Gram Parsons), or High Western Gentleman style --frock coat, vest, tie, boots-- think of the Man from Tombstone, carrying a silver-topped stick and wearing a black Western hat. (I warned you we were going to brag. Clothes may not make the man, but they sure make the man feel better.)

Well, so what? you may ask. And why tell us about it? Who cares what you wear? Aren't there more important things to talk about? No problem, blandman, stop reading now and return to your place in the long khaki line, the line of least resistance. Let oblivion roll over you, and make no independent decisions about the figure you cut in the world in the only life you may ever know. Go on, toddle off now.

In the meantime we two, who should be dead by now, and who know that every moment in this broken world is precious, will continue to develop our high style of substance. What is fashion to us? Glamourous armor.

Flowers. The flower photographs were therapy for Catherine --she considered the flowers, like the orbs and parrots, collaborators in her mental health-- but the series went flat when the Bentley crew jammed us over them. Still, they're beautiful: you can see a lot of these inimitable arrangements when you Image-Google "Catherine King." She has used them, and will use them again, as parts of digital art pieces.

The Paranormal. This preoccupation began before the blog, when Catherine found strange images in her interior shots in what we came to call The Haunted Apartment. Around the same time, we committed ourselves to making art. When we got a computer and went online, she immediately began checking out paranormal sites. Though they helped a little, they seemed overblown and clichéd. Meanwhile, she had all these images; how to make sense of them? Answer: she made art. "Crowd of Witnesses." "Roomfull of Phantoms." And a number of others, some of which we collaborated on. The whole thing culminated in our art proposal called "American Gothic," which would have been an extended interpretation of ghosts and spiritualism in American history.

We make art from what enters into our lives; examine the Parrot Goddess piece (and read this background post about it) and you'll see that every element is a part of Catherine: the lace she dyed, her hair, the pearls she wears, the flowers she chose, the orbs she electronically captured, the parrots who also came into our lives, parts of the Portraits . . . We're not interested in realizing the pretty pictures that float around in everybody's head; art is serious. It needs to come from the world. The dead came into our lives and said, "Let us help you," and we have. The best summary of our paranormal position is in Catherine's "Meet My Collaborators" piece.

We'll be making more digital art with the dead in the future.

Digital net art. Nice segue, eh? Whenever we're directed to digital art on the internet, we're usually disappointed. Comics, animation, geeks showing off, explorations of randomity, appropriation. And people moaning that the result always looks like it was made on a computer (!). But we see very few online artists making art just within the parameters of the average monitor screen. Who accept the limitations of the medium, and make best use of them. Some of our work would benefit by being blown-up life-sized, such as The CrazyQuilt of the Parrot Goddess II or The Blinds, but they were made principally for the monitor. (Oh, and if you Image-Google "digital net art," our work is one, two, and three in the nascent world of this new form.)

And while I'm on the size of images, why do so many blogs --not just art blogs-- post such small images, or no images at all? Why not make the embedded and pop-up images as big as you can? Why so stingy? The screen can take it. The technical capability is there; why not use it? Heck, we even change our banners all the time.

Parrots. This is Jerome again. What started with this has now grown to this. (The black-beaked ones are fledges.) And pretty soon I'll be building a perch that will bring them even closer, less than a foot away.

Again, what's the big deal? why all the attention? They're just birds, man. Oh, yeah? It's my contention that parrots in the US, displaced from their evolutionary niche, have yet to devise a new "evolutionarily stable strategy," as the Darwinians say. In evolutionary terms, they have been displaced for the mere blink of an eye. They're in between, so they're trying a lot of things. Read Mark Bittner's book for details. They just don't act like other birds.

Bittner had the right attitude towards them, too: leave 'em alone. When the flock he fed got famous and the city wanted to turn them into some tourist attraction, he persuaded them against it. But there's a crew of fools in Brooklyn who want to exploit "their" monk's hood flock. Go check out their website to see that they have no idea what parrots are about. These jerks look at green beauty and see only money.

These little friends aren't "our" parrots. We're just lucky to watch them, study them, photograph them, and imbide their vibes. Every morning, when the first one arrives, he or she gives out a welcoming shriek, and we choose to believe they're as glad to see us as we are to see them. Fellow outsiders.

Public Art Projects. The one inconsistency in this blog concerns the local downtown Phoenix art scene. The short version: when we discovered the true nature of those skanky, poisonous pukes, we dropped our coverage; let them drown in their own degradation.

But we still have visions of proposals which could help turn the city around. Our Glorious Golden Grand Avenue fantasy, for example. Or The Collective I. While others are noodling about special districts and increasing all kinds of breaks for incompetent artists, we step forward time after time with real public art. Art that has nothing to do with us --our egos are absent.

Which reminds us. Quick aside: Recently, the Scottsdale Cultural Council, wiping a tear from its eye, announced a number of staff cuts due to a budget shortfall. Apparently, their two stupid plays --menopause?! nuns?!-- didn't turn out to be the cash cows they were supposed to be.

And here's where the egos come in. The SCC could have saved $800,000 by refusing to fund two turds in the plaza by Dennis Oppenheim and Donald Lipsky. I don't know how many "staff positions" that represents --20? 12? 8?-- but it doesn't matter. In the breaks between looking for work, these unemployed arts professionals can stop by and contemplate the Oppenheim and the Lipsky, and wonder about what might have been.

La Pionera and the New Mango. We end on a high note, talking about our beautiful baby. Here we'll let you look over our shoulders at our notes on the upcoming shape of the novel:

--the section wherein Jeronimo Reyes eavesdrops by taped video on two spiritualists, Hocabed Hatuey and Ermalinda Ybarra, who reveal, via The Heap and The Scrying Mirror, several different manifestations of what people are calling The New Mango; and Jeronimo begins his own transformation.

--the section wherein Geronimo's cousin Cristobal Ybarra-Castañeda and his wife Cristina sit at the dinner table and compare their days. He runs a kind of wheeled one-stop shop --he's deep in some grey markets--and she manages a day-care center. Between them, they hear a lot. The section is packed with street information from the chismorreo, and shows the spreading influence of the New Mango, the increasing demonstrations and Rapid Response attacks, and the growing guerrila capitalism.

--the section where the ISA students boycott the first Lisa Zeitgeist lecture, right after the second set of New Mango cards appear, and set up their own performance art pieces and protests in the plaza outside. This is also the scene where Ted Player and Lisa Zeitgeist try to co-opt Flash No More. Player doesn't know he's meeting his fate.

--the section wherein Jeronimo witnesses the first appearance of The Forty while he secretly monitors a Rapid Response Brigade attack on an independent library group. As soon as the RRs draw their sticks and start swinging, forty nondescript black men appear from nowhere with their own sticks --slim, chocolate-colored ones-- and swiftly and carefully break a lot of arms and legs in a just a few seconds. Amid the confusion and pain, they unsnap their sticks, slip them out of sight, and melt back into the crowd.

--the Makeover At Ermalinda's Beauty Salon, where Lisa Zeitgeist, Heather Benlinederry, and Rosa Blanca Azul begin their own transformations at the hands of the living and the dead.

--the scene where the New Mango Manifesto appears laminated on hundreds of disposable lighters across Havana, and the attendant brouhaha when authorities try to hassle everyone with a disposable lighter.

--the scene where Guillermo is dragged offstage in the middle of an emotional and surrealistic rant at an ISA Zeitgeist lecture, and put into prison by Carlos Lage.

--the scene where The New Mango Manifesto appears in jabas vinyl all across Havana, and the fury that erupts when, again, the increasingly harried authorities try to search every jaba vinyl they see.

--the scene where Carlos Lage tries to "torture" Kiku Ybarra by showing her The Abakua Derivations, which he confiscated from Guillermo.

Skipping ahead . . .

--the scene where Carlos Lage, furious and frustrated, pulls off the road in a diabetic crisis and falls out of the car. He is rescued by Flash No More, who appears by means unknown. After settling him back in the car, Flash No More picks up the portfolio of his Abakua Derivations and says, "I'll take these back now. You've done well with them. Thanks. But now they have other work to do." And he drives Lage to his secret hamlet and walks away.

--the section where Guillermo and Kiku, both now free from prison and safe in Lage's hamlet, take a week to recover, spending most of that time in the bathtub, untangling Kiku's hair and tending to her skin. Jeronimo had delivered two bags of health and beauty supplies from Ermalinda's.

--the scene where Dillard Benlinederry waits out Hurricane Lazaro in a famous old cathedral, and then experiences a life-sized apparition of The Astronette (he's seen a tiny version before, standing on the logo of a New Mango card). She gives him a silver crucifix, which he holds out like a dowsing rod as it guides him --turn here, turn there-- across post-hurricane Havana.

That's enough for now. As for the Epilogue, it shows the fruit of the last line of the New Mango Manifesto: A Cuban On Mars by 2030!

This is The Tears Of Things. Some have tried to slur us in the past as angry, bitter, and isolated. Nothing could be further from the truth. We're in love with each other, with life, with this country, and with this world. It's just that we don't suffer fools at all. But even in the middle of the Rebarb, when cruelty and social cannibalism rule, we choose to believe in the promise of people.

There are tears in things, and Catherine and I take part in what Judaism calls tikkun, gathering shards of the broken vessel in the hope of reassembling it, so that once again it may hold the Light.

Las Cabezas Estàn Mas Grandes

by Jerome du Bois

Hundreds.

Not thousands, and not hundreds of thousands. Here in Phoenix, illegal immigrants and their supporters "marshalled" a few "human chains" at three or four scattered locations across the Valley. I wondered why cable news basically skipped over Phoenix in its "coast-to-coast" coverage, and why the local coverage was so spotty. There was nothing much happening, apparently. (The best local shot was of some dipstick reporter interviewing an illegal under the Do Not Pick Up Day Workers sign at the Home Depot.)

The human chain fell short a few links, too. According to one report, before the Big Day,

In Phoenix, organizers hope to form a 25-mile long human chain.

It turned out to be more like .25 miles, if you put the scattered links together.

Methinks tienen las cabezas mas grandes, no? And grand ambitions. Como se dice "hot air" in Spanish?

And this adds a layer of prophecy to the photo in this posting. I now add the caption:

La Fiesta es finito, and it's not even Cinco de Mayo.

Despite the fact that Roberto Reveles, head of a "nationwide" group with the lying name of We Are America (Somos America), is based here, and despite the fact that supposedly 100,000 illegals and their tearjerkers marched in Phoenix less than a month ago, and despite the huge nationwide turnout elsewhere, people in Phoenix stayed away yesterday. I wonder why. A local restaurant manager has an explanation:

At Z'Tejas Southwestern Grill in Chandler, general manager Bill Hovey said "it really didn't affect us today." "All the guys that participated on April 10 felt that was enough for them."

Now, I know Mr. Hovey can't really speak for "all the guys," but if he's interpreting their behavior correctly, they sure don't appear to be men of principle, do they? Willing to risk a lot to make a stand? Willing to sacrifice for a greater good? No, one day's enough. What does that say about their character, their integrity? Not much.

By the way, if Mr. Hovey is knowingly employing illegals, as he seems to be implying here, shouldn't somebody be looking into that?

A local hotel exec had a different experience:

But Ben Bethel, partner of the Clarendon Hotel + Suites in Phoenix, found himself cleaning rooms when half his housekeeping staff didn't show up. He supported his employees' participation in the April 10 rally because they gave him notice. Monday's absences were a surprise.

"They didn't even call," he said.

Bethel said he would not fire the six employees because their jobs are hard to fill, though the absences could factor into who is let go in the slow summer months.

Well, that accounts for six of them. And maybe their jobs are hard to fill because he pays them peanuts for a job "Americans won't do."

On that subject, Rich Lowry demolished that inflated argument back on March 14th in "Jobs Americans Won't Do?" He writes:

President George Bush, a strong supporter of the guest-worker program, has long said that "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." We are supposed to believe, however, that the work ethic does stop there — it is only south of it that people can be found who are willing to work in construction, landscaping and agricultural jobs. So, without importing those people into our labor market, these jobs would go unfilled, disrupting the economy (and creating an epidemic of unkempt lawns in Southern California).

This is sheer nonsense. According to a new survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, illegals make up 24 percent of workers in agriculture, 17 percent in cleaning, 14 percent in construction, and 12 percent in food production. So 86 percent of construction workers, for instance, are either legal immigrants or Americans, despite the fact that this is one of the alleged categories of untouchable jobs.

(About the lawns: the average American, unlike the average national and state lawmaker, TV talking head, or mayor, or governor, does not employ a gardener --or a nanny, or a housekeeper, or a cook. We do it ourselves.)

Read it all for many more details, such as this one:

The average "consumer unit" in the U.S. spends $7 a week on fresh fruit and vegetables, less than is spent on alcohol, according to Martin. On a $1 head of lettuce, the farm worker gets about 6 or 7 cents, roughly 1/15th of the retail price. Even a big run-up in the cost of labor can't hit the consumer very hard.

Mr. Reveles should get some of this simple math into his head, edging out the visions of new voters dancing there.

Although I'm glad the Big Anti-American Walkoutpalooza fizzled in Phoenix, I can't help but think that there's something screwy here.

Let me begin with an anecdote. There's an Asian food market a few miles from my home. I've been going there once or twice a month for a couple of years, for soup ingredients. Up until recently I used a major thoroughfare, and so I was able to notice the changes over the months, the Mexification of the street. I won't go into details, but it looks like at least one huge sweatshop operates just behind a major intersection; and there's a corner house --again, fronting the major thoroughfare-- which is alternately deserted or jammed with all types of vehicles, which constantly change. A few months ago I decided to go two miles out of my way to avoid that street. Too dangerous. I didn't want to be part of a staged accident, or the victim of an uninsured drunk driver, or have to dodge whole families on foot trying to cross five lanes without bothering to go down to the intersection.

Oh, but they couldn't all be illegal, could they? No --but one is too many. And they couldn't all be legal, either; the scene grew too fast. And here are some other facts to consider:

Arizona is the key state in the whole illegal immigration drama. More illegals come up from the Arizona border than anywhere else. All the moves are being made here. The Minutemen are based here. The waterjug people are based here. Loudmouth Salvador Reza is based here. The Governor has declared a state of emergency. Yesterday, the very Dia Sin, Republican state legislators introduced a very strong anti-illegal immigration measure, "a $100 million package that would deploy National Guard troops to the desert border with Mexico and use radar to track anyone trying to sneak across the border." The Governor is expected to veto it, but the Republicans are ready and determined. The national congressional delegations are split on the issue. If ever there was a time and place for the biggest showpiece, it was in Phoenix yesterday.

And it flopped. Nobody even showed up at the Capitol to protest the Republican move --an obvious location and built-in TV spot. Why? Two quick theories: blowback from the big local march three weeks ago, with the message going out to let the other cities take the weight, we'll keep our heads down.

Maybe, but I don't buy it. My other theory is much darker, and it's based on the premise that these people are illegal. In other words, they view the law with contempt; the law is just something to either avoid or use, but never honor or obey. There's a hell of a lot of shady operators who feel just this way servicing that flood of criminal fools pouring endlessly up from the border.

And I think they're making so much money --from check-washing, chop-shopping, drug-dealing, false-document-preparing, and human smuggling-- that they've sent the word out --filtered through ever-cleaner channels-- to not queer the deal.

And the local political activists seem to be going along with it, floating down the rio --just like they sold us.

Mi Sueño Is Just Mexican For Extortion

by The Tears Of Things

When you see illegal Mexican immigrants carrying signs saying "We Also Have A Dream," and when you hear TV talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs mooning about how most of these illegals are "wonderful" people who really appreciate this country, remember the words of thwarted terrorist and would-be pilot Zacarias Moussaoui:

Basically I need to know if you can help me achieve my Goal my dream.

And:

After all we are in AMERICA and everything is possible.

They're just using us. Our flag, our noble words, our innate generosity and big hearts. But we're not as estupido as they think.

We see them for the operators they are.