landscape art – Anachronistic Anarchist by Herb Eaton

#57…Idle thoughts Illinois and Ballerinas…

Published on March 4, 2017March 3, 2017 by herbeaton

Our balletic prairie, The State of Illinois. Illinois, a graceful ballerina, balances; just look at the map. We are surrounded by a bunch of boxy, less lusciously graceful states, in the great fly-over land, the American midwest.

Illinois, as a ballerina, has a hefty derriere; bounded by, and fondled by, the Father of Waters (maybe a bit inappropriate). Illinois is somewhat flat-chested in outline and topography, but that aids the corn growing, which maintains many derriere’s.

Illinois has a most unfortunate abbreviation…Ill, nobody wants to be in “illness”. Ill is the correct description of its’ unbalanced budget and politics, but not Illinoisans. And while noise is the description of our wind in winter, traffic in the Windy City, and garbled logic from our capitol, we actually don’t pronounce the “s” at the end of Illinois. We prefer a more subtle uninflected, even artistic, spoken language (except for Chicago, where a lot of the people live),

The sound of “Illinois” is rather feminine and, considering the amount of feeding it does for the rest of the world, rather appropriate. It is also births the Mother Road, old Rt. 66, which crosses the prairie in a smooth dancer’s diagonal thrust.

High above our often stormy expanse of sky are many jet contrails, temporarily marking travelers from coastal metropolis to coastal metropolis. With no need of maps or electronic guiding voices few know what is below. Those who might wonder often confuse Illinois with Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Omaha, Oklahoma, Oahu, Ottawa, Ottumwa, and Ionia (which isn’t even in North America), but the sounds are similar.

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The vasty prairie of Illinois is where the reunion of the emotive anarchists takes place. Our “rivers gently flowing” have watered a number of artists, including ponderers and dancers of svelte, and even passionate, dimensions.

#57…Idle thoughts Illinois and Ballerinas…

Published on March 4, 2017February 28, 2017 by herbeaton

100_4099 — She Wonders About Her Treasure oil

#56…Considering further playful thoughts…

Published on February 28, 2017February 28, 2017 by herbeaton

Parents and grandparents are the audience for most performances by wee ones. As a consequence this post may get a bit boring for those of you who prefer your childishness played out by adults.

The Deciders have decided that the new systemized education (play training) should begin where we expect the children to end up. To that end, The Decider-In-Chief (this is self-named, not what We named anyone; The Deciders are servants to the reunion’s best functioning, shown by their hobby-horse head personae): anyhow, that Decider appointed an announcer, a slick-stick hobby-horse personae, with the duty of introducing the children and their various acts in our recital.

The recital began with a dramatic presentation of the lives of famous hobby-horse cavalrymen. This is definitely old-style dramatization of imagination as portraying goal-focused adventures for youth.

Next was a rather sappy maudlin story of a lost little girl. According to a legend she finds a mysterious decorated cannon-ball, belonging to some knight-errant, prince, or cavalier. Lots of tears as this bit advanced the plot.

Next was an acrobatic review of how much the students had habituated into the arts of dealing with “adult” situations, the somewhat athletic control of emotion bombs.

This was loudly applauded, the skill being accentuated by keeping the propeller spinning. Variations of this were detailed by the announcer.

The closing was an invented ancient ceremonial “Lighting Of The Fuse” with flint and steel, recalling the everlasting need to be prepared to ignite an emotion bomb.

The child playing this scene is probably the best example of the training The Decider -In-Chief advocates for the The Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture’s day care.

The audience gasped as a curious errant child came centerstage. The announcer, warning about the bluntly obvious danger, was quickly dealt with by the so-called Decider-In-Chief who also dismissed the curtain call as potentially unruly.

The solution to danger warnings…for the moment. Hopefully, next week we can have some dancing, join us.

#53…considering nobility…

Published on February 7, 2017February 6, 2017 by herbeaton

Recent events at the tent have left some cracks in our present story. The local audience half-expected some pose by a bleeding Yorick. The white-walled gallery, now needs rebuilding. The Deciders have demanded more color bombs and authority, something of an aristocratic triumvirate. And so we move on, to a more noble day (?).

Is there a better day in this “there was a better day”, “back-in-the-day” era? The question is probably better “is there a greater day to remember?” A day when the oligarchy was noble, above all, in some auric glow of past splendor (we confuse with the present). When our superiors were Nobles, and acted with noblesse oblige.

The eagle, whether perched or on wing, searches for the weak, the inattentive, the injured, for an eagle’s sustenance. Flying here over our rivers gently flowing they have the attributes of gods; power, majesty, floating upwards without borderlands.

Eagles flying, gold burnished, the eagle abstracted to emblem, logo, or symbol posted on commerce and political ascendency. Compressed emotions to symbolic standards for those membered, who claim charts of nobility as a decantation of heroic acts; whereas the lessers died without gift of a position. Noble authority didn’t mine the gold nor form and burnish it, but they wear it and are housed in it; a world liquid in unexplored vanity, unexplored despair.

Imagining the wings and gold as attainable and usable attributes; some emotive artificers seek to mimic the gods in the pursuit of sovereignty. Presumably they bequest a benediction on those in subservience, on the borderlands of obscurity and living remembrance. And yet seeking supremacy is not the Holy Grail, certainly not the one from which the Blood of the Lamb pours.

A fool was not a Noble, but many who claim a noble’s elite rights are fools, and so even here where winter leaves no fragrance, fresh or rotted, young men prefer the artifice of noble folly.

#50…considering, commas,,,

Published on January 17, 2017January 16, 2017 by herbeaton

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It is winter here on the prairie where we are wrapped in wind and whipping canvas, the former circus tent, now home to the Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture. The winter light is brightening a bit, a week plus after the early dismissal of the sun. Back then the world came to the end of its’ wobble, then started over again. Now, a lengthening winter sun is not the same thing as a warmer sun, only a more promising sun, it is still cold.

Tent shelter in winter…a bit chilly, no insulation. Swirling snow (although very lovely) blows in, hot air goes to the top, while the people at the bottom cuddle lit emotion bombs, these artistics crunch closer and closer, erratic opinions drafted in chilled tensions find a topic. The more verbally endowed articulators (poetic/prosey types) anxious for even this bit of fame, begin to declaim on…,,,…comas.

Comas, those old-school upside-down bombs, incomprehensibly-absolutist little dictatorial-divisive-connections interspersing the written as directions, or, governance to – how we speak, or how we mean – something. Instincts re-form the vocalizers; visceral high school psyches face rational-comma subgroups, and concurrently, the threats of little emotion bombs.

Older attendees proffer commas as the output of medieval theological speculation, where a threesome of ideas becomes- a point: to whit, and therefore, – uh, ah, oh, – commas; or something like that. Ergo, comma tyrants claw with religious tenacity as arguments develop. The noise is vibrated aloft into the winds.

While the big comma, winter wind, forms a grip on outdoor activities, arguing anarchists and grammar-lords fill time inside. Smoking enfant terribles enjoy the separation from the grammarians more than the nicotine, banished, like back-in-the-day.d

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On an official note: a new Deciders Quorum has been appointed.

Due to rules thy are first formally presented by their hobby-horse head personae, to whit…

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Better to be discussed next Saturday, disagreements already exist over new authorities, and, the issues are greater than grammar…

#46…so small, not worth considering?…

Published on December 17, 2016December 16, 2016 by herbeaton

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So Small, the ideas, so small, the plans, so small the thoughts we had (after the brutal lessons), so small yet still unresolved, so small after the big plans, so small…so small.

So small, these gifts, so small

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So small but, even simple it does matter… doesn’t it?

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He would like her to have it, but it is…so small.

Join us next Saturday, it is simple.

Vignette #3 …Dressing for the Winter Dance…

Published on December 7, 2016December 6, 2016 by herbeaton

eaton-013 — Dressing for the Winter Dance mixed media H.Eaton

Dressing For The Winter Dance Herb Eaton
My Friends,
aren’t we awaiting The Winter Dance,
the enchantment of an attending beauty
accompanying our follies and awkward gyrations
up marvelous stairs, isolated
from the cold?

My Friends,
isn’t it possible, beyond the
frivolity of summer’s silky, sultry, streaming
green jungle beats,
that we shall acquire a less supple outer garment
to humbly clothe
our beauty?

My Friends,
aren’t we all a bit distorted, maybe nervous and convoluted,
doing a graceless dance
while arranging our new
dull and wrinkled layers?

My Friends,
won’t it be nice, The Dance Hall,
as our crinkling outer wraps are shed,
lead by an honor guard past our
pretty and petty pride,
thankful to be a living corsage
to serve Beauty.
My Friends,
isn’t it best to joyfully dance
until the tune ends?

#43…conjuring a thicker stew…

Published on November 26, 2016November 25, 2016 by herbeaton

Ruminating rather than conjuring, searching for an opportune moment to bring forth well-kept emotions, the anarchists have spread out in the reunion. Tables, the folding kind, have been set up in order to facilitate the collections, garnered from the dropped-off miscellany, presumably to make found-object art.

Some of the mostly older emotive types (post-dead and before the days of “found-object art”) have pulled up chairs and apparently expecting a Thanksgiving feast.

As you might presume, anarchists of bygone times have a tendency of being “old” (post-living) and beyond the daily need for food. But, as they are old, the topic of comforting food is constantly on their mind. And with it a need to demand – thicker stews. Apparently the ghostly and skeletal varieties have some hope of the stew adhering and regenerating life – if it were less watery. Thicker stew also has a class character, the higher the class the thicker the stew; and as many of the ancient artistics came from the upper crust, a thicker stew seems a rightful demand.

However, we have not completed a suitable commissary, and so, as much as this early winter might provoke the taste for thick stew; we have none to offer. And we have no servers, except for some of the younger (pre-dead) artists; many on-leave from restaurant jobs (so as to be part of the Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture) and so they have serving skills. But probably they are “serving” for a moment, a socially acceptable moment, an opening, to push their emerging art, (as original as a fart from a shared pot of stew), into the milieu.

Social class of course is the determining factor of how one eats, more often than what one eats.

So if the post-dead anarchists want comfort food; conjuring superior thick contents in a soup bowl (empty to our eyes) – it works.

Thankfully conjured, by the condescension of being served…by their lessers.

Join us next Saturday to consider what is worth considering and deception.

#42…considering “back in the day…”…

Published on November 19, 2016November 19, 2016 by herbeaton

Frost has sharped the chord of these days at the end of the middle season, stacked hierarchal: frost, some warmth, chilled darkness. The sun is now low, mellow, dropping over the horizon with the settling purple mist; putting the tent and crib in a minor key. Back in the day circus-bands filled our tent, now being reused for our reunion. Outdoors the winds have returned and so we are seeking to use this space more fully, even if the audience is largely a chilled mural painted warm.

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We are trying to take notes, hand-writen on 3×5 cards, in order to record the dialogue here at the reunion. Our notes (meant for dialogue in short plays to be produced during this reunion) include a significant number of expressions beginning with, “Back in the day…” to which is added some proof-of-knowing utterance. “Back-in-the-day”… plus the ideal life as it should have been (or worse than it ever was). Enfant terribles and anarchists are apt to gesture widely about some unendurable disgrace “Back-In-The-Day!…”; remembering why they have those emotion bombs. Emotive’s convoluting sentences, history, logic structures, and interchanging superstitions, dramatized into whatever that “day” was. This seems like stuff for theater!

From the out-set (back in the day) we have been trying for a feeling of bon homme gentility, so that all can benefit while sharing this grand theater. , “back in the day…” expressions have introduced script ideas by generic geniuses from both sides of the grave, many concerning social more than theatrical roles.

Some,”Back in the day…”, expressors emanate expressions so droll as to embrace condescending sympathies. Some point a terrible infant’s attitude toward hierarchies and embrace the caustic use of words and postures.

As it is, “back in the day ” theatricals will be here this winter. Now, posturing for character parts in the unwritten theatricals, anarchists try (to a degree) to be nonchalant and disinterested (cool).

To whit, attempting to influence discreetly; so as not to be stuck in a previously discarded drama from, “Back in the day…”

Next week we enjoy some thick stew…join us.

#41….considering a big rock rising…

Published on November 12, 2016November 9, 2016 by herbeaton

It is just a big rock, a really big rock, far away. Travelers have returned reporting that it is a bit shy of gravity (and has a dark side), its’ damaged by millions of insults (serendipitous smaller rocks wheeling in from space). It gets blamed for the behavior of were-wolves and other fugitive ideas, and ever repeating tides. Lovely just now, though just a big big rock, showing the attractive side. The romantic, the “dancing on moonlight” side.

100_0473-1 — Moonbeams and Fireflys Come To Town oil Herb Eaton

Most likely you, the digital reader, prefers time to be marked by a blinking multi-colored electronic device, you might consider the round clock face as ancient as an hour-glass. Here, we have found the moon, waxing, waning, gone and overwhelmingly brilliant, to be a chronological fit. This is a very un-midwestern idea, we like to be on-time in the digital clock sense.

But turbulence among the bigger and lesser enfant terribles attendees is such that gravitational waves, seismic waves, or the winds now arriving from the arctic; seem to emanate astronomically, in order to attest to the emotive’s fated importance. Certainly the stars and the moon would cease their influence if providence hadn’t decreed: that the attendees at our reunion of anarchists – must be – the heaven’s goal.

Could it be a celestial confluence that found this place on the prairie, so that the anachronistic could coexist with the temporal? We are close to the native homes of the singing poet of Illinois and the guy who named our practical capitol the “hog-butcher of the world”. And, nightly the moon still shines useful light into the cemetery on the nearby Spoon River. All are present, just over the rise from the Mother Road.

dcs_1694 — She Hangs The Moon oil H Eaton

And, to light this dance of the romantic absurd; up in the dome of the tent of the incomprehensible, She ( our docent ) has hung the moon, a bit of romance in our absurdity.

A decorative reminder that present times may be out-of-joint, but as long as the big rock keeps rising there will be anarchists and enfant terribles, and possibly a few artists.

And, as long as the sun keeps rising liberty will be dancing in the thickets..

Next Saturday, we shall consider “back-in-the-day”…join us.

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