"How Jane Austen can write!...She is a miniaturist, but never two-dimensional....All Jane Austen characters are ready for an extended life, for a life which the scheme of her books seldom requires them to lead, and that is why they lead their actual lives so satisfactorily."

E.M. Forester





I love to see an author I love praising another author I love. It's like feeling somehow responsible for two of your close friends falling in love with each other.

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Wallace Stevens


As Spring takes over Tennessee, I recall this poem and smile. Modernity often looks so wrong here.

This has to be my family tree . . .

I think I seriously have all of these people related to me. Maybe not the Confederate soldier, but pretty much everyone else. And I like it.

A few friends I've been spending time with lately at the Frist Center . . .

Rossetti



Edward Burne-Jones



Edward Burne-Jones



John Everett Millais



William Holman Hunt

My New Art Blog

I've been trying to work out a way to have a website for my artwork, but for now it will be here:

The Thistle and the Fallen Leaf

It isn't all together yet, but it's getting there.


For now you may delight in the amazing-ness of Imogen Heap's new song "First Train Home"




Bodies disengaged our mouths are fleshing over.
As hiss and echo gain
Irises retreating
Two ovals of white.
The urge to feel your face
And blood rushing to paint my handprint
A Frisbee one by one
You're vinyl on laminent
Desperate for some kind of contact.

First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home I´ve got to get on it
To Catch to catch catch catch catch.
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First Train home

Temporal deadzone
Where clocks are barely breathing
Yet no one cares to notice
For all their yamming on
I clam up to hold it together.
I want to play, don´t, waveforms in the hideaway
I want to get on with getting on with things
I want to run in fields, paint the kitchen,
And love someone
And I can´t do any of that here can I?

First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home.


So what?
You´ve had one too many.
So what?
I´m not that much fun to be with
So what?
You´ve got a silly hat on
So what?
I didn´t want to come here anyway.

What matters you doesn´t matter matter to me.
What matters to me doesn´t matter matter to you.
What matters to you doesn´t matter matter to them.
What matters to them doesn´t change anything.

Got to get on it first train home.
Got to get on it first train home

First train home I´ve got to get on it
(I´ve got to get on it)
To catch to catch catch-catch catch.
(First train home)
First train home I´ve got to get on it
First train home.
(First train home)

To go to go to go
Get get get get
Out out out out
Now now now now