Category Archives: Thoreau quotes

Dream Onnnnn

pop-art-blog-nyc-brooklynGenius & Dreamers. The Yin and the Yang. The Yes and the No. The Up and the Downs, the Roof and the Basement.

So, this very cool writer named Jonathon Carroll in one of his books titled ” Outside the Dog Museum” says This about genius:

“Geniuses are allowed to do anything. Picasso was a big prick. Beethoven never emptied his chamber pot, and Frank Lloyd Wright stole as much money from his clients as any good thief. But it was all okay because they were all “geniuses”. He goes on to say that “genius is a boat that sails itself”.

Braque said that “ones style -it is in a way ones inability to do otherwise…. Your physical constitution practically determines the shape of the brush marks.”

“Bullshit on all that artistic suffering, “agonizing” over the empty page….. Canvas”

Anyone who agonizes isn’t a genius is an idiot! Carroll goes on to say.

And there you go.

There it is.

pop-art-blog-nyc-brooklynCould that be because dreams, are the genesis of art in its multi forms? And dreams don’t involve agonizing or forcing, they just are, like the rose petals unfold, a natural process, like nature shows us, from the caterpillar evolving into the butterfly, to the bumble bee giving us honey, to the sun drenched grapes on the vine providing us with wine in the glass. They just happen. Because they are supposed to.

Geniuses always seem to just BE. Creation is easy and they just Have IT covered! Is it because the “geniuses” make their dreams reality and treat them as such, without the wake up process that most people experience?  Or are certain individuals just inordinately blessed, hit the jackpot, were given that bonus coupon, the extra gift that makes them fly, surpassing the rest of us ordinary mortals?

Most of the greats the Rimbauds, the Van Goghs, Kerouac, Hemingway, Mapplethorpe, were intense dreamers, whose dream – reality state was seamless. A unit. They all knew who they were, what they wanted, and where they were going! Dreams are infinite. They are timeless, with out restrictions or human boundaries, free –  fall experiences of the mind, and could it be that “geniuses” accept that idea, live it without questions asked,  and thus accomplish supernatural things that mere mortals cannot comprehend?

The French writer, a genius so to speak, Cocteau, in his journals says:

pop-art-blog-nyc-brooklyn” Then I realized that my dream life was as full of memories as my real life, that it WAS a real life, denser, richer in episodes and in details of all kinds, more precise in fact, and that it was difficult for meto locate my memories in one world or another , that they were superimposed, combined, and creating a double life for me, twice as huge and twice as long as my own”

That’s pretty heavy stuff. His dream life was more real than his so-called real life.

One wonders. Is this true? Who knows? I don’t. Do you?

pop-art-blog-nyc-brooklynWhere does creativity come from? The dream world is certainly a prime originator of all creative genius. The “Songs of Innocence and Experience”, William Blake’s masterpiece, is essential dream material, as is most of his work, his Dragon series, his mystical dreamy, other world visions translated unto his poetry and artwork as a harmonious symmetry of passionate self expression give us his dreams coming to live on the page.

Blake’s work is the substance of genius no doubt, and breaks through  that magical world, the genius spirit taps into, entertains, envelops, and encourages. “I must create my own system or be enslaved by another’s” was Blake’s fundamental goal.

Are you a dreamer? Or are you firmly rooted in the real world? You know WHO you are. But do you know WHERE you Really are?

Are you thinking of your 9-5 humdrum rat race experience, or are you mentally swimming in the ocean of the I don’t know what, but it isn’t THIS!

Patti Smith, in her epic biography, ” Just Kids “, describes her starving days, with Robert Mapplethorpe, freshly fired from their respective bookseller jobs, persevering in their creative goals, aka LIFE, freezing, broke, hungry, in their Lower East Side walk up, pushed to the max, energy pumped by dreams, youth, and that indescribable “IT” factor that makes certain stars shine brighter in the sky!

Joseph Cornell, the “Master of Dreams” was a dream maker incarnate toiling away in his mothers utopia parkway kitchen on his magnificent dream boxes , the world outside a blur, his inner world manifested within these surreal boxes germinating in his unique and fantastic MIND!

These geniuses, some born, others made, believed in their dreams! Nothing was getting in the way! The yellow caution light was blinking but dreamers don’t slow down, they just drive faster through it and beyond to the green light signaling GO GO GO!

pop-art-blog-nyc-brooklynSo when I look at Blake’s engraving of “Jacob’s Ladder”, or “The Ancient of Days”, I have no doubt that he was tapped in, connected to the dream world inspiring and guiding him on his artistic path. His images came from his spiritual, other world reality far removed from the gritty ugly, Dickensonian London cityscape he was dwelling in at time, late 1700’s -1800’s. His interior world transported him out of his exterior world. Lucky!

Living in the Material World. George Harrison talks about “drowning in the material world”, that he has a lot to do to get out of this place, and he does it by dreaming himself out.  Aerosmith tells us to “Dream On”, Fleetwood  Mac in their “Dreams” tells us that when the rain washes it all away then we see the visions, which set us straight, and many more musicians sing the dream theme, because it’s a popular and powerful message.

pop-art-blog-nyc-brooklynSeveral years ago, in NYC, The New York Public Library produced a fantastic exhibit on Jack Kerouac’s writings. During my visit, I was amazed by the extensive collection  of dreams and visions that Kerouac documented in his personal journals and sketchbooks, diaries, and  stories. Mysticism, Buddhism, Beatism, other world experiences, and (yes he was a victim of alcoholism ), which took him to the “other side ” sooner rather than later,  but his dreams pushed him into his destiny as a “Beat” Writer ,an icon , a representative of the NY  literary cultural dream team along with Alan Ginsberg, Bill Burroughs, Diane DiPrima, Gregory Corsco , Hettie and LeRoi Jones! Kerouac, definitely a dream inspired man On the Road! Death could not stop him. His dream lives on!

Genius mentality can be found in any profession from the scientist to the chef, to the mechanic, to the writer, to the landscaper, it is all about taking the dreams and making them real. It’s about the ones who believe in their dreams as serious goals, life blood, veins of gold , and pursue them. The rest of the world calls them geniuses. The dream weavers incarnate.  The surrealists, the Project Runway contestants, the Chopped contestants, the walking dreamers. They all move towards the endgame, the dream dust the oxygen they inhale every moment of every day.

” Dreaming is an art of pure imagination, attesting in man a creative power, which if it was available in the waking world would make every man a Shakespeare or a Dante”

art-blog-nyc-brooklynThoreau whose dream was to retreat in solitude at Walden Pond, and write about his experiences, tapped into his dream power, making his dreams reality! We can read all about it in ” Walden”, a must for every high school student for the past 60 years.

Cocteau did it all as novelist, poet, dramatist, filmmaker, said ” one of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and our friends.” Like Thoreau he identified the dream life with solitude. While a fertile ground for creative growth the genius often survives in isolation living the “dream” apart from the world around him.

art-blog-nyc-brooklynDiane Arbus, Georgia O’Keefe, George Sand, Colette, Piaf, Suzanne Valladon, Sylvia Beach, Simone de Beauvoir, Freida Kahlo, Sylvia Plath, these women were proof of this identifying quality, living off the grid, pursuing their dreams, often without social encouragement or recognition. Dreaming  is gender oblivious. You are or you are not. You Do or you Don’t.

There are an infinite number of examples where dreams are pivotal in the lives of geniuses and creatives throughout time. That tells me that you can’t have one without the other. It’s a tandem experience. It’s the apple pie a la mode, the wine and cheese, the Billie Holiday and gardenias, the Kerouac and Cassidy, the Frieda and Diego , the genius -dream duo is a made to order duality of creative energy and inspiration propelling certain individuals into the stratosphere where dreaming becomes reality and gives the world a special experience unique, valuable and timeless!  The bicycle built for two!

art-blog-nyc-brooklynWebster defines dreams as: ” a conception or image created by the imagination and having no objective reality. ”

“Dream On”. We’ve all heard that at one time or another, meant to dismiss and demean. When actually it should be used to encourage and enlighten. Dream On. Are you kidding? Dream on. I kid you not.

When Dorothy saw OZ she knew she wasn’t in Kansas anymore! She had a dream that became reality, or was her reality the dream? This is the question of the ages, the one that the dreamers accept, thriving in the OZ of their own making , that world of imagination and fantasy, spinning dreams into reality, birthing geniuses, creating art in its many dimensions and forms, inspiring, sharing, and blessing lives into infinity!

Dream On. Keep dreaming. What? You must be dreaming? YES! YES! And again YES!

And

No – Dorothy you’re NOT in Kansas anymore.

Distraction Traction

george-orwell-thought-policeSo word on the Street is that people today would rather be electrocuted than spend 15 minutes alone with their own thoughts! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this bizarre yet clearly Orwellian statement. Ok. So for many people today, thoughts, represent pain. Pain that is so excruciating, that jolts of electricity, pulsating through one’s body, would be preferable. WOW! and WOW!

This article on Drudge, HuffPo, and CNN, states that ” people would rather inflict pain on themselves than spend 15 minutes in a room with nothing to do but think” Yea. REALLY?

So let’s go there.

The crazy thing is that I believe it. Or perhaps it’ s not crazy, but rather it’s the “New Normal”. Because the truth of the matter is, that the overload of info people have aiming at, and penetrating their brain today, is a laser beam of intense distracting and detracting sensory stimulation.

Orthodoxy-means-not-thinking-not-needing_1984-George-OrwellThat even the mere idea, of alone time with that thing called “thoughts” is a weird concept, like out of a fairy tale from the 1970’s and before, you know when people actually HAD to think or they were really screwed! Thinking and doing were synonymous with producing anything of value. The empty-headed non – thinker was perceived to be either stupid or mentally deficient. Well, that’s all over.

For example- when I recall the process I would have to go through as a student at NYU, now one of the most expensive colleges in NYC, to research and write an essay for assignment in one of my journalism classes, I feel like I must have been an inhabitant of the Paleolithic cave era, compared to the easy breezy, lazy, sit back and relax methods, students today employ, to smash those college exams, and fulfill their course work. It’s the push- a – button methodology. Then kick back, peruse the screen, while sipping your choice beverage, or, and smoking your choice weed.

“Do a little dance, Make a little love, Get down tonight” as the song goes.

Point is, that the kids are on a track. It’s the distract track to getting it done, making it stick, accomplishing a goal, success seeking, project completing, job achieving, but in Real Time, isn’t the penultimate obsession today making MONEY? It is no longer the dirty little secret people avoided talking about, because how shallow, how banal, how bourgeois, let’s face it how embarrassing! Not Anymore! Comedienne, Wanda Sykes says “I said it!” Thank you Wanda! Because today people aren’t afraid to admit it, scream it to the winds, and embrace the sordid shallow fact of the New existence “1984”-esque style.

blaise-pascal-quote-nyc-art-blogBlaise Pascal. Don’t you just LOVE his name??? I do. No one has a name as retro-cool as that! But more than his uber cool name are his uber cool thoughts. Yea, because Blaise not only had no fear about thinking, or being alone, or creating, or sitting in his room with his thoughts,  he blatantly advertised it, and said all kinds of stuff like:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”

Are you kidding me? Today, this concept is an anomaly. Because one must be plugged in. Not to the real brain, but to the faux brain, ie. the machine. Technology, baby! That’s where it’s at!

I am not about to go into my personal M.O. On this subject because I held off for let’s just say forever and a day until I woke up, one day and realized that I was doomed to either become a hermit and have no contact with the world as Huxley describes it in “1984”, or be 1984-George-orwell-quoteone of those Oldie Goldie freakazoids who walks around gloating over the fact that they are computer illiterate like some kind of insane claim to fame, while people are thinking oh right you are really just either stupid or senile but Mostly you are freaking OLD! So, it’s called ” get with the program.” Get hooked up. Don’t have to like it. Don’t have to want it. Just do it, because. It’s a fact, that we are all living in an age of Assange melodrama, hookups, wired, electronically programmed and media mesmerized psyches.

It just makes the pain so much easier, so tear that bandaid off as fast as you can! I mean get real, it’s obvious to anyone who is an observer as am I, of human nature, that artist types hate to follow the crowd. The idea of self identification as sheeple is pretty damn insulting, and as Thoreau says, “follow the beat of a different drum”, except, what IS the beat? Is your beat my beat? Nooooooo.

kanye-west-rant-art-blog-nycLike why is everyone all worked up over Kanye’s rants? Is this really disturbing to you that he actually has an opinion, takes the stage and let’s loose? I mean, I am no fan of his music, really, not my speed, but ok, he clearly is on a venting mission, saturating the public with his thoughts while engaging the media simultaneously. Oh WOW, he thinks? He thinks in surround sound, Bose Sound Amped.  It’s Verrry spectacular in its negative attention, creating dual intention, both of which he achieves. Game On! Mission Accomplished!

And he certainly gets a lot of multi purpose attitude from the masses, consumers, aka The Public. Oh he is on his game, no doubt because hey if we are talking about him he’s relevant!  It’s only when we STOP talking that as a celebrity, he has a problem! People fled the theatre in London, why? Oh yeah, forgot, Kanye’s thoughts exposed were soooo painful! But then, nothing is worse that the silent arena of your own thoughts! Remember? Or is it just thoughts in general?

The “Thought Police” in “1984” certainly believed it.

Pascal also said that “Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.” Power and Thought have always been synonymous, as the defining link capable, of either destruction or creation.

But that was before we became wired up, to mechanics, designed to get into our heads and force feed us ideas and thoughts that don’t belong to us while also keeping us on a constant entertainment, news, media hype, 24/7.

After all, if you aren’t plugged in, you might miss something: a text, a call, a news story, an e mail, a movie, a you tube joke, a health scare, disaster, tragedy, and the list goes on and on and on.

10-signs-you-live-in-a-police-state-chinese-internetEverything is sooo fake today. The fake is real,the real is fake. Duh. Ray Bradbury, the author of one of the most famous books alive, Fahrenheit 451′ said that “people would rather watch TV, and that means the demise of books”, when literature goes straight to hell, and the screen rules, thinking tanks. Orwell prophesied this concept of the real/fake dichotomy when he describes Doublethink. ” Doublethink”, “when thought corrupts language, and language corrupts thought”

Well, apparently the man knew from where he spoke. And that was a long time ago. Because today, according to the article. Thinking is painful. I get it. The mass consumption of prescription medication, the pharmaceutical companies, pushing this poison on people, has numbed them out, dumbed them down, and literally suffocated their spirit. Now, from the i-phone, to the PC, to the plugged in tunes, to the supersized flat screen, and ring around the proverbial Rosie, again and again, the rat’s maze of uber technology. Life as we know it today.

henry-david-thoreau-quoteIt’s an ultimate buzz kill because guess what?,  dependence on electronics can be like being locked in the ShawShank prison,of technological dependence, with the main concern being, can I pay that Verizon, or Time Warner, Optimum, Vios, because you know all this stuff adds up! Or you take the chance of getting turned off, shut down, and subjected to the pain your intruding and excruciating thought will inevitably cause.  The torture chamber of the mind. Your mind.

So, artists are kind of in a quandary. because we need to be alone with our thoughts, Right?

ginsberg-howl-beat-poets-nycEver heard of a painter who sat in front of his canvas with an audience cheering him on? Or a writer at work surrounded by crowds of adoring fans, waiting desperately for him to come up with his next clever phrase, or for the poet to deliver that perfect symbiotic one liner? hahaha. It’s absurd. It doesn’t happen. It’s a myth. It’s not real, Ginsberg wrote his classic HOWL from the depths of soulful angst, past misery, futuristic visions, and present fantastic dreams. An I phone, a computer, a tv, wasn’t involved. Just Ginsberg and his wild creative, original thoughts!

Can I mention something interesting Picasso said?

“The genius for my artist gift, was when I was punished, I was forced to sit alone in silence and solitude alone in a corner”

No pain no gain!

Artists don’t just need solitude, they require it. This is not an option if you are making art. There’s no “distraction traction” at play. “Reality exists in the human mind, nowhere else.”

big-brother-is-watching-you-orwellLook, Orwell, said it redundantly in his epic, 1984.  The source of creative ideas, thoughts, not the distraction of things, and definitely not when technology monopolizes the individual, to the extent that sitting alone and thinking feels like punishment.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.” I interpret this to mean that Orwell is predicting the decline of humanity.

He also coins the phrase “Big Brother is Watching You”. Fast forward those words to the present. We are being watched. NOW. And everybody knows it. When Orwell wrote “1984”, in the year 1949, he was spinning an imaginative fiction from the guts of his own creative minefield.

This was his fictional prophecy based on a combination of fantasy and fact. The reality and truth of his otherworld view as I see it from the view of today’s life is astounding in the intellectual capacity he used to develop his creative storytelling, and actually take us on a futuristic journey into a new reality. The Matrix, becomes the mini reality of “flatlands” where the 2 dimensional universe appears to be real, when actually it’s only an illusion. Orwell, makes sure we know that 1984 is the New Real. Describing, “double think is how we communicate ” Here, nothing is straight forward. Truth is only a word. There is always 2 sides, and no one is allowed to possess Truth, because it is a counterfeit, an ongoing experiment with no conclusive answer. And if you aren’t careful the Thought Police will get you!

Sound familiar? Eerily like today. In 1984 one of the ways, the people were programmed was by the use of posters. They were everywhere, to constantly remind people, what was up! The Power of the Poster! Today the media has that kind of power! Invasive, inescapable, hypnotic!

So, yes, Orwell predicted this new reality, the one described in the recent Us News Report, that electrocution, zapping, with lasers, stun guns, is for most people preferable to thinking, solo, like Thoreau at Walden Pond, for him pure ecstasy, but, that was a long time ago. Ancient history. Long before the “thought police”, disguised as computers, in their various forms, took over people’s minds, and stripped them of their art, their creativity, and any modicum of individuality they might have  possessed!

art-inspiration-blog-nyc-brooklynSo, the next time you are in a gallery, or have a work of art before you, or pick up a book, or start arguing with your buddy about the words of that Ginsberg poem that makes no sense, ask yourself is this coming from ME? Or is these merely messages superimposed unto my mind through my constant hookup to the machines that I am communicating with all day, everyday? Am I hooked up to the distraction traction of Orwell’s fantasy? Is this the media or me?

Is this Big Brother dictating? Is thinking becoming a painful undesirable activity, as the experiment documented????

Better.    THINK      about that………

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