There's nothing like raking out hot tar to clear a man's mind
fiction
edward w pritchard
There's nothing like raking out hot tar to clear a man's mind. Sometimes as I work at my job of raking out drying tar at the parking lot of a new Mall or local business I use the time to order my thoughts and philosophies. I balance my local problems in my little life with those with nations, civilizations and cultures past in time and space.
There's a gentle odor of progress and reality to slowly drying tar. Inevitably, the tar will dry and a new concept is born. A parking lot for cars, pedestrians and children racing on bikes has been created from the essence of the tar I work with and my efforts of raking steadily and methodically have created a work of art. Concrete evidence of order and stability in the world.
The job is done. The tar slowly dries. Something new has been created.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Hear the firm strike of the hammer feel the nail enter the wrist
Hear the firm strike of the hammer feel the nail enter the wrist
fiction
edward w pritchard
We are supposed to not just revel in the rapture of the ascension three days hence but to quietly meditate on the pain and suffering of Christ on the cross. It was few long hours.
Of the unknown number of fellow crucified victims only Jesus Christ in name and reputation is remembered to history and has dozens of intricately worked master paintings displayed throughout the art museums of the world for us to remember and reflect on. Grunewald, Rembrandt, and Rogier der Weyden all left us masterpieces of art displaying Jesus' suffering on the cross and ascension.
Hear the firm strike of the hammer and feel the nail enter at the wrist. Experience the thirst, Grasp the betrayal. For a moment reflect on the ordeal of the cross.
fiction
edward w pritchard
We are supposed to not just revel in the rapture of the ascension three days hence but to quietly meditate on the pain and suffering of Christ on the cross. It was few long hours.
Of the unknown number of fellow crucified victims only Jesus Christ in name and reputation is remembered to history and has dozens of intricately worked master paintings displayed throughout the art museums of the world for us to remember and reflect on. Grunewald, Rembrandt, and Rogier der Weyden all left us masterpieces of art displaying Jesus' suffering on the cross and ascension.
Hear the firm strike of the hammer and feel the nail enter at the wrist. Experience the thirst, Grasp the betrayal. For a moment reflect on the ordeal of the cross.
it's all so pre-programmed
it's all so pre-programmed
fiction
edward w pritchard
Squirming in our seat so to speak after a long life the five act play of life that we are engulfed in becomes obviously so pre-programmed that we out of boredom at times wait and watch with authentic interest for one of the actors to move suddenly backward across the stage in large circles speaking his part in rewind backward gibberish at triple speed as the other veteran actors that fill the stage cover cleverly and professionally their fellow thespians temporary meltdown.
Who the master programmer and how the intricacies of design that put this all together? The play of life goes on and on approaching finis the final curtain call.
These intricacies of design are beyond comprehension to me. I remember I started as a child so long ago and now I doodle about the stage dusting furniture and props fighting the urge to peer across house lights at the audience.
a large crash and a mumbled voice is heard stage right
fiction
edward w pritchard
Squirming in our seat so to speak after a long life the five act play of life that we are engulfed in becomes obviously so pre-programmed that we out of boredom at times wait and watch with authentic interest for one of the actors to move suddenly backward across the stage in large circles speaking his part in rewind backward gibberish at triple speed as the other veteran actors that fill the stage cover cleverly and professionally their fellow thespians temporary meltdown.
Who the master programmer and how the intricacies of design that put this all together? The play of life goes on and on approaching finis the final curtain call.
These intricacies of design are beyond comprehension to me. I remember I started as a child so long ago and now I doodle about the stage dusting furniture and props fighting the urge to peer across house lights at the audience.
a large crash and a mumbled voice is heard stage right
Thursday, March 22, 2018
current southwestern art; set it gently in the garbage
current southwestern art; set it gently in the garbage
fiction
edward w pritchard
At the church charity store I frequent for life's necessities sometimes in the a quarter for a twenty year old used magazine rack there will be a magazine or two hawking southwestern art by modern painters.
The prices are atrocious and the subject matter of the pictures silly and insulting to the ancient Americans living in ancient New Mexico in times past.
First off if one wants good native American art and subject matter in Ohio there's the Butler Museum of Art in Youngstown which has an excellent collection of native American and "cowboy art" by masters such as Remington.
The prices for modern authentic southwestern native american art sold in galleries now across the Country are high. Most of the pictures lack the edge and vim that the old nineteenth century American West was about. Instead attempts by modern artists to recapture the spirit of the old Southwest have a Courier and Ives or Norman Rockwell patina that has lost it's glimmer.
Drive to the Butler museum in Youngstown and climb the steps to the second floor and look at a few of the pictures of old southwest Indians families as their villages in New Mexico were vanishing back in 1880 or 1890. There is a haunting sadness in the faces in the authentic pictures of the old native American women and children that the artists of times past have captured that is missing from southwest art produced today.
Perhaps I am being overly critical. When was the last time you saw a modern painting that could compare with the works of the Italian masters of the 14th to 16th century? Note to my sons; take the old man to the Butler museum soon he's rambling again. Perhaps his life like his writing needs a good edit.
fiction
edward w pritchard
At the church charity store I frequent for life's necessities sometimes in the a quarter for a twenty year old used magazine rack there will be a magazine or two hawking southwestern art by modern painters.
The prices are atrocious and the subject matter of the pictures silly and insulting to the ancient Americans living in ancient New Mexico in times past.
First off if one wants good native American art and subject matter in Ohio there's the Butler Museum of Art in Youngstown which has an excellent collection of native American and "cowboy art" by masters such as Remington.
The prices for modern authentic southwestern native american art sold in galleries now across the Country are high. Most of the pictures lack the edge and vim that the old nineteenth century American West was about. Instead attempts by modern artists to recapture the spirit of the old Southwest have a Courier and Ives or Norman Rockwell patina that has lost it's glimmer.
Drive to the Butler museum in Youngstown and climb the steps to the second floor and look at a few of the pictures of old southwest Indians families as their villages in New Mexico were vanishing back in 1880 or 1890. There is a haunting sadness in the faces in the authentic pictures of the old native American women and children that the artists of times past have captured that is missing from southwest art produced today.
Perhaps I am being overly critical. When was the last time you saw a modern painting that could compare with the works of the Italian masters of the 14th to 16th century? Note to my sons; take the old man to the Butler museum soon he's rambling again. Perhaps his life like his writing needs a good edit.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
attendance at the ancient Roman coliseum was free right
attendance at the ancient roman coliseum was free right
fiction
edward w pritchard
Attendance at the ancient Roman coliseum was free right. How many ancient grown concerned Roman working adults must have nagged their aging widowed parent to get out of the stuffy apartment and spend the day watching the atrocities at the ancient roman coliseum?
Note to young readers; there was no internet back in the first to fourth century AD. So Mom or Dad would have to wait to till they were in their seats at the ancient coliseum of Rome to find out what specific acts would be playing today. Although there was a general routine order to the Man vs. Man gladiator beheading, throw Christians to the lions and death by fire routines part of the fun and suspense would be to not know in advance what one would observe.
Now that this somewhat voyeuristic subject has been breached by this modern author displaying a typical lack of discretion he asks was this ancient practice good wholesome fun and maybe a catharsis in the ancient Greek watching a tragic play with chorus sense or was something sinister and perverse at work?
Moral relativism? The sophisticated and common sense way to go or needing a rethink? When in Rome do as the ?
fiction
edward w pritchard
Attendance at the ancient Roman coliseum was free right. How many ancient grown concerned Roman working adults must have nagged their aging widowed parent to get out of the stuffy apartment and spend the day watching the atrocities at the ancient roman coliseum?
Note to young readers; there was no internet back in the first to fourth century AD. So Mom or Dad would have to wait to till they were in their seats at the ancient coliseum of Rome to find out what specific acts would be playing today. Although there was a general routine order to the Man vs. Man gladiator beheading, throw Christians to the lions and death by fire routines part of the fun and suspense would be to not know in advance what one would observe.
Now that this somewhat voyeuristic subject has been breached by this modern author displaying a typical lack of discretion he asks was this ancient practice good wholesome fun and maybe a catharsis in the ancient Greek watching a tragic play with chorus sense or was something sinister and perverse at work?
Moral relativism? The sophisticated and common sense way to go or needing a rethink? When in Rome do as the ?
Sunday, March 18, 2018
for our few Russian readers
for our few Russian readers
fiction
edward w pritchard
For the most part author as he ages has become like a medieval peasant anonymous to the world and future. Nameless and faceless in the place and times in which he lives. Perhaps your life is the same.
Most of us wake up one day to find we do not habitat in Paris, London or Moscow and on Sundays
we don't journey to Chartres cathedral to enter god's house.
Downtown where I live is a sad little place, the inner city, for the last year and maybe the next two a blighted construction zone of demolished buildings roads and sidewalks to nowhere. To my eye as I drive by our downtown ten or twenty construction workers are trying to rebuild fifty years of the lack of growth and vitality as progress moves somewhere else.
Our main industry here is a hospital or two to treat the sick. The once prosperous University that I matriculated is shrinking as students wise up to the student loans realities of the last twenty years.
Still this is a pleasant place to live. My grandchildren are here and once or twice I have taken my grandson into the magnificent catholic cathedral in our town to see the stained glass windows. South of here is a beautiful campus of a college built and maintained by the catholic church. Fifty miles north is a world class city with excellent museums, sports venues and a nice large inland lake.
Places don't change we do. Still tomorrow morning it would be nice to be in France and spend a half hour trying to find eternity in the stained glass windows of the Chartres cathedral.
fiction
edward w pritchard
For the most part author as he ages has become like a medieval peasant anonymous to the world and future. Nameless and faceless in the place and times in which he lives. Perhaps your life is the same.
Most of us wake up one day to find we do not habitat in Paris, London or Moscow and on Sundays
we don't journey to Chartres cathedral to enter god's house.
Downtown where I live is a sad little place, the inner city, for the last year and maybe the next two a blighted construction zone of demolished buildings roads and sidewalks to nowhere. To my eye as I drive by our downtown ten or twenty construction workers are trying to rebuild fifty years of the lack of growth and vitality as progress moves somewhere else.
Our main industry here is a hospital or two to treat the sick. The once prosperous University that I matriculated is shrinking as students wise up to the student loans realities of the last twenty years.
Still this is a pleasant place to live. My grandchildren are here and once or twice I have taken my grandson into the magnificent catholic cathedral in our town to see the stained glass windows. South of here is a beautiful campus of a college built and maintained by the catholic church. Fifty miles north is a world class city with excellent museums, sports venues and a nice large inland lake.
Places don't change we do. Still tomorrow morning it would be nice to be in France and spend a half hour trying to find eternity in the stained glass windows of the Chartres cathedral.
Friday, March 16, 2018
speak no more of battlefields
speak no more of battlefields
fiction
edward w pritchard
Speak no more of battlefields,
or empty chairs, or missing chairs,
or children grown, changed and mystifying,
or memories and cherished beliefs doubted,
or changing gods and vanished deities,
or paradoxes of invisible friendships solvable only by linguistics and vanished logic,
subtract one grain of sand and a heap is just a heap, the weaker argument can never be the stronger,
let us be simple, tied up in small busyness,
forgetful of past and unawares of unanticipated future,
stuck in 30 seconds of present,
praying not for delusional double rainbows,
after every disappearing storm,
god is everywhere, and custom and comfort is King.
fiction
edward w pritchard
Speak no more of battlefields,
or empty chairs, or missing chairs,
or children grown, changed and mystifying,
or memories and cherished beliefs doubted,
or changing gods and vanished deities,
or paradoxes of invisible friendships solvable only by linguistics and vanished logic,
subtract one grain of sand and a heap is just a heap, the weaker argument can never be the stronger,
let us be simple, tied up in small busyness,
forgetful of past and unawares of unanticipated future,
stuck in 30 seconds of present,
praying not for delusional double rainbows,
after every disappearing storm,
god is everywhere, and custom and comfort is King.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)