Hi all,

COD Scene 34 has been posted.

Here is the direct link:

fexandcoo.website/COD34.pdf

Enjoy!

Russ, Paco, Owl Man and Heron Man

Here is the link:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=disturbed+the+sound+of+silence&docid=608037438075134754&mid=44F600D7B15EC73DAAF344F600D7B15EC73DAAF3&view=detail&FORM=VRAASM&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Ddisturbed%2Bsounds%2Bof%2Bsilence%26qpvt%3Ddisturbed%2Bsounds%2Bof%2Bsilence%26FORM%3DVDRE

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/23/the-vision-collector-the-man-who-used-dreams-and-premonitions-to-predict-the-future

My Photoshop rendering of the dream image is more or less as I experienced it in the dream. The dream voice announced the title: Angel Hidden by Rothko-like Squares. I have been aware of Rothko’s paintings of color fields for a long time as well as what he said he was trying to express by them. But I had never experienced the idea that they were “hiding” something because the whole purpose of his work was to “reveal” not so much what was behind the paintings as what was in “front” that we could not see. His more abstract paintings are subject to a different sense, and these may be more about revealing something emerging from behind.

But the dream comes with an idea that is opposite what has been in my consciousness. Of course, this is often the case with dreams. I do not feel comfortable calling this “my” unconscious idea. To me, it makes more sense to think of this as the idea of someone “other.” An other who makes itself known to me through the dream from some “elsewhere” than my conscious mind. This “otherness” is compelling to me and I take such experiences as tasks or instructions or teachings.

Of course, I spent some time re-looking at Rothko’s work. My intention was see his fields of color as hiding angels. But soon realized the dream was pointing to “something else.” It was not saying that Rothko’s color fields were hiding angels. The angel was hiding behind Rothko-like squares. Of course, Rothko set in motion an expressive movement of artists who took up the exploration of color and geometry. A good sample of such painters is available at

https://theartling.com/en/artzine/artists-follow-if-you-mark-rothko/

I am aware, of course, of the impulse that wants to unhide the angel, to see the angel, to find out all about the angel, why it’s hiding and all those sorts of questions that begin to flood one’s consciousness. Questions. Wanting answers. Now. But then another sense of things entered. Let the angel be. Let it hide. As if I had anything to do with it hiding in the first place. It was not “mine” to allow anything. But as this feeling took over, I felt some degree of humility. I stepped back. I tamped down my urge to see, to know, to relate to the angel.

I spent time trying to be with the image. Just with it. Just with the angel hidden by Rothko-like squares.

This article is a  different perspective on the looming apocalypse, up close and

personal as the old TV line goes. The article is entitled On Apocalypse Art, 

Climate Divination, and "the Blob." The Blob  came out in 1958, before many

of you were born. I was not yet 20 when I saw it, though my memory has me

seeing it as a 10-year old. I guess watching it brought on a child state.

The article is subtitled, "Molly Gallentine's Summer of Professionally

Contemplating he End of Humanity."

Read this article slowly and let it in.

Here is the link:

On Apocalypse Art, Climate Divination, and The Blob

Here is the direct link:

Well worth your time.

Russ

Cèilidh of Dreams, scenes 19-20 now available.

Here is the direct link:

http://fexandcoo.website/COD%20-%20Scenes%2019-20.pdf

Enjoy!

Russ and Paco

The old man tapped his cane three times before he took a step and then three times again for the next step. In this way, stooped and bent, and hands shaking a bit, he made progress, slow but sure, to the librarian's desk. He tipped his red beret to the young women standing there watching him. She smiled in greeting and asked if she could help him.

"Yes," he said. "I'm in need of a book."
"Well," she replied, I hope we have what you are looking for. What is the title?"
"I know longer remember it, nor the author, but it is exactly the book I need now."
"Well then, do you recall what it is about?"
"Well, I have an image that's clear, but I can't seem to get the words to describe it."
"If you close your eyes, can you see it?"
"Yes, I can see it."
"Maybe you don't need a book."
"Why do you say that? You are a librarian."
"But sometimes, the book you need is not yet written. Perhaps your seeking the book is a way to find that you are the author. Could that be?"

There is a website (wombo.art) that uses artificial intelligence to translate words into artistic images

in various genres (etching, pastel, dark fantasy, mystic, etc.)

Here is the image for the words Fex and Coo in a fantasy style.

What is your reaction to this?

ral

The world may objectively exist but our encounter with it—in whatever way—fictionalizes it.

From most books on writing the novel, you will find that dreams are taboo. “Do not go there” is the general advice.

No one ever asks what novel the dream would write. Truth be told, all dreams are incipient novels.

Dreams, of course, are the focus of endless analysis, but analysis does not write novels, is not interested in this potency, always turning the dream into something else—to be generous, perhaps this too a fiction.

James Walton has reviewed Keith Ridgway’s new novel A Shock, titling his review, “Everything is Fiction,” in the December 16 edition of The New York Review of Books. Read it. Then read Ridgway. Then read your dream.

ral