THE MEDIUM

  age 12-15.....i read several books that were a far cry from Captains Courageous, Black Beauty and Treasure Island.....I had read the Rick Blaine Scientific Adventures and a few 50's science fiction novels; but, my interest in John Ackerly's "SHOCK THEATRE", which played at 10:15 on friday or saturday nights, detoured my interest to books about gouls, werewolves, mad scientists and vampires........After seeing the Lugosi "DRACULA", seated alone at the run-down Central Theatre, i stopped by a junk store and discovered a copy of Mary Shelley's "FRANKENSTEIN" and a copy of the book pictured above.......They were as literary as the other stuff that I had read, and my vivid imagination brought Guy Endore's 1930's twisted misanthrophic creations to life......such excitement.......blood drinking, flesh eating, incest and Bertrand Caillet! I read nothing other than Lovecraft, Poe, Wells and popular science fiction, "Mad Magazine&qu

  I bought this for my Mother, on a trip to Switzerland in 1972..... She never wore it, and it was still in the gift box, upon her death.....This behavior was characteristic of her.....She was given a mink, in the 50's, that was unworn, in its box; there were hundreds of articles of clothing, shoes and jewelry that had never been worn....many were never opened! I believe that she had difficulty with gifts, in general.....clothing and jewelry, in particular.....most of her jewelry, upon her death, had never been touched....most articles had never been removed from gift boxes......When presented with a gift-wrapped box, Mother would usually word a polite "thank you, so much", then she would put away the gift.....forever.....I gave her a diamond pin, for her 65th birthday......I never saw it again! She died, in her four-poster bed, naked....no jewels, no nightgown.....no face powder or lipstick! Elegance and Refinement - Baroque Suites, French Sweets by Ivan

  all the rage in the '60's and '70's.....i amassed an extensive collection of these beautiful, handwrought cases, which i still enjoy....they are all empty now, however.....in the '80's i sold several to women....seemingly aways real estate brokers.....who proudly distributed their business cards from the beautiful cases......

  This amusing Russian lacquered wooden box holds a deck of Tarot cards....I once had s job, performig as a "psychic", dressed in a swami outfit, seated in a picture window, reading tarot cards,turbaned and Crowley-like......One afternoon, the owner of the African gift boutique, where i was resident psychic, asked me to "read her cards".....for some reason, i was extremely reluctant...and refused......she then badgered me to do it "anyway"...so i proceeded to lay out the cards, looked her in the eye and said "there is death in the cards, only death!"....she laughed, and commented that my eccentricity would bring in customers.......that night she had a massive coronary and was found dead......i put the cards back in the lacquered box, where they remain.......

  I had just discovered the smallest nibs for my pen....."000"......and could now render the little 1" x 2" and smaller line drawings of the microcosm that had invaded my mind from who knows where.......there is a consistancy of imagery within the little drawings.......a world of black lines, quickly drawn and forgotten...... Fall Submissions by AntiGuru

in haute couture for this fall, jewels are shown on fancy underpants......i have always loved unusual brooches and organic jewelry....feathers, animals....bugs, reptiles, amphibians......i'm happy to see them in style this year........

i am so amused when old friends say "you look just like you did.........years ago" or such........i'll keep my toga on, please...........

although i was utilizing a Fosgate FM tuner that sounded rather splendid......the substitution of HD radio was equivalent to trading up from AM to FM or from 78's to CD's...........i'm so excited that the compressed sound has opened up........ glorious! Now, if only HD television providers would finally synchronize the audio and video!

I discovered an enormous, dazzlingly cut aquamarine for my friend Maggie......The stone was so huge that I was uncertain as to how to display it in an article of jewelry. So, Maggie and I flew to Baltimore, meeting Mark West, another friend of many years......who designed a gigantic ring to hold the stone, now called "Shiva" The design incorporated four rose-gold nude men, holding Shiva.......Maggie had no problem wearing this majestic, magical ring........There are pictures, somewhere......

in the mid-1970's i began to collect austrian figural soft-paste and porcelain figures like this.......a receiver for calling cards....... but when they became scarce and in demand by many others, i resigned myself to the collection of vases and sold the figural ones to others. sometimes i miss these flamboyant pieces.......this one in particular........

For a long time I praised myself to have viewed all the possible landscapes, and found ridiculous, the celebrities of painting and modern poetry. I liked paintings, idiots, the tops of doors, decorations, fabrics in the costumes of travelling acrobats, signs, not so popular illuminations; the obsolete literature, church latin, erotic books without orthography, novels of my grandmothers tastes, fairy tales, small books of childhood, old operas, refrains denied, naive dance rhythms and the cadences of walking. I dreamed of crusades, voyages of discovery, the unplanned destinations in which one does not have relations, republics without stories, choked wars of religion, revolutions by murderers, displacements of races and continents: I believed in all the enchantments of mystery. I regulated the shape and the movement of each vowel and consonant, and, with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself, inventing an accessible poetic verb, one day or the other, with all the directions

When Ravi Shankar arrived in the U.S., supported by the hippie movement that was enthralled with George Harrison and the Beatles' having brought Indian music to popular favor, if only for a brief time, he appeared in Atlanta at the Great Southeast...to a packed house of stoned would-be flower children......before the inane Disco movement surplanted Ravi with the Gibbs Brothers...........I am grateful that Ravi's daughter continues his tradition of deep, soulful, inward searching.......... http://www.anoushkashankar.com/

When I obtained Neil Isman's collection of Icarts many of my "serious" friends kidded me about these being sheer boudoir fluff ......so, i should collect Motherwells, De Koonings and "serious art"?......fluff...bluff...enough! I draw no distinction between these worlds in continuum....that is for art critics to haggle over....