THE MEDIUM

it t is not so much that your eccentricity is incomprehensible, for i don't seek to discover the periapsis of your intellect or the common, intersection that we share......somewhere between 24 and 42, so to speak, wherein the trajectory of random thoughts intersect in expressions that are both recognized as "real" ,yet, at the same instant, are transient and unknowable........i keep, at my bedside, 7 boxes, varying in both size and design, materials of construction and contents.......At one point in time....well, actually not a POINT, but a span of time........there were fewer containers for the stuff, less stuff and a more random assembly......to find an item, i had to open all the boxes and search the multi-leveled vaults of treasures, many that i had forgotten were there and could no longer remember their origins.........Now......i can see a box and, because of my 'organization' have a relatively accurate idea of the 'types' of things therein...........

i HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED BY MASKS THAT BLEND US INTO NATURE, PERHAPS, BECAUSE MAN SEEMS SO AT ODDS WITH IT...... IT IS SO REVEALING THAT MEN CHOOSE SCARY, MONSTROUS MASKS TO COVER THEIR FACES...... CLOWNS AND FOOLS MASKS ARE NEXT IN POPULARITY.........

I had returned to college, this time to accomplish my original goal....formulated ten years before.......i had been accepted by Brooks, but was unable to attend, due to illness......so i went to Vanderbilt, reluctantly accepted a degree in English Poetry, then floundered around for a few years......eventually abandoning the second attempt at Photography School....now..... almost 40 years later........it's on my mind again.......

and, on "voting" day.....the technology is in place to not only identify voters from retinal or iris scans and associate their identity with their voting preferences.....this is, of course, just a step "beyond" Myspace or Google's monitoring users' every keystroke and assembling databases of individuals or groups engaged in associational activities, then relaying this information, in real time, to "big brother".....the champagne is already broken over the bow of the dark vessel, now submerging......it's impenetrable armor manufactured from the souls and naivete' of the world's youth.....and their adherence to the pleasure principle and their need to be observed and monitored....the die is cast...

this is who i am yet it is not who i am... it is as another sees me, and is familiar, indeed. it is as much the one who saw me as it is the me that is seen... all the art in the world is just a piece of the action..... and what of the action? i have lots of clues, placed willy-nilly, hidden, like easter eggs, and bits of flotsam given meaning to by imagination....

  Men find, in rocks and twigs, the bodies of men; and, in clouds and water, the faces of Gods......They were taught, through countless genetic modifications, to see this way......... I know what they are seeking.....It is but a state of Mind.....as this picture is but a lump of copper with a synthetic eyeball......