"Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands"

A medical term. Plicate: being folded, tucked, or ridged, especially like a fan. Not to be confused with placate.

Still thinking about The Neverending Story and Bob Dylan's Neverending Tour and Charlie Chaplin and "The Dictator."

And current events.

In the end of the book, Bastian cannot remember his own name, but Atreyu (his mirror image) steps in and makes a promise to complete Bastian's unfinished stories.

A younger friend of mine commented that she was mourning the disappearance of Bob Dylan as she listened the cuts that have been released from "Triplicate." She said she was grateful to have all his previous work to listen to.  She asked me for an explanation.  I don't have one.

All I know is that I keep hearing the sound of Bob Dylan's voice in my mind and my heart.  That's good enough for me.

Playing with words today.  Triplicate.  Threefold.  Triptych.  Fans. Covers. Prayers like rhymes.  Liner notes from "John Wesley Harding":

There were three kings and a jolly three too. The first one had a broken nose, the second, a broken arm and the third was broke. "Faith is the key!" said the first king. "No, froth is the key!" said the second. "You're both wrong," said the third, "the key is Frank!

"... With your holy medallion which your fingertips plicate ..."

Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Bob Dylan

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who could they get to carry you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I put them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I put them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Listening /Looking up and seeing crows in the cottonwood trees during the snowy days last week

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

The snow is gone for now. Snow never lasts very long in the lowlands of the Pacific Northwest. I'm grateful for that. I will walk four miles in the snow but that's all. When the snow is gone, I walk freely again, but it always takes a little time to get my sense of well-being back. Something about snow pulls the rug out from underneath my usually good spirits.

Lady of the Lowlands / Mary Magdalene / Witness (2006)

Yesterday I posted the last image from the Black and White Series. As 2005 came to a close, a period of creative energy had run its course as a series of life stresses toppled me emotionally. Interestingly, at that time several health professionals suggested that I might make a good psychiatric nurse, a suggestion which puzzled me deeply and still does. The way I appear and the way I feel inside clearly don't match.

Today's image was an attempt to paint sometime in 2006, a year which began with emotional exhaustion. There is a clumsiness to it. Still, I find it compelling. A few days after I had painted it, it occurred to me that it might be how Mary Magdalene looked, although while I was painting it, I had no one in mind. It has something of the feeling of the drawing I did of a young man when I was 16 years old, in 1966, the first drawing I posted in this 40-year retrospective, a pencil drawing titled "Imaginary Brother as Witness," a drawing which came out of the years of the war in Vietnam.






















Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Tomorrow is Memorial Day 2007.

Here are some flowers from my porch today.

Woman with Window (1985)

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles -- "Visions of Johanna," from Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan, 1966