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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 12 of 12. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on August 6, 2004, at 21:03:20
Bullet Riders, 1988
Shot like a golden, rust-encrusted bullet
From the Jersey-side muzzle
Of the Holland Tunnel,
A '72 Chevy
The size of an aircraft carrier
Punches a sizzling hole
Through the swirling mixture
Of exhaust and air
It encounters in its path,
Carelessly leaving
A gaping wound
Of flash-fried atmospheric flesh
Miles long
In its furious wake,
Propelled
By the liquefied
Corpses of dinosaurs
And the explosive
Combination
Of hormones
Packed inside the slug's
Armor-piercing
Coating
Of corrosion
And contempt for everything
In its way.Temple's at the wheel
And our windows are rolled down,
Causing the Goth-goddess's
Shoulder-length curly hair
To stream behind her head
Like blackened Spanish moss
Caught in the grip
Of hurricane winds.
Thick eye-liner that
Nefertiti would have envied
Surrounds feline eyes
That flash yellow in the headlights
Of other four-wheeled projectiles
Heading into
The city,
Looking to do
Some damage
Of their own.Squeak of black leather pants
Over high-heeled cowboy boots
With tips as sharp as switchblades
As she shifts in the cracked
And faded vinyl
Of her seat.
I sit slouched
Beside her,
Feeling lethal, feeling fine,
Spikes bristling from my scalp,
Wearing a leather Buffalo motorcycle jacket
And jeans that look
Like a Rottweiler's chew toy.
We rip along
Until we reach
Route 17 south,
A night-tripping combo
Of vampire and punk,
Rocketing along the asphalt
To a place
Where you can really
See the stars,
Buck Rodgers space cadets
Looking for a spot
To touch down
As we run out of road
Among the six-foot-tall
Stands of wild grass
And cat-tails
In the swampy heart
Of the Jersey Meadowlands.I cook up two more
Marlboro reds
With the cigarette lighter
Growing from the dash,
Planting one between
The two strips
Of black lipstick
That frame her mouth,
And match the nail polish
Transforming her fingertips
Into the chitinous hides
Of elegantly tapered beetles
That have alit
And now sit, content and curious
To see what the
Overthrow of the sun
Will bring.Temple's skin is so pale,
So translucent,
That fine traceries
Of blue veins
Snake across her cheeks,
Tiny winding rivers,
Their currents
Almost audible
As the blood rushes
On its way
Like white-water rapids.
Robert Smith whines out
A song by The Cure
From the tape deck,
Oozing angst
As thick and dark
As crude oil
From the tinny speakers.
A clatter of buckles
As leather wrappings
Are shucked,
And we slither
Over the lip
Of the front seat
Into the back.Post-coital cigarette smoke
Slides lazily
From our mouths.
We flick ashes
Toppling from
The orange-red embers
Into the little metal receptacle
That flips out from the rear
Of the driver's seat.
"This can't last," she finally murmurs,
"Can it?"
"No," I respond, lightly brushing
My fingers
Over one
Of her porcelain cheeks.
"That really sucks," she says, and I answer,
"It surely does."
A long second hangs
In the air
While we both take in
The spray of stars visible
Through the rear windshield.
"Sun's not up yet," I say,
"Let's hit CBGB."
"Who's playing?" she asks.
"Who cares?" I shrug.
She inhales, then stamps out
Her Marlboro in the ashtray.
"OK," she laughs,
And the sound of
Her damp skin
Rubbing against the front seat
As she pulls herself over
To retrieve her clothes
Is enough
To make any teenaged boy
Shiver.And a few minutes later,
We're rolling back toward town,
And the cloudy moment has passed.
We feel so limber,
So cool,
So awake,
So indestructible,
In the way
Only two 18 year olds,
Still mostly unmarked
By the world's cruel vagaries,
Ever can.
-- Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 7, 2004, at 11:45:12
In reply to poem ... Bullet Riders, 1988, posted by Atticus on August 6, 2004, at 21:03:20
Temple's a new character.
Nice.....
"To see what the
Overthrow of the sun
Will bring."Love, love love this!
I so enjoy your use of words I have never seen, i.e., "chitinous".
Great fresh vocabulary!
Your poems are filled with a new ways to use an old language.I appreciate reading your pieces one at a time with days between. I can savor each poem seperately. I enjoy my ever deepening understanding of the characters and you.
What a gift.
Posted by Atticus on August 7, 2004, at 13:19:58
In reply to Re: poem ... Bullet Riders, 1988, posted by Jai Narayan on August 7, 2004, at 11:45:12
Thanks, Jai, as always. Temple's an ex-girlfriend from high school who took a ceramics course at NYU, where she met and became friends with Pez. Some backstory here: she had the idea to set up Pez and Walter. A boon for Alyssa and I, both of whom, separately, remain friends with Pez. Unfortunately, not such a boon in the end for Pez, who feels the need to help repair the broken wings of all the wounded sparrows around her -- like me, Alyssa, and Walter. Temple's made of much sterner stuff. Pez's real-life counterpart now teaches ceramics in Kansas City. She went on to get an MFA. (The first line of the first e-mail she sent me after I got out of the hospital: "You incredible dumbass." I had to smile.) Temple's still plugging away at her own art these days in North Carolina. With Alyssa in Minnesota, only Walter's still in NYC (yes, he did make it, but it was a close thing, a story for another time). Sometimes I think this city eats its young. I really appreciate your comments. I'm still curious about your paintings, if you feel like discussing them. :) Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 7, 2004, at 18:49:21
In reply to Re: poem ... Bullet Riders, 1988 » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on August 7, 2004, at 13:19:58
> I'm still curious about your paintings, if you feel like discussing them. :) Atticus
Was Temple friends with Alyssa?
Did they know each other?
I have always wondered how someone could stay friends forever...like Pez. How does she do it? What is her birthday, just the month and day?do you stay close to people you make friends with?
My painting....
I had a lot of angst from my childhood and I used painting as a way to express it. Most of the time I did self portraits (because I would sit for free and as long as I wanted). They are very intense paintings. I was partial to the Fauvists.I was always obsessed with death and saw death as the last struggle. I did portraits of older women and death. Also I did a painting (from a photo) of the Rosenbergs right before they were executed. I was an am very political and did a lot of my work for marches and demonstrations.
More recently I did a moody topo map of the local area and put all the untimelys (people who have died by murder or suicide) onto the map. I choose to put all the deaths since I had arrived in the area.
I took acrilyic paint and rubbed it (with my fingers) onto a topo map of the local area. I attached the topo to a piece of canvas (like a scroll).
I layered the colors. Keeping it very transparent. It looked like a beautifully bruised body.
Thanks for asking Atticus from Atlantis.
Posted by Atticus on August 7, 2004, at 21:19:07
In reply to My art...., posted by Jai Narayan on August 7, 2004, at 18:49:21
Re: your paintings -- Do you see death as the final struggle in terms of something we struggle against (I know about that very viscerally from personal experience) or as something we struggle to come to terms with the inevitability of? Your work with the topo map sounds very interesting; I've never encountered anything quite like that. The closest thing thematically would have been an exhibit of Andre Serrano's color photographs of bodies in a morgue, where the lividity and decay have so discolored the skin that it has taken on the appearance of an aerial photograph of topography. Saw that at MOMA years ago.
As for the people I'm drawing on for for my stories, I can only really make an educated extrapolation as to Temple's feelings about Alyssa. The scene in "Bullet Riders" took place in early spring of Temple's and my senior year of high school, and on that particularly existential night, we both, being prone to moody reflection, had the distinct sense that the wild and woolly days of adolescence were somehow drawing to a close. We were both heading off to college in the fall, so we decided that it would make the most sense if we mutually agreed that it would be OK to see other people. And, of course, at the beginning of my sophomore year, I fell head over heels for Alyssa. Their interactions were pretty strained at first. Temple may have (and I'm guessing here, since she never wanted to talk about it) resented the fact that I had never loved her with the same consuming intensity that she could see everytime she encountered Alyssa and I as a couple. Alyssa and I were so lovey-dovey (Alyssa's open, hippie-ish nature just seemed to nurture that naturally) that Temple would say, in a voice that was meant to sound joking but didn't quite make it, that we were "the most disgusting couple." By that she meant all the open and unabashed display of affection. Of course, our goth/punk social morays in high school had discouraged that kind of thing. But there obviously was an unabashed romantic buried under Temple's exterior; otherwise why would she have always insisted on driving out to Jersey in the ancient Temple-mobile so we could see the stars? Maybe she wished she had dropped that goth exterior just once and seen how I reacted; I don't really know. The real connection between Temple and Alyssa was, naturally, Pez, who always seemed to be the center of all things. (By the way, Pez was born March 11 -- I think that makes her a Pisces, which is supposed to be a good match for a Libra like me. It was true in our case, anyway.) I think Pez always ends up the linchpin in any set of relationships because her of intense and genuine interest in other people and her deep empathy. Looking at this with 20/20 hindsight (and a healthy daily dose of Effexor XR and other psychotropic meds), I think these were simultaneously her greatest strengths and her greatest sources of vulnerability as a human being. She just felt too much, and once you got past the footloose-and-fancy-free eccentric artist image she cultivated so carefully (especially with all her zany homemade hats and dyed hair) and her tough-love language, you realized she was as fragile as glass in many ways. I think the psychic toll that NYC takes on you over the long haul was just too much for such a sensitive person. I do try to stay close to the people I become friends with, but in recent years, as we've all moved into our thirties, things like geographic separation and, in the cases of some friends not mentioned in these stories, the start of families has made that more and more challenging. The way I unwittingly isolated myself as my illness gained more steam, allowing some friendships to die of neglect or embarrassment (I didn't want them to see me this way) hasn't helped either. I never did hear from Alyssa directly after I got out of the hospital -- only via messages relayed by Pez. I think Alyssa is determined to put mental illness (both her mother's and mine) in her rear-view mirror permanently, and was probably glad she was well out of the line of fire when the suicide attempt went down. It's all such complex stuff, the electrical impulses bouncing around inside peoples' heads. But it makes interesting things to write about, when I feel up to it -- mostly because of all the messy emotions that seem to dominate the scene when you're immersed in an urban bohemian/punk milieu like I was for so long.
Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 8, 2004, at 8:25:42
In reply to Re: My art.... » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on August 7, 2004, at 21:19:07
Who do you admire?
My favorite painters start with the impressionists, Fauvists, German expressionists, Mexican painters and more.
Sculpture: Rodin etc.
I like realism, at least that's sort of what I do. My best stuff was busts of people and some cubism. I worked in clay and stone.
I had a promising future in film as well.
These dreams have died and unhealthy death. They are still hungry ghosts.You are highly verbal and able to clearly analyze your work and others. This is quite a gift.
I am a left handed mostly non verbal artist.
I am quite verbal when it comes to psychological stuff but art....I love hearing your verbal ideas, impressions, and analysis.
Posted by Atticus on August 9, 2004, at 9:41:46
In reply to painting or visual art...who do you admire?, posted by Jai Narayan on August 8, 2004, at 8:25:42
Hi Jai,
My favorite painters begin with the Impressionists as well. I especially love the luminous creations of Degas. There are so many things about his work that fascinate me. For example, he crops more like a photographer than a painter, his ballerinas sometimes tumbling off the edge of the canvas and out of frame. His use of color, to my mind, is unparalleled, especially in his bathers. The incredible array and variety of relected colors he assembles in the women's wet skin is just stunning. As my college watercolor professor said, "That SOB could draw!" I also like Manet, not only for his brushstrokes but also for his social commentary. Manet's "Olympia," as I'm sure you know, is considered the first masterpiece of modern art, and deservedly so. The prostitute it portrays stares at the viewer (which would have most likely been a Parisian man in the salon) as an equal, as a businesswoman who knows that her body is a means to self-empowerment. She doesn't display a hint of shame or self-recrimination. The piece caused a worldwide stir when it came out, outrage and condemnation from all sides, but Manet remained unrepentant. I also love his famous painting of the barmaid at the Folies Bergeres, whose wistful, tired, beaten-down expression could just as easily be found today on a young woman working the graveyard shift at a Burger King. But most of my favorite painters are abstract expressionists and pop artists, the usual suspects: Pollock, Krasner, de Kooning, Rothko, Stella, Frankenthaler, Rauchenberg, Johns, Lichtenstein (although he's more of a one-trick pony than the others), Warhol, Basquiat. Among the abstract impressionists, I love the sheer energy of the brushstrokes and mark-making systems, the thick textural topography of the canvases, the focus on the movement of paint and presentation of color and value. The pop artists I like for their tongue-in-cheek commentary both on art and the fine-art world, and on popular culture. I think Picasso's "Guernica" is one of the most important pieces of the 20th century, a real stunner, but overall I'm not as attached to cubism as other movements. I like Miro, Mondrian, and Matisse the same way; I admire their work, but it just doesn't reach out and grab my by the guts, and that's what a great painting does for me. That's just a brief list off the top of my head. I'm sure I'm missing some others and they'll come to me later. Have a good day! :) Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 9, 2004, at 20:20:45
In reply to Re: painting or visual art...who do you admire? » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on August 9, 2004, at 9:41:46
Your description is a feast for the mind, eyes and soul. How do you do it???
Have you heard of Mr. Robert Henry who wrote "The Art Spirit"? Awesome work.
I would love to send you to my sister's web site but that would reveal who I really am....tisk.
I love the fauves because they were violently in love with color. The beasts!
I am very personal with my art. Lately more loving and private. I rub my fingers over the wounds of this life. I have a piece about the highway of death from Iraq where the USA shot and killed all the people fleeing from Kuwait. It's a deceptively beautiful image filled with death and distruction. That's the key I do images of terrible beauty. Twist your heart up art. That's me.
Oh my dear rogue, how fine it is to hear from you again.
Jai the Queen of Atlantis
Posted by Atticus on August 9, 2004, at 21:16:44
In reply to Re: painting or visual art...who do you admire?, posted by Jai Narayan on August 9, 2004, at 20:20:45
A pleasure for me as well, your majesty. I think that we both distill pain into our work, but come at it from different angles. You seem to suck up the world's pain like a sponge, then distill it into a piece. My work has always centered on my own internal conflicts, things I couldn't translate into words either due to the illness or because they called for the more ambiguous type of message that a painting, I think, conveys better for me. I never was comfortable working in 3-D, but I did marry a ceramicist and dated another in high school and became great friends with another, Pez, who also painted. But please let this court jester know what you think of his latest poem, "Feet of Clay in Steel-Toed Boots." I always look forward to your comments.
Ta. :) That incorrigible layabout and scoundrel, Atticus of Atlantis
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 10, 2004, at 8:17:40
In reply to Re: painting or visual art...who do you admire? » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on August 9, 2004, at 21:16:44
To that incorrigible layabout and scoundrel, Atticus of Atlantis
so are you going to become hands of clay as a opposted to feet of clay?
There is something so fresh and exciting about using a new medium for fun.
I find each medium: film, clay, wood, wire, found objects, paint, scratch board, etc helps me to express a different part of myself and life. I love being a beginner at some new craft and task. The child within gets to play. I don't have the art critic hanging over my shoulder. Since I've graduated from Art School I have been inhibited. Self critical.
Do you have any ideas on how to deal with that problem?
It's not the same with my written word...yet.Psychic and seer Jai Narayan of Atlantis
Posted by Atticus on August 10, 2004, at 19:29:31
In reply to 3-D Art, posted by Jai Narayan on August 10, 2004, at 8:17:40
To Jai of Atlantis, Keeper of the Emerald Flame of Visions,
It's very interesting that you bring up the topic of artistic inhibition, because Alyssa often asked me a similar question. She was too self-consciously trying to create (flourish of coronets) ART, rather than using the media for self-expression. For her, the ART became the end in and of itself, rather than the means to try to grasp and transmit some perceived truth about the human condition. Certainly, aesthetics are very important to me when I write or draw, but at the end of a piece, I step back and see if it is verbally or non-verbally communicating something larger than itself. She also, I felt, relied far too much on others for approbation of her work. For me, the process was (and remains) radically different, though I never could quite convince her that she'd enjoy the process more if she'd at least give my advice a go just once. The times I have felt artistically stymied (when my brain wasn't chemically misfiring, which is a whole other can of worms) occurred when I thought too much about how the piece would be received. I very quickly arrived at the conclusion that as long as the work was emotionally naked and brutally honest, as long as I had held nothing back for fear of being judged, I was answerable to no one. This was a very liberating epiphany. If someone likes a written or painted piece I do, fine. If not, well, "Chacun a son gout," as the French say. I truly don't care which way it goes; I know in my own gut if something is working or not, and usually if it's not, it's because I've withheld something important -- maybe even something ugly about myself -- for fear of being perceived as odd. Interestingly, now that I openly acknowledge my mental illness rather than hiding it like some dark secret, I've felt a greater degree of freedom and less inhibition than ever. If people already think I'm crazy, I've really got nothing to lose by really pushing the envelope artistically. My painted work has always been mostly about the fusion of ancient and current mythologies, the parallels between the two, and why we need them. I haven't created any myths as nifty as our ancestors did in developing Atlantis, but I think along the same lines: How can I bring a mythic aura to what seems to be the mundane nature of day-to-day modern life. One of my paintings shows, in psychedelic tones and semi-abstract marks, a titanic marine iquana in place of Manhattan, with the skyline its body-length dorsal fin, and all the famous buildings simultaneously recognizable yet transformed into Native American totems. The notion behind it, I suppose, is the idea that all of the spirits and dreams of all the people and creatures who have ever lived on this 26-mile-long piece of earth i call home have permeated the soil, and the land remembers it all, and the land is so old that in its mind, these myths have become one with the earth spirit's identity. It's titled "In the Dreamtime." I have it hanging in my office at work, and almost everyone uses the same word to describe it: "Weird." But then, so am I, so I guess it's a success. Another, "Shaman," links a live performance by the late Kurt Cobain, who lived in Seattle, with the notion of the holy frenzy. I've included all types of Pacific Northwest Indian symbols and totems, as if, like the shamans of old, the sheer group energy of the concert had summoned up ancient gods invisible to all but me. Kurt himself is covered in abstracted totemic symbols, and about to smash his guitar at the show's climactic moment. It's not as cheesy as it sounds -- honest. The swirling mark-making system and rich palette give both these paintings a clear sense of a chaotic and off-balance mind at work -- my own. They were painted within months of each other in 1998, as my mental disintegration and substance abuse accelerated. i guess there's not so much a preoccupation with death (though, of course, Cobain did kill himself) as there is with the unseen forces around us. Perhaps on some level, I was relating all this to the unseen and uncontrollable forces taking my mind from me. Hard to say. But I guess the bottom line is to be utterly honest in the work, to conceal nothing, and let the chips fall where they may. I don't know if any of this was helpful, but all I can offer is my own take on making visual art. Ta. :) Atticus of Atlantis, The Rogue Who Even Now Is Being Pursued By King Niall's Soldiers For Filching The Emerald From The Royal Sceptre And Trading It For A Dozen Bottles Of Incomparable Atlantean Wine
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 10, 2004, at 23:09:51
In reply to Re: 3-D Art » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on August 10, 2004, at 19:29:31
Oh my, you do go on. How sweet. I love the way you do go on. What a cool description of your art. I am so into the spritual imagery. We have a local mystic art store that sells the kind of art you make. Visionary art. You are something else. I would love to see your art. It might be inspiring. What is your color pallet (did I spell that right?)?
I was always fond of certain colors.
Jai Narayan of Atlantis who looked into her azure sphere filled with the souls of those who know the future and saw.....Your smiling face.
This is the end of the thread.
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