Anne Frank House

 

Today I toured the Anne Frank Museum -- photo represents the view out of the lower part of the building with the hidden rooms.

Rijksmuseum

Obligatory shot.  Today paid a visit to the Rijksmuseum.  Some Dutch guy started talking to me about a 17th century domestic painting, insisting I explain why "I liked it." He went on to say, "I'm from here, and this is my first visit (to the museum)... shame on me."

Amsterdam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Montana 1919

 

 

 

My maternal grandfather (on the right of the photo) and one of his brothers.

Oneonta Gorge, 1912

 

 

 

link:  Oneonta Gorge

Jahrhunderthalle, Breslau 1937

 

 

 

link:  Jahrhunderthalle

Spool

 

 

Today marks 50 years and one day after Aldous Huxley, and C.S. Lewis died.  I am presently re-reading Brave New World.

50 Years

 

 

 

 

I am re-posting this image, originally from 5/17/2012.  The killing of the sacred king on 11/22/63 occurred before my birth.  Yet the murder and the later shocks of the 1960s tinged the atmosphere,  an unseen train passing.  I cannot recall when I first gained a concept of the Kennedy assassination -- the tropes seemed to emerge complete, like Minerva.  And the mystery of Oswald, who traveled when and where he pleased (except on his final journey), and the mystery of the companion shooter, or shooters, if they existed, persists.

 

Australis

 

Australis

 

 

Wake of river, between mist-filled canyons, dense trees, leeches, roads wrought on the backs of ridges, untraced save by feet.

 

Bark and circles.

 

Black iron pagodas and low, square-founded sites, with around shimmering, yellow stalk, a true Neanderthal head, an unmanifested star:  Standing at angles to the sun on top of the hill.

 

Not an inch uncultivated, kelp, no titanic masonry dropped, bordering, and draping, filled-in oratories, dragon creepers, fjords, scarce walkers, the upper dell obliquely green, ice and grey churning.

 

JF ca. 1990

 

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled painting by myself, from 1986.  Tempera on paper.

 

Room, from 1986

 

 

 

 



Lily Dale, Spiritualist Community

 

 

Lily Dale, New York

 

Postcard sent to me in 1990.  Link:  Lily Dale

Wicker Portrait, 1921

 

 

 

 

Left to right:  My great-great grandfather (from Scotland), great-aunt, second cousin, and great-grandmother (from Scotland).  Milwaukie, Oregon, 1921.

Photomontage

 

 

Blarney

 

 

 

C.Q.D.

 

 

 

 

 

C.Q.D. (link)



Vienna

 

 

 

Cathedral Island, Wrocław

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is no longer an island: Ostrów Tumski.  The time when I was there, a flautist played Bach as I walked the Tumski Bridge.  The notes faded into the bricks and stonework of the ancient fanes and houses.

 

The postcard looks to date from communist- era Poland, maybe 1950s or 60s.  The language, not surprisingly, is Polish, and the sender appeared to have forgotten to bring the recipient's address. 

Wyspa Tumska is an alternate form of Ostrów Tumski -- Dominsel in German, or Cathedral Island in English.

 



World Time Map

 

 

From a shortwave radio guide, 1954.  Many of the place names in this pamphlet, such as "Ciudad Trujillo" in the Dominican Republic, have since undergone changes.

Radio Log Book (1920s)

Bad breath, muddy complexion, dull eyes, nervous headache, nervous indigestion -- who wants that?

Concerning Dr. Miles and Dr. Miles Nervine (sic) :  http://arnoldzwicky.org/2010/12/18/dr-miles-nervine/

White Alice

My father (on the left) playing chess, 1958, Alaska, at the time of the White Alice Network project.

New Blog

I opened a second blog, Aardcoyote Jonathan, one for occasionally posting some of my writing:

http://liegnitzyugen.tumblr.com/

Your truly John

 

 

Toe to Toe with the Rooskies II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another relic from the Alaskan project my father worked on in the late 1950s (see entry of  3 August 2012).  I am pretty sure the White Alice network, or anything concerning it, no longer falls under the label of "classified" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Alice_Communications_System -- in fact, the government decommissioned the antenna array decades ago.  White Alice -- wasn't that a Jefferson Airplane Song?

 

In Hodges' biography of Alan Turing, he indicates that American usage made "classified" a synonym for "top secret," rather than referring to levels of classification.  Classification level:  Top stupid.   Then, the American habit of saying "hello" repeatedly through the day irritated Turing during one of his stints here.

 

The guy on the phone looks as if he's about to issue some kind of doomsday order.  Serious business, no doubt.

Stay off the Moon!

 

 

Amazing

 

December 1962

 

Cover art by Alex Schomburg

Breslau 1937

 

 

"Wroclaw not Breslau" doesn't have quite the same ring as "Istanbul not Constantinople."

Shade of Branches

 

 

 

 

 

This picture depicts solid, sturdy people who looked as if they could stand up to troubles and challenges. 

And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks

 

 

 

Months and years after I first gained awareness of William S. Burroughs' (http://realitystudio.org/ -- thanks to Ray of Rigadoon23 for making me aware of this website) and Jack Kerouac's (http://www.dharmabeat.com/kerouac.html) early collaborative novel, And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks, I finally rolled over my eyes it.
I also am working over Junkie, or the edited version of it, re-reading this one.   Guys, couldn't you have tried a little harder with the Hippos cover?  Based on the covers of the two above, which book would you be drawn to?

And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks reeled me in with its great frame of Kerouac's and Burroughs' fictionalized self-portraits, Mike Ryko and Will Dennison.  Any novel with the title, And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks, and which uses the same phrase in its text, is already commendable.  (James Grauerholz's sterling afterword explores the possible sources of the Hippos title, along with discussing the Carr/Kammerer case which inspired the central events of the novel.) Rimbaud and "Phillip Tourian's" New Vision pepper the novel's trajectory to its ambiguous climax.  Some pages I lost track of which author wrote which chapter, a sign that Gysin's third mind here germinated.  Burroughs' writing, while not fully confident and crystallized, has a characteristically darkly dry and funny quality.  "Monday morning I got a letter from a detective agency to report to work.  I'd applied for the job about a month ago and almost forgotten about it.  Evidently they hadn't checked on my fingerprints and the fake references I'd given them."  Kerouac's melancholy descriptions of New York and picaresque accounts of merchant marine matters hold great appeal as well.  World War II, always over the horizon, influences the work in a lunar, tidal fashion.

Reading Junkie again, I was startled by its magnificence -- one great observation and character description following another.

Lisbon

 

 

 

Someone sent me this card from Lisbon in 2004.  It takes some work to be that tired.

Oddities V (ca. 1983) back cover

 

 

 

 

 

Cosmic planaria god art by Roman Scott.

Oddities V (ca. 1983), Inside Back Cover

 

 

 

Drawing by Jonathan Falk

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 8

 

 

 

 

"Hypostasis" by Steve Sneyd.  "Art World Oddities" by John Engebretson.

Oddities 5 (ca. 1983) page 7

 

 

 

Background by Roman, poem about the soul-lacking social Darwinist by Steve Sneyd:  http://steve-sneyd.com/.  The "ransom note"-style poem and the unsigned "tarantula love" poem are mysterious -- I don't recall who created them, if I ever knew.

Oddities (ca. 1983) page 6

 

 

 

Drawings/ Collages by Paul S. Colvin, Jonathan Falk, and Marc Myers

 

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 5

 

 

 

Poetry/ collage by Roman Scott

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 4

 

 

 

Poetry by Bruce Boston.  More info about Bruce Boston:  http://bruceboston.com/

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 3

 

 

 

 

 

Work by Impasto Artaud

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 2

 

 

 

 

Story by Jonathan Falk

 

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 1

 

 

 

Work by Impasto Artaud, Larry Keim, and Paul McIntyre