“In the beginning was the word…”
This statemet is simply not true.
In the beginning were grass-clippings. I stumbled upon this when I was making the earth. Being humble I started out small: grass-clippings, leaves and the odd vegetable peelings piled up in your back yard make : EARTH.

Soon I will step up my operations. If anyone is in need of a mid-sized asteroid or a small planet, please email me immediately.
Stars and galaxies are still in the experimental phase, but will be added as soon as I can get them off the ground.

Reasonable fees.
Cash only.

My research into the origin of my family has taken me all the way back to a certain Adam Zaremba who lived in the vicinity of Bhagdad. Of course, Bhagdad—The City of Light”—wasn’t there yet. We have to thank this ancestor of mine for naming all the animals. He correctly named the ant “ANT”, and the zebra “ZEBRA”, without making a single mistake! He even named the RHINOTZEROSS, even though it is very difficult to spell.

Did he get payed for this? No.
On the contrary, The absentee landlord—a Mr. G. (who has more aliases than a dog has fleas)—accused him of stealing apples and threatened him with a flaming sword.
I ask you, what is a man to eat, when he doesn’t get payed and is so poor that he has to construct a pair of pants from fig-leaves???

If you put lines and dots on paper, you get a painting.
If you take the Lord’s name in vain. throw your brush out the window and promise to burn down Boston, then you have discovered the inner workings of creativity!

Let me name some of the dots and lines:

Hair-pin Curve
Bearers grabbing the Right-of-Way
Pellet Holes
Stains on a Leaky Ceiling

Painting is a method for representing the world in the process of transformation and interaction.
The cricket emerged from a sea of ink-tones—and now it is interacting with you.
Haven’t you noticed, it is looking at you?

On their thousandth birthday deers turn white.
That explains why a white deer is a symbol of longevity.

So where does the happiness come from?
From a peculiarity of the Chinese language.
The word for happiness (fu) happens to be the same as the word for bat (fu).
Logically, whenever you see a painting containing a white deer and bats—if it is in English—it means “Oh Dear, you are going batty!”;
but if it is in Chinese, it means “A Thousand Years of Happiness”.

The bats, by the way, are dancing around the moon.
Some personages have complained that those thingies look, suspiciously like ink-spots.
These people lack true understanding.
Those are BATS!
If I say so.

Tags:, sumi, painting,sumi-e, japanese painting, chinese painting,

…but I fell asleep.
Instead, I dreamt two new paintings.


”A Painting Larger than itself”





“A Gordian Bird Contemplating Not”


When I wake up, I’ll explain to you what it means.

There exists a mistaken notion that Art is useless.
Well, not my art!
You could actually eat this painting without suffering any bad effects.
Really! It’s mostly fiber with a bit of inert carbon (that’s the ink).
The glue—a secret wheat-paste which I cook myself— is really nutritious!

So there are a few unknown minerals in the color.
Isn’t that what you are supposed to take, mineral supplements??

To preempt the possibility of constipation I suggest a spot of Beluga Caviar
and a flute, or two, of the bubbly…

I am just mentioning this once more, you beetle-headed dewberries:

In this universe there is only one method, which is no method.
A single brushstroke can describe even that which lies beyond the border of the universe —
and you want to control the brush?
Are you mad??
You want to control the endless transformations of nature???

Lookie here, you spongy-brained barnacles,
concentration—the mother of creativity—has nothing to do with control.
It has something to do with wanting something worthwhile.

You can’t swing a cat without hitting someone with opposing views.



Daruma went to China to start a new company. Looking for investors he approached Emperor Wu singing:

Hey Woo
If ev’ry Chink buys a shoo
we could be wealthy
me and yoo

The Ruler of the Liang Dynasty, felt insulted by this racial epithet.
“And where did you get your big nose?” he fired back?
Daruma, thinking this must be some kind of a Koan, answered

“The cool refreshing evening breeze”

That ended the interview. He was politely asked to leave, now—and never to return.

As he arose, he mumbled the s-word. That’s what some people say.
Others say he used the a-word.
Others, again, were quite shure it was the f-word he kept repeating.

Thus the Origins of Ch’an are shrouded in Mystery.



No matter how many times you kick him, he always gets up again, our hairy, round-eyed friend, the big-nosed foreigner.

I buy the best rice-paper in the world—Red Star Shuen from China. Then I paint on the wrapping paper of the parcel; because I’m a burly-headed, penny-pinching gudgeon. The painting method used here consists of random accidents.


Since I couldn’t bring myself to pay real money for real shoes, I hiked the Himalayas in a pair of huaraches made by a hasty-witted hugger-mugger in Afghanistan. Custom made, they only cost two dollars; but for that they would break down, at least, once a day. No problem; every village has a sandal maker who lives in an abandoned crate on Main Street. By watching the repair every day, I became so good, that I could sit down in the crate on Main Street and do the job myself.

By the time I got to India, my footwear had become indestructible—
and was promptly stolen, while I was saying hello to God in a temple.

Whoever has put himself into my shoes is hereby encouraged to mail the precious items to me for a tune up. No questions asked.
All my work is guaranteed.
Forever.

I have never seen anything like this;
but I imagine, that’s what the real world would look like, if it were real.

Like a great poet, Nature knows how to achieve the greatest effects with the smallest of means.
All one needs is one sun, trees, flowers, and love.

However, if the latter is missing from the heart of the viewer, then the whole will be a poor sight,
and the sun will only be so many miles in diameter, the trees just good for heating, the flowers will be classified by their stamens,
and the water will be wet.

Now you have something to complain.

The little wabbit is sad and lonely.
Now it is all alone in the world.

When his eleven brothers and sisters were still alive—and his two hundred and thirty-five cousins—they were one big family. They ate four-leaf clovers and drank dew-drops from hyacinth petals. Life was wonderful, then; especially the night when Papa came hopping back from Mexico with a whole suitcase of the finest grass from South of the Rio Grande. Ah, how they danced in the moonlight…

The next morning is when it happened. Farmer Mc Gregor says it was an agricultural accident. The little wabbits family perished, and the meadow is no more. The little wabbit is lonely and sad. All the grass is gone.

The little wabbit has taken to stealing cabbages from Mc Gregor. You have to eat something!
Shop-and-Stop has received complaints about a lonely wabbit knocking old ladies over in the parking lot and running away with the vegetables! Oh my!

The little lonely wabbit is thinking of buying a gun and getting into the used hub-cap business.

I am afraid, this is not going to end well…

When cranes sing, they crane their necks. That’s why they are called cranes.
But why are they singing?
To protect their territory.

Birds have existed for over a hundred million years. They knew how to fly when the first mammals still lived like rats, because they looked like rats.
And by singing—not by warfare—hey have successfully protected themselves..
It has worked for them, for a hundred million years!

The defense industry rejects the idea as ridiculous.

And now a painting in the Lingnang style.
The brush strokes are strong and firm, yet the effect is gentle and easy.
I am indebted to Master Ch’ao.
I wonder of he’s still alive.

The myth of progress—and with it History—has finally collapsed.
The avant-garde, which prided itself of being ahead of its time, suddenly finds itself irrelevant.
Now the world is waiting for the resurrection of the soul.

While you are waiting for a catharsis, you can buy this painting which is utterly devoid of progress—or history— for the special price of $ 199.99 plus shipping and handling, (whatever that is).
Residents of Massachusetts must pay a 6.5% sales tax; all others will be dealt with by the Revolutionary Council.

Sooner or later my students will suspect that they are holding the short end of the stick. They accuse me of having painted for thousands of years, while they have been duped into taking up the mysterious oriental brush which might explode any minute!
To scatter these accusations and irrational fears I dropped my brush, dipped my fingers into the ink and painted this beautiful scene:

On a hot summer day a water buffalo is enjoying a dip in the pond, close to the shore, under the branches of a willow. The sun is shining, and a light breeze is blowing.
On another level, the peaceful bull symbolizes the mind which has been trained and brought under control. The controlled mind does what it is supposed to do automatically. Force is no longer necessary. The self is at peace.

To be fair, I have to mention that finger painting is not the entertainment of five year olds, but the last word in efficiency.
Only Picasso could top it; he claimed to be painting with his balls…

In my studio there are two piles of paintings, alltogether four thousand of them. Actually, there could be seven thousand; I can't count them. Most of them are worthless and should be burned. Occasionally one finds something like this.
Perfect.

Fujisan is Japan's most sacred mountain.
In America, mountains are decidedly not sacred. You can blow their tops away to save a few bucks.
Here, instead, the horse is sacred. No one in California or Illinois is allowed to eat the sacred animal; and if you want to kill a horse, you have to put it in a bus to Guadalahara.

The national dress of the natives of El Norte are pants with "stove-pipe" leggings. Originally designed for riding horses, these curious garments are rather uncomfortable; they cut off the circulation which reduces sperm-production in the American male.
The last fact—the insufficient sperm count—produces feeble, imbecilic offspring, and explains the gradual stupefication of the citizenry.

Buddha started his career as a Buddha by meditating with a band of yogis. Not knowing anything about the jungle he sat down on a patch of poison ivy—and Buddhism was born!
Understandably, his first statement was: "Life is suffering". Then he pronounced The Four Noble Truths:

1. Leaves of three—let them be!
2. Treat blisters with calamine lotion.
3 .Wear loose clothing
4. Don't scratch yourself!!!

If you haven't heard this before, you've been reading poor translations. The literature is full of it! Take, for instance The Sermon Of The Flower:

One day, instead of sermonizing, the Buddha held up a red flower.
No one knew what to make of this.
Then his favorite disciple Mahakasyapa smiled knowingly.
End of sermon.

Well, folks, this should read "red leaves" instead of "red flower". You realize that he was holding up a twig of poison ivy. (And Mahakasyapa, by that time, had also been infected.)

There is a wealth of evidence that the Enlightened One never got rid of the affliction until his last day on earth.

Buddha prepares to enter Mahaparinirvana.
"Surrounded by weeping disciples , he lays down on his right side…"

Here the word "disciples" is a mistranslation of "blisters".
Don't dying people lie on their back? Well, his back was still covered with weeping blisters.


Now that all doubts have been removed, set out on the spiritual path!


…but stick to the Middle Path.

If this is true, then you have to admit that the world is perfect.
If this cannot be true, then you might as well laugh.