Attitudes, Assholes and Art

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."
~ Viktor Frankl

Frankl survived Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Dachau. I’ll take attitude advice from him over the Orange Menace's aspirational, Disneyfied weasel shit, any damn day.

"As of Friday, 23 US states have issued stay-at-home orders, asking residents to shelter in place and go out only for essential services like buying food and medicine. Many cities and counties in states that don't have these policies have issued similar orders, and 10 other states and territories have ordered nonessential businesses to close: Guam, Puerto Rico, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC." (source)

n.b.: all the red states with little to NO flatten-
the-spread measures. Shocked?
Nope, not in the least.

Mississippi’s spectacularly dimwitted, assholian governor, Tate Reeves, signed an executive order on Tuesday to override safety measures established by the towns. Brutally braindead Bozo that he is, he went as far as declaring that gun shops (!!!), department stores, and real-estate offices (!!!) are "essential" and should stay open. How many Mississippians will get the Trump Plague and die for Reeves' microscopic-dicked egoism?

"This is the terrible law of the universe. This is the basic law; it is a fact… Absolute suffering leads to — is the means to — absolute beauty."
~ P.K. Dick

If you open your bean to it, sure.

I’m painting more now and feel more artistically focused than I have since The Amazing Bob shuffled off this mortal coil (three years and some change ago). This is, in part, because I’m shaking (Essential Tremors) somewhat less than I was pre-surgery. I’m back to painting people on canvas versus paper – it's one of my happy places. (pics when I get farther along)

The increased painting is also due to NOT being able to get out to go all snap-happy – my long-ass, still-not-complete recovery is as much at fault as the plague induced lockdowns.

This morning's dawn – taken before all the dog walkers came out

"The art of living is based on rhythm — on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis. One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. … But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression. To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender."
~ Henry Miller

Life as a dance. Yeah, I can dig it. Right now, we’re all hoofers in Yang Liping’s Peacock Contemporary Dance Company and we’re breakin’ big in The Rite of Spring.