Updates

My former colleagues at Huntington Park High School, will find out Monday if they've been rehired. The rest will have to pack up and clear out. My heart grieves for these fine people who've been bulldozed by a system that values the appearance of sweeping reform above the hard, incremental work of actual achievement.

As for me, I am leaving for France and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to make any further posts to this blog until July 9th. I hope you'll remember to drop by.

Untitled by Apostoles Georgiou, a contemporary Greek painter. I've seen a number of his untitled paintings that depict little frozen moments before indistinct backgrounds. He thereby gives us liberty to project our own associations, which in my case, is that of waking a sleeping student. Metaphorically I can think of no more powerful image. As proof, allow me to challenge you to role play both of these figures: in what way are you the awakener? In what way the sleeper? Click on the picture for a closer look.

On a Lake at Sunset

The winter, my first real one in many years, was magical in the mountains, with trees and hillcrests clad in heavy snow and framed by deep blue skies. But now the trees are in full leaf and my dog finds the sun on the deck well to her liking. Summer's almost here at Lake Arrowhead and I'm thinking of getting a little boat.

This artist is new to me: Theo Booth. Here he's spun a fantasy that may almost be within my reach, and calls it For You. Look how he tells this romantic and naughty tale with circles and lines. Is her bonnet translucent, or is that a halo? Would that all saints had such bountiful cleavage. Her beau proffers the bouquet of what appear to be not flowers, but ripe berries, with his head and arm aligned in phallic urgency. Indeed, his other arm, the tip of the oar, and the oarlock that squeezes it, along with the tilt of the Champagne bottle toward the orb of her knee, are all so suggestive that I can write no more about them.

Booth used to restore boats. His artistic influences, among others, have been Modigliani and Tamara de Lempicka. He's lived in many countries but is currently based in Barcelona. Others have written that he celebrates the escapist possibilities of travel. Again the fantasy seems created especially for me as I'm leaving for France later this month. Perhaps there I'll find a little lake where I can rent a boat and row out at sunset with a comely passenger and a bottle of bubbly. Pour moi? Thank you, Theo.

For You by Theo Booth. Click on the picture for a closer look.