Omni Sight Seeing

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

So much ugliness in this world, and one sees death being played out as pretty much entertainment for the spectacle.  When I was a child, I remembered watching my cat trapping a mouse in the corner of the room.  He would drag the mouse into the house by clutching the scared rodent between his teeth.  He let it drop and then chased after the mouse.  He would put its paw on the mouse’s tail and bat it around, not enough to kill the poor little beast but to play with it.  The mouse would try to fight back, but it is almost fruitless to do so.   Eventually, either the mouse will be let go due to the cat’s boredom or killed and, in most cases, killed.  This is pretty much what I regularly see in the world.

There are two artists that I like very much.  One is David Hockney, who conveys a perfect world for me, and then there is the cartoonist Basil Wolverton, that represents the horror that is out there and somehow makes it… funny.   The truth is I’m having a difficult time laughing or even crying. I’m just feeling numb to the world.  My only defense is to purchase art books by Hockney that gives me a sense of relief in a world that is relentless and consistently cruel.   At times, I should contribute a stance against the cruelty, but in the end, one would be laughed at or ridiculed in a manner that is very close to bullying.  No, I think I would rather lay on my couch and look at Hockney’s landscapes - the paintings and the collage photographs.  I will put on a CD I bought in Japan some years ago, “Omni Sight Seeing” by Haruomi Hosono, and drift into a blissful state.

I do this, realizing that I’m entering a world that is not real. Artifice should be a country, and if there is such a country, I would be the proudest patriot of that state.   Then again, artifice can serve many purposes in various ways.  Donald Rumsfeld seems to be a good citizen of this ‘country. ' Responsible for legalizing aspartame, better known as NutraSweet, and was the property of Monsanto, but that’s another tale.  What makes him interesting is that he believes in power for the sake of power because he can do it.  It is almost zen-like!   My problem is that I’m full of doubt, and even though I can escape for a moment, a day, perhaps a lifetime, I will always feel the strains of my conscience, as it never stops working and moving.  Although I want to live in a world of Hockney, I think my true nature is with Basil.

I need to confront the insanity to make it somehow sane, but alas, it is hard to think about these things as missiles and dead bodies are added up by the hour.  By the time I end this ‘Journal’ entry, more death will happen.  I don’t think it will be a big difference either way.  I’ll stay on the couch and look at landscape paintings.