process; intent
…
quarantine paintings: set one
A series of works in watercolor and oil. This is the first section in this series, addressing the current pandemic and its effects worldwide.
Each painting was complete before being named for an affected place and dedicated to a person.
no. 1 – Milan
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Dr. Marcelo Natali
1963-3/25/20
“We certainly weren’t prepared to face such a situation. Especially those of our generation, that of the post-antibiotic era, who grew up thinking that a pill against the disease was enough.”
no. 2 – Northwestern United States
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Dr. Stephen M. Schwartz
(January 1, 1942 – March 17, 2020)
“There is no way to summarize a person as complex as Steve, but I’ll say this: I have never met a person with a finer mind, a greater passion for ideas, or who had a greater love for science,” Dr. Chuck Murry
“This beer virus I call it — they call it a coronavirus, I call it a beer virus — how do you like that?” Rep. Don Young
no. 3 – Iran
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Dr. Shirin Rouhani
(unknown- 3/19/20)
“She treated patients at Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran while receiving IV therapy, because there were not enough doctors. Hospitals are faced with a lack of protective gear including medical gowns, N95 masks, gloves, and disinfectants.” -Javad Tavakoli
” Tell medècin sans frontiers that we do not need hospitals established by foreigners”. -Health Minister, Alireza Vahhabzadeh.
no. 4 – Rikers Island, New York
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated to Michael Tyson, 53
“Incredible anxiety and fear. You cannot implement effective social distancing in a room that sleeps forty men. You cannot implement effective social distancing when those forty men are using two or three sinks and one of them may be broken. You cannot implement effective social distancing when the staff interacts with all of them and has to touch all of them in the course of a day.
They know that better than I know that. So when I was talking to them, I was sort of feebly saying, “We want to try to encourage people to be even more diligent about hand-washing, etc., etc.” They were, like, “O.K., we don’t have our own cleaning supplies.” They can’t wipe down their own surfaces. They have to wait for someone to come in and do that for them.”
“The largest category of people in city jails are those awaiting trial — people who have not been charged but not convicted. In the ordinary course of events, getting someone in this position out of jail requires an application made in court before a judge.”
-Dr. Bedard
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that the state had found a way to counteract price gouging on hand sanitizer amid the COVID-19 outbreak: by deploying cheap prison labor. Incarcerated people will be producing the disinfectant… “This is a superior product to products now on the market,” Cuomo said in a briefing, adding that the state’s sanitizer has a “very nice floral bouquet” that includes hints of lilac, tulip, and hydrangea.
no. 5 – Los Angeles, Mercy
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Francisco Garcia
“There’s a very limited supply, it’s a scary situation. Just going to work, driving to work, you’re worried you’re going to get something. It’s changing by the hour and by the day.” S. Beltran, ER nurse .
“This week the State Department has facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials.” -Mike Pompeo, Feb 7 2020
no. 6 – Wuhan
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for
Dr. Li Wenliang
(1986-2/7/2020)
“I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don’t approve of using public power for excessive interference.” -Dr. Li Wenliang
“Now, the Democrats are politicising the coronavirus… this is their new hoax.” -Donald Trump
“Trump has botched the response to coronavirus pandemic…classifying deliberations makes it harder for health experts in government without security clearances to be in key meetings. This is unprecedented, unnecessary, and damages our ability to respond to the pandemic.”
-Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale epidemiologist
“You, Dr. Li Wenliang, have been making false comments on the Internet, and will sign a letter of admonishment.”
-Police from the Wuhan Public Security Bureau, Jan 3 2020
no. 7 – Madrid
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Dr. Isabel Munoz
( 1961 -3/24/2020)
“Her only obsession was not to infect anybody.” -Jesus Munoz
“Even if we all get sick, I’d rather die than kill the country.” -Glenn Beck
no. 8 – Johannesburg
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Simon
(unknown)
“They put us here and now we are close to one another. This is why we will be vulnerable to catching Corona. Our government has failed us,” Simon, homeless man moved by police to stadium from the street.
“The lockdown has caused problems, but it is a necessary thing that South Africa had to do,” -Maider Mavi, Mozambique Health Ministry. “Anyone showing symptoms who goes to a state hospital will have their COVID-19 test for free.”
“The goal here is to keep Covid out of this community,” says Sasha Lalla, a leader at COSUP, a city-supported substance abuse program.
“I think then we will be seeing a situation where people with compromised immune systems are not just at risk of Covid-19, they are at risk of death. We have a responsibility to keep our most vulnerable safe,” he said. “One case here, it would be like wildfire.”
no. 9 – New York City
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Father Antonio Checo
May 6, 1952-April 1, 2020
“Words cannot describe the sadness and hurt as well as the frustrations that this pandemic has brought about to our daily lives here and across the city…Effective today, all Episcopal churches have been ordered closed until May 17, 2020…we as your clergy are still accessible via phone as your pastors in these times. And since we cannot gather as a community until May, we want to begin to periodically send you the weekly bible readings as that you can use for private prayer worship.
…take an hour each day to pray these prayers remembering those who have died because of this pandemic, as well as those who are sick and those “essential” workers on the frontlines who ensure we as citizens have access to life sustaining resources for day to day living. We ask for the blessing of peace and hope to you all, and that all are safe in this time of uncertainty and anxiety.”
Rev. Antonio Checo and Rev. Jason Moskal, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
“We brought in 13 machines that basically kill every virus in the place, and uh, if somebody walks through the door it’s like, it kills everything on them. If they sneeze, it shoots it down at like 100 mph. It’ll neutralize it in split seconds. We have the most sterile building in, I don’t know, all of America.”
-Rodney Howard-Browne, River Tampa Bay Megachurch
no. 10 – Tokyo
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Ken Shimura
(20 February 1950 – 29 March 2020)
“I never feared getting an infection myself,” he said, because he knows “how infection control should be done.” But aboard the Diamond Princess, “I was so scared of getting COVID-19.”
“The cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control.”
-Kentaro Iwata, who has dealt with infectious outbreaks, including Ebola, cholera and SARS, for more than 20 years.
“I’m choosing not to do it.” -donald trump, on masks
no. 11 – The Bronx
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for
Rakkhon Kim, a member of Branch 36 in New York City
1970-March 25,2020
“It is not an exaggeration to say that our men and women in the Postal Service, who were already performing one of the most important jobs in America, are now literally putting their own lives on the line to deliver the food, medicine, and essential supplies that hundreds of millions of Americans depend on every single day during this pandemic.”
-Senator Bernard Sanders
“It’s been losing billions of dollars a year for many, many years… this is the new one, I’m now the demise of the Postal Service. I’ll tell you who’s the demise of the Postal Service, are these internet companies that give their stuff to the Postal Service…They drop everything in the post office and they say, ‘You deliver it.’ “
-president Donald Trump
no. 12 – Washington, DC
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for
Rabbi Romi Cohn
Holocaust survivor
March 10, 1929-March 24, 2020
“The crisis caused by the coronavirus may be the time to consider a universal basic wage.”
-Pope Francis
“God will shield us from all harm and sickness. We are not afraid. We are called by God to stand against the Antichrist creeping into America’s borders.”
-Tony Spell3
no. 13 – Atlanta
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for
Rushia Johnson Stephens
music teacher
1954-2020
“Given our population density, high rate of asthma, and various underlying health conditions found within our city’s populations, I am issuing a Stay at Home Order for Atlantans.”
-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
“adding a public option to Obamacare is the best way to lower costs and cover everyone. 160 million people like their private insurance.”
-Joe Biden
no. 14 – Lansing
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for
Lisa Ewald
nurse
1966-2020
“COVID-19 has impacted the lives of so many citizens throughout the state of Michigan, and even more pronounced in the city of Detroit, as we are the fastest growing city nationally with casualties related to this deadly disease.”
-Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo
“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
-Donald Trump
no. 15 – Paris
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for
Dr. John F. Murray
pulmonologist
June 8, 1927 – March 24, 2020
“In all his dealings in the ICU, John treated every person with respect and held them to high standards, whether it was the intern just starting in the ICU or the fellow who was a much more senior trainee, or the nurses or the therapists. Everybody had something to offer and was treated as a member of this team.”
-Courtney Broaddus
“You have to do what’s best for your business.”
-Wayne Hoffman
no. 17 (final, butcher’s bill)- New Orleans, LA, USA
(quarantine paintings, 2020)
watercolor, oil, gesso on arches paper, 18×24″
dedicated for Ronald Lewis
7/17/1951-3/20/2020
“Right here in the Ninth Ward was where our people chased the American dream.”
~ Ronald Lewis
“The federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story and I think that that’s really what needs to be told.”
~Jared Kutchner
quarantine paintings: series two
the first series were all 18×24″
these are larger, 22×30″. looser.
more emotional.
I had a difficult time working on the first series, with a lot of stops and starts. I’ve added the last few to that post.
series two: updated as I go.
“Busting the Line, Nebraska”
22×30″, watercolor
“Audience Participation, London”
22×30″, watercolor
Houston has its Time
22×30″, watercolor
Calling in the Forces, Sunflowers
22×30″ watercolor
Skating in New York City
watercolor, 22×30″
The world is in a flux, a liminal moment.
These are times when creating anything is difficult for me. I feel that collective unease, hope, fear, pain, anticipation. And I have all those feelings. It can get overwhelming.
I’ve never been good at actually starving- in times when I’m suffering, broke, afraid, it’s harder for me to do any work at all, let alone anything I feel is any good. Hard times make hard art, for me.
Yet here I am, trying.
I’ve applied for every grant I can find and not gotten one. No SBA, or anything. I did get a stimulus check- that’s about what I earn a week, and I’m still paying off bills related to being a cancer caregiver for a year (I was off work up until last fall). It didn’t stretch far. I guess we’ll see if that stuff changes for me. Regardless, these won’t be for sale for a little while. I’ll probably do a print run. I’ll try to show them. I don’t know what gallery will have them though.
Lucky me, I’ll not be homeless, unless illness strikes us again. I’m in fear of that.
I’m in fear. I’ll admit it. I don’t understand how anyone can not be, on some level. Whether admitted or not- I can feel your fear all around. The aggression in the air, the sadness, and the fear underlying it.
I feel it, you feel it, everyone is feeling it. Some will lie- but fear isn’t weakness. You’ve got to just feel it. Let it be there. Don’t panic, of course- or panic in controlled ways, I guess. But be cautious. Fear is how our natural bodies tell us there is danger, and listening to our intuition and being cautious isn’t a bad thing. Living despite fear, the name for that is bravery. You are brave.
I feel also a great protective kindness. Most people, MOST people, want to help each other. We all want to be helpful, useful, good to each other. We are not only afraid for ourselves. Those who don’t care are a minority-loud, but small. Fuck em.
This is the most reassuring thing I know, right now. I’m holding to it. I hope you can too.
The New American Death Cult, part 3: my sister didn’t even LIKE trump
We all know someone who’s seemed normal but who’s somehow gotten involved in reposted propaganda and nonsense about this stuff.
I am talking about someone who isn’t a Limbaugh listener. A yoga teacher, a coffee roaster, an office worker. Someone who isn’t even all that political really, but who is nevertheless posting heavily photoshopped images about “saving children” with random celebrities hovering like demons in the background. How did these people get sucked into a strange cult? How did regular people end up believing an antisemitic trope about “baby brains”? Why is Nevaeh even aware this shit exists?
IF ONE, THEN ALL
It starts with that tag. “save * children”.
The New American Death Cult: why your grandpa lost his mind, in 4 chapters.
- In politics, true stories, you,
Yes, we are dealing with a destructive cult. Yes, the people who want to “open up” and who are arguing with you about numbers and validity of studies and all that shit are arguing in bad faith and lying, because they want to die and they want to kill. That’s their goal.
They are not debating you or questioning to learn. They are using your space online to repeat the same propaganda they’ve been handed, and to get you tired out from fighting. Don’t let them do it.
Why now?
I should say, this didn’t start with trump. The roots of this cult are deep in America*. Trump may be the flower on the branch, but that’s all.
being arrested along with other KKK members
It started before I can rightly cover in this post, in any post. I am not a historian. I’ll be speaking only of more recent events, of things I have read and researched personally, of my own experiences and stories and accounts I’ve heard.
Part One: How Grandpa Lost His Sharp Mind
Many people know someone who was a professional, a scientist, a smart person, but who has lost their ability to discern reality from fiction.
Let’s be very clear. There’s more than one reason people get involved in cults. Some vulnerability in them is exploited- whether it’s loneliness, fear, poverty, neglect, jealousy, spite, racism, anger… there’s an emotional lack that the cult “fixes”. This does not mean the members were bad people before they joined in. This does not mean they were unintelligent or even ignorant. They simply had some kind of vulnerability that left them open to this.
jalapeno burn
the pain started two hours after I chopped and scraped the seeds out of what tasted like VERY mild jalapenos. I figured they were so mild, they wouldn’t burn.
I took a huge bite, it was sweet like a bell pepper. BETRAYAL
NO. no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
I worked with 3lbs of them, and that was more than enough.
all of the suggestions you will find online, only work if you catch the capsaicin oil BEFORE it starts burning! if it’s in the surface, just starting to hurt. if you catch it quickly, you can try
rub oil into your hands, deeply, and let it sit
wash with blue dawn dish soap or other grease cutting soap, in the hottest water you can stand
repeat at least 3 times
Me though? I didn’t start to treat this until hours later and by then it was too late for the home remedies. For washing. That oil was absorbed- under the skin, not on it. You can’t wash it off.
I tried every single thing online that I could find. Vinegar soak. Olive oil/hot water washing. Mustard. Baking soda. Maalox. Bleach cleaner. Milk. Alcohol. Yogurt. Stainless steel. Salt. Milk soak. Aloe. Lemon juice. A lemon. An onion. Butter. Crisco. Sugar.
After several dozen ridiculous attempts, I realized that it was too late to do that shit.
Icepack, pain relief. that’s it. once it’s been a few hours, that’s all you can do.
1. wash your hands as well as you can, cold water feels nice. oil-reducing soap is good I guess.
2. apply blue gel, lidocaine, or anbesol/orajel to the entire affected area. allow it to absorb.
3. once it’s dried, apply a thin layer of any beeswax based/oily salve to hold the lidocaine to the skin surface. this will increase the time it lasts.
4. take a damn pain pill. I took ibuprofen. I might go on up to a codeine pill if it goes back to the pain I was at earlier- easily an 8/10! right now it’s just tenderness, and a Tylenol or Ibuprofen is enough.
5. take an antihistamine. Benadryl is best, Claritin works. this keeps inflammation down a little- your skin won’t be so red and irritated.
6. do not touch your eyes, genitals, mouth. don’t touch other people’s sensitive bits. you have to wait until your hands have used the capsaicin up- according to a paper I read that can take up to 24 hours. so be cautious during this time.
7.you can put on nitrile gloves if you like. I found they made the lidocaine wear off faster (maybe due to the warmth)
8. avoid touching ANYTHING warm/hot, and ANYTHING with capsaicin in it (even a sweet bell pepper!) for a few days. your nerve endings need to heal, your body needs to process that capsaicin. give it time.
I must have put a hundred condiments and unguents and cleaning supplies on my hands tonight. I spent hours trying.
just treat the pain, don’t reexpose your hands to heat or the chemical that hurt you. and don’t touch your eyes!!! OR YOUR JUNK. I MEAN IT.
I’ll say it. Yes, they want to die. Yes, they want to kill.
yes, they want to kill their base. yes they want to die. yes they want to get other people killed too, that’s the whole point. yes.
I see people saying things like:
“I don’t get it why would they want to support this guy”
“why fight with science do they want to die”
“does he WANT to kill his voter base”
“I don’t understand why they are so hyped on people who stand for the opposite of what they say they care about, I thought they were ‘conservative'”
“what’s the big deal about a mask”
I AM HERE TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU. IF YOU ARE CONFUSED BY RIGHT-WING AND ALT-RIGHT BEHAVIOR, IN THIS MOMENT, I CAN EXPLAIN.
“Busting the Line, Nebraska”
22×30″, watercolor
They are NOT telling you how they really feel.
They are LYING about their motivations.
They do NOT think a million deaths would be a bad thing and they do NOT think the current pandemic is a hoax. They know it’s real.
They’re in a destructive cult.
A Death Cult.
They not only want to die (their cyanide happens to be covid 19) but they want to take as many others down as possible. They’re deep in a cult, a real cult.
It’s got a lot in common with both Pol Pot (anti science/anti knowledge) and Aum Shinrinkyo (“truthers”, trying to start the end times) cults. Since it’s American, there’s a lot more dominionist/prosperity gospel Bible thumping mixed into it, including the End Times being a good thing, punishment of their opponents, having twelve kids to make a ‘god army’, all that. Add in an American mixture of sexism, racism and -phobia and you’ve got a really poisonous stew. A melting pot of horror.
summation of the means to the end.
The underlying principles of Death Cults are always the same.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201208/dangerous-cult-leaders
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult#Destructive_cults
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality
you don’t owe anyone a platform.
Anything they’re saying as “reasons” for this stuff, is purely a cover story for their actual purpose. They are not having a debate with you. They are not “presenting evidence”, playing devil’s advocate, trying to find answers, whatever way you are giving them a pass- you’re wrong about it. You are reading them wrong, which is their goal. They want to spew propaganda, and every time you reply to their shit in good faith, you’re letting them do it.
You enjoy a good conspiracy, right? This one isn’t even hidden. Barely. They’re barely trying to hide it anymore.
Actually, the same reason you enjoy a good conspiracy, is the reason they got sucked into this cult, some of them. A feeling that you know more than other people, that you’re on the inside, that you are right and others are blind, a sense of belonging, feeling like you are “making a difference”. These are natural human urges, and cults use them to snare people. (we can’t ignore the racist/sexist aspects of this cult in particular, but ANY cult will appeal to these other urges-even for intelligent people)
What is an acceptable number of people to kill? For what goal? Even the goals they have, do not make sense: unless you know they are in a Death Cult and
*killing people is their actual goal*
Tomorrow I’ll tackle the ways people have gotten snagged in this- Q and the chans’ political quarantine sections have a lot to do with it. “reasonable” questions, conspiracy theories, mistrust of regulatory agencies (which have been purposely gutted to function poorly), police brutality, pay cuts for essential workers, pitting teachers against parents, and on and on.
I’ll get into that tomorrow in a follow up.
where this shit is coming from:
how to indoctrinate
*losing someone caught up in this?*
*some assistance*
horror movie talk with LFR
My friend Lucy F. R. has really great taste in movies.
I don’t say that lightly. You all know (if you’ve been reading me a while) how fussy I am about horror/weirdshit and how many movies I’ve watched. It’s my actual hobby, unrelated to anything else I do, purely for enjoyment. It’s hard for me to find people to talk about movies with, really- my uncle, who first introduced me to horror movies, and weird cinema, and one or two friends. So I’m really happy to have a conversation here about movies with someone.
Sal doesn’t take any shit from no man. (Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens)
(R: me, L:them)
R: you’re on a grimy southern/grind horror kick right now. But what genre do you like best? What feeling are you after?
LFR: Horror is my favorite genre, I just get very into specific branches. I always want to end up saying to myself “this is a GOOD movie”.
R: What’s the best of the batch you’ve been into recently?
LFR:The Dunwich Horror (the 70’s one), Ghost Galleon, House By The Cemetery, Werewolves On Wheels, and Tourist Trap.
R: Tell me about Werewolves on Wheels. I just watched Dog Soldiers again, and I’ve been on a werewolf kick.