Smallstone complete!

I finally got back to work, and completed my stone, after many days of being horribly ill. "Finishing day" always takes several very tedious days to complete. It's sand, sand, sand, 150 grit, 220 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit, then 0000 steel wool and water. Then 600 grit wet, now 1000 grit wet, now 2000 grit wet, and finally, the Simichrome Polish, which is a miracle in a can, but brutally hard on the hands even with rubber gloves. Finally I get to the Treewax, and a soft cloth. But then I have to go back very carefully, with 220 grit to re-rough the base. At long last it's time to get the camera. Here's how it all came out:

 This piece of Anza Borrego alabaster has wonderful translucence, and I worked it a thin as I dared to take advantage of the light without leaving it ridiculously fragile. I mean for these things to last. The figure is graceful, although the form itself leans into the strange, and borders on the grotesque, as many of my pieces seem to do. Here it is in
the morning light:

I love doing this. There is no greater joy than the work we do to create some beauty for the world.

Speaking of which, I hardly have to point out that the world is in a dreadful state right now. There is a great Darkness settling in on our nation, and what we have come to cherish as Western Civilization in the whole. It is deeply frightening, and there is little we can do to fight it. But "little" is far from "nothing," and fight it we must.

But how? How do we fight this thing when even some of our friends and loved ones embrace the void? Most of my friends in the real world, and on-line are writers, musicians, and artists. Our weapons against the Darkness, are Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. As writers, musicians, and artists we are warriors in the Beauty division. Beauty speaks Truth, and in Truth dwells Goodness. Hone your weapons and fight like hell.

Let the lazy, and talentless fill the internet with phony AI pseudo-art; we choose to bust our asses creating the real thing: Beauty. Let the liars lie; we stand surely and quietly for Truth. Let the haters fill their guts with anger and spite; we have a duty, a sacred commitment to Goodness.

I have a thought on dealing with those among our friends who have embraced the hideously toxic "woke" ideology. We can no more convert them than we could drag them to a tent revival to get Saved. It just doesn't work like that. But perhaps we can divert them. If we can exert a little influence to nudge them toward the Good, or the Beautiful, we've nudged them away from the Darkness, and toward the Truth. It is a small thing, but as I said earlier, "little" is a universe away from "none." We do what we can with what we have, and leave the results up to God.

I got some very good news today regarding the Lost Era movie. The file is available for download at Vox Day's "Unauthorized TV" subscription site. Love him or hate him Vox is a warrior for the cause. Arkhaven Comics, and his Unauthorized TV may be small in the great scheme of things, but small is what we have, and small can grow.

Here on the homefront Pierre has finished remodeling our bathroom, and he has done a beautiful job. Pierre came up hard from the darkness, and his success is an inspiration. After weeks of sink baths, or standing out back with the garden hose it is a pure pleasure to take a real shower.

With that- Thanks for stopping by. As my strength returns I'll be engaging in another stone project, in the near future. Next up is The Big One. I've been eyeballing this chunk of desert for over a year, now. Next step is the angle grinder.

 Mending

It seems like I am through the worst of this awful bug. Despite a round of weird and creepy nightmares I got a decent night's sleep, and this morning I'm ready to maybe get back to work on the stone. I need to get caught up on the Arkhaven posting as well. I had several week's worth of posting ahead in the cue, but I've used up almost all of the slack I had given myself. The slideshow movie is sort of in limbo right now. There may be copyright issues with some of the Beethoven excerpts. There isn't much information available, but as I understand it the streaming platforms all have algorithms pre-set to nuke anything even in cases where the recordings are in public domain. It's a system where you are judged guilty without trial, and have little or no recourse to appeal the machine made censor.  This won't prevent me from showing the film at the museum, or the art gallery, but it may preclude my ability to upload it to any streaming platform.

 I had Nick, the computer whiz, nuke my facebarf account permanently. I am glad to see it gone. The program is next to impossible to delete, and will reactivate with a click for a period of weeks after the command to delete has been executed.

I have come to believe that it is an evil thing, a tool of the darkness that descends on the nation and the world. Blogger is no less of a tool, just another lens in the all-seeing eye, but I am small enough, and inconsequential to the beast. At least for now.

I have found a very fine community at the "How to Meow in Yiddish" blog. P'Bird is a wise, and sagacious host, and I like the other commenters there tremendously. This is the internet at its best. One more of many things for which I am grateful. Hearing from Julie C has also been a blessing. It amazes me how long now, how far back some of these connections go. So that about sums up the morning. Later I'll get a new SD card, and get a copy of the movie off to Richard Hampton, and like I said, maybe even get a little work done on the stone.

Lost

 I have been horribly ill with the covid. I was exposed to it on the fifth, and two days later came down ill.  I'm not dealing with fever or cough, just horrible weakness, fatigue, lassitude. Ivermectin has prevented the worst of it. The doctors forbid ivermectin. The doctors prescribed paxlovid which very nearly killed me. I've posted about it over on P'Bird's site, and don't much feel like repeating what I've already written. But it keeps grinding on. Last night I hit a bout of delirium wherein I felt that Mary had abandoned me, that I was used up, worthless to her. I have never in my life felt anything like that level of utter despair. My fear is for Mary. She hasn't come down with any symptoms, thank God. I'm praying for her with all I've got.

Bill, the guy I got it from, has been worse, and his wife is down with it also. They aren't taking IVM. They picked the bug up on a flight from Europe. According to Bill, this is some new strain. 

Of course. The virus was deliberately created to do what it is doing: kill as many useless humans as possible. I do not doubt this is the end game of the so-called "environmentalists." They are a death cult, and the goal is to un-make civilization as we know it. They flood Europe with Africans. They stoke race hatred among the feral savages who have ruined our cities. The weapons are epistemological, couching the politics of greed and envy in weaseling nonsense words like "social justice", and "Equity". The weapons are ontological, inventing scourges like racism, and phobias as though they were anything but what they are: hatred and envy by those who create nothing for those who create the good the true and the beautiful. 

This is Satanic at its very core.

I fear greatly for our nation. I'm afraid that we are coming undone. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the world we have known. Washington DC is a criminal cabal, and as utterly corrupt as it is inept. They are martyring Trump with a death of a thousand cuts. I do not see how he can escape it. All that is left, now is prayer. Civilizations have fallen before, and only the remnant survive. I am an old man. I will not live to see the end of this. Despair is a sin, I know. But I do not see much hope for our future.

 Startin' in on some new stuff.

Trichocereus Bridgesii in bloom

 

So, it's Monday morning, gray and cool here in So Cal. Mary is on a short vacation in Palm Desert, and I have the place to myself for the week.

Sort of. 

Pierre will be here pretty soon to resume work on the bathroom overhaul. We've been without a shower or bath for the last three weeks or so. The house is a mess. No point in trying to clean things up in the middle of construction. 

 My brother  recommended Pierre for the job, and I'm glad we hired him to do it. The last two rebuilds were done half-assed. There was a lot of repair needed on the sub flooring, and the construction had been done all mickey moused. Pierre is a craftsman; he does quality work. 

Even so, I'll be glad to see an end to it. I've been showering with the garden hose in the back yard. It kind of works. Leave the hose out in the sun all afternoon, and I get just enough hot water to clean up. Too, I've been feeling like crap ever since the middle of June. Had some some respiratory congestion. Doc gave me cortisone and an inhaler. It was impetus to finally hang up my guns on smoking weed. Just as well. The bud has been an ally for a very long time, but it was wearing out its welcome. Used to be a tweet in the morning lit up my creative energies, and kept me focused on task. But it was losing the magic, and by mid afternoon I was just feeling stoned out. I found myself saying, "I'm just sick of this shit." 

But over a month has passed, and my energy and stamina are still way too low. Kaiser isn't much help. I can chalk some of it up to just being seventy, but only some of it.

 

I've been working hard on the Lost Canyon stuff again. I finished the Lost Era slideshow movie using the Movavi program. Last Saturday, I premiered the film at the Whittier Museum during the closing reception for The Hills Are Alive art show. It went over very well. More on this in a subsequent post.

 

I'll wind up with a few pictures of the Smallstone Project.

 

 

 I started in on the finishing yesterday. All in all I'm very pleased with the work. What started out as a kind of goof-around improvisational effort has turned into one of my better pieces. Pierre likes it well enough that he's taking it home with him when it's done. My first really for real sale! Not bad at all.

I'll wind up with this final note. I will resume regular posting here, and try to get some kind of baloney posted up at the very least once a week. I'm bailing out on the most detestable site on earth, Facebarf, and I want to be able to trade a few notes with my on-line friends without that human hemorrhoid Zuckerbarf's AI looking over my shoulder for wrongthink. 

With that. Be well, and have a blessed day.