Pair of Pentychs

Quick post about two artists I like:

Two years ago, at a Job Lots-type discount store, I found a trove of art postcards on sale. They were produced by Pomegranate in CA. I bought two unfolding pentych postcards by artists I did not recognize. That’s how I discovered Mati Klarwein and Cliff McReynolds.

One pentych postcard was the Saint John Pentych by Mati Klarwein. I read a lot into this painting; the desolate mediterranean view from within a cave and the fair damsel with Greek written all over her chest bring to mind Saint John on Patmos and the “woman clothed with the sun” of Revelation. Did the artist intend this?

The other postcard was Cliff McReynold’s La Jolla Pentych.

McReynolds output is far less, but I find it equally illuminating. I just learned that he did an album cover for Flora Purim. I can’t find all five frames of his pentych online, but here is a link to Now (available as a poster) and below you can see the central painting (Life):

Looks like poster is available here: www.artposters247.com

Klarwein is better-known since he established himself as an album-cover illustrator in the 60’s and 70’s. You have probably seen his work on Santana and Miles Davis albums among others.

ABRAXAS annunciation-1961

In this part of the Saint John Pentych below I found the perfect match to the epiphany at the end of It’s All Too Much .

I won’t go on about these two – just look at the links and the artist’s sites.

Abiding

Sep4

Resolved:

I WILL publish the words to Abide With Me this morning before going to church.

I will NOT get lost in the online idol factory this morning.

I will NOT spend hours finessing placement of a little graphic in the body of text.

I will NOT let Bing and Google take me on any micro-Odysseys this morning.

Resolved:

I WILL put the words to this wonderful hymn in the Music page.

I WILL include some background information from http://www.cyberhymnal.org/ :

“Lyte was inspired to write this hymn as he was dying of tuberculosis; he finished it the Sunday he gave his farewell sermon in the parish he served so many years. The next day, he left for Italy to regain his health. He didn’t make it, though—he died in Nice, France, three weeks after writing these words. “

The wife of William H. Monk, the organist who composed the melody, said:

“This tune was written at a time of great sorrow—when together we watched, as we did daily, the glories of the setting sun. As the last golden ray faded, he took some paper and penciled that tune which has gone all over the earth.“

Resolved:

I WILL abide in Him today. May He abide with you. God bless you.

Eurydice

Sep3

What a name . . . what a face.

Gypsy Marpessa Dawn Menor

I feel really stupid. Yesterday I found out that one of my favorite Reggae artists Mikey Dread passed away 3 years ago, and I was unaware. Now I find out that one of my favorite film stars also passed away that same summer. It seems like just yesterday I was furiously Googling to find some news about the aged actress who played Eurydice in Black Orpheus (1959), but it was the early summer of 2008 actually, so I was trying to find news about her just months before she died.

She has always been a beautiful mystery. I was very curious about her after I first saw the film in the 1980’s. She was speaking fluent Portuguese and I had no idea she was from Pittsburgh, PA originally. After Black Orpheus she was in some bizarre leftish French art films. I saw one just because she was in it: Sweet Movie (1974) which was awful, but have not been able to see any others. Black Orpheus was a great awakening for me. It made me realize what a good director can do with film as an art form. The movie brings together so many themes that have haunted me ever since – Brazilian Samba, life after death, Greek myth, street parade spectacle, masquerade, all set before the viewer in a swirl of color and insistent rhythm. It is one of a handful of films I recommend to anyone who likes film as art.

Another favorite film of mine, Soy Cuba, featured a Cuban actress named Luz María Collazo. For a long time I thought it was Marpessa Dawn until checking the cast list for that Soviet/Cuban propaganda film. The film is a lot like Triumph of the Will (1934 Nazi rally) and Olympia (1938) filmed by Leni Riefenstahl in that it is blatant propaganda for a political ideology, but the filmmakers render it so visually striking that it endures as cinema art long after the cause has been discredited. I recommend Soy Cuba as well as Triumph of the Will if you love film and history.

So what does this have to do with poetry? Nothing – and everything.

Just read the poem of her name out loud:

Gypsy Marpessa Dawn Menor…

Where is she now ?

Nicaragua to Mikey Dread

Sep2

I just posted Nicaragua by Darío to the Español page. I always think of primitivista art when I read that short poem. Darío mentions tigers in the poem, which is strange since there are none in Central America. My Spanish vocab words for the day [from the poem] are zahareño (“untameable, wild, unsociable, intractable”; I always thought it meant “Saharan” and Darío was merely being exotic but I was wrong) and peaña (“pedestal”, for a statue or art object). The part about the idol reminds me of the idolos de la isla Zapatera but they are not on diamond pedestals so you will have to imagine your own. Since the human heart is an idol-factory, that shouldn’t be too hard. My lovely wife is from Nicaragua, and I have sometimes placed her on a diamond pedestal—and so another connection to the poem.

On the reggae side of things, I linked my reggae poem to a Mikey Dread dub song only to find out he passed away on my birthday in 2008. I had not known that. I always loved his dub music and he seemed like such a positive Rastaman. The stuff he did with the Clash on Black Market Clash was great (Armagideon Time) but my favorite is Beyond WWIII. I still have African Anthem – on cassette! Since he passed away 3 years ago you can see I am really on the cutting edge of Reggae news these days. Well, we are already in eternity, so what’s three years here or there, right?