At the tender age of 16, I adopted Waiting For Godot as my bible. I interpreted the scene wherein Estragon asks Vladimir for a carrot as a statement, perhaps a parody, about desire and motivation.
In my 40s, i leaped from bed each morning, often as early as 3 a.m. The "carrot" was contemporary art.
Sunset
My days of leaping are past and motivation is a ridiculous term. Now, with each awakening, I sometimes find some enthusiasm. If I contemplate meaning, there's wonder at the incomprehensible unknown, sprinkled, maybe, with some curiosity: What chance circumstance might occur today to inflect my psyche?
The spectrum of my emotions continues to expand as love, in its myriad manifestations, deepens.
Mowing my way through a bag of carrots, I tossed the stub in the general direction of infinity. It caught on the wire. Jung is chuckling.
I finished the 9th grade with Ds & Fs but passed the G.E.D. with a score more than adequate to enter the University of Texas at El Paso.
Instead, at age16, I went north to a concert in Denver featuring Jimi Hendrix, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Frank Zappa and several others. Afterward, in Boulder, I was inducted into Spring School, an alternative for dropouts. One of the other student's dad was renowned Beckett scholar, Vivian Mercier.
I read it on one of my early LSD trips and imnediately declared it "my bible."
I laughed so hard during Tricklock's production in Albuquerque I tipped over the chair and fell on the floor. What might've at another time been a faux pas appeared to be appreciated by the actors and, I like to think, spurred them on to the performance that 30 years later remains a high point of my life.
Cogitating on what to do next, I thought to travel the west attending performances. A fine whim if ever there was.
In my youth I attended a school in Boulder, Colorado for high-school dropouts. One of my classmates, the son of Vivian Mercier, a scholar of Waiting For Godot, introduced me to the play.
There are many interpretations of the scene in which Estragon asks Vladamir for a carrot. After Vladamir gives it to him Estragon takes a bite. Then, while dangling it by its greens, he comments, "I'll never forget this carrot." When Estragon asks, "How is it?" Vladimir replies, "It's a carrot."
For the next 25 years (I was 16 when I first read it) Vladimir's answer served as the existential answer; it is what it is. (Much has been made of the homosexual inferences which, blatant as it is, had to be an expression of Beckett cynically proffering a titillation factor.)
Regardless, my next iteration was to the carrot-and-the-stick. As THE PRIME MOTIVATOR, the idea contributed to the naming of my art dealership: IAC Contemporary Art. IAC stands for It's A Carrot. The carrot in this case being: Contemporary Art. It was, for nearly ten years, my raison d'etre and livelihood. It still serves as a major source of delight.
Later I did away with the stick and just saw the carrot as floating in the cerulean.
So you can imagine my response when I pulled into an RV park and saw this vehicle.
And on the back...
They said they had some orange paint and somehow the idea came to them. They also have five cats that roam free when they're camped.
Today, December 1, is her birthday. She TOLD me not to get her anything and, as luck would have it, there wasn't much to be had.
I'd forgotten my birthday is this month too, but she hadn't. I'd worn the pink plaid flannel shirt
she gave me years ago to a rag and, back in September, asked for a replacement.
And Mr. Stomach thinks it the perfect enhancement.
There's an ancient saying that god would be recognized by the mole in his navel.
But the thing that truly (once again) let me know our love is boundless is this clay figure. Originally intended to celebrate our silver anniversary in 2016, she began work several years ago. (We've never liked to rush things.)
Pyschedelic Nutria
As mentioned in prev posts, we adopted the Nutria as our fetish animal; their shape being similar to our own. Added characteristics include our shared enthusiasm for doughnuts.
In the image below, you see the iconic posture assumed when "skenting donuts." Pronunciation of the word scenting changed after a young lady came to the door one day selling Skented Candles; I had to ask several times what she was referring to before the light went on. It lends a nicely-nuanced tone to the proclivity, don't chew tink?
Skenting Doughnuts
It's A Carrot (and donuts)
In my teens I read Waiting For Godot and adopted the carrot as my leitmotif (see: 2:42 in the video). Initially, I interpreted Estragon's reply: "It's a carrot." as a Buddhist-esque aphorism meaning: It is what it is. Later, it morphed into the carrot-on-a-stick used to entice mules. My company's name -- IAC Contemporary Art -- is based on the sentence (IAC = It's a carrot).....contemporary art being my motivator.
Ignoring all the above, we took up the Freudian vein and recognized the perfect fit of doughnuts and carrots. A single carrot must be balanced by at least a dozen doughnuts. She turned 62. I'll be 66.
I found a couple of places in La Grande, Oregon to recommend. Anderson's Shoe And Leather Goods at 1407 Adams Avenue and The Archives used book store at 315 Fir Street. Adams is La Grande's main street and Fir is one block away from Anderson's. They're both easy to find.
Mr. Anderson was in the middle of a job but willingly put it aside to tackle mine. When I inquired about cost, he proposed a ridiculously low price. I say ridiculous because the repair required hand work. And although he said it would be easy, to me it was an obvious case of "$25.00 for the hammer and $125.00 for knowing where to hit the thing." I willingly paid twice what he asked. So don't let him get away with undervaluing his work. It's almost unAmerican! And to top it off, he referred me to The Archives, the finest used book store I've seen, bar none.
When I walked in I admit I was a bit overwhelmed. Mr. Anderson had warned me, but I was unprepared for the magnitude. There are three large rooms and must be more as while I was there a fellow who seemed to know his way around came in, disappeared somewhere past the childrens' section and later (triumphantly!) emerged with several boxes of VHS tapes.
Mr. Walter Osterloh
Mr. Walter Osterloh's collection is organized by subject, but upon closer scrutiny I noticed eclectic anomalies that soon had me engrossed in checking each title.
I had a few things I was looking for and Mr. Osterloh quickly either found them or was able to say he didn't have them. (He kindly located them online and told me their prices.) I left with a fine copy of Waiting For Godot and a DeLorme Atlas of Oregon & Gazetteer.
