At this point, it’s possibly the most generous response we’ve heard to a fox news watcher, a maga-mind. It quickly goes downhill from there.
read Kerri’s blogpost about STUPID NOT STUPID
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Fox News, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lie, propaganda, Republican party, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »
Set to the tune of Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone:
read Kerri’s blogpost about THEN AND NOW
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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, democrats, fascism, immunity, injustice, justice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, propaganda, republicans, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »
What is real? It’s not so easy to answer this very simple question these days. With A-I manufacturing videos and images that seem real, with foreign interference in our elections, with a pathological liar about to once again take the national bully pulpit and a propaganda fox willing to magnify his hooey, with people believing tik-tok, X and instagram are sources of news…it is damn hard to know what is real. It’s damn hard to believe the dull-witted-ness in ascendence.
Who is real? This is a much more complex question. A heartbreaking question.
Post election we’re everywhere seeing and hearing from the maga-madcaps the phrase , “Family over politics”. Yet, a vote for the despot-elect was a vote against my son who is gay. A vote for the rapist-in-chief was a vote against my daughter’s rights. It was a vote against my wife’s rights. She was raped so it’s not a small thing to her that half the nation, including family and friends, seem okay to look the other way. To minimize his multiple sexual assaults as locker room talk. She feels deeply in her body – her soul – the national endorsement of rape. The national assent of sexual violence.
Every time she sees the phrase,”Family over politics,” Kerri hisses, “Back-at-you!” Real family, real friends would have thought to protect our children’s health and well-being before voting against them. They would have thought to protect our nation from an avowed fascist with retribution fantasies; they would have thought before voting against basic morality. They would have had the simple dignity to consider the sexual predation, the pathological lying and gross indecency of their candidate. Instead, they cheered. They voted for it. It’s left us nauseous with the question, “Are you for real?”
They put politics (if you can call it that) over family (if you can call it that). For real.
read Kerri’s blogpost about WHAT IS REAL
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Filed under: Family, smack-dab | Tagged: AI, artistry, bully pulpit, cartoon, civil rights, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, election, elections, family, fascism, fascist, foreign interference, interference, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liar, politics, pro choice, propaganda, rapist, real, reality, rights, sexual predator, sexual violence, smack-dab, soul, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, vote | 3 Comments »
Today is the day when hoaxsters and jokesters and pranksters abound. It’s the unofficial-official national day of the trickster.
Historically on this day it’s best to doubt everything that you are told, to check the sources of your information. To join in the joking and let off some steam with a bit of harmless mischief.
It’s much harder in this day-and-age since everyday is April fools day! The mischief is not harmless. With so many dedicated conspiracy theorists running amok, shysters selling bibles, serial liars celebrated, vapid minds taken seriously, it’s difficult to tell where the fool’s day begins and where it ends. It’s tough to know where the fools begin and where they end.
So, on this day as on all others, it’s a best practice to doubt everything that you are told [as a rule of thumb, it’s not a bad practice everyday to doubt everything that you think!], to religiously check the sources of your information and to check the sources of information promoted as religious.
Fools and tricksters are meant to make us open our eyes; to step back and take ourselves less seriously. To help us discern between the sacred and the profane. They are meant to shock the system when the system begins to believe that it’s “all that.” They are meant to help us laugh at ourselves.
Play safe out there. Have fun. It is my deepest wish that we might lighten up ever so slightly and learn to chuckle at our foibles. I know, I know…pie in the sky. First we must learn to distinguish between a foible and a strength, a truth and a lie, a joke and a virtue, an ignoramus and a learner, propaganda and news.
Until then, we are all destined to be April’s fools.
read Kerri’s blogpost about FOOLS
[Christopher Wool’s painting, Fool, at the Milwaukee Art Museum]
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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: April Fools Day, artistry, communication, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discern, discernment, doubt, foible, fool, joke, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lighten up, mischief, profane, propaganda, Sacred, story, strength, studio melange, the melange, Trickster, truth, virtue | 3 Comments »
Language is among the most powerful yet rarely acknowledged and mostly discounted forces on earth. We name our experiences, we story our lives with words. Alter a single word this way or that and the story of a lifetime takes on a completely different cast. Success. Failure. Together. Alone.
Currently we are witness to an aspiring autocrat label fellow citizens as vermin and thugs. A well-worn page from the despot playbook. Dehumanization of others is the first step in approving, priming, unleashing, and then normalizing violence. If history teaches us anything it is that language is not only capable of creating unspeakable beauty, it is also capable of unleashing unimaginable horror. This is not playground rhetoric or locker room talk. This is laying the groundwork for brutality. White. Black. Supremacy. Equality. Community. Tribe. Division. Togetherness.
Language matters (education matters).
Consider this simple phrase chalked onto a park bench: I With. This phrase struck me as particularly potent yet unappreciated. I accompany you. I am with you. I walk with you through this life. I choose to stand with you. With. I.
No word is more dynamic and intoxicating than “I”. There is no more necessary or formidable preposition than “with”. I with love? I with hate? I with unity? I with division? I with open-heart? I with closed-mind? I fear. I embrace.
The great power in language is in the words we choose to live.
read Kerri’s blogpost about I WITH
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Filed under: Education, Identity, Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, choice, closed mind, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, despot, division, equality, hate, history, I, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, labels, language, lessons from history, love, open heart, propaganda, rhetoric, story, studio melange, the melange, togetherness, unity, with | 1 Comment »
Some books sit idle on my shelf for years and then, one day, with no warning, they leap forward and demand to be read. And so it is with Vāclav Havel’s book Disturbing The Peace. It is my new 2-page-a-day-meditation-book. I’m only a few pages in but already finding the words of this playwright-become-president of the Czech Republic, published in 1991, speaking clear thoughts to the un-united-united-states of 2023.
“It seems to me that if the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.”
The change in consciousness? It is this:
“He must discover again, within himself, a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world, which means responsibility toward something higher than himself.”
He writes that we must extricate ourselves from “the mechanisms of totality” and the “manipulation” of media. We must “rebel against [our] role as a helpless cog in the gigantic and enormous machinery hurtling god knows where.”
Climate change. Attempts to white-wash history rather than learn from it. Populism and a republican party dedicated to authoritarian rule rather than the democratic ideals they are sworn to uphold. The absence of a moral center and, to use a phrase from the past, common courtesy. Courtesy to the commons.
Vāclav Havel led his country through their great chaos, the tension of their divide, power struggles, and the collapse of repressive communism. He was an absurdist playwright. He did not pretend to have answers. He had abundant questions. He argued for the simplicity of confronting the tasks at hand, tasks that are the responsibility of all the people in a nation, tasks like honestly looking at and dealing with their full history. Tasks like turning away from anger-inducing propaganda, conspiracies and lies – and learning to discern what has merit and what does not. In other words, transcending individual-self-serving-belief-bubbles in order to realize and secure the higher ideals of the community.
Every book has its time. I find it extremely hopeful that this book chose this moment to jump off the shelf.
read Kerri’s blog about SKY-THROUGH-TREES
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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, change, chaos, climate change, consciousness, czech republic, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democratic ideals, disturbing the peace, divide, ideals, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, populism, propaganda, responsibility, story, studio melange, the melange, Vaclav Havel | 3 Comments »
“The problem is that this fluidity is not a choice we are free to make. Despite the unifying patriotic rhetoric that permeates the United States, on some level Americans are not really fooled: at bottom, each person knows he or she must continually “reinvent themselves,” which is to say, go it alone. America is the ultimate anticommunity.” ~ Morris Berman, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire
I laughed aloud when I read this quote. It reduced to a simple phrase what I believe is the collective experience of being an American (U.S.) in the 21st century. Together, we go it alone.
“Going it alone” is, of course a delusion shared by cowboys, republicans, and guys that put big tires on their trucks. After all, someone had to make the tires. And the truck. And pave the road. Using tax dollars since the roads are public and maintained by the collective. All of the chest-thumping expressions of individuality are, after all, firmly rooted in the lives and labors of others.
It only takes a minute to tease apart the loose fibers of the go-it-alone mythos. The problem is that one must want to think it through and, in our current spiral into stupidity, thought is shunned. So is history. At the core of anti-community is the absence of critical thought and a bucket of denial.
[Sidebar: this reminds me of a favorite phrase that, one day, popped out of Jim’s mouth: because you think it, does not make it so. Because you believe it, does not make it so.]
In my current state of residence, the governor, a democrat, asked the legislature, a randy band of republicans, to meet for a special session to discuss the ills that currently plague our community. The randy band gaveled open the session and then, as is its custom, immediately gaveled it closed. Legislators that refuse to discuss issues or policy. Sitting in the people’s house, obstruction is the only card in their deck. Not a single idea or impulse to serve the public in the randy band and their lock-step rugged individualism.
It is the sign of our times. Going it alone together is an ugly race to the supremacist bottom.
The cure for what ails us lives in the space between the gavels. Genuine discussion of the real challenges that face the community. An acknowledgement that driving the big cowboy truck adorned with big cowboy tires is only possible on the public road made viable by the shared effort of hundreds of fellow citizens. All of the Fox-driven drivel and religious right propaganda is never going to change the fact that we are all in this together. We can choose to be a failed state in a dedicated anti-community or we can thrive in the post colonial-era by bringing all ideas, all points-of-view, all people, to the common table for a wee-bit of collaboration, compromise, and long-needed-real-live-bona-fide-communal-reinvention.
read Kerri’s blogpost about MASKS OPTIONAL
Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, belief, collective, colonialism, communal, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delusion, denial, education, government, individualism, individuality, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Morris Berman, point of view, politics, propaganda, story, studio melange, the melange, thought, Tony Evers, white supremacy | Leave a comment »
Because it is outside, she grabs her camera. Were it inside, I’d hear the special scream saved for spiders and I’d come running. The power of a screen, flipping fear to fascination. “It’s amazing,” she said and cringed.
Spider symbolism – like all vital symbols – carries the power of a complex split-metaphor. On one side of the screen they are toxic, malicious, potential bringers of slow venomous death. On the other side of the symbol, they are world creators, weavers of life and interconnectivity. Certainly, they are central characters in this world-wide-web that we enjoy.
In this era, we attempt to restrict our symbols, preferring them to be absolute, one-sided, either this or that. Symbols never work that way. They lose their power when cut in half. To be potent, a symbol must embody both sides of the moon. Limiting a symbol to only one side flattens it, robs it of dimension, renders it useless. The real power of the symbol ignites when both aspects are understood and embraced. Symbols are polarities.
We would be wise, in our nation, to look at both sides of our symbols. Our history, embodied in our symbols, is both shining and dark. Vapid fear-stories like “replacement theory” fester in a flattened symbol culture, a half-told history. Ugly nationalism grows in the spaces left empty by a cleaved symbolism, a highly-edited narrative.
Gaze through the screen at both sides of the symbol, and a fuller, richer, more color-full story emerges. An honest narrative.
Nations, like people, become healthy when they embrace all sides of their story, the dark side and the light, when they acknowledge both aspects of their symbol, when they take responsibility for their actions, the venomous and the virtuous alike.
read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SPIDER.
Prometheus Resurrection © 2008 David Robinson
Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Possibility, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, aspects, complexity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, history, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nationalism, polarity, propaganda, responsibility, spider, spider medicine, spider totem, story, studio melange, symbol, symbolism, the melange, two aspects | Leave a comment »
The first and most important question of the day is, “What is nougat?” I’ve always been more of a peanut M&M’s guy or, these days, a straight-up almonds, sea salt in dark chocolate lover. I’m currently accepting donations of Chocolove’s Salted Almond Butter in Dark Chocolate. You should be, too.
So, what is nougat? Originally it was honey, nuts, and egg whites but in this era of “it’s-better-not-to-know-what-I-just-put-into-my-mouth-and-called-it-candy,” I wonder what passes for nougat? I only ask because I’d never heard of a Charleston Chew so, to understand the reference, I looked it up. When I read that a Charleston Chew is, “…flavored nougat covered in chocolate flavored coating…” I immediately spotted the word “flavored” twice in the same sentence. If the chocolate isn’t really chocolate then what are the odds that the “flavored” nougat is really honey, nuts and egg whites?
To borrow and bastardize a bit of Hamlet”To eat; perchance to savor: aye, there’s the rub.” Kerri assures me that a Charleston Chew is yummy. Who cares what’s in it if it makes my toes wiggle with satisfaction? It’s the inverse argument of all those nasty foods adults made us swallow as children: who cares if it’s good for me if it makes me gag? Make me go hungry and send me to my room! Please! Caring adults forget that kids squirrel away and hide Charleston Chews beneath the mattress so banishment to the bedroom for not choking down brussel sprouts is tasty a reward.
This is key to understanding why people do what they do: we know what’s in a brussel sprout*. We have no idea what’s in a Charleston Chew. We’ll clamp down our jaws or pitch public fits rather than eat what’s good for us. Yet, we’ll happily binge on mystery snacks that are certainly no good for us but, damn-do-they-taste-good. Insight: humans are not rational beings. We puff up and proudly defend all manner of thought-nougat but can’t be bothered to look up the source or verity of the dreck we’re feeding on.
Of our current dilemmas, there is one thing that is certain: we can’t Charleston Chew our way out of this.
Take heart. There’s always Chocolove.
[*now that I’m rumored to be an adult I love roasted brussel sprouts]
read Kerri’s blogpost about CHARLESTON CHEWS
Filed under: Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, brussel sprouts, candy, Charleston Chew, chocolate, Chocolove, compulsion, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fact aversion, fact check, fiction, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nougat, propaganda, rational, reason, story, studio melange, the melange, thought nougat | Leave a comment »
“A tree is not made of wood, it is wood.” ~ Alan Watts, The Watercourse Way
Language is powerful. It’s a drum I have beat for a long time, the notion that we insist that the narratives we wrap around ourselves are somehow “reality.” We are told that 50% of Russians believe the hell wrought on the Ukraine is merely propaganda. A made-up story. Not true. It is the narrative they are fed and, in order to eat it, they must ignore any evidence to the contrary. Their economy crumbles. The ruble falls. How could they not see it? Don’t laugh. 40% of USAmericans still believe the last presidential election was stolen, a plausible story only if wearing blinders with fingers placed firmly in ears. Burying your head in the sand is not a Russian or American trait, it’s uniquely human. We see what we believe, not the other way around. Our language makes it so.
Years ago I read that the word “wild” could only come from a people who believe all things must be tamed. Wild makes no sense without the concept of tame. Wild, bad. Tamed, good. So, a people afraid of their own “nature” must become tamers. A people who think “nature” not only can be but must be managed. To be “above” it all, in charge and atop the pyramid, giver of names. It is the necessary narrative for such tamers of the wild, those who story their very nature as corrupt. Tamed, good. Above it all. Separate. Is it any wonder the intrinsically conflicted human world rarely embraces peace? Our narrative leads us to believe, amidst so much inner and, therefore, outer conflict, peace is something to be created because we are naturally conflicted. What else?
Where, exactly, does wild end and tame begin? Where’s the line that delineates nature from civilization? What if nature is neither good nor bad? What if your nature was neither good nor bad? Perhaps self-love would be within reach and, as a natural extension, the love of others, too. It’s an alternative narrative though not possible in a belief-story that fears the wild. Wholeness begins with a step off the pedestal.
It’s in the language. Somehow separate from the world in which we live, not “in” nature or “of” nature , we are deluded to believe we are made of different stuff. Above it. Divinely manufactured. Made.
Manufactured. Made. Trees made of wood.
And, just what are we made of? I guess it depends on the story we decide to tell. Wild stuff.
read Kerri’s blogpost about TREES
Filed under: Language, Metaphor, Random, Seeing, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: alan watts, artistry, conflict, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inner conflict, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, narrative, nature, peace, propaganda, self worth, self-love, sense making, separate, story, studio melange, tame, the melange, unity, Watercourse Way, whole, wild | Leave a comment »
The Direction of Intention 