Sunset, Wednesday, 11 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The walk today with Flint – five miles instead of the usual seven, because of the weather – was like walking between two sponges, one being wrung out, the other getting soaked.

I was hoping to have something for you, more or less for Veterans Day, about the film The Men Who Stare At Goats, and an oblique connection I have with its underlying story. It (the item) keeps changing. It’ll show up here as soon as my mind clears – or tomorrow’s sunset comes – or it stops raining ...

Sunset, Saturday, 31 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Our third consecutive cloudy evening. You can see all of October at a glance, here.

Sunset, Friday, 30 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Tomorrow, I hope, for Halloween: a few notes about Poe and the landscape around Charlottesville and perhaps a little something extra about a raven.

Sunset, Thursday, 29 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

When clouds roll in and take away the sun, everything, not just the sky, can seem occluded and a little difficult. A question lingers and never gets answered; a thought isn’t quite completed; a puzzle remains unsolved. As if, if only the sun would come out ...

Meanwhile, I’m driving along, radio plays a wacky doo-wop novelty by The Devotions, “Rip Van Winkle,” from ’64 (chorus reminds me, strangely, of “Dance Like A Monkey” by the New York Dolls). The song, by the way, comes complete with sound effects of elves cavorting around poor old Rip’s recumbent form.

At the last minute – above the mountains some light, the sun shows through. But instead of the answer, the thought, the solution, what it gives me is something that might be even better. Something like the punchline:

It doesn’t matter.

Sunset, Tuesday, 27 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Rain and completely overcast. It took a while to begin to see any sort of pattern in the clouds ... then things just sort of happened from there.

Sunset, Friday, 23 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Overcast and about to rain.

I was driving through the Alley Field (named for the narrow lane of grass at its entrance) with the firewood I’d just cut, when a fantastically vivid red leaf fluttered down through the branches in the woods just to my left – at an odd angle – and a little too fast. 

Cardinal.