Category Archives: POETIC NONSENSE

Poetry by Lawrence R. Spencer. Poetic nonsense by Lawrence R. Spencer and others. Haiku poems by Lawrence R. Spencer.

ART, LIVES, POETIC NONSENSE, UNIVERSES

VISIT TO PICASSO

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I own a video cassette copy of a film (The Mystery of Picasso) showing Pablo Picasso painting on a plate of glass, filmed from the opposite side.  As an oil painter myself, I found it utterly mesmerizing!  I was delighted when I found an earlier film on YouTube (in 2 parts below) showing similar footage of Picasso at work in his studio sixty-three year ago, in 1949.  (This film is nearly as old as I am!)

Visit to Picasso is a Belgian documentary film from 1949 directed by Belgian filmmaker Paul Haesaerts. In an effort to capture the nature of Picasso’s creative process, Paul Haesaerts asked the Spanish painter to apply his magical brushstrokes to large glass plates as Haesaerts filmed from the other side. This actually predates the more famous art film The Mystery of Picasso (1956) by Henri-Georges Clouzot in which Picasso also paints to large transparent canvases as the director films from the other side. The filming took place in Picasso’s studio in Vallauris. In 1951 Visit to Picasso was nominated for best documentary by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).  Even if you are not an artist or art connoisseur, you may appreciate this film.

Vivre la vie avec un esprit de l’art de!

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THE “I” OF “ME”

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THE I OF ME

“How few original thoughts or original actions are performed by the average person? Are not the majority of persons mere shadows and echoes of others having stronger wills or minds than themselves? The trouble is that the average person dwells almost altogether in his “Me” consciousness, and does not realize that he has such a thing as an “I.” He is polarized in his Feminine Principle of Mind, and the Masculine Principle, in which is lodged the Will, is allowed to remain inactive and not employed.”

~ The Kybalion, by William Walker Atkinson ~

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

PROOF OF SPIRITS

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PROOF WITHIN

In spite of vast numbers of “ghost sightings”, innumerable reports of “out-of-body experiences”, and “divine encounters” with gods or spirits, that pervades nearly all of prehistoric and recorded human history, I found only one underlying, unifying, indisputable, axiomatic common denominator that permeates all of this data:

Assuming that subjective reality, or beliefs, of individuals is acceptable evidence, there has been no universally agreed upon “proof” that “spirits” or gods or life-after-death based on physical evidence, circumstantial or subjective data.  There are several deductions I can infer from the lack of physical evidence that such things are real, and, if verified, may lead to a workable solution to many of the “mysteries” of Life, Universes and Other Stuff“:

deduction:
In spite of an enormous collection of subjective, circumstantial “evidence” of spiritual activity on and around Earth, the existence, intentions and the activities of spirits remain hidden and mysterious.

deduction:
Universally agreed upon proof of the existence of spirituality, based on subjective data, physical and circumstantial evidence are subject to conflicting vested interests, which has made such proof unattainable.

Collectively, these deductions beg the obvious question:
If spirits exist, why is there no “proof”?   The answer seems to be fairly obvious, at least to me:  Perceptions of spirituality are a subjective reality, unique and different for every individual.  Subjective reality does not require evidence or “proof”.  The proof is within you.

~ Lawrence R. Spencer. 2014 ~

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AN IDIOT IN THE 33rd DEGREE

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In November of 1905, an enraged Mark Twain sent the following superb letter to J. H. Todd, a salesman who had just attempted to sell bogus medicine to the author by way of a letter and leaflet delivered to his home. According to the literature Twain received, the “medicine” in question — called “The Elixir of Life” — could cure such ailments as meningitis (which had previously killed Twain’s daughter in 1896) and diphtheria (which killed his 19-month-old son). Twain, himself of ill-health at the time and very recently widowed after his wife suffered heart failure, was understandably furious and dictated this reply to his secretary, which he then signed.   

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Transcript follows:

Nov. 20. 1905

J. H. Todd  
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sir,

Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.

Adieu, adieu, adieu!

Mark Twain

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REPOSTED FROM:    http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/01/youre-idiot-of-33rd-degree.html