With no intentions of ever playing for an audience, much less professionally, at the tender age of sixteen I took up classical guitar.

During my ensuing adulthood [while attending my son's childhood], I neglected my musical studies for several years. But once we’d made the transcontinental relocation in 2001, as I was unpacking [still, several months later] I unboxed all my sheet music,… and found my collection of J.S.Bach’s compositions for lute.

* rush of excitement *

I promptly dragged my Matsuoka [a real Ryoji Matsuoaka from 1971, not one of those later makes] from her case, tuned ‘er up, and worked on making my fingers remember how to move.

After a few minuets my left fingertips felt like raw hamburger — the calluses were long gone, years ago. Running scales and arpeggios for a couple of minutes a day, for a couple of weeks, gave me a fresh, new set of calluses. I was back in business, after a fashion.

But– oh, gods — the strings. The Mat definitely needed new strings. Argh.

It’s only within the past year or so that I’ve been able to practice guitar within earshot of the spouse, as I’m rather shy about my skills with the guitar. I’ve been forcing myself to ignore whether anyone else is in the house whenever I pick up the Mat or the spruce-top no-name.

And, not so long ago, I realized how playing for myself is akin to, uh, well, masturbation,…

… it’s something I do for my own pleasure — free of performance pressure or a need to satisfy anyone other than myself. And if anyone else witnesses it, they’re usually kind enough to be embarrassed for me.

Hence, it’s something best done in private behind closed doors — at least until I can improve my technique and cut down on the string noise.

- Ryl

p.s. Happy New Year!

Music is pretty important to me. I’ve always got some kind of music going while I’m working, whether painting, drawing, doodling, or scribbling down straying thoughts. At times I’ll abruptly realize I’ve got a tune playing in a loop in my head [it's usually Jobim's 'Girl from Ipanema' -- don't ask].

Other times serendipity will lay an ambush, then leap out and bludgeon me with a particular bit of music until I surrender some time to meditate either the melody line or the lyrics.

Last Tuesday I was skimming through YouTube for Christopher Walken — wait, wait, this all connects, I promise — looking for the music video of FatBoy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” [running time = 3:52 mins.]

Telling you Right Up Front, I will watch anything, anything, with Christopher Walken in it. I don’t care how lame/dumb/cheesy it may be [he gives the best reading of E.A.Poe's 'The Raven' that I've yet to hear], because the guy just fascinates the hellouta me. [He sings! He acts! He dances! He cooks! Is there anything this man can't do??]

Stick around — I said it all connects.

Anyway, while skimming for Christopher I chanced across a clip from a movie I hadn’t heard of — Romance and Cigarettes — wherein he sings and dances to Tom Jones’ “Delilah”. Here ’tis [running time = 4:26 mins]:

After watching Christopher deliver his delightfully exuberant interpretation of ‘Delilah’, another tune began to play in my head, quietly at first, and I strongly felt it was somehow akin to ‘Delilah’ [at least, in my mind it was]. It became insistent, gradually driving me a bit bonkers [!] in trying to identify it. I began to suspect it was an older memory, of something I’d been exposed to as a child. And I knew it would give me no rest until I could correctly identify it.

And then it hit me [I think it was the trumpets that did it]:

Ah-hhh, yes!!!

The Cisco Kid!!

I was six years old, and I was in love with Duncan Renaldo as the Cisco Kid. I so wanted to be Pancho so I could ride with him [and maybe talk him into trading horses with me, since I prefer the paints].

The next thing I know I’m chasing tangents for the Kid and Renaldo. I’d never before known that Cisco Kid predated Zorro in all areas: as an original fiction short story; as a silent movie; as a radio series; and then films and as television series. It was then that I realized that I’d known of the Cisco Kid before I ever heard of Zorro, or D’Artagnan [but that's another story, entirely].

And it’s the Cisco Kid’s stirring theme music that probably triggered my then love for all music Spanish [like I said, I was six years old at the time], and then flamenco [which in turn triggered my passion for classical guitar], which then matured in two different directions, as flamenco puro and as jazzmenco. Hence, my small collection of guitars, and an insanely large library of classical guitar and flamenco music. I even took Spanish [Castellano] in high school, because of all this. [One day I will make that pilgrimage to Jerez de la Frontera.]

Which brings us back to Zorro, who served to reinforce everything the Kid sent my way. But there’s that movie ‘The Mark/Mask/Legend of Zorro’ with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones, that causes me a bit of confusion. At the aristos’ fiesta grande, What’s-His-Name [it ain't 'Diego'] and ‘Elena’ are dancing to flamenco-ish music. [Yeah, I love how Hollywood figures that all they have to do is throw a few rasgueados at a score, and suddenly we're in Spain or any of its royal territories.]

But flamenco is gypsy music, like Gitano blues or soul, and gypsies were socially and culturally untouchable by the upper classes. I kinda doubt that music would have been tolerated in such elite company. And where the hell was Elena’s dueña?? An unmarried woman of a Spanish aristocratic birth, regardless her own age, would never-ever be without her dueña glued to her hip to protect and insure her maidenly virtue.

But back to Duncan Renaldo — oh, my. To this day, the Cisco Kid still cuts a rathering dashing figure. Those tight black pants and black boots, the fancy six-shooter rig slung low on his slim hips, those dark eyes and that dazzling, boyish smile full of mischief and secrets,…

It’s probably his fault that I tend to wear black jeans and black leather boots. It’s probably his fault that I developed any early addiction to action, adventure, and swashbuckling fiction and films, and the tall-dark-handsome variety of males. And the accent didn’t hurt, either. [But it's D'Artagnan's fault I took up fencing.]

Renaldo even co-starred in a Zorro flick in 1937. How six-degrees is that?

Duncan Renaldo’s own life story is the stuff of movies. Orphaned at a very early age in Europe, he never knew the identities of his birth parents, much less his birth name or where, exactly, he was born. He came to New York in the 1920’s, stoking in a coal ship only to be stranded on the docks when the ship burnt down to the waterline. Later he was arrested and imprisoned as an illegal alien — until [according to at least one account] First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who’d purchased one of his paintings, personally took the matter to FDR to secure a presidential pardon for him.

Renaldo’s humorous and heroic portrayal of the Cisco Kid introduced me and my young mind to several ideas and ideals, some of which continue to influence me. And it wasn’t until I looked for the video of Christopher Walken dancing and flying [yes, flying] to ‘Weapon of Choice’, which domino-style cascaded to stir up those old memories, that I came to consciously realize all of this.

During the course of this tangent chase I learned that Duncan Renaldo left us back in 1980. I confess suffering a sharp, bittersweet pang at that moment. He remains one of many people who’ve touched me in a positive manner, that will continue to influence me during the span of this lifetime,… and I never got the opportunity to thank him for that.

Oh-hhh, Cisco. Adios, mi amigo.

- Ryl

From today’s Daily Om:

“Since the beginning of time, humans have gazed at the stars in the night sky with awe, seeking in their luminosity everything from answers to inspiration to guidance. We have emerged from our contemplations with stories of gods and goddesses, maps of the universe, astrology, astronomy, math, and art. We have worshiped, wondered, and even projected ourselves out into space in an attempt to understand their magical essence. We know more now than we ever have about what those celestial lights are, how far away they reside, and what will happen to them over time, but facts and information are still no substitute for experiencing them yourself.

“Gazing at the stars is no doubt one of the earliest forms of meditation practiced by human beings, and it is readily available to this day. If you live in a city, you may have a hard time seeing the stars, but a short drive can take you far enough beyond the city lights to reveal their glory. If you live in a rural setting, all you have to do is wait for the sun to set and the night to settle to get the show of your life, every night. If you make a habit of it, you will begin to know the seasonal changes of the night sky, deepening your connection to the earth and the universe in which you live.

“One of the best ways to stargaze is to lie down on a blanket so that your body can fully relax. This position allows your breath to move easily through your tranquil form as you settle down into the earth, connecting your consciousness to the sky. As you look deeply into its vastness, allowing your awareness to alternate between the pinpoints of light and the blue-black space that holds them, your breath expands and contracts your body, just as the universe expands and contracts to its own eternal rhythm. You may feel as if you are floating amidst the stars or that they are raining down upon you. You may feel peacefulness, joy, and connectedness, or any of a full range of emotions. Simply continue to breathe, experiencing the wonder of this universe and your place within it.”

Just wanted to share that with you.

- Ryl

It’s all about ‘finding yourself, the hard way’. These are results of the strangest and most original online quiz I’ve ever taken:

You are Penemue

You already knew everything there was to know - their questions were the only thing that kept you alive. Barely living inside the grey citadel of knowledge - it became an addiction, to tell your stories, to slip off the veils, to unravel the mysteries. You had to let them know everything. Everything and more.

Here’s the link the the portrait of Penemue, her profile, and to the quiz itself.

When I read the lines of the profile a chill went up – not down — my spine:

She was pure information; her body a library, her spinal column a crystal staircase of knowledge, each of her cells precisely arranged volumes of methodologies, treatments, laws & technologies. It was all waiting inside her, wheels and triangles, logics and semiotics, engines and nanochips, senates and parliaments, the intricate lattices and spindles of invention, shining with the oil of tasks undone. She burned with the gray, heatless fires of thought. She was an idealist, she would not be censored. She did not believe in playing favorites, it was a matter of principle with her.

Candidly, I don’t know what to think of this. But it did give me a serious shiver, a feeling as though a very heavy mantle had just been laid over my shoulders.

And I suspect Mathew Ritchie may be one of those quiet geniuses.

- Ryl

I am in utter awe of this man’s ability:

Some of you are thinking, ‘So what?’, right?

If you are, it’s only because you fail to understand just how bloody difficult it truly is to draw, free hand yet, a perfect circle. Not just some roundish, ovoid, elliptical ‘thing’ — but a genuine geometrically perfect circle.

Try it sometime and measure your results, and you’ll see what I mean.

After receiving the invitation via e-mail nearly a year ago, I finally got up the beginnings of my freebie page on the UK Saatchi site. [Thanks, Siobhan!]

Again, the issue of how to speak — in this case, write — about one’s art comes up. So I copped out and used third person instead of first person this time. I confess, that felt weird,… very, very weird.

More works will be going up, both there and on my site at Voluta, as soon as I get them camera-ready. Watch this space for updates.

Caught this one in today’s NYTimes, in an article by novelist Doris Lessing, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature:

“Art — the arts generally — are always unpredictable, maverick, and tend to be, at their best, uncomfortable.”

[Thank you, Ms. Lessing. From time to time I need to be reminded of that.]

She continues with this:

“Literature, in particular, has always inspired the House committees, the Zhdanovs, the fits of moralizing, but, at worst, persecution. It troubles me that political correctness does not seem to know what its exemplars and predecessors are; it troubles me more that it may know and does not care.

“Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are 20 rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others, no less rabble-rousers because they see themselves as anti-racists or feminists or whatever.”

It’s an excellent article, and I strongly recommend that you read it.

- Ryl

While cleaning clutter out the studio I discovered a heavy packet of some of my *older originals — I’d forgot I still had these. There are a few full-color paintings done for CCG’s and covers, but mostly they’re black and white illos of varying sizes I did for Over The Edge by Atlas Games.

I don’t know what AG’s editors called this illustration when they used it in print, but I’ve titled it “Peace Officer”.

Graphite pencil is the medium, and the image area of this original is 12 1/2 by 8 inches, on heavy coldpress paper that measures 10 by 13 inches. It’s mounted on black core mounting stock.

This, and others original illos I did for Atlas, are for sale. If you’re interested in acquiring this or any of my other OTE originals, let me know.

- Ryl

*done way back, when I still signed my work ‘CSM’ (whereas now I sign ‘Ryl’).

Those who know me know that I’m a rabid Monty Python fan, particularly of the minds [geniuses, the lot of them!] that conceived the whole thing.

I’ve seen this bit of brilliance by John Cleese a few times on the ‘net, and just to make sure more folks have a chance to also witness the aforementioned genius, I’m presenting it here as well, for your amusement and edification:

John Cleese’s Letter to America

To the citizens of the United States of America

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium,” and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour’, ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise.”

3. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you find you simply can’t cope with correct pronunciation.

4. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up “vocabulary”). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

5.There is no such thing as “US English.” We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize.”

6. You will relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

7. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only inEngland. It will be called “Come-Uppance Day.”

8. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

9. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

10. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

11. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric immediately and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

12. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling “gasoline”) -roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

13. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with mayonnaise but with vinegar.

14. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

15. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer,” and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager.” American brands will be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine,” so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

16. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.

17. You will cease playing American “football.” There is only one kind of proper football; you call it “soccer”. Those of you brave enough will, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

18. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the “World Series” for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

19. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.

20. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due backdated to 1776.

Thank you for your co-operation.

John Cleese

—

I partilcularly like the bits regarding spelling and grammar, and the metric system.

- Ryl

Fractals fascinate me to the point of frenzied distraction, and I truly wish I had a superior grasp of mathematics so I could study them. This video by M. Eric Carr is a deep zoom into the ‘Seahorse Valley’ region of the Mandelbrot Set, and is set to “La Villageoise” by Rameau, performed by Trevor Pinnock:

If you enjoyed this fractal zoom video, be sure to visit the site of fractal artist Jock Cooper. His works — fractal recursions — are stunningly beautiful.

This all gives me a deeper and fuller respect for infinity. Can anyone tell me,… what really does lie beneath the subatomic level?

How many dimensions are there, really?

- Ryl